“The body knows everything. We know very little. Intuition is the body’s intelligence.” (Fritz Perls)

Gestalt-Tennis is an innovative, gratifying and enduring way of improving your game, no matter if you are a total beginner or an advanced player wishing to improve your match performance.

It is centred on mindful breathing, self-awareness and the enjoyment of the ‘here and now’ represented by the ball: a new approach to tennis developed for practical use on court following the principles of Gestalt therapeutic theory and techniques.

The main proposition of Gestalt-Tennis is to help you improve your game by developing awareness of your body and movements, and its main instrument is mindful breathing: making your own inspiration, pause and expiration the focus of your attention while you play. This practice, usually related to Yoga or Pilates, has been adapted to the specific characteristics of tennis. You will also receive traditional technical and tactical advice; yet only to help you experience how every incoming ball might be similar to others, but – just like snowflakes – is in fact unique and so requires a unique, detailed response that only your senses can produce.

Alongside the development of your physical self-awareness, full consideration will be given to your emotional experiences and to what playing tennis really means to you, so to help you identify eventual interferences preventing your full enjoyment of the game. In this light the relationship between coach and player will be based on strict confidentiality and the understanding that feelings and emotions while you play will be discussed on court.

Gestalt-Tennis aims at developing your feel of playing the game rather than your rational knowledge of it, and regards your emotional and physical awareness as the main assets to improve your tennis making you the bespoke designer of your own progress.

Players comments:
“It felt like I could slow down the ball”   
“It’s energising and liberating”    
“Mindful breathing helped me improve all my shots”   
“It makes you feel more alive”

Delighted to present my work and ideas at the forthcoming ‘Sport & Gestalt’ workshop in Florence!
Beyond my general approach to tennis coaching, inspired by the Gestalt principle of promoting self-awareness in the ‘here and now’, I will be speaking on how to set up a group session as a psychosocial activity, using rackets and balls to improve the emotional and social well-being of the participants rather than their rating. Plenty of practice and experiments over 4 hours on courts!



Read the article on Gestalt-Tennis in the April issue of Coaching & Sport Science Review, the scientific journal by ITF (page 29), here.
Watch the interview on Gestalt-Tennis by Mark Tennant, founder and director of Inspire2Coach, here.

Web site under construction
For more info, please mail to Miki at gestalttennis@gmail.com