The Power Of Performing On Different Stages
One of the best things about tennis is the amazing life skills it can help people of all ages develop.
If you can stand up and perform in a one v one sport in front of an audience, you are putting yourself out there. You are overcoming the nerves that come to many in such circumstances. You have the confidence to perform.
The ability to step on to a tennis court doesn’t just come from learning how to play tennis and hitting forehand after forehand and serve after serve. The ability to perform on any sort of sporting stage can come from lots of different areas.
A related world example of this is Alphonso Davies – the 19 year old Bayern Munich football player who grew up in a refugee camp in Ghana and is now taking the football world by storm.
An excellent article about Davies in the ever-so-excellent Athletic publication talked about how Davies loved to perform on an actual stage:
“During one Christmas performance in front of the entire school, Davies took to the stage on his own and worked his way through an impro-based skit that had the crowd in stitches. ‘That definitely helped with the larger stages that he’s been put in.’ Marco Bossio, Programme Director at Davies’ Junior High School.”
If a young person has the ability to take to a stage and entertain their peers, standing up and hitting a serve in front of an audience or playing football in the Champion’s League probably won’t seem as big a deal as it may to many.
It is for this reason that I believe junior tennis players shouldn’t just play tennis, tennis, tennis – they should look to develop skills useful to tennis and life by getting involved in all sorts of different activities. Federer played soccer, wrestled and competed in BMX before committing to tennis at the age of 14.
By the way, the joy of performing is one that has stayed with Alphonso Davies.
Check out his rendition of Whitney Houston’s I Will Always. A top performer!
