Stage 1 for Under 7 years old
Vietpadel Academy Program

Summary

1. Introduction
2. The students
3. Key learning
4. Structure of the class
5. Padel Program 

1. Introduction

Padel is the fastest growing sport in the world, with an enormous boom in Europe/US and middle east countries, the sport has found millions of new addicts around the world. Even though this racket sport is easy to pick up, players should start young and get good habits and form at a young age. The sport is planning to become an Olympic sport and to be honest it will certainly take over racket sports such as Squash or badminton in less than a decade.

Vietpadel Academy has designed a padel program that fits youngsters. With the help of professionals, passionate players and parents, we have created a well balanced padel program that fits the small ones. With fun games, active drills, we engage the kids in a playful environment that allows them to grow their confidence, potential. They will also be learning new techniques and skills. The biggest advantage of Padel is that the pitches (courts) and bats (rackets) are small and we play on artificial grass (to avoid injuries) which fit the kids perfectly.

2. The Students

At this age the player is small and has little to no strength, has little to no power in his swing of the bat (racket). The motor skill is in construction for most of the kids of this age, eye-hands-feet coordination must be developed to play a racket sport  and most importantly there is a lack of focusing skill. Everything changes very fast for kids under 6 years old and we can see the difference year by year. Starting young will allow them to improve all that and get natural abilities when they are getting older.

3. Key Learning

For this age group at Vietpadel academy we focus on 4 key learning:

• The body, Fun and Active: we want the kids to be active and have fun during our classes. We teach through different games, making them interact with each other. With a lot of different activities we want to give the best learning environment to them. Our goal is to make them want to come back.
• The mind: In order to achieve simple tasks and games, we teach kids to have good listening skills “Listen to the coach”, good focusing skills “Listen, think” and finally good solving skills “listen, think and understand the instruction of the coach”. Our goal is to keep them interested during the whole lesson, and improve those skills.
• The physical: At this young age, we need to develop physically the eye-hands-feet coordination. We do that with different games of catching, throwing and rolling involving upper and lower body at the same time, with or without the bat (racket). We can’t improve their strength as it comes with the age later but we can improve their power by improving their speed, with activities involving their reaction/speed, some movements and sprinting.
• The technique: Usually kids under 10 have little to no interest in the technique, we do explain it in order to show the players to be successful with it. Showing grips, forehand and backhand techniques to start with, and how to serve and do volleys after. Kids learn all techniques through games and only understand them if they achieve success with them.

4. Structure of the class

At Vietpadel stage 1  the ratio Coach/Students for that age group is 1 coach to 5 students. With a maximum of 8 students on 1 pitch. Structure during our class of 1 hour below:

→ 03 minutes: Greeting the players - Attendance - Explaining the lesson plan

→ 10 minutes: Warm up, exercices coordination and footwork or other games

→ 02 minutes: Water Break + setting up the next drill

→ 15 minutes: Drill 1 - Technique of the day

→ 02 minutes: Water break + setting up the next drill

→ 15 minutes: Rallying progression, with/without the coach

→ 02 minutes: Water break + setting up the next drill

→ 10 minute: warm down game

→ 01 minutes: small chat with the students and goodbye

5. Stage 1 Padel Program

For stage 1 under 6 years old at Vietpadel we have 2 categories. Category 1 is for beginners with little to no focusing skills, coordination skills. Category 2 is for beginners with good focusing skills and medium coordination skills. The program is slightly the same but the category 2 will have harder drills and exercises and will have more bat skills time (racket skills time) .