What is Hot Shots?
Hot Shots TNZHot Shots is a starter tennis program for children aged 12 and under.
The principles behind Hot Shots are:
1. A learning through play philosophy – children learn the GAME of tennis rather than just the skills of tennis. Playing the game, understanding tactics, competing and having fun will mean kids fall in love with tennis which helps them stay in the game longer.
2. The use of scaled equipment – shorter racquets, smaller courts, softer, lighter, low compression balls.
3. A progressive pathway – moving slowly through the RED, ORANGE and GREEN stages of development. It is not a race to the yellow ball and developmental foundations should be solid at each level before moving on.
Hot Shots is Tennis Australia’s official development program for primary aged children and we are excited to announce that Hot Shots is coming to New Zealand ready for Term 4 (October 14th) 2013!
Hot Shots is made up of four pillars:
Schools
In New Zealand, Grasshoppers will be renamed Hot Shots to give consistency to the brand.
Coaching
Coaching is a high quality, professionaly delivered skill development coaching program. The Coaching Pillar is for qualified, Tennis New Zealand registered coaches only. Coaches pay an annual license fee in order to access many Hot Shots benefits, both online and physical. Online benefits include lesson plans, certficates for participants and editable marketing posters/flyers.
Community Play
Community Play is for CLUBS, with or without a coach. Volunteers such as teenagers, parents, committee members are identified by the club and then attend a short Hot Shots workshop giving them the skills and confidence to deliver a play based program to juniors.
Community Play is a free/low cost pay per play session that can be used as a promotional opportunity/membership drive, by targeting local schools with flyer drops. Or Community Play can be a weekly ‘social night’ for your junior club members.
There is no coaching in Community Play sessions so deliverers wont feel out of their depth. There are challenges, warm ups, games and good sport messages in each lesson and a simple manual for deliverers to work from.
Community Play offers a tool to encourage new families to the club environment, bridging the gap between school and club. Whilst volunteers run the sessions, club members/committee members/coaches have an opportunity to meet and greet parents as the children have fun on the court!
Tournaments
The Tournament Pillar is all about age appropriate competition. Ensuring that children have positive competitive experiences using the appropriate equipment, court sizes and balls and competing in an environment that is relative to them. eg) Time capped team events for younger players. The Tournament Pillar is currently being developed, tested and trialled in Australia so won’t be launched in New Zealand until the pillar is fully developed.