MTI - Modern Tennis International - The Story so far...
THE BIRTH OF MTI
In 2008, John Littleford and Andy Magrath created the Tennis Education Company known as Modern Tennis International (MTI) in order to make tennis an easier sport to teach, learn and play.
THEIR GOAL
Their aim was to change the views of the majority that tennis is a hard sport to play or learn. They felt if they could show that nearly anyone could learn to play tennis quickly and easily with confidence… tennis could become one of the highest participation sports in the World.
OVER COMPLICATED TEACHING METHODS
MTI acknowledged that teaching Tennis like many sports had become overly complex. Too much information was used in most teaching methods making progress too slow for tennis to become popular with players’ in their early development. This led to potential players leaving the sport for other less difficult sports or even to become overweight armchair fans.
John and Andy knew they had to try to change this!
REAL EARLY SUCCESS
With this in mind they developed the MTI Method. It simplified the teaching of tennis so that success happened within minutes for most players new to tennis. There was no complicated tennis jargon to digest, no footwork patterns to follow, just simple fundamentals that made tennis feel natural from the very get go.
“It’s like planting a bunch of tennis seeds and they all grow into tennis players!”
TALENT ACCELERATION
When natural ball players were introduced to tennis using the MTI Method they found that improvement happened really quickly for them. This was key for tennis because it meant that the more athletic talented ball players were drawn to the game earlier and then they stuck with it.
BUT THAT’S NOT ALL
Even the more proficient players experienced a feeling of the chains being thrown off when they gratefully accepted the simplification of the game with the MTI Method. They found that playing their best tennis was so much easier and nearly always at hand.
The most common comment was “Why didn’t I know this before?!”
WORLDWIDE RECOGNITION
Many top coaches and organisations have recognised the MTI Method as a real breakthrough in the teaching of tennis. Even the LTA awarded coach licence credits to coaches who attended the MTI Courses. MTI were invited around the World to share this fast-easy method with coaches, players and tennis organisations alike.
Tennis players of all levels recognised the massive positive effect this method has had on their games compared to the majority of other teaching systems they were used to.
DAVID LLOYD LEISURE
The prestigious David Lloyd Clubs with over half a million members invited MTI to design a programme for their new aspiring tennis members to follow because of the instant improvement effect it had on beginners and the high chance that they would stay on as tennis playing members.
IN SCHOOLS
School teachers who usually avoided teaching tennis in their lessons were amazed at how uncomplicated and fun tennis was to teach to their students.
BEGINNERS
A beginner adult who said he tried tennis at school but could never get on with it said “I never thought I’d be able to play tennis before… this is like turning water into wine.”
SHARING THE METHOD
The first time MTI shared this method with the World was with their comprehensive step by step progressive popular DVD set. It was amazing value and included an audio CD and an instruction manual in eBook form. A top coach said, “This is the most helpful DVD series I have in my collection and I’m always referring to it to check things out.”
COACH EDUCATION COURSES
MTI then went on to develop tennis education courses that proved to be extremely popular with players and coaches alike.
THE COACHING PACK
To help improve implementation of the method and to make a coach’s life easier they designed the MTI Coaching Pack. This pack, which is amazingly thorough, proved incredibly popular and useful with tennis coaches. It includes step by step lesson plans and printable progress sheets amongst many included resources that could be shared with young players, their parents and older students.
ONLINE VIDEO LESSONS
Another brilliant way they shared this method was with their Online Video Lessons. This also had easy to follow step by step progressive video lessons. But the real beauty of the Online Video lessons was that the coach or player could answer a series of questions on each of the videos if they so wished. This was found to help the player or coach understand the method really deeply. Any questions that were answered incorrectly by the viewer would be revisited and the correct answer would be found. This led to a thorough deep understanding of the MTI Method. Plus, if all questions were answered correctly an MTI Diploma was awarded.
MTI NOW...
MTI still run Tennis Education Courses and have many really helpful products that will make life so much easier for tennis players and coaches. Modern Tennis International continue to evolve as a company and are currently working on some more really helpful innovative tennis products that tennis players and coaches have asked for.