Our Courses

About us

Primal Health Tennis Academy was started in 2011 as brothers, Ben and Josh Stokes, wanted to build a tennis coaching buisness that would inspire people to pick up a racket and get outside, plsy and healthy. They still carry that same aim aorund with them daily, striving for excellence in all that they do both on court with players and off court in the organsiation and structure of the company. The whole company love seeing people outside, in the fresh air, learning and enjoying themselves whilst playing such a challenging and rewarding sport. This ideal is at the heart of all of our sessions and is fundamental to our coaching practices.

We are very proud of what we have achieved so far and the values our business and brand stands for. We aim to be open and honest with all our clients, partners and players. Everything we do is linked to ‘Team Primal Health’ whether it be in the recruitment and training of new coaches, adding new partner venues, within coaching sessions or delivering in-school programmes. We want our players to feel a part of something bigger than just them, something that has ambitions and drive to try new things and always strive to do better.

Why join us?

Coaching Team: Our coaching team includes three LTA Level 4 (Senior Club Coaches) as well as numerous Level 2 & 3 coaches. Our coaching team has weekly developement sessions sharing best practice and talking through new ideas to ultimately improve the sessions we deliver. We pride ourselves on having friendly and approachable coaches who will always make time to talk about your/your child's development.
PH Sports: PH Sports is our high street shop, here you can come in and speak to us about anything tennis or coaching related! We also offer our regular players 10% off in store and can of course provide expert advice on equipment to help improve your game.
Off Court Organisation: We have a full time coaching administrator, meaning we can always deal with enquires quickly and efficiently. We use a specialist programme managment software, CoursePro, which allows us to provide the best service to our clients.
Multiple Venues: We have sessions across several venues, meaning we have days and times to fit almost everyones schedule. We also have access to different court surfaces and floodlights to offer evening sessions.
Coaching Style: Our coaching principles (more details below) give our sessions a style and structure unique to us. We want our sessions to be player led so people learn deeply and in a way that works for them as an individual.
Don't take our word for it: We are proud to be endorsed by major global brands. All our coaches are kitted out in Adidas teamwear and footwear. Each full-time coach also has a racket sponsership deal with a major tennis brand. These relationships highlight our professionalism and our reputation to continually strive to improve.

Our Coaching Principles

Continuous Active Participation: All of our players spend as much time as possible “doing and practicing” what we are teaching. There are never any lines/queues on our courts and all players are always actively developing their skills keeping them engaged, focused on the content and therefore improving.
Group Ownership: It is vitally important that all our coaches engage all players as a group and work with them, not on them. For learning to occur people must “own their change”. They must desire the outcome and strive to achieve it. It is the coaches’ job to facilitate this change, using their expertise to deliver a session that benefits all players and gives them the outcome they desire.
Specific Individual Feedback: During every session all players are given specific feedback on an individual teaching point. The group will be working on a collective outcome but everyone will be progressing at their own pace and it is important that every player has something specific to focus on. We also base our teaching heavily on input/process goals rather than outcome/result goals. We teach people how to develop the skills they need individually as well as the groups needs as a whole.
No Failure Environment: We aim to cultivate an experimental atmosphere during our sessions to allow players to make the necessary adjustments to their game without the fear of failure. This is achieved by focusing on input rather than output goals and rewarding effort and intention over output and attainment.
Maximum Participation: We love having big groups of players on the court. The atmosphere that this creates is really special and makes it really easy to motivate and inspire the group. These are the most important aspects of any coaches job and we actively seek having lots of coaches working with lots of players all at the same time. It is also really good fun and great opportunity for coaches to learn from one another too.

Primal Health Founders

The first business Ben and Josh Stokes started together was ‘Stokes Racket Stringing’ when they were aged just 13 and 16, they clubbed their money to raise the £280 to buy a stringing machine and started to learn how to string rackets using youtube. The money they raised from this enterprise was used to start the coaching academy and the brothers have never had to invest any personal money into any area of the business since. The first Primal Health Tennis Academy session was held at Bancroft’s school during the Easter Holidays of 2010. Brothers Ben and Josh Stokes started the business over the phone whilst Josh was away in Australia. It was the new ideas and methods Josh had seen and been involved with in Australia that made them want to start something on their own rather than continuing to coach with other people. Growing up in North London, Ben and Josh have participated in a whole range of sports for different schools, clubs and in the garden growing up! They first became interested in tennis when aged 10 and 13, as they moved house right next door to a tennis club. The summer of 2000 was when they hit their first ball together and have never looked back training and playing together regularly still!