All of the data I have gathered points in one very clear direction. In order for practice to be useful, it must be ambitious and involved. In every single book/article discussing this subject, regardless of sport, it says the same thing. You MUST use your brain during practice. Practice can not simply be an amount of time you spend doing something.

Your brain must, must, must be fully engaged in the events in order to learn and retain the information.

I’d be willing to bet in each of your lives there was a period of time when you were learning to hit the ball that included very high amounts of cognitive involvement. I’d also be willing to bet that during this period, advances were noticeable. It is this kind of involvement you need to continue doing as you improve. You have to attack the topic you are working on. You need the same drive you had that day you figured out how to get the ball in the air.

Anything less than this is insufficient and a waste of time. Be honest, check your journal and go at what you need to improve on. Use your brain and challenge yourself. Focus on what is occuring and what you need to get done. It is hard to maintain an engaged amount of focus as you improve. The improvements come much slower and they are harder to document. Our brain takes some time off because maybe we’re good enough, or we don’t see any improvement. You must fight these easy way out excuses if you want to continue improving.

Work the problem at a very slow speed.  Slow enough to feel and see.  Retention will be much greater if you actually know and feel what you are trying to accomplish.  Making the ball do something is the result of the hard work it is not the hard work.  You need to focus on what you need to do to make the ball do what you want it to do.  Too many people are just trying to make the ball do something without knowing what it takes for the ball to do that.  Even if they know what they should do, they don’t know how it feels to do it.

Work in this way and if the what you are trying to do is correct, the ball will fly better.