Shownotes
- Analytical vs. Visual Mind: Justin Yeo distinguishes between an analytical mind, which divides things into several stages with many key details, and a visual mind, which learns best from examples and visual clues.
- Practical Tips: This episode gives examples of how to assess one’s self as a visual or analytical learner, as well as how each type of learner can modify his or her study behavior.
- Gender Differences: The difference in perceiving information by females and males in learning anything is a scientific fact. So, naturally, coaching approaches toward females and males are also remarkably different.
- Coaching Insights: Justin shares what the findings of his research indicate about how teachers may accommodate their students’ learning patterns through the use of either visual or analytical teaching methods.
- Balancing Both Styles: The significance of striking a balance between analytical and visual learning is emphasized since both styles have strengths and can complement one another.
- For Visual Learners: Make use of demonstrations, shadow swings, and visual aids.
- For Analytical Learners: Place emphasis on a strategy, tactics, and the general idea of the game.
- For a Balanced Approach: Use both narration and demonstration and let the players practice.
- Visit AtlantaTennisPodcast.com for more tennis content and resources.
- Check out their calendar of tennis events.
- Explore deals on Tecnifibre products and tennis apparel.
- Coaches can inquire about setting up an online shop to sell merchandise.
Transcripts
[Music]
Speaker:Welcome to the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.
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Speaker:[Music]
Speaker:Today is our 10 minutes of tennis.
Speaker:And in this case, 10 or 4 today, but that's all right.
Speaker:We are on island time because we are talking with Justin Yeo,
Speaker:World renowned tennis Pro, Australian in Puerto Rico,
Speaker:Justin Yeo. Today we are talking about the analytical mind versus the visual mind,
Speaker:and what that could mean for my game or your game, in this case, the listener.
Speaker:So first, define the analytical mind versus the visual mind,
Speaker:and then we'll dive in. Excellent.
Speaker:Well, I'm going to throw it back at you.
Speaker:What's your intention? My interpretation of the analytical mind versus the visual mind.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:I think I'm a little stuck on this one because I think I'm a bit of both.
Speaker:So for me, since I haven't necessarily studied this like you have,
Speaker:for me, I understand coming out of schooling, how this would look,
Speaker:for me to be able to say, okay, I need to understand
Speaker:that the elbow goes here or the shot needs to go there in this order,
Speaker:the chest style of looking at something my brain does.
Speaker:But also, if I don't see it, I don't quite wrap my head around it in the same way.
Speaker:So maybe I'm viewing it differently than you do,
Speaker:but I feel like I'm a little bit of both.
Speaker:Yeah, well, let's make it probably a little easier,
Speaker:but now the analytical mind tends to be a mechanical person.
Speaker:So they break down things into candies.
Speaker:They want to know, you know, step one to step 10.
Speaker:I'm on this one, so I think, um, commonly, a visual person,
Speaker:you only give them two or three for person.
Speaker:But a mechanical or analytical mind,
Speaker:can tend to look at things that more of a mechanical way.
Speaker:And you have to learn to express that way because if you're trying to demo,
Speaker:they're not getting the mechanics that they're looking for.
Speaker:Some people really want to know the devil, where they're hinge,
Speaker:where they're supposed to be, where they're in turn of their attention to the shoulder,
Speaker:where they should be.
Speaker:They want to know these 10 things, like to hear a ball, right?
Speaker:Whereas I'm a complete opposite.
Speaker:You show me a demo and I did do it.
Speaker:But when we say, you know, everyone can argue,
Speaker:but if they say 75% of the world,
Speaker:visual learnings, hence why we had so much appetizing and it was so much money,
Speaker:because we absorb everything visually, mostly.
Speaker:But it is an interesting concept that you can be talking to someone,
Speaker:who is, could be, I claim them as usually,
Speaker:counties, not to, you know,
Speaker:what's the word, I look at, discreetly, it's not a certain character about them,
Speaker:but they're very analytical.
Speaker:They're very numbers, they're very mechanical and engineers, same thing.
Speaker:They need to break things down.
Speaker:They look at things in multiple micro things that most of us don't think of.
Speaker:That's what makes them do they are.
Speaker:But when we're talking tennis, sometimes if you're talking to a person like that,
Speaker:try to think about how you express teaching them,
Speaker:because you could be more successful or, in the end,
Speaker:they're very, they're a lot happier with your style of expression.
Speaker:And that's sort of where it comes down to analytical and, you know, visual.
Speaker:There is a middle ground, like you said.
Speaker:Some people like just enough mechanics and just enough demo.
Speaker:So it's a, it really is an interesting concept between the two, but I like,
Speaker:what I've noticed over the years from a lot of experience,
Speaker:is you can't find some sort of people on complete both sides of the spectrum.
Speaker:And if you break that, like find that ability,
Speaker:you can control the way you teach it.
Speaker:So is this, is this going to combine with the big five personality traits as the humans,
Speaker:to where we've got our different types of how we are as people?
Speaker:Because in this case, this would change how I would make my initial assumption in working with
Speaker:males versus females. And in some cases, to be able to say, okay, make that a little bit of assumption,
Speaker:say, is this the way to go? But from a coaching point of view, it's probably easier to just ask.
Speaker:But then that sounds too easy, because maybe most people don't know the type of learner they are.
Speaker:Yeah. So you bring up a different point when you talk male-female, right? Because female
Speaker:tends to have a lot more elements going on within their thought pattern than a male does.
Speaker:And that's again, not saying, mean that, you know,
Speaker:simpler, men can be simpler. See ball hit ball a little bit.
Speaker:Yes, I'm not going to talk about IQs and
Speaker:murder and smartness and dumbness. What I'm saying is how brains operate differently.
Speaker:And that's been scientifically proven.
Speaker:Right. And so a female will tend to rotate on a lot of different elements. So in tennis,
Speaker:it's best to try to limit those and keep it simple, because they already are
Speaker:what we would call analytical, because they're looking for so many details.
Speaker:But if those details are certainly all the time, then decisions are made.
Speaker:Then it's hard to pick one or two versus all ten.
Speaker:And that's where the confusion comes on a tennis ball for a female.
Speaker:On the male side, sometimes they need a little more detail.
Speaker:So it makes them actually do the extra pass that we really should do.
Speaker:Versus just smack the ball so to speak. So, you know, again, it's a balancing out between visual
Speaker:and analytical, mechanical versus fluid. I've probably based my whole career and trying to
Speaker:make people fluid, because I think if they're fluid, it gives them more chances of playing
Speaker:tactical. It gives them more chances of working on their perception of what's happening on the
Speaker:core and how they should play. It also gives them a chance to think more external while they're
Speaker:playing versus internal thinking breaking down the stroke while the ball's coming.
Speaker:You see, so I've focused heavily on being fluid, but I've met a lot of analytical minds,
Speaker:like a very good friend of mine here. There's a hedge fund guide.
Speaker:And every time I talk to him, he's giving me ten things, ten things about what he's working on
Speaker:and he's four hands. I'm like, "Oh, sorry, man. You need to swing and hit the ball."
Speaker:You know? But in that case, it's a little bit of changing how someone is naturally. And maybe that's
Speaker:one of the things we like about tennis and we like about sport. Whether it's the coaching side to say,
Speaker:"Oh, this is fun. We get to take someone who is one way and try to encourage them to be a little bit
Speaker:different." But then as a person, sometimes it allows us to be outside of ourselves a little bit.
Speaker:So you know what? I'm normally really structured, but for me, I can tell what kind of person I am.
Speaker:I can tell my personality traits by the way I play tennis because there is zero structure to my tennis.
Speaker:Yep. And that's very similar to everything else is just artistic. I'm going to find a way to get it done,
Speaker:but it's not just linear in that one, two, three, four kind of way.
Speaker:Right. I mean, you can look at it even just from the play side.
Speaker:You know, Nip Curios couldn't be analytical, but if you try to structure things too much, it takes away
Speaker:the fun. And maybe that's also where he brain works is that he just wants to enjoy flip and have a good
Speaker:time. And that's where he's brain can handle. And then when you look at people like, uh, uh,
Speaker:sinner a little bit, I would say more, you know, Algarais, some of these other plays play a little
Speaker:more attention in detail that you've been offered in details when they talk about the match.
Speaker:They talk about how they structured things and whatever. You talk to Curios, you want to tell you
Speaker:how many unforce there is in May or whatever, you just sit, I suck today. You know, you felt good today
Speaker:or felt bad, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so again, that's a little bit more. But that doesn't mean he doesn't
Speaker:know the unforged errors. It's possible that he knows them. Yeah. It's more of just kind of a cloudy
Speaker:information that just says, eh, overall bad or, eh, overall good. Yeah. And again, it just gives you
Speaker:a bit analytical. We have a bit of a balance for both because if some people pay attention to
Speaker:detail, I like the detail and want to want to respond or change it or learn and grow, then I would
Speaker:say they have a little bit of that same, you know, the mix of both because if they have all the way
Speaker:on the other side, man, that's a tough one to play this sport if you're totally analytical. That's
Speaker:what my buddy is. He's in the battle of, he's in a battle of hitting 20,000 balls of days on the
Speaker:court for hours and hours and hours because he's mechanically trying to get this right. And I'm just
Speaker:going to make it feel in the show and he's doing so many things. The looseness of how he hits the ball,
Speaker:you can tell there is none because he's thinking, like he's mechanically thinking so much as he hits the
Speaker:ball. So, elasticity almost doesn't exist in his, his swing, you know. Yeah. And in that case, you
Speaker:need to kind of, as a coach, we're encouraging you. So Justin, if I can ask for one thing, the coaches,
Speaker:we know, we've got to figure out how to speak to the player. We need to be able to talk to them where
Speaker:they are and maybe drag them out from inside the box periodically. But speaking to the player, Justin,
Speaker:if you're going to give them a little bit of ability to maybe know yourself a little better as a
Speaker:player, if you're going to give us a little temet note, Jay here and say, know yourself, how do I
Speaker:find out a little bit more about myself and my analytical versus visual?
Speaker:If someone, if you watch TV or if someone does something in front of you and you just seem to be able to
Speaker:repeat it straight away, it gives you a real understanding that you're a big visual learner.
Speaker:And there are, that has a real clear identifier, right? That you can demos in front of someone
Speaker:and then you, all of a sudden, the first three strokes, they do exactly the way you show them.
Speaker:And then they go away and start going, hitting the way they were. It still shows that the more
Speaker:there's demo and the more freely demo or shadow swings are happening, the more chances they have a
Speaker:replica of what you really want them to do. On the other side, on an analytical side, I actually
Speaker:would say that if my buddy, if I knew him, I mean, really close, but I don't work within the
Speaker:Byzantine headspace. But what he needs to spin the analytical side into it is learn the structure
Speaker:of the game more and put that, that breakdown of all these things he wants to know, put it down into
Speaker:tactical and structure and strategy and trying to put his head out that way. So he can look and
Speaker:look at the finer details that teach like learnt learning, let him play the game in a more mechanical way,
Speaker:versus stroke wise. So I would say someone's very not very visual and they're very mechanical,
Speaker:try to put the mechanics out towards the core first in internally into the stroke. Got it, I love it.
Speaker:Justin, thank you so much. This has been 10 minutes of tennis. Justin, we'll see you next week.
Speaker:Well, there you have it. We want to thank reGeovinate.com for use of the studio and be sure to hit that
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