Interview with Mili Veljkovic, tennis technique expert coach in Partizan Tennis Club. Part 3

Mili Veljkovic continues to answer my previous question:

It was not difficult to understand from those answers that as more experienced tennis players are – the tougher clients are and that they want:

• to see first obvious results as soon as possible but the time that majority are ready to wait for the first obvious result is between 3 and 5 days only,
• to know what will they learn, how fast and difficult it will be,
• if they are a bit more shy or with weaker concentration – they prefer individual lessons but it costs more. Of course, as better player is – work must be individual,
• if they like socializing and more fun – they are for group lessons and they know that as the bigger group is – shorter time with teacher!

As I learned what’s bothering the most of tennis fans I started to focus on how to accelerate the learning process or with other words – how to teach better and faster.
I realized that huge number of people get disappointed easy – in themselves or in their teacher – and they quite on tennis i.e. quite on lessons. We teachers and the whole tennis industry loose the same clients. Domino effect.

It was not difficult to figure out that I needed to make my client happy after one, two or three days maximum – if I don’t want to lose even those with the least patience. But what if that impatient person is not very talented? Percentage of very talented people is not that high, right? Just imagine how many people ready to pay well have left because of the reasons we just mentioned?

Let me come back on my post graduate studies. We were learning about learning process and the subject was physiology. Nothing special, every sport faculty has that. Inside that book, we had to read, was more complicated part – learning motor skills. The theme started to intrigue me more and more and thanking to internet I dive into new thing for me – neurophysiology of motor learning!

We all heard of techniques for faster reading, faster remembering numbers, words etc. Well, there are patterns how to achieve all of that using different techniques likey Silva method, Tony Buzan’s method, Loci method, Alexandar method, brain mapping etc. After reading countless number of researches in the field of cognitive and motor learning and after conducting my own researches inspired by mentioned studies – I finally came to my own “formula” how to create new “muscle memory”. The results were so incredible fast and with high quality, even with the people who have been playing for decades and who were consider “not very talented”, if you know what I mean.

In a last five years more than five or six hundred people (all levels, from many countries – majority form Serbia) have successfully passed my ‘treatments” – clinics and courses. Needless to say how much they increase their love toward tennis. That was my idea and wish – since I was teenage instructor.

The “secret” (I don’t like this word but it is kind of true of my technique) is in a synergy that is created when we combine number of exercises set up in very specific and precise order:

• rules of bio-mechanics, neurophisiology and methodology create such a “fusion’ that learning process accelerates minimum 50 times faster than standard way of learning,
• intervals between exercises are important as well as resting and sleeping,
• type of tactile feedback is crucial for forming synapses but only if we obey the laws of bio-mechanics and methodology,
• because of tactile feedback – I designed various teaching aids that prevent student in doing harmful incorrect repeating,
• cognitive learning during very beginning is a must, as well.

This technique is applicable on all ground strokes and to fix someone’s forehand or backhand takes three days and three nights – maximum! Everything what was good (correct) in previous kinetic motion (chain) will stay when a person learns new stroke, and what was not “good” will be forgotten – but only if we carefully control the speed. If a person shows impatience and speeds up the movement – the old habit would prevail! Patience is our best friend!