Are Padel Coaches just Ball Machines? And what's the difference?

It's almost like, how do we as coach educators, how do we get coaches to step away from just being ball feeders and ball machines? So in this episode, I'm with Nick Williams, head of coach education for the Paddle School. Nick, today we're going to chat about the difference between a ball machine and a coach. What do you think about that?

I think they're both good. I think both have their role. They both do things that, you know, you and I have used ball machines, you and I have both used coaches. Right. So they're both out there and they're both tools that we can develop our players with and players can use to, you know, get better.

Definitely. I mean, we travel a lot. So we're here in Tenerife at the moment. Beautiful weather, enjoying a Pascal holiday with a great group shout out to them. But we see a lot of coaching around the world where I look at the coaches and I think, really, we could replace what they're doing with a ball machine. You know, the coach is standing in the back corner with a basket of balls and firing them across the net to their student, their pupil. And sometimes you see it where there's a four or five students, and I know this is our pet hate, but four or five students queued up at the back of the court at the other end, and the coach is standing there feeding the balls across the net, you know, like a. Like a ball machine going, bamos, bamos, bamos.

Yeah. So let's take those two things, right? So the first one was, if you, let's say, working with one player, then it's all about feedback, isn't it? Like a coach who's got to give feedback, it's got to be able to. And the ball machine can't yet, as a, you know, AI can't give the feedback on the ball machine yet, but so the coach has got to be able to give relevant feedback to the players, and that's their role, isn't it? To be able to actually see what's happening down the other end and give feedback. That's the difference between the ball machine and the coach individually. And you're absolutely right, Sandy, that 4 and 4 lined up across the back with the ball coming in one at a time, the others lining up is absolutely.

We see it all the time, though, all the time. And adjust. I get a little bit of a gag reflex when I see that all the time. And it's. And then the players come off and they go, what a great coaching session that was. And I said, well, if you know, in that session, the coach is hitting way more balls than you're hitting. You know, they hit a couple of balls and they go to the back of the queue and they wait another four minutes, they go back in, hit another few balls. And I think, you know, when we talk about individual or group lessons like, that's, you know, it's difficult. A ball machine in a group lesson is, is difficult unless you're really structured and you can activate and do things with others at the same time. It's a bit more difficult, isn't it, to. To make use of it in a group lesson? But it's, you know, how can you activate all of these players at the same time?

Yeah, I think the thing with the ball machine is like, people use it for the benefit. They really want to improve themselves. So you've seen people hire a bore machine and go and have go. Now the thing with that is that we also see that ball machine. So it could be a group, could be a pair. I've seen pairs go and use a ball machine, maybe sometimes threes. Unfortunately, what they practice a lot of the time is the wrong technique. So, for example, if they. I see quite often people practicing volleys and like playing hard, flat volleys, when actually, you know, they need to practice more control volleys and actually, you know, slice the ball, come under it a bit. And so unfortunately, the ball machine is only of use if actually you know exactly what to practice and can give yourself feedback. So actually, you know, putting, put yourself on video and then getting, you know, using the platform with the paddle school and sending that video in is, Is a good way of using that footage, using the ball machine.

Really? Yeah. And I feel like that even on this holiday, like, we cover techniques and we've just done the bandeka with our students. Right. And so you feel like now would be a good time to say, hey, get repetition. We've taught you the technique. Go away and practice that. If you got a ball machine now and it fed you lobs time after time. And one of the good things about the ball machine is the consistency of the accurate feed. And, you know, you and I are good feeders, but we could never be as, as consistently accurate as a ball machine.

Right.

It comes out at the same pace each time. And so, you know, there are definitely good ways to do that. And actually I've used it quite a few times with variations with one or two players. And we have a course, a slinger, we use the slinger ball machine. But there's lots of ball machines out There, but we have a course on, on the platform that you can get drills, you can get different exercises you can use with one or two players and also on. On different shots. So it definitely has some value. But I think the coach as well needs to under, like if it isn't a coaching session, the coach as well needs to understand how to use it. Right.

So if you're on your own, I think top tip would be really, if you are going to go out on your own and use ball machine, take a camera with you at the same time because you want instant feedback. So assess a number of balls, get them going and then watch yourself back for two or three minutes and actually see are you working on the things you're supposed to be working on? Does it look right? And then adjust accordingly and then go for the next set of balls. I think that's how you do it. And then if the coach is using it can be a super tool because they can be with the player down the other end, can't they? So they don't have to be feeding the ball, they can be down the other end, the ball's coming in, they set the frequency, the player can do a few, they can jump in, do a few and they can give that role model demonstration, provided that it's relevant to the. You know, what they're working on at the time.

Yeah, perfect. And I think there's certain shots that work really well for it. Something like the return of serve off the glass is a great one because, you know, as a coach, to be able to serve exactly in the same spot, to bounce on the glass each time, to allow the player to, to get some consistency is, Is quite difficult. Right. Like so. And even same with double glass, same with, with the bandeja. You want to almost build up a consistency of, of shots so that you can then work on. On that technique.

Yeah. So I think that's a good conversation, that the ball machine can be useful, used in the right way. I think the thing with the coach, I mean, we started this conversation, you know, what's the ball machine and the coach and the difference? The coach is the one that can give the. The true feedback and the coach then can manipulate the feeds accordingly. So they can manipulate the feeds accordingly, they can slow it down, speed it up, put some different tempo on it, make it harder, make it easier, and where the ball machine can't do that, but the coach has got to recognise what's happening down the other end and read the player. Is the player engaged? Are they focused? Are they on Track, Are they getting frustrated, are they not? And then change accordingly. And we don't see that a lot. It's just the ball comes in. Well done, well done. Great. And we often get the coaches who are like, wow, great. Yes, brilliant. And there's no sort of substance feedback.

Yeah. And half the time it doesn't even align with the shot that's just been hit. You know, like they'll feed the ball in, the player comes off the top of the racket, flies over the side of the court, you know, and they go, great. Like, it's just, it's almost like they're pressing a tape recording of positive feedbacks. But I think it's almost like, how do we as coach educators, how do we get coaches to step away from just being ball feeders and ball machines? Because, you know, we've done coach education where we've, we've worked with some, you know, experienced coaches that are just used to basket feeding and all they do is basket feed. And we try to get them comfortable with, with group setups and activating the players and getting them, you know, to do exercises that involves everyone. It's like, how does, how can we get coaches to, to step away from their basket to stop them just feeding like a ball machine?

Yeah. I think for me it's the understanding that, that the sport is open. It's an open sport. Lots of different variables happen all the time. There is no single ball that you receive that's the same. It's just not the same ball every time. There's some variation. The ball has come from a different spot from the player. They've hit it with a different spin, a different speed, whatever it is. They might be slightly differently placed, you might be slightly differently placed. The wind might have taken it in a different direction or whatever. And so every ball is different. So the more that we can gets out of like what we described as sort of blocked practice, of just ball after ball after ball, which is great for initial skill development. But then when you want to test that skill in a more open and match like situation, you've got to be able to add other variables like the shot before or the shot after. And so it's the ability to understand how people acquire skill is what the coaches would continue to need to research and look at. Because then it means that, yes, sometimes you block the practice, but then you're going to make it more varied and then the shot becomes more robust in practice when you do that.

Yeah. And I think the difficulty for a coach to move in that direction is almost the thought and the effort required for that. They're not used to thinking like that. And we see this a lot where it's like, it's very. Coaches are comfortable doing an individual lesson where they do basket feeding. And so if suddenly three people come on the court, they queue them up and they basket fee because it's, it's easy and it's comfortable. And so I think it's almost stepping out of their comfort zone slightly to think, right, how can we, how can we like you say, almost open the play, make it, make it more game realistic but at the same time work on shots. And we have an interesting discussion with players, don't we? Around when we feed two players versus players feeding to players in that we feed and we can be accurate. For example, feeding a ball off the back glass and then players say oh, but I can't get the feed as, as well as you can and I can't get it in that exact spot. And you know, our comeback is always, well when you're playing in game your opponent's not getting in that exact spot all the time. So it's not always a bad thing if it's player to player feeding and it's not quite as accurate as a.

Coach how many times. And this will resonate with a lot of people I'm sure is they say oh, what a great coaching session that was. What a great coaching session. And they go and play a match and they go oh, in the match because it just, it didn't work because it was just like it all went to pieces in the match. Now that's because you have blocked practice in coaching where you developed a skill but it's not robust enough yet, it hasn't been practiced enough close enough to the match. So the coaching environment has to set it whereby they can learn a skill but they have to bring it as close as they can to the match within a coaching practice which is in a safe environment before the match. And obviously it'll always be a little bit different in the match. But that's the process, isn't it of leading somebody from a really sort of closed skill to more open and be ready for a match, leaving your players ready for a match. Because the thing with paddle Sandy is everybody's playing matches, aren't they? Everybody's playing matches. So we don't have the luxury as coaches to go right, well, do you know what Sandy, you're going to take now a few weeks off your matches down at the club and we're going to develop some Skill, you don't have that luxury to do that because they're playing games next week. So what you have to do is make sure that you can make a small adjustment, play it in some points and keep that small adjustment. They go and play the match and then you come back and then you go again. Do you see what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we hear that all the time. And it's like, oh, I just, I was really hitting my bandeka well in practice and it's, it's been, oh, that's because I hit a bandeka of basket of bandekas in that practice. And then it's important for, for us, as the coaches, like you say, to almost make it slightly more open in that it might be a bandeka and a volley alternating and then it might be. So the bandeka starts the point and then it gets, you know, we almost make it more and more open so that they are still practicing, but in a game like environment.

Yeah. And the skill of that is not to line everybody up, because you can't do it if you line everybody up right. So if you have 1, 2, 3, 4, all you can do is like one shot and then the other. The others wait for a period of time. So if you have four players on your course as a coach and you work with one, and we work for like let's say 15 minutes. That 15 minutes, you're only getting 25% of the balls hit to you in that time. So 75% of the time you're waiting, 25% you're hitting. So whenever we train coaches, it's to try and make sure that that number 25% is increased. Now it could be 50%, you know, and are they hitting one ball? You know, there's two balls on court and they're maximizing the repetition at that point. You want more balls on court.

Yeah. So I suppose a question that we get asked a lot is, is how do I know if my coach is good? And a lot of players come off and say, oh, what a wonderful lesson, you know, great coaching, blah, blah, blah. But it's almost like at that point a lot of players are quite new to coaching or they haven't had a lot of coaches and they don't really know what good coaching looks like. And so it's almost like how does a player know if they've got a good coach? And obviously if there's four lined up at the other end and the coach is standing there with a basket, the answer is probably not a very good coach. But what should they look for for having a good coach? How could they tell?

It would be an open conversation to start with. So if you were my coach, I would want you to say to me, like, what? What have you come for? What were you here for? What are your goals?

Yeah.

So what do you want to achieve? So have that conversation with me. So am I here for just learning technique? Do I want to beat my friends? Do I want to just get fit? What's my reason? So firstly, that would be the conversation from you so you fully understand what I need during my sessions and my group.

Well, it's interesting, isn't it? Because a lot of coaches ask the players, what do you want to work on? And they say, oh, vibra. And then you do a lesson, say, I want to work on my vibra, my chiquita and my tops in smash. And then a Coach will do 15 minutes vibra, 15 minutes chiquita, 15 minutes tops, and smash. But what you're saying is almost. Actually the question is like, what is your reason for coming to this lesson? Like, why are you trying to learn as opposed to what do you want? Because often what players want is not necessarily the same as what they need. Right. And so it's almost just to differentiate from that. The player shouldn't really be leading the lesson instead of saying, right, this is what I want to work on in terms of these shots and how I want to do it. The coach should almost be leading that, but the player should be almost leading by, why are you here? What's the purpose for you taking this lesson in the first place?

Yeah, so. So I want you as the coach to understand who I am and why I'm here. Yeah.

Yeah.

My reasoning. And then, and then afterwards, once we've, once we've set some goals. Now those goals could be that I want to be more consistent when I'm serving or returning or playing bandeka. And. But you need to analyze me first, right? You need to have a look at what I can do. Now, it depends on the level of the players. But you, I might say to you, bro, so I've got a match coming up this, this weekend. Can you come and watch the match? I'll pay you to come up and watch me this match. Maybe you can take a video of it. And then I want you to break it down, analyze it for me so that I fully understand what I'm doing. Because otherwise, if you never see me play a real match, then you never truly understand what I can and can't do. So I think that's one of the things that coaches should be trying to factor in their daily weekly schedule is to actually go and watch their players play outside of their, you know, they've got their regular sessions.

Yeah. Even if it's almost. There's a match at the club and the coach just watches for five minutes just to get a bit of an understanding. Right. I mean, I think, I think that's.

Important because otherwise you're making it up. So if you can watch your players and you watch your players, then you can see what they do under pressure. So you see what they do under pressure and you can understand how that they can move forwards and do it in session because actually it's too, it's comfortable in coaching, whereas in a match it's a bit more like in the jungle. Right. So it's, you know, either in the zoo or in the jungle.

Another thing I, I look at when I look at lessons to see if they're good lessons or not is, is the number of different shots that a coach does or works on during a lesson. So, for example, I see lots of lessons where, you know, the, the player comes off and goes, oh, that was great. I worked on my volley, my vibra, my serve, my, my, my double glass. And, and I think, God, how did you do all of that in an hour? Like, because it's, it's not giving the coach or yourself time to, to adapt those shots to work on, on, on that technique. So, I mean, what are, what are your thoughts on that in terms of the number of things to work on in a, in a session?

Yeah, chunking. I think it's important to chunk. So for example, if you, let's say you take a year's period, right. You might be chunking that down into. Right. Month. One, we're doing this month. Two, we're doing that and then, and actually have like a focus, a focus period of time and then you can really develop skill. I feel like you need lots of repetition of something to be able to develop it and you can't just jump from one to the other. That's what the research would show, is to actually get stuck in and develop it over a longer period of time. For sure.

Yeah. And that's almost what we do with our monthly challenges. So each month we have a challenge. With the power score, it's 30 days. And this month you're working 30 days on your defense. And that is then your focus. And I think it helps players when they're thinking, right, this is now what I'm focusing on, not Just for training sessions, but for my matches as well. And then you're not getting confused with a scattergun approach. But I think it's important in the lesson as well to not just quickly change a technique, but to change it, then to practice it, then to bring it slightly out into a more open game. And it all takes time. Right. I mean, we're here doing this holiday over three days, which is a long amount of time. So it's what, 12 hours that we've had with the players on the court, and that allows us time to work on technique, but then also to practice and to form good habits with those shots.

Yeah. Repeating still and going back to help your memory of what to do will really help you going forward. Definitely, yeah. It's been fun with the holidays because we get to, you know, we get to see people over a long period of time and actually the rewards that they get, they get the fundamentals, right. And I think if we talk about coaches and attention to detail, that, for me is the difference between a good coach and a not so good coach, and that is attention to detail. So that is attention to detail of, is the player actually ready? Are they ready to receive the ball? You talk a lot about the split set and being ready for the ball and split stepping and reacting and moving, and it's just those, the fundamental skills that have high attention to detail. Now, if your coach isn't giving you that high attention to detail and sort of really making sure that you've got fundamentals right, then the rest of it becomes almost impossible to do. There's no point in saying, right, okay, well, can you improve your bandeja? Actually, if you're not ever getting to the bandeja, you're always leaning back to hit it. So for me, good coaches are ones that will bring high attention to detail and get the fundamentals, the basics, done really well.

Yeah. And I think that's something that, as a coach and I almost have a. And I think you're the same as me almost a little bit of, like, OCD with someone's technique. Whereas if we see someone that hasn't got the right technique on a volley and they're in that frying pan grip, we'll think, right, we're going to dig in here and we're going to get this right. Whereas I think it's hard. That's hard, right? Like, that's hard trying to break a habit like that, for example, with the grip. And I think a lot of coaches just think, oh, either that's too much work, or they don't know how to do it, and therefore, I'm just going to feed them a basket full of volleys and we'll work on your volley today. But one of the things I like about the holidays as well is that because we spend a lot of time with the group, like, we go for lunch or have a coffee with them, or we go for dinner, et cetera, we get to really understand their motivations, don't we? And it's almost like, okay, well, why are you doing this? And over the course of the days, we. We really get to understand them and their approaches. And, you know, in the 12 that we've got at the moment, there's some very different kind of mentalities to how. How they approach their paddle. It's almost now that we know that as coaches, we can approach them differently, but it's quite difficult if you. If you don't know that.

Yeah. The more you know people, the better. It's because it is all about people, isn't it? It's working with people. And people take information in different ways. People want different goals. Like. Like we started. One of the other things I. I think, Sandy, about good coaches and probably just good people in life, in whatever industry you get to, you're gonna get deep here.

I feel this.

I always do. Right. Is. Is learning.

Learning.

Are you open to learning? Are you open to learning? Can you make change? Are you always looking to improve yourself as a coach? And that's a. That's a. That's a huge thing. Like, for me, I love learning, and I love taking whatever I do to the next level. So if I'm not learning something, I don't feel like I'm moving forward.

I agree. Nip. Thank you very much. We've got to get on court in this.

I told me for getting deep there.

I did, I did. Before it got emotional. We're going to have to get on court in this beautiful Tenerife weather for a session this afternoon.

Yeah.

Thank you, Sam.