Firstballtolast

  Profile Page   Personal Stats Dashboard : IMPORTANT:   one of the primary ideas behind the site is mapping out the 50 or so strongest character attributes that I've identified among the healthiest and most successful tennis professionals ... Those are the topics I will be showcasing in the teaching academy   For example the section I have here on understanding the competitive tennis environment My thinking was to have a progress tracker so for example, when a person goes through all the material for the Environment, at the end, after they take the Retest they can be rewarded a badge or icon that would be displayed on their Profile Page in a clever way...  For Example, In the theme of a Boy Scout collecting merit badges, a Bingo Card. a footblaa player w stickers on helmets.. or some kind of Mannequin where the goal is to build the Ideal Player... So once the person goes through all the material I will present in The Teaching Academy (there will be close ...

WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY Summarizing Current Scholarship On The Stress of the Tennis Environment Adolescent Athletes experience a great number of stressors during competitions and otherwise, including constant social evaluation and criticism, family and peer influences, and unrelenting academic commitments. One stress and coping model found that a stressor's appraisal consists of numerous judgments regarding its threat or challenge to the athlete, its potential benefit or harm and the athlete's perceived control. This, in turn, influences the choice of which coping strategy to select. Under the unrelenting stress of competition, athletes have been found to use various coping strategies to manage said stress. The three most common are... 1) A problem-focused strategy: involving directly addressing the source of stress to nullify it (opponent is serving bombs, we try guessing or changing returning positions or returning styles (block instead of swing) 2) An emotion-focused strategy:...

  (Queue up Emotional Rescue by the Stones) Hey, Coach Conor Casey here. I want to discuss the importance of understanding the role emotions play in tennis. High Emotional Intelligence, or EQ, as the cool kids say, is essential for navigating the emotional rollercoaster of tennis life. Doesn't matter how long you've been playing. If you have competed for any time at any level, there’s a lot of emotions swirling around a tennis court, some good (lawn mower) and some not so good (racket toss, the agonizing lousy luck of a let cord) In the past, if you wanted to learn about your emotions, you would consult an Emotion Wheel. (pics of emotion wheels)   Yeah, that’s a bit much Let’s Lose the Emotion Wheel And bring in the First Ball To Last Emotion Racket. Check it out. This is the prototype, the demo tape. Babolat or Yonex, are you there? Great marketing opportunity!! But let’s project onto the bed of a racket all the emotions tennis players experience throughout their playing d...

  Welcome to the FBTL Testing Section. How do we chart progress in anything? We test. But unlike school, where we test for right or wrong answers, our testing at FBTL is strictly to measure. It would be nice if Ancestry DNA or 23andMe could measure your stress reactivity, frustration tolerance, resiliency, work ethic, or all the traits that the healthiest and most successful tennis competitors possess. But our FBTL Test can and does. That said, all of the traits being tested here are traits you already possess to some degree, yet tennis has made the mistake of leaving too much of its development to chance throughout the years. Through my research, I have found that those proficient in these areas will have a competitive advantage over those deficient. In school, we read, receive lectures, do homework, study, prepare, and then take a test to check our mastery of material. In tennis, we first give you a series of tests through matches and tournaments, barely explain the questions, an...

  A pep talk in athletics works psychologically by leveraging positive self-talk to boost an athlete's confidence, motivation, and arousal level. It essentially influences their belief in their ability to manage emotionally by encouraging and reminding them of their strength. A pep talk can elevate an athlete's emotional state by using passionate language and imagery, creating a heightened sense of excitement and readiness. But here’s the problem with Pep Talks: There may not always be someone there to deliver one, let alone someone who knows precisely what to say and how to say it. And we often need a lot more than encouragement to manage the tennis life. My aim with the Peptalks series is to give you the tools to manage all the situations competitors can and will face over their careers. Situations can trigger various emotions that, if not appropriately managed, can adversely affect your short—and long-term performance, and tennis has no shortage of them. I've been in t...

 The Teaching Academy is about building our immune system. The Power of Daily Routines is about checking in regularly, monitoring our vital signs. The FBTL Emotion/Racket is about identifying emotions as they arise and using language to help understand how emotions arise and how to manage them best. This is the real stuff. No more in the abstract, the Emotion Racket is a tool for emotional identification/regulation, a tool every tennis competitor would benefit significantly from. The tennis court is swirling with emotions, not all of them empowering. Fighting back the rush of negative feelings when things aren't going our way (which is frequent!) often determines our success or failure that day and throughout our careers. The Tennis life is synonymous with struggle. Having the skills to withstand those struggles is crucial. FBTL's Emotion Racket is designed to help individuals identify and articulate their emotions. It visually represents a wide range of feelings, placed strate...

The Power of Daily Routines To better understand and manage our emotions, we need consistent emotional check-ins—just like the physical routines we follow to stay in shape. Emotional health requires its own daily practice. At FBTL , we emphasize two key components in building powerful daily routines: The Daily Emotional Check-In The Morning Action Ritual 🔍 1. The Daily Emotional Check-In: Your Emotional Vital Signs Think of it as checking your emotional “vitals.” This should be done every morning before training or matches—and ideally again in the evening. Ask yourself: How am I feeling? Why am I feeling this way? How might this affect my performance? What can I do to manage, adjust, or sustain this feeling? FBTL helps players build emotional literacy—putting words to feelings and experiences that often go unnamed. Regardless of age, many athletes struggle to articulate what they’re going through emotionally. Morning check-ins are a vital first step toward emotion...

  The following section is my Teaching Academy. This will be the core of the work I present here at FBTL and the thrust of the program. We aim to identify and embody all the qualities of the ideal player. I will write on each topic and post here on this platform and my Substack because that’s what I do. I'm also a writer. The issues and essays I will address allude to the qualities of our idols and role models. By incorporating all the positive traits of our ideal players/ role models, we aim to conduct ourselves like our role models and, in the process, hopefully become role models ourselves. Assembling all their best qualities within ourselves will make us as close to our ideal player as possible, qualities that I see the strongest, healthiest, and most successful among us embody. This is the work. Enhancing our emotional intelligence strengthens our emotional immune system, protecting us against all the challenges tennis life can throw our way. Often referred to as soft skills,...

  How FBTL Works A Brief Overview Regarding emotional health, we have never known more, been more aware, and had many helpful resources available. Yet, as a society and more specifically, tennis as a sport, we continue to fall further and further behind. What gives? FBTL approaches our struggles with emotional wellness from a different angle. So much of sports psychology, therapy and treatment, the modern mentor/ coaching world, and psychology/psychiatry in general approach problems after they've arisen in a reactive/corrective way—and don't get me wrong, that's important. FBTL addresses problems from a different angle, a proactive and preventative one, attempting to get ahead of issues before they occur. This begs an obvious question: How do I know what issues someone might have? Having spent 50 years deeply embedded in the tennis life as a player, coach, author, and analyst, I’ve lived the challenges of the tennis life intimately, knowing exactly what can and will happen ...

  Greetings everyone… My name is Barry Buss, and I’d like to welcome you to my new program, First Ball To Last, an Emotional Health and Wellness Program for competitive tennis players. Many of you are familiar with my story, which is chronicled in detail in my recent memoir, You Can Get There From Here. For those who are not, here are the Cliff Notes In the spring of 1983, as an 18-year-old freshman playing for the defending NCAA champion UCLA Bruins, I walked onto the court 22-0. I'd won my first 22 dual matches, tying Jimmy Connors' record for consecutive wins at UCLA. I was on the cusp of breaking every single-season record in UCLA’s storied history. A year later, I quit the team, dropped out of school, gave back my scholarship, and lived in my van, drinking and drugging my life away, wondering what had happened to me. Well, what happened had been happening all along. I was living the tennis life with several undiagnosed and untreated emotional conditions that I dangerously ...