I have always been extremely lucky in loving what I do for a living, but have always felt like the only female coach in an organisation or one of a very few. The fact is that only 23% of LTA tennis coaches in the UK are female explains the above experience.
Luckily I have always been a bit of a tomboy and held my ground in a male dominated world but an initiative such as She Rallies is beyond refreshing, the idea is to coach the next generation of female coaches, which will help raise standards of tennis provision across the country and attract and retain women and girls as active participants in the sport.
The initiative lead by Judy Murray, aims to empower current female coaches to inspire the next generation of female coaches to come through is the only way to change the above statistic.
The initiative ’She Rallies’ was launched with a conference in central Birmingham on Friday, 3 February, featuring a range of speakers from sport and sport media, having a room full of female coaches was the first of its kind and the sense of unity, positivity and female power in the room was something that I have not felt in the Tennis world ever before.
Impact
It was the conference that I had attended that normalized Tennis and of course had the technical elements and progressions, but refreshingly concentrated on equally as important aspects including energy, motivation and looking at the coach as a person and recognizing coaching styles.
Sharing ideas and growing together provides the catalyst to improve and grow the current LTA female coaching workforce and I am excited to be a part of and see the impact that She Rallies can make.
As a coach I firmly believe that you never ever stop learning and providing a positive, cohesive environment that we can work towards increasing participation and getting more women and girls involved in Tennis is the start of a an extremely positive journey.
Inspiring words from Australia’s Emma Doyle at the She Rallies Birmingham conference.
For more information on the She Rallies initiative, please go to www.sherallies.com