Assumptions: A Weakness That Can Come with Experience

Assumptions: A Weakness That Can Come with Experience

By Rod Heckelman

The great value of a long teaching career is the experience of collecting unlimited information. That experience will include the many different types of students you have taught, resulting in creating a library of information that can be retrieved when addressing future students with similar issues.

The constant change in clients, along with the impact of new equipment, new technology, and the sharing of information with many coaches, will be ongoing and enlightening. Every coach's goal is to find every possible way to improve their students' play. It’s a challenge most coaches enjoy, using their “Coaching Library” to find ways to help their students play at their best level of tennis with the skills and abilities they possess. 

But though today we have a great deal of coaching information shared through articles, lectures, or social media, there is one area of concern that every coach needs to address: “unrecognized assumptions,” or implicit biases or unconscious assumptions

It’s an interesting challenge, not brought on by complacency, but ironically, more of a factor as a result of experience and success. This is why most educators take a little time off for self-evaluation, also known as sabbaticals. These breaks are primarily to combat burnout, recharge, and pursue professional or personal growth. They allow educators to return with renewed energy, new skills, and fresh perspectives. One of those new perspectives is often an increased recognition of assumptions and a renewed curiosity about their observations and approach to teaching their students. But most tennis coaches seldom take time off, making it a challenge to stay both open-minded and motivated.

To better understand this issue, here are a few examples of unrecognized assumptions. Most magicians take advantage of this characteristic with their audience. They design and perform their tricks knowing that most people have a pre-set idea of how the world should work. This opens the door for the audience not to recognize where they are being led. Here is an old example of that technique, which some of you may have heard before.

Try to play along with this example as rapidly as you can. First, think of a number between 1 and 10. Now quickly multiply that number by 9. Now take that new two-digit number and add those two digits together. With this new single-digit number, subtract 3. Now quickly match that number with the alphabet…A=1, B=2, C=3, and so on. Now you have a letter, quickly think of a large country in Europe, then quickly take the last letter of the country, and then think of a large animal whose name starts with that letter. Interesting, because the fact is, there are no Elephants in France.

This works because most people do not recognize the fact that any number between 1 and 10, when multiplied by 9, will result in a number that, when those two digits are added, will always be 9. From that point on, it is just a matter of the magician guiding you in the direction they want you to go.

Here is another example. There are approximately a million pro athletes in various sports around the world, give or take 10,000. How many do you see wearing glasses while playing? The answer is probably very few, yet there’s probably a fair number that wear contacts, which we can’t actually see, so we assume most professional athletes have perfect vision.  

The counter to making assumptions is a combination of humility and curiosity. We address this when attending lectures and interacting with other coaches. We remain driven as researchers and investigators to find new answers, but more directly, to find that answer that each student needs, and maybe even more importantly, come to appreciate that other coaches may have solutions or observations we have not yet become acquainted with.

Another contributing factor that helps coaches continue to improve their practice is driving curiosity to find new ways to address cause and effect. This analysis of a player's game is truly enhanced with years of experience and may just be the strongest quality an experienced coach has in their arsenal. Again, it is an area of learning based primarily on a player's skills, athletic ability, and mental approach to the game, all of which have many variables and unique characteristics.

In that process of discovering and finding an individual's unique way of playing, we learn from each new student. We gradually discover that it may be more beneficial to ask questions of our students rather than mostly provide answers.

It is a challenging job; coaches are always expected to have all the answers. Most experienced coaches come to realize that it is just not the case. More likely, it's just another new challenge that should hopefully end with a solution. These moments should be motivating and encourage curiosity and research. Relish these new challenges; they should be enjoyed, not defaulted to an assumption.