It's a good question, and a harder one than it sounds. A private lesson can build skill and understanding faster than almost anything else in a young athlete's development. But a private lesson also happens in a vacuum. It isn't the game. It isn't teammates who don't play the way you want them to. It isn't the pressure of a game going the wrong direction in front of a packed gym. Private lessons are a classroom for one specific piece of the sport at a time, and that makes them both powerful and limited. So before a parent or [...]