Petitions

I was watching the news this morning and they were talking, albeit briefly, about the impending debate in the House of Commons about Donald Trump. This debate has been precipitated by a petition. Now that might not be a bad thing, government actually responding to the concerns of the people, but there are things about it that do raise some concerns.

I remember having a conversation with a local MP many years ago about petitions and how they were viewed by politicians in contrast to a personal letter. I don't remember the details exactly, but the gist of the conversation was that a personal letter carried far more weight than a petition. The MP suggested that it was possible to get 100's if not 1000's of signatures for just about anything, whereas a personal letter said someone had taken the time to sit down and write something. And, if one person took the time, they probably represented the view of a potentially sizeable portion of the constituency, whereas people might just sign a petition simply to get rid of you form the doorstep or move on in the shopping centre.

Well, things have changed, and everyday we get emails and social media requests to sign a petition of some sort. Some I sign. Many I don't. That's me exercising my democratic right and not me not caring by the way!

And therein lies the problem. If I don't sign am I out of step with popular opinion, am I uncaring or uninterested? We judge very quickly and we are in danger, or so it seems to me, of creating a culture where we only ever listen to the voices of those with whom we agree and take immediate offence with those who think differently. Have we lost the ability to debate and discuss ideas and issues?

I'm not sure it's a good use of parliamentary time to be debating Donald Trump. A man whose hair looks like it's been styled by the creator of shredded wheat or the Brillo pad is difficult to take seriously in any context. The fact that he could become the next President of the most powerful nation on the planet would be comical if it were not so worryingly possible. Listening to his comments about not having time to be "politically correct" simply confirms his status as, well fill in the blank yourself.

On the other hand, listening to Natalie Bennett (the leader of the Green Party) this morning, I'm willing to accept that there's a case for the discussion. That's the value of listening to both sides of a debate. I guess in the end that if it takes a petition to help us all engage with the issues, then more power to the petition. But beware the petition that polarises the issue into who's right and who's wrong reduction of complex questions.

I suspect in the end that Mr T won't be banned from visiting the UK. I just hope that if and when he does he gets asked the tough questions and gets well and truly grilled over the things he's had to say.

Failing better

For those who don't instantly recognise this forearm, it belongs to Stan Wawrinka. The tattoo reads: Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. It's a quote from Samuel Beckett.

It's an interesting quote to have for a sportsperson because most people would expect something about winning or being the best. This is about perseverance. It's about hard work and determination to be the best that you can be despite the disappointments that come your way.

Tennis is a solitary sport and the nature of the competitive side of the game is that most players lose most of the tournaments in which they play. Losing is a familiar feeling in tennis for all but the very best. I've been told that Feliciano Lopez was once asked how he dealt with losing. His reply was simple: It happens every week.

Of course this doesn't make losing easier to take, you don't have to like losing in order to be able to deal with it and learn from it. The easy option is either to give up or simply choose only to play people you can beat. But that gets boring.

Stan Wawrinka recognises that he is not a Federer, Nadal or Djokovic, men of exceptional ability, but he's still a Grand Slam champion twice over. I'm not sure he'd have done that had he not been able to embrace the philosophy of trying again and "failing better" as he did so.

I recognise that I am very fortunate to get the opportunity to practice my tennis as much as I do. I'm also lucky that while I sometimes find the practice frustrating because I'm not succeeding at what I'm trying to do, I never get bored by the repetition of what we do. I truly enjoy the drills. I know that these drills will help me fail better and hopefully one day actually hit my goal and win more often. I remind myself of these things when I lose, which is more often than not, and I get up and go again. I did that because I'm not ready to settle for where I am currently.

I could get all philosophical now and point out that there are lessons for life in there. We give up too easily when things get hard. Gym memberships lie unused, fitness equipment gather dust in the cupboard, books are left unread, diets are unaltered, goals remain distant unattainable dreams. From a Christian perspective, discipleship remains dormant, prayer is half-hearted. The list goes on.

Beckett's words serve as a reminder that every day is a new opportunity to make a better attempt at whatever it is for which we are reaching. Whether it's a more reliable backhand, a better, healthier diet or a more consistent prayer life. It's just a matter of making  a disciplined choice to try again even if that means inevitable failure again. The only difference is that you fail better because you try harder.

I've done my 100-day 10k steps challenge a few times now. Sometimes I've started, but failed. No matter. I've started again. When I've started again and gone on to succeed, it's been a great feeling. The trick always was to think not in terms of 100 days but 2, then 3 then 5, then 10 then 20 consecutive days, each day becoming a victory in itself. If I missed day, I could look back and see what I'd achieved and then look forward to having another go.

So set yourself a goal. Make it achievable then keep trying, keep failing, but keep trying.

For the love of vegetables!

When I was about 4 years old I announced that I wasn't going to eat certain meats ever again. My memory of that day is that I'd had something very chewy, possibly a bit gristly, and that put me off. I don't ever remember liking the taste or texture of a lot of meat, so I made my announcement and became known as the picky eater in the family!

50+ years on I still don't eat a lot of meat, in fact I eat even less now than I did then. But I'm not  an out and out vegetarian, at least not yet. I say not yet because I keep thinking about it, not on moral grounds, but on health grounds. The book I've been reading (The China Study) presents a lot of data that points to a vegetarian diet as being the healthiest option for addressing many of the issues that arise from a modern Western diet. The data seems to be strongly in favour of a move to a more heavily plant based diet, but then the interpretation of the data may need to be questioned. That is a job for the scientific community to do, which I'm sure they have done but I have not.

Anyway, I like vegetables (with the exception of a few including the worst of them all-the brussel sprout!), so eating mainly veg is not an issue for either Anne or myself. Working out how to make it different and tasty is a bit more of a challenge, but there are lots of options, it just take a bit of time and effort. On the hand, the same could be said of anything you cook from scratch.

The other issue with a vegetarian diet is that there are very few plant based protein sources that are complete proteins (i.e. containing all the essential amino acids). That means you have to combine plant proteins in a meal in order to get the amino acids you need. It's fairly easy to do, you just combine foods from different groups that contain the missing proteins. Or, if all you re trying to do is to cut down the amount of animal protein in your diet, then you might choose to have chicken of fish just once a week and eat vegetarian the rest of the time. That would probably ensure you get what you need in your diet although it would be wise to give that a bit more thought and research.

And cooking vegetarian need not be hard or uninteresting. We made a really nice vegetable risotto using butternut squash, sweet potato, leek and yellow pepper. Add a bit of white wine, vegetable stock and sage, sprinkle with parmesan cheese and it was very tasty!

If The China Study is right, making a shift away from animal protein could help reduce the risk of many serious conditions. The current recommendation for a balanced diet is that you eat around 15% protein, most of which comes from meat in our western diet. But if you reduced that to around 5% from animal products (which would include diary as well as meat) and the rest from plant protein, then from my reading of the book you could see some positive benefits.

If you belong to that small group of people who profess not to like vegetables the perhaps you just haven't found the right combination or maybe you haven't discovered how best to cook them for your palette. Mind you, you might say the same thing to me about meat and even sprouts!

Healthy eating anyone?

In today’s food culture, many people seem to have acquired uncannily homogenous tastes. In 2010, two consumer scientists argued that the taste preferences of childhood provided a new way of thinking about the causes of obesity. They noted a “self-perpetuating cycle”: food companies push foods high in sugar, fat and salt, which means that children learn to like them, and so the companies invent ever more of these foods “that contribute to unhealthy eating habits”. The main influence on a child’s palate may no longer be a parent but a series of food manufacturers whose products – despite their illusion of infinite choice – deliver a monotonous flavour hit, quite unlike the more varied flavours of traditional cuisine.

So suggests an interesting article in the Guardian that appeared in my Facebook feed this morning. The article argues that our tastes are learnt. We are taught what to eat and so all the foods we consume are ones we have learnt to eat. There's no doubt that certain food types taste good to most people. There was an interesting TV programme last year that explored the relationship between fat and sugar in suppressing the feeling of being full amongst other things and how that affected the way we choose to eat. So it seems quite clear that even at a surface level our relationship with food is both simple-we eat what we like and avoid what we don't, but also more complex in the way "what we like" becomes normalised for us.

As a result, as the article points out, we may decide that we ought to be eating more fruit and vegetables, but we haven't actually learnt to enjoy eating them. It therefore becomes a chore. Maybe the same is true about freshly prepared food that takes time and effort to cook compared with the easy option of a ready meal or a visit to a fast food outlet.

Maybe the first decision we need to make then, when we decide it's time for a dietary change, is that rather than restricting what we can and can't eat, we are making a positive choice to explore new flavours, textures and foods. I bought a copy of a vegetarian food magazine before Christmas and finally got around to reading it yesterday while I sat having my lunch. I'm not a big fan of meat anyway, so vegetarian cooking has always been part of our diet, so it's not as if I was reading this out of curiosity or some sudden resolution to go vegetarian. The recipes certainly looked and sounded interesting, and we will definitely try some of them. The point is, rather than a chore or some desperate dive into a "healthy diet", exploring these recipes will be a bit of an adventure. Eating a meal without meat doesn't have to be torture and neither does eating a meal without a pudding or a glass of wine.

If the article is correct, then what you eat is your choice. As long as you understand the principles of nutrition, you're free to explore, to learn to enjoy new tastes and to experience healthy food rather than endure it. Perhaps we need to see losing weight as a by-product of choosing new eating and drinking habits rather than the sole purpose of shifting our diet away from large portions of high calorie food.

Tobias' first brush with tennis!

Tobias, aka my grandson, with his first dabble into the tennis world! Given that he's only around 16 weeks old, I had to hold it for him. That and the fact that the lights are way more interesting!

Making plans and achieving goals

Much to my surprise I discovered today that I'd actually achieved a few of the goals I set at the beginning of last year! I had a quick review of my journal and read my early January entry for 2015. It included the following goals:

• Get back to 14st
• Get to an 8.2 tennis rating
• Get a clinic up and running in a gym
• Grow the tennis side of things

Well, I hit 14st 3lbs, as far as I can remember I've won enough matches to get my 8.2 rating, I'm about to open a clinic at the gym and I passed my Level 2 coaching course and started coaching more tennis. So that's not bad.

Of course there were some things I didn't manage to achieve, and to be honest, I didn't really go out of my way to hit the targets I did make. They just sort of happened as I continued to work at those things. I guess had I been more intentional as they say, they might have happened sooner, but I'm not exactly chasing down these goals. However, it does make me think a little more about how I can stay focussed and maybe achieve a bit more this year. Improving my rating, for example, gets tougher now. Wins need to happen within a much shorter timescale to count and obviously have to come against better players. Put simply, you can only improve your rating by beating players at the same or a higher level. So it gets harder. You also have to have a positive win/loss percentage.

Fitness is also harder, mainly because I'm getting older and it doesn't get any easier! It's easier to get injured and fitness disappears faster the older you get. So maintaining a level of fitness is hard work, improving even harder. 

Work is very much a matter of word of mouth, but hopefully by opening the clinic that too will grow as will the tennis coaching. Which, by the way, is really good fun!

Business and fun are not just the only things for which I need a plan. I need some discipline in terms of CPD stuff and maintaining my knowledge base in the therapy world. I wish I had the kind of memory where stuff sticks, but I don't, so I need to get out my muscle cards and go through them all again. I'd like to do some work on nerve innervations, and I ought to get the research I did on entrapment of the Lateral Femoral Cutaneous Nerve put into some sort of order.

Add a few books to be read and some faith based goals too and there's quite a lot to be getting on with in 2016. I feel a list coming on!

What do you do when you're under pressure?

Wandering around a certain online bookshop, I found myself scanning a book about performing under pressure. I haven't decided whether I want to read it yet or not, but it's sure to show up on my "recently viewed" items for a while, so I can always go back for it. I thought it might be interesting from a tennis playing perspective and from a therapy point of view too. The later because as a therapist you feel the pressure to diagnose a problem and find a solution when a client presents with an issue.

Everybody knows that pressure impacts performance. Some people seem to deal with it far better than others, but no one is immune to the effects pressure has on our ability to do whatever it is we are trying to do. In fact the evidence apparently suggests that everyone performs worse under pressure than they would normally be able to do.

If you play sport competitively then this will not be news to you. )Neither will it be news if you spend some of your time doing presentations of any sort, or leading meetings, organisations or working to a deadline.) If that sport is a solitary activity like tennis or golf, then you are quite alone with the pressure.

So how do you cope? It's always struck me that you need a strategy. I was talking to a tennis friend some time ago, and they were quite surprised that I said that every time I prepare to serve or receive on the court, I do so with a plan in mind. I might not execute the plan, but at least I have one! The plan might be simple: get the ball in play, or it might be a little more detailed: first serve wide, second shot cross court to the other side third shot down the line to finish. Whatever it is, there's always something I'm going to try to make happen. Doing this doesn't make me play any better (sadly) but sometimes it stops me trying too hard or trying to hit the high risk shot when it's not necessary.

So what might a strategy for coping under pressure look like?

In the book I was scanning there were a series of chapter headings that I suspect are the authors' distilled wisdom on the matter.

• Confidence
• Optimism
• Tenacity
• Enthusiasm

Now, I haven't read the book, but these four words seem to form an interesting strategy. How would you turn them into a plan? It strikes me that it might boil down to a simple approach that starts with a basic assumption that there is no reason at all that your plan shouldn't work. Normally we're beset by doubts about the plan we have. We see all the things that could go wrong and almost expect at leafs one of those things to occur. If you were to stand by the tee on a golf course that requires you first shot to avoid a lake on the left side of the fairway, you'd probably see a lot of shots veer sharply to the left and disappear below a ripple of water. 

At this point you'll probably hear the unfortunate golfer declare, "I knew that would happen,"  rather than, "I didn't expect that!" The point is simple, we tend to expect the worst outcome rather than the best. Perhaps "confidence" is about setting your mind on your ability to achieve the best outcome. If you can't imagine yourself hitting the best outcome target, then look for a next best alternative rather than the worst case scenario. For example, it's 30-40 and you're serving. What's your plan? My best outcome plan would be a wide sliced serve taking my opponent right out of court and giving me an easy second shot into an open court. But what if I've missed the last 3 or 4 wide serves? If I can't imagine myself hitting that wide serve I might go for a body serve instead. On the other hand, I might still go for the wide serve because I know I can do it and when I do it right it's a very good serve indeed!

I guess this is where optimism kicks in. Confidence assures me that I can do this because I know my abilities, optimism encourages me because it expects the best outcome. Tenacity and enthusiasm suggest something about holding onto the self-belief that comes from confidence, even if the plan doesn't work this time. I'm not quite sure what I understand enthusiasm to be in the context, I'll have to read the book to find out!

A year with Polar Loop

I've had my Polar Loop for almost a year now (it was a Christmas present last year), and I've worn it almost every day since then. Accepting that these fitness monitoring bands are more about trends that truly accurate raw data, it still makes interesting reading to look at the numbers it produces.

I have my Loop set set to a very active day that would normally take about 1.5 hours of running or similar high intensity effort to hit the 100% target activity level. Given the amount of time I spend on a tennis court, this isn't usually problem, and as some of you know, I often hit 300% on my big training day on Friday each week.

Anyway, I had a quick look at the numbers for 2015 which showed an average monthly amount of activity as follows:

Total time spent being active: 7 days (i.e. 168 hours of activity a month)

Total steps recorded: 429026 (this is all movement converted to steps)

Distanced covered: 326Km

Kcal burned: 88127 (that's around 3000/day)

Those are pretty impressive numbers given that I don't go out of my way to exercise for the most part except the occasional swim, walk or short run when I'm not playing tennis.

I wouldn't want to use this information to plan my diet, but it does give some indication of my activity levels and why I occasionally feel a certain lack of energy when I get to my last coaching session on a Friday evening and find myself ready to flop onto the sofa when we get home after the weekly visit to the supermarket after finishing on court. Imagine what an 8 hour day on court might look like!!

I'm not convinced to Kcal number is accurate because I'm sure I don't eat that much on a typical day. In fact I know I don;t because I've used an app to measure that and it doesn't come near 3000.

I suppose the point is this: if you find collecting such data motivating or at the very least rather entertaining and interesting, and if you understand that it's not a precise measure, then you might find it helpful to wear a device. Having done the data collecting thing a few times using a pedometer and now the Loop, I still find myself intrigued by how the numbers build up and what they might actually be telling me.

Mind you, how loose the jeans are getting is also a pretty good indicator that something's happening!

Will the Davis Cup inspire people to play tennis?

After Team GB triumped in the Davis Cup final a few hours ago, John Lloyd made the comment that, "We have to use this success to inspire people to play tennis." I don't suppose many involved in tennis would disagree, save a few die hard club members who would prefer their regular Sunday four were not disturbed by an influx of new players making too much noise and ignoring the etiquette of the club rules.

The question is how do you turn this success into greater participation? The Olympic Legacy is struggling to inspire more people to take regular exercise let alone take up a sport. I don't hold out much hope that this weekend's tennis will produce a flurry of action of the courts in the middle of winter, and by the time Spring come around, it might have been superseded by something else.

That's not to say it's all doom and gloom, but things have to be reimagined and there has to be some investment from somewhere in the kind of facilities that will make tennis accessible and enjoyable and at the right sort of cost for a wide range of people.

Tennis is a sport you  can play all year round. You can play indoors as well as outdoors. However, it is treated in schools, or so it seems, as primarily an outdoor, summer sport. And that presupposes that schools have tennis courts and coaching available. In my local area only one of the senior schools has tennis courts, and they are currently used as overflow parking! Primary schools have no facilities for tennis.

If you want to play indoors then you need to join a local health club that has courts, and they usually add a premium to your membership if you want access to racket sports. The only other indoor facility I know of locally is 30-40 minutes drive away, cost £20 per hour to hire a court and you are limited to an hour only. Most 3 set matches take around 1.25-1.5 hours to play. Imagine the frustration of constantly running out of time to finish your match! And, then there's the cost of coaching. Imagine if you as a coach have to hire the court at £20 an hour. That's going to make your lesson at least £40. That's a big financial commitment for a parent wanting lessons for their child.

It might be nice to cart the Davis Cup around the country stopping off at schools and tennis centres, but unless the LTA starts to invest in local park courts and community facilities, I can't see how we could sustain any interest and enthusiasm over the long term. Maybe instead of charging clubs hundreds of pounds in membership fees, the central organisation could channel some of that money into getting more community initiatives up and running.

Of course it's not just about money. I have two courts in my local park. They need a good clean, but they're playable. The Sports Club with which I'm involved through rugby has just refurbished two courts. It could have been three had the LTA offered a grant rather than a loan. The Health Club were I do some coaching has some unused outdoor courts that could be repaired, possibly even be brought indoors if there was a partnership between the club and the LTA in some way. All this would take money, but it also needs coaches and volunteers to help manage and run imaginative programmes. A shiny trophy on the back of a bus might inspire but it won't sustain.

I'm not sure what the answer is. I came to tennis late in life and love playing and I love coaching. There are plenty of more experienced folk out there who have spent far longer in tennis that I. I just hope someone takes the time to ask them how we can move forward and get parents and kids to take up the game.

Rugby, referees, rules and reviews

So the inquest into Northern Hemisphere rugby has begun alongside varying degrees of outrage over last minute refereeing decisions. There had to be one, or in this case at least two, controversial moments before the final whistle of the weekend.

To be honest, Gavin Hastings comments about the way the referee sprinted from the field were the most telling. I've played, watched and spent a fair amount of time on the touchline and, at the end of the game no matter how the players might feel about the officials, they have always shaken hands. So it was a surprise that he left as he did. As to the two notable moments of controversy, the yellow card for a deliberate knock-on is really not that controversial, no matter what I've heard some  commentators say. Unless the rules have changed significantly, if you go for an interception with one hand you are going to be judged to have not tried to catch the ball. It may be instinctive, but until they change the definition it will almost always be seen as deliberate.

As to the penalty. TV replays in high definition are all well and good, but we all know that the referee has to make a call based on what he sees. It's been splashed all over the media that the rules don't allow a referral to the TMO, so technically there's no argument for it. At the beginning of the tournament there was a lot of moaning about overuse of the TMO, and there have been times when referees have appeared to be over-cautious about decisions. You simply can't win. And just to clarify, as far as I'm aware, the referee had to decide whether he thought the Australian player had tried to play the ball or not. If it hits him from the Scotland knock-on then the player who picked up the ball is still offside. If he plays the ball intentionally, then the player is not offside. Would you have been able to judge that in the split second available? I think that's why the players would feel robbed, but ultimately accepting of the decision. On of the things that you notice in rugby is that referees generally are willing to explain their decisions and tell players what they saw.

But what about Northern Hemisphere rugby then? There will lots of talk no doubt about looking to the South to learn lessons, there will be talk about coaches and conditions, skills and the number of games played. I don't know what the answer is, but a careful look at Argentina might not be a bad place to start. I wonder how different it might have been had they been included in the Six Nations rather than the Rugby Championship? Watching them against Ireland they seemed to look for space at every opportunity but not carelessly. They were still massively competitive up front, but they seemed to have learnt how to play rugby across the full width of the pitch. A lot of this has probably been learnt from playing the likes if of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa on a regular basis.

The thing that has once again marked out the best teams from the others has been the speed the ball is recycled, the way the least number of players needed at the break down commit, and the width of the game. By contrast, the likes of England were slow and static, with little imagination. They simply weren't good enough.

Going on this World Cup, the Six Nations could be very interesting. A resurgent Scotland could be a real threat to Wales and Ireland, and England, unless things change dramatically, could be struggling if they are not careful.

Where now for England Rugby?

No doubt the papers will be full of analysis of England's failure to qualify for the knock-out phase of the Rugby World Cup. There have already been some lengthy interviews with much hand wringing and talk of new lows in the aftermath of losing to Australia on Saturday evening. But let's get a bit of perspective here.

Firstly, it is only a game. Yes it's disappointing, but it's not a disaster. Australia were a far better team, more clinical in attack and dominating at the breakdown and set piece. It's hard to argue with their victory. Secondly, Wales did a fantastic job of staying in the game the previous week, pushing England into errors and eventually getting ahead and holding on to the lead. The way they defended the rolling maul in the last minute was a lesson in getting yourself organised when you know what's coming!

As for all the questions about the decision not to kick the penalty, I actually think it was a courageous choice that didn't work out rather than simply the wrong choice. I think England should be praised for putting it all on the line and Wales should get credit for defending the play in the way they did.

We all knew going into this tournament that the group stage was going to end in disappointment for one the top five teams in the competition. It happens to be England. It's tough, but there it is. Other big teams have suffered in the past. Wales themselves know only too well how it feels to go out in the group stages ('91, '95 and '07). Nothing is guaranteed. Just because we happen to be the host nation is rather less important.

I hope that any review is not a search for someone to blame and if Stuart Lancaster is to be replaced, then I hope this is done with dignity, a proper appreciation for what he's achieved, and without a sense of panic.

Bouncers at the barn door!

There's been a conversation happening on our local section of Streetlife that brought a smile to my face, and made Anne laugh, all about free range eggs. It began innocently enough with someone posting a perfectly reasonable request for any information about where they might be able to buy free range eggs locally. There was mention of a farm that once was known to sell eggs, and there was even assurances made that hens do indeed continue to lay eggs during the winter, but not as many as during the summer apparently.

And then it happened.

Someone had the audacity to mention that they got their fresh eggs from the supermarket. This they considered much safer because these eggs were stamped, unlike the local produce. That elicited the following response:

Big fresh eggs does not mean that they are free range. A lot of commercially raised "free range" eggs are in reality barn eggs with openings onto a yard. These openings are usually guarded  by chickens high up on the pecking order. Other chickens are not allowed out. If you value the welfare of these birds, you will look for small producers.

Now I must say I've never seen an egg with an opening onto a yard, but the scarier image is that of the chicken bouncers controlling access to and from the yard! I can see them now in their black, somewhat tight and ill-fitting suits and their sunglasses blocking the path of helpless hens just wanting to pop outside for a roan around the farmyard! "Sorry miss, but you can't go out there, is far too dangerous for the likes of you. Better stay inside where it's safe."

High Tech Tennis

I've been loaned this book (High Tech Tennis) by Jack Groppel, and I'm really rather enjoying the read. It combines two of my favourite subject: tennis and biomechanics! I'm five chapters in, and although the first two were useful, it's at chapter 3 that it starts to get interesting. At least for me.

Chapter 3 is all about footwork. You can't overstate the importance of footwork in tennis. In fact you can argue that if you're going to build a tennis player, the place to start is with footwork, then bodywork and finally racket work. Think about it for a moment. The last thing you do is hit the ball, the first thing you do is move into position to hit it. It's a simple principle, if you can't get in the right position to hit the ball, it really doesn't matter how good your stroke mechanics are, you're not going to make the shot. Footwork is crucial. Reading through this chapter, and the next one on power and control, just makes me want to practise more! The problem is, it's hard to find anyone who wants to practice.

One of the interesting things in the chapter on footwork is the way the drills are organised. For those unfamiliar with the concept of a drill, it's simply a pattern of activities repeated over and over again. For example, you might do a forehand drill where you hit cross court to a target zone and keep going until you make 100 shots in the target (or until you need oxygen!). What is interesting about the footwork drills is that they are done based on the average length of a rally with rest periods that reflect the average time between rallies and also average length of the changeover. So, for example, you might do one drill repeated 5 times for 10 secs for each cycle with 15 secs rest between the cycles. That simulates a typical game. I'd never really considered planning drills in that way. I could probably run 5k in 30 minutes, but you simply don't run like that on a tennis court. On the other hand, doing explosive movements with short recovery periods between is typical of tennis.

When I'm watching the rugby players at the club train, I'm often wondering why the backs and forwards are doing the same things. I can understand doing certain things the same, but forwards generally don't sprint the same distances backs run, so why would you train the same way?

Forwards are most often involved in rucks, scrums and mauls. They have to learn to pick the ball up off the floor and then run short distances with it. If they're not running with the ball they need to get back to their feet and follow the player with the ball to the next ruck or maul. Backs generally receive the ball through the hands and already running when they do. Good training mixes these things up but also focuses them so that players can build their skills.

But this book is about tennis not rugby, so I'll stop digressing and make one last observation form the book that caught my eye. In the footwork chapter there's a great picture of Jennifer Capriati setting up for a backhand. It's a great picture because you can clearly see how the weight transfers and takes her forward into the shot. Oh to be able to do that consistently!

And the best quote from the book so far? Well that has to be the description of what to do when the ball is coming straight at you. Are there complicated movements to make, or detailed descriptions of when to take the racket back? No. The answer is simple. When the ball comes straight at you: Get out of the way!

Building nuclear power stations is not the best solution

Listening to George Osborne you might be wondering why we haven't been building nuclear power stations on a regular basis for the last 40 years. His declaration that the new station to be built with Chinese investment, underwritten by UK taxpayers of course (we wouldn't want anyone taking a financial risk without a taxpayer bailout clause now would we), would produce clean energy is nay part of the story.

While it's true that a nuclear station does not produce greenhouse gases, they do produce waste that takes a long time to become safe. We have to store it in steel containers, in water before we encase it in concrete and bury it somewhere. Okay, there are probably a few more options, but don't be fooled, radioactive waste takes a long, long time to become safe. In some cases we're talking about not just a decade or two but several millennia. 250 millennia in at least one case before it become half as dangerous as it is now.

So while there are no CO2 emissions and other nasties being pumped into the atmosphere, don't think it's all plain sailing when it comes to nuclear power. There is a price to pay. Nuclear power is no panacea to solve our energy needs. We need some joined up thinking. Renewables have to be part of that plan, and a big part of the plan. I know there are issues with the costs of producing energy from renewable sources, but which would you prefer, cheap energy that has a lasting legacy in the environment, or the development of an energy strategy that will use a wide variety of generating programmes?

At university, all those years ago (next year it will be 40 years since I started my degree in Chemistry and environmental Science) a friend of mine had a T-shirt carrying a simple message: The only safe fast breeder is a rabbit. I'm not sure if today's nuclear station fall into the fast breeder category or not, but the message might still have a degree of pertinence.

Marginal Gains

If you have any connection with sport, even as a casual observer, you have probably heard about the principle of marginal gains. Dave Brailsford, formerly head of GB Cycling, talks about the aggregation of marginal gains. In other words, lots of small gains add up to make a big difference.

Of course this thinking isn't limited to sport, but is possibly most easily explored and understood in a sporting context where improvement is easier to see. On the hand I suspect it is easily transferrable to industry, work, lifestyle and anything else you might want to consider.

For me, I'd like to apply it more stringently to a number of things, not least if which is improving my tennis so that I can actually get through the first round of more tournaments! But I think that with a bit of thought I can apply all the principles to a whole lot of things, including improving my coaching, being better organised, becoming a better therapist, etc.

But where do you start? Well obviously you ned a plan, but before a plan you need to change the way you think about the stuff you are wanting to improve. It's no use saying I ought to do better, or I could do with losing some weight, or I'd like to be a better golfer but... You have to start from the principle that you will make changes.

An article I read recently talked about having a "Marginal gains mindset" defined as:

• Knowing the foundations that are in place which will be built upon
• Having a desire to improve
• Seeking out every opportunity to get better
• Committing to the process of making a gain in every area I can that will help me be better 
• Exploring everything that will make a difference, including peripheral things that I’ve not considered before
• Acknowledging that there is much I don’t know and can learn
• Taking every opportunity to learn from others about how I can get better
• I’ll be committed to my marginal gains approach, irrespective of the attitude of those around me
• I’ll be 100% disciplined and committed to trying out this approach to see how good I can be

That's quite a list and quite a shift in perspective for some. At it's most simple I guess you could reduce this down to three or four simple principles:

• Understanding exactly from where I am starting
• Fully committing to making improvements
• Developing a plan and sticking to it
• Accessing any help I can get

Once you've got the mindset you will need to develop a plan. The plan starts with a clear statement of where you want to get. For example, I want to win more matches, but I'm not sure that's my goal or the outcome of my goal. The goal might better be defined as improving my rating from 9.1 to 8.1. Either way I have something against which I can measure progress. Obviously you also need to know where you are currently in relation to your goal and then you need to work out how to get there from here! Sounds simple, but it isn't. 

Being able to build a plan is only part of the story. Learning to evaluate change and progress, tweak the programme, find good mentors and coaches all contribute to reaching the goal. I'm lucky that I have some excellent coaches who can help me make progress, but there's a lot of hard work to do too. 

I know that when it comes to my tennis game I need to do two or three things. I need to improve my consistency, I need to maintain my best level for longer, and I need to make myself harder to beat. Putting that into marginal gains terms is about looking at every aspect of the way I play and identifying something I can improve in each area, and then looking beyond just the playing side to fitness and even thinking.

Okay, so I'm neither a professional or even high performance amateur. But I know I can't dream my way to better tennis, so there's no alternative but to work hard and keep practicing!

RWC 2015 is finally underway!

So, a tense Friday evening ended with a sense of relief that England managed to find a way to win with a bonus point try on the opening night. Fiji are a top 10 team, and not to be underrated as Wales found to their cost back in 2007. They looked committed and but for some missed penalties and a weaker set of substitutes, they could easily have spoiled the hosts big first night at the party. Sadly I think they will find recovering for the next match harder because of their lower fitness levels and we might just have seen the best that Fiji can offer, but we shall see.

Of course the ongoing talking point of this world cup will continue to be the make up the 4 groups. As well as the intervention of the TMO that slowed down the game last night. Given the option of using video, it seemed rather odd that the referee awarded the try that turned out to not be a try without referring it upstairs, but also strikes me as a little odd that the TMO now has the power to review anything and everything, and had it not been for the replay on the big screen even the dropped ball would have been missed by everyone except the TV. Oh well, they'll sort themselves out eventually.

Back to the groups for a moment. I know a change has been made with regard to the groups for the next World Cup, but just to highlight the oddness of this year's arrangements, here are the groups showing the current world rankings for each team.

To have four of the top ten teams in one group just highlights the absurd way it was planned in the first place.  But that's the way it is. So who are your picks to go through? South Africa and New Zealand are almost certain to win their groups, and you'd expect France and Ireland to qualify, although Italy could add some spice to the outcome of Pool D. I'd expect Argentina to qualify second behind the All Blacks and Samoa are the ones to watch in Pool B, although you would expect Scotland to be good enough to get through. 

As to group A, who knows who is going to be disappointed. If Fiji don't run out of steam, they could still play their part, but it really does come down to the England Wales game, although England have got the better of Australia at several world cups in the past, so we shall have to sit back and wait while still taking the medication!

Reinventing the wheel

It's a commonly used phrase, "Why reinvent the wheel?, isn't it. It's a good principle, after all why invest lots of time and effort creating from scratch what has already been created. On the other hand, if the wheel hadn't been reimagined over the centuries, we'd still be using stone and wood rather than alloys and carbon fibre.

Of course the basic principle of the wheel hasn't changed. Round is as good as it gets. But I'm not really talking about wheels. I was thinking about the discipline of doing something for yourself for the first time before picking up the ready-plans of others. Sometimes there is real value in spending time working out something for yourself and then comparing it with what others have done in order to refine your own work.

I remember years ago speaking at a Christmas event when we were living in South London. I can't remember what I said, but I do remember some friends going to the main church event on the Sunday and coming back to tell me that the person speaking at that event reproduced my talk almost verbatim! They were a bit shocked, but if he thought it was that good, then why not. On the other hand he might not have had anything better up his sleeve!

Over the years in ministry I reused plans and talks I'd done before, borrowed ideas from others and adapted talks and plans I came across over time. I never claimed an idea as my own, but always pointed to the source, and was never afraid to cite my sources. It was always a matter of integrity for me. But more important maybe than that, I always wanted to do the work for myself. Lifting wholesale the ideas of others just seemed lazy.

Well now I have this new dimension to my life called tennis coaching. There are a lot of wheels out there in coaching that do not need reinventing! Lots of drills and plans and well oiled practices that you can pick up, stick in a lesson and run almost without thinking. The value of this is that you can build a simple lesson structure quickly and easily. It also means that you can give more thought to what you're trying to do because you haven't got to work out a drill, you can just pick one up and know it will work. More or less.

The downside lies in not using your own brain to engage with what you trying to do. For my final assessment lesson I did a backhand rally drill. As I watched it fall apart before my very eyes, I was so tired and weary–it was the end of the day, I was last on and I'd spent the previous few hours hitting with my non-dominant hand. I was in no mood to be excited)–I just couldn't figure out how to take hold of it and turn it around. Later, a day later in fact, I realised what I could have done and a few simple things I could have changed that might have made it work far better than it did.

So I think there is a case if not to reinvent the wheel then at least to imagine it for yourself. I'm trying to set out a beginners tennis course. Thinking through all the shots and game situations you would teach a group of new players in order for them to be able to get our on court as quickly as possible and enjoy playing. Yes, a plan already exist courtesy of the ITF, but I want to think about how I would do it before using their plan to improve my own ideas. It will help me think about different drills, lesson outlines and practice routines for my players. After that, the ITF resource will be really helpful as will all the stuff I see other coaches doing.

Lesson plans and life!

Who writes lessons plans? Okay, so I know that there are plenty of teachers out there who probably do/have to write detailed plans. After all, you can't turn up in a classroom full of 8 year olds and just wing it! And I suspect that this holds true across education from Primary to Postgraduate. So why am I thinking about tit?

Well, firstly because it's part of my Level 2 coaching course. I have to produce lesson plans for the coaching sessions I do. This involves not only having to plan the theme and the delivery of the content, but also a health and safety risk assessment, equipment list and a few other things along the way. It's a useful discipline, even if a bit tedious. It makes you think about how you are going to teach some aspect of tennis and how you are going to get everyone developing their skills.

Of course the thing about coaching is that you can wing it to a certain extent, but a plan tells you where you are going. I've been thinking about how I would plan a beginners course for example. I've been trying to work out how many lessons I would run, what would I do each time, how would I build the programme so that we cover the basic skills and get the time to practice them in a game based setting. I started by trying to write down everything that I thought you would need to know in order to play tennis. That's not just the basic shots, but how you score, where to stand, making decisions about what shot to play, etc. I listed 7 basic shots, but there are least another 6 or 7 I could easily add to that list, 4 basic court positions, 6 tactical intentions and 6 basic elements of play!

Who'd have thought there was so much to think about. After all surely tennis is simply about hitting the ball over the net and in the court!

Tennis is not the only thing that needs a lesson plan. What about some of your personal goals? I had a quick look back at a list of goals I set myself a couple of years ago. Some have been done (I finally built the cupboard in the extension and the partition in the garage), some have not been done, some aren't that important.

Now I'm not suggesting that you should write out a lesson plan for each goal you would like to achieve, but you need a plan. One of my goals is to get my tennis rating down. I'd like to get to a 7.1, but that might be more than I can manage. It's not impossible, but it needs a plan. For example, the only way to achieve it is to win enough matches against players rated the same as me or higher. So I need a plan for taking part in tournaments and ratings events. I think that once you get to 8.1, the win/loss ratio might come into play, but I'm not too sure. Need to look that up. The point is there are some identifiable steps to the process of reaching the goal. Suddenly I'm reminded of David Allen's Getting Things Done, and his point that a task that takes more than one step to complete is a project.

Is the reason you and I aren't reaching some of our goals because they need to be seen as projects not tasks? To get things done David Allen talks about identifying the next physical step you need to take to move towards completing the project. Identify the wrong step, and you'll get stuck.

Setting aside tennis for a moment (it's hard, but I'll try), think about some of your unfulfilled goals. Pick one, turn it into a project and identify the next step. You can apply this to losing weight, getting fit, learning a new skill, developing your prayer life, anything at all. Rather than wishing for the end result, you can make a plan. Rather than listing all the obstacles you might just be able to tick off a single step and begin to make progress.

You will need to remember to apply all those little strategies you've come across in the past. Things like SMART targets and rewards. Remember too the stages for learning something new. I've seen this set out as:

• Unconsciously incompetent 
• Consciously incompetent 
• Consciously competent 
• Unconsciously competent

In other words, you go from not knowing what you can't do to knowing what you can't do, to being able to do it and not have to think about it. If your goal is "big" then break it down into smaller goals, make it a project with achievable steps along the way. I want to organise my study again, and the thing that stops me doing it is that there is just so much to sort out. Doing some sort of plan would definitely help get on top of that particular project.

So, whilst I get somewhat frustrated having to write out these lessons plans for my course, I'm reminded of how useful planning is and that when it's done reasonably well, it actually is more liberating than restraining. When it comes to tennis lessons, a plan gives more room for creativity, no plan pushes you back to default coaching mode and you do the same stuff over and over again because you haven't thought about what you're trying to achieve. 

Are we really in the last days?

An email arrived this morning with an offer for "End Times" commentaries and locally there's a conference with a title that makes heavy references to ours being the final generation before the end. Not a very encouraging start to the week! Fortunately I've had my breakfast and fortified myself for the day ahead. Mind you the weather doesn't look promising. I think I'd prefer a warmer, sunnier day for the collapse of history.

I'd rather hoped that the evangelical church had grown up a bit since the 70's when we were urged to pray about the EU. Not because some of its policies were concerning but rather because it comprised 11 nations and had a supercomputer somewhere in Brussels with the code "666" that clearly indicated the end was fast approaching. For supercomputer read a large cumbersome, room-filling computer with the processing power of digital thermometer available in all good pharmacies today, and the rest of the fulfilment line fell apart somewhat with the expansion of the EU, to include Greece of all nations, as far as I remember . Apparently we haven't done that much maturing over the 40 years since then.

A preoccupation with the end seems to me to be gross distraction from the present. It isn't that I'm unaware of the prophetic narrative about the unfolding story of humanity, I'm just a little more preoccupied about what to do today without the added burden of thinking it might all end tomorrow. There just seems to be far too much to do.

When I read Brian McLaren's book Everything Must Change I was challenged by the idea that if the gospel is good news then it must have something to say about everything. I guess if I wanted to push this further then I'd say that the gospel is not just about our future salvation but also about our present redemption. I don't think that's particularly revolutionary. I think we'd all agree that the response the gospel demands from us is not simply one of agreeing with a series of theological propositions in order to secure our eternal destiny. The gospel is good news for the poor, the marginalised, the refugees, the migrants, the disconnected, the sufferers the wealthy, the healthy and anyone not covered by the preceding list! As such it has something to say about our economics our foreign policy our use of military force, our response to disaster. In fact it has something to say about every aspect of our lives in the present.

It's tough enough working out the implications of living a gospel oriented life in the present without the added burden of trying to figure when and how the world around us will come to an end. If we are the final generation, then so be it. If the end comes in my lifetime, fine. I'm as ready as I will ever be. What preoccupies me is honouring God day by day, not because the end is getting nearer but because it's the thing a disciple does. My question is more about how I can bless those around me, how I can help them take a step towards the kingdom, not whether this event or that movement signals the arrival of the apocalypse.

So if you're going to the conference or if you're investing in the books, please do so in the context of the present and let the future unfold as it will. Once we've figured out how to live in the present, maybe then we can think about all that future stuff.

The art of taking encouragement when it comes

I'm not the easiest person to encourage. I'll admit it. Sometimes it probably has a lot to do with setting the bar rather too high for myself. I've always felt a bit of an underachiever to be honest, someone who's never quite fulfilled their potential. There have been the odd glimpses of what might be, but never a prolonged period of recognisable success. At least not form where I stand.

So I have to work quite hard at taking encouragement. I have to hold back the desire the say, "Yes, but..." all the time, qualifying the encouragement with a list of things that could have been better or things that didn't really work. And of course the downside to struggling with receiving positive comments is that you tend to take criticism hard too.

Anyway, psychology apart, it's been a pretty good weekend for encouragement. For those theologically minded, and who share a faith based perspective, I need to tell you that on Friday I wrote a simple prayer in my journal that closed with a simple request: Lord, send a little encouragement my way. To be honest I promptly forgot all about it until I sat down to write in my journal this morning after a hectic weekend of training and a little bit of coaching. It was as I sat, journal open in front of me, that I read and remembered the prayer. So how was the weekend?

Well, rather good, as I said. It started well on Friday with a really positive tennis lesson with my coach, and then went well through Saturday and Sunday on my coaching course, culminating in a very positive assessment of my coaching lesson on the Sunday afternoon. A quick check of the 'phone and I've picked up a bit of coaching, covering for someone for a couple of weeks while they are away and the day ended with an hour or so of coaching a mother and son. And I get paid to do it!

Now lots of faith oriented friends will respond to this from a faith perspective and that's okay. I do too. But there's also a lesson about the simplicity of taking hold of encouragement and not seeing the negatives all the time. I really do struggle to do that. Ask Anne, she'll tell how hard it to encourage me! But I'm trying.

This weekend has been great because as a Christian I can see a direct answer to a simple prayer. But faith is far from simplistic, and I'm not about to reduce my faith to some slot-machine game of pray, believe, receive as if you're trying to get three cherries in a row.

Even if you don't consider yourself a person of faith, you can reflect on how you deal with the good and the bad that comes your way. Do you let the negative weigh you down all the time, or do you look for the positives?

I'll have bad days, bad weeks even. After all I'm in a tournament again soon! But today, I'm just going to remember the encouragement and feed on that for a while.