On line delivery of disability tennis

Three months ago my business in inclusive sport was going well with a wide variety of projects across a range of sports & impairment types & then came lockdown.  My face-to-face delivery ceased and I was a little anxious to say the least. 

A few weeks on I’m reflecting back thinking it hasn’t been as bad as envisaged. In fact I’ve been on a quick learning curve and have taken a substantial amount of work on line.   It started by sharing content on social media sharing ideas on how disabled people could be active at home.   We shared photos & short video clips on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.  We set up a physical activity play list on my wife’s You Tube channel where we continue to add content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPb7qOUGaM0&list=PLmMILE6TY56CYsR56OVqf4EyDbVqkG1Uc

This content was fun to develop and an extension of what I already did as I was already very active on social media.   Then the really exciting work started to evolve.  We started to explore the use of video conferencing & zoom to deliver sessions.   My first experience of the platform was through Metro Blind Sport taking the fortnightly tennis session that I coached on line as a meeting for the players to connect.  This got me thinking as to how feasible on line delivery was. 

At around the same time Manoj Soma from Choice International approached me about the possibility of doing an on line wheelchair tennis session. Manoj had done one session with a group of players.  My initial thinking was I could do a one off session on coordination exercises to do at home.  When planning the session I started to believe we could do a few sessions.  We are now several weeks in, we have former national coach Stuart Wilkinson involved, we have secured funding from the Dan Maskell Trust, we have two planning meetings a week and the project has taken off. 

The success of these sessions gave me confidence to explore further on line opportunities and I have done on line coach education sessions for Tennis Ireland and Surrey LTA, as well as individual lessons for B1 (totally blind) player Naqi Rizvi and Special Olympics athlete Lily Mills.

It’s been a great journey exploring the logistics and possibilities.  We’ve had to explore insurance, safeguarding and other health and safety matters, learn the best set for the coaches and the participants, discover the best equipment to use and advise players to obtain and examine what content works and gain feedback from the players.   

I now strongly believe that much on what we have learned will chance and add value to our offer in the future.  It has further developed my coaching skills and been a lot of fun.