Commentary

Tennis Instruction
Junior and Adult Tennis instructors are making tennis into something it is not. It is NOT about them! Tennis is about the students and the game. Tennis is a game with fundamentals, techniques and competitive relationships between players. The main purpose of an Instructor is to teach players to be better at the game and teach them how to win.
Types of Local Pros
There are the Tennis Messiahs, pros who are like religious ministers with One Belief System and the students becoming the believers. The Tennis Doctors, who have as big as egos and who spend most of the time in diagnosis with little help in the cure. The "Drillers" who like army drill instructors work the students until they drop without any idea other than fitness. The "Hitters" who just pound balls at the student relentlessly without knowing how to really improve individuals. The Psychologist who hardly hits a ball, these can also be a commedian and or the clown who make jokes, talks a lot and never get a player to win a match under pressure. The "Has Beens," Old Pros who sit back and talk how good they were most of the time with dated ideas and styles. The "Clueless" and beginner pros who can't even figure out the most basic elements to help their players. Beginner pros are usually used by a "Jerk." A "Jerk" is a pro who generally has entrenched himself into a club and works for the money over everything else. They are characterized by being paranoid control freaks and refuse to work with anyone who might be considered dangerous to his income.
Overcoming Obstacles
Its fun to laugh at the lunacy and hypocrisy in professional tennis instruction but it is sad to see the money time and player's lives wasted. One of the worst things for a beginning, intermediate or even an advanced player is to be given a tip that ruins years and takes years to remove and learn the right way. Unlearning bad tennis instruction is very difficult because when the brain gets trained incorrectly in cascades into many other errors to attempt to compensate for the initial problem.
Real Instruction
A Good instructor knows the game, has people skills and is continually learning to emphasize the fundamentals. Teaching a player to teach themselves is the instructors job. They make it look easy by tantalizing their students with fluid body balance, relaxed strokes, proper grip feel and showing them the process of shot selection and winning matches. Of paramount importance is for the player to be responsible for his game, win or lose. A good instructor always knows how to draw the best game out of his students.
Teaching Tennis
This commentary was prompted by watching a 15 year old girl without any knowledge of instruction trying to teach group of 10 youngsters. The thought that this is typical throughout the country that "Jerks" use their students to try to teach beginners just to make the money makes a travesty of professional tennis instruction. Getting kids and beginners off to a good start requires a professional right from the start. Think of this like taking a child to swimming lesson. You would not take a child to someone who doesn't know how to swim and see the child drown. Unfortunately I saw 10 students drown today.