NOVEMBER 2019 WINGATE INSTITUTE AND ITF LEVEL 2 TENNIS COACH LinkedIn Contact

THIS ISSUE Publisher's Notes - Letters - Facility of the Month - Organization of the Month - Male Pro of the Month Female Pro of the Month - Spotlight Pickleball - Suzanna McGee Fitness - Marsha Friedman PR Trending - Rod Heckelman - Javier Palenque - Roger Stenquist - Rich Neher Feature - Gary Horvath Chris Hagman - Joshua Jacobs - Where Are They Now?

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ABOUT DANIEL LIBESKIND ROSENBAUM
(on LinkedIn)

I am a Wingate Institute and ITF Level 2 Tennis Coach graduated in Social Sciences at the University of Sao Paulo.

During a long and successful career have been strongly contributing to the tennis industry making effective efforts to enrich and improve players and coaches.

Since 1982 have been teaching and coaching at all the levels, promoting the game and the participation in sports, designing and implementing tennis programs for young beginners, adults, juniors and professional players.

As participant, speaker and producer, have participated in several national and international tennis courses, conferences and workshops; conducted approximately two hundred and fifty coaches’ courses being responsible for thousands of certifications.

Among many activities founded and coordinated the Coaches Education Department for the Brazilian Tennis Confederation with Carlos Kirmayr, and directed the Achievement Program at the Israel Tennis Centers’ Association.

Currently coordinating development projects at Sao Paulo State Tennis Federation in Brazil, introducing new management models, presenting modern teaching programs and integrating coaches through mutual cooperation and common objectives.

Also teaching patients in a Medical SPA using tennis as an important additional tool to combat the sedentary lifestyle, decrease obesity and improve emotional balance.

I enjoy to work out with all kinds of students, players and coaches, from beginners to professional levels, contributing to their personal development, delegating responsibilities, increasing motivation and commitment.

I deeply believe that tennis is a mean to transform students in better persons concerning the educative roll of our job, promoting ethics and teamwork.

My wishes are to continue to benefit people in all senses through sport activities and to develop myself professionally as well.

QUESTIONS FOR DANIEL LIBESKIND ROSENBAUM

TCB: Where were you born?
DLR: I was born in Uruguay.

TCB: Why Italian and Israel citizenships and not Uruguay?
DLR: My wife is Italian so I got the Italian citizenship. I lived for almost ten years of my life in Israel in a couple of periods so I also have the Israeli citizenship. I am a resident in Brazil.

TCB: How old were you when you started tennis and who got you into the sport?
DLR: I started playing when I was nine years old. During my childhood, since very early, always played ping-pong with my father's rackets and balls against the wall in my bedroom - standing or on my knees - and on the kitchen table.

My father played table tennis very well - he was University Champion and that was legendary for me. We used to play in any given opportunity. I was so small that I needed to stand on an apple box or had to wait for the ball go out the table.

Also played a lot with racket paddles on the beach or down in the street. This is how the passion for rackets and balls began. When I was nine years old, my family became member at a social / sportive club and I started to participate in every sport activity. I started the tennis lessons together with my sister and to play with other kids on the tennis courts at the club. Some of those lessons and playing experiences I remember until today. It´s surprising, however, never played tennis with my father.

My first racket was a Dunlop Maxply imitation called Maxima. I´m so sorry I didn´t keep it and don´t know where it ended up. When I was eleven years old, we moved to Brazil to a region in the south with a lot of tennis tradition because of the German and Italian immigrants. Lots of clubs with many great players, many tournaments, national and international.

It was during the 70's and we could follow great South American players emerging, generation after generation. There had always been local idols, besides the big names of that time circuit. Therefore, I started to play in a couple of clubs with friends, singles and doubles at least four times a week. Eventually, went on with more tennis lessons, took part of some club rankings and local tournaments. Practicing on the wall was sacred.

TCB: Is Sorocaba, São Paulo, Brazil your current address?
DLR: Yes. Sorocaba is a quiet city very near to São Paulo. About 90 km. I lived in São Paulo for 20 years. When we came back from Israel in 2012, we decided not to face the craziness stress of São Paulo anymore and came to Sorocaba to grow the kids in a tranquil environment.

TCB: What made you decide to go into tennis teaching?
DLR: I was 18 and visiting Israel for a one-year period. It´s very common for Jewish teenagers to have this kind of experiences. I decided to stay for some more time. My parents did not like the idea of having to postpone my return and my continuity at the College. I was studying Engineering.

By the way, the regular path was to study at the University. Not even thinking about a sport professional career. That idea almost didn´t exist for regular youngsters at the 70's and 80's. I decided to stay in Israel and had to find a job. I tried in hotels, travel agencies. My first job was in a t-shirt factory and I was doing very well. Then, a friend of mine, who knew I used to play tennis, suggested to me to teach tennis. It sounded surprisingly good.

I never ever thought about teaching tennis as a mean to earn money. It was in 1982 and I was living in Jerusalem. I visited all the tennis courts of the city and knew the local Israel Tennis Center. They said to me that there could be a chance of working during the summer programs and maybe a further continuity. If necessary, they would call me. When I visited the YMCA tennis courts, they recommended me to ask at the Municipality Sport Secretary. There, they offered me a table tennis teacher job during some afternoons of the week, in a public gym. I took it immediately. I confess that, until then, always played table tennis better than tennis.

Getting close to summer, I got a phone call from the Israel Tennis Center asking if I am still interested in the summer camps job. Of course, I accepted and left the table tennis job. Since then, I didn´t stop teaching and learning about tennis. I think I was very lucky to be adopted by the Israel Tennis Center and to be part of a generation of coaches who grew and developed themselves under the idealism of that organization, at that time composed by eleven tennis centers spread along the country. Today there are fourteen. The project meant to develop tennis players by turning tennis more popular and affordable, creating massive social programs from where future talents could be identified, selected and trained in order to become high level players due to represent the country as sport ambassadors competing at international tournaments. That target gave a strict and objective direction to everyone involved.

There was a great international board making efforts in order to provide financial resources, great directors, mentors, coaches, all created a positive environment full of enthusiastic pioneering. We were just driven and we´ve got that drive. We were lucky to follow professional examples and be supervised receiving orientation, motivation and responsibilities. Those elements represent much more importance in the development of a coaching career than the questionable tennis information possible to acquire (simply everywhere today - I put a big question mark in the quality of that information) and the not less important management mindset of the actual tennis business. We can discuss about the methods used, the final goals and the successful results.

At that time, it worked and achieved the objectives effectively. Of course, that formula cannot be actual anymore. Today we have much more scientific knowledge, other visions and missions and rolls to fill. As I was working and learning to teach, somethings started to bother me. The method used was mainly basket feeding. The goals trained were mainly technical. The technical patterns were very restricted. The relationship with the students was very authoritarian. The talented chosen players were those who achieved to replicate strokes' executions at early ages. Only few were successful and invited to continue practicing "seriously". The most of the kids who were not "so talented" because did not show early coordinative abilities to replicate strokes were condemned to not become players at all and did not get the necessary attention nor opportunities. The conformity of technique (ideal strokes’ execution) was the main teaching objective and critical as an evaluation criterion. In my opinion, that method to select and develop players was unfair and counter-productive with the most of the kids. It aimed to develop few high-level players instead of including everyone into a whole life sport first. I thought already then that coordinative general motor skills should be developed before specific tennis technique; practicing ball control was a mean to stimulate those skills and a pre-condition to play the game. Playing the game was a pre-condition to enjoy, learn it and be emotionally involved.

I decide to change the method and designed a beginners program based on those principles. The focus was ball control exercises, rallying with partners and on the wall, playing adapted games on small-adapted courts. When I presented the program to the technical board, the impression was “too much fun, too little technique”. I didn´t find more space to develop myself and to put in practice the new system I adopted. As I came back to Brazil, I fortunately knew personally former player and turning coach Carlos Kirmayr. He ran his tennis schools, camps and coaches’ seminars and invited me to join his team. At the time he was bringing to Brazil the “Swedish System” endorsed by Bjorn Borg based on soft balls (Tretorn), smaller rackets (Donnay) and portable nets used to popularize tennis in Sweden among the schools. The method I was developing suited exactly to it and so, we started using and promoting “mini tennis” as a beginners teaching method. Since then I started to present at coaches’ seminars, continue learning more about tennis and sport sciences. It was my turn to share information and help colleagues and didn´t stop until now.

Carlos and I developed a strong friendship and a solid partnership running tennis projects. The most significant was the creation of the Coaches’ Education Department of the Brazilian Tennis Association. We designed, coordinated and ran more than two hundred coaches’ courses for more than 4000 participants.

In 2008, I was invited by the Israel Tennis Centers to install a players’ development program based in new teaching methods because they were not satisfied with the results of the old fashion system they still used.

It was a great challenge. It was necessary to train the coaches with new methods based on “open skills” and coordination teaching, adapted equipment, utilization of “open systems” and a “game based aproach” philosophy. More important was to redirect the objectives of the coaches meaning to develop motor skills, creativity, tactical situations and a different concept of technique based on making decisions according to varied aleatory situations. Those were two radical changes: a new rhumb and a different transportation to get there. It was not easy. There was an understandable legitimate resistance. I´m thankful for the great professional opportunity that made me work in such scale. I could learn a lot and a legacy was left. Besides the great friends I could review and make, it was my time to give back. I still see a big confusion and misunderstanding about the adoption of teaching methods. It looks like the “traditional” method based on technique execution (closed skills) is antagonistic to the “modern” method based on tactical game aproach (open skills). In reality, both are important and complementary. As methods, they are tools and coaches should know how to take advantage of them utilizing them with criteria properly and opportunely. Technique as we know traditionally is fundamental. However, following a holistic perspective is more important and productive to develop a possible playing experience, and gradually improve other aspects as the quality of the strokes. It´s better to teach players that play and develop the strokes than students that only learn the strokes and never play.

TCB: What are some of the challenges in your job?
DLR: Concerning the educative roll of our job, I deeply believe that tennis is a means to transform students into better persons, promoting ethics and teamwork. I think that the big challenge is to consider the student as the most important player in the teaching/learning process. Generally, unconsciously we put our anxieties and ourselves first. We want to be good in our activity, successful, well known, appreciated. We try to follow and achieve our interests many times to the detriment of our students’. Takes time to recognize – consequently, to make the students realize - that we are there to help them to achieve their interests, to attend their needs, to improve their skills. Maybe they don´t know their interests, maybe they can change them. With knowledge, influence and persuasion, we can help them questioning their necessities, proposing more interesting interests (sorry the redundancy) and, by the end, improving their abilities and capabilities realistically at all the aspects of the game.

Our job is to bring all of them to a healthy, enthusiastic enjoyable sportive life. With all the needed efforts and deserved rewards. We have to be very careful and avoid committing recurrent mistakes. The same way the roll of the student is to dedicate himself and practice to be a little bit better along the lesson, we coaches have to dedicate ourselves and practice to be a little bit better too. The lessons are a great opportunity for us to practice and improve. If we improve as coaches, our students will improve as players. We have to thank our students every single lesson because they give us that amazing chance. Of course, we also have to get the right orientation in order to practice well. It is a different point of view: improving the player does not make me a better coach; improving as a coach, I can develop better players.

TCB: Do you prefer teaching kids or adults?
DLR: I enjoy working out with all kinds of students, kids and adults, players and coaches, from beginners to professional levels, contributing to their personal development, delegating responsibilities, increasing motivation and commitment. I think that teaching adults is easier. We can share thoughts, visions of life, we can learn a lot from their personal life experience. They have already grown and learn faster. With kids everything is different, the rhythm, interests, capability of concentration, we depend and adjust ourselves to their individual development and have to be much more patient. This is why coaches and parents should not expect early results from the kids.

Independently, we have to prioritize the human relationship, promote empathy and the well-being of the students. The lesson is a great opportunity to enjoy the mutual company between teacher and student.

TCB: What are your future plans? Where do you want to be 5-10 years from now?
DLR: My wishes are to keep benefiting people in all senses through sport activities. I always look to work in a place where I can exploit my potential, help that place to grow and develop myself professionally as well.
I want to keep strengthening ties with colleagues and feel that I am not working alone. Who lonely works, only works.

TCB: Do you still play tennis yourself?
DLR: Every single day. I love to hit with the students and to play matches with them as possible.

TCB: What is your racquet of choice?
DLR: Prince.

TCB: Thank you, Daniel Libeskind Rosenbaum.