
Zen, Skill Development, and The Inner Game Of Tennis - zackattack
http://www.zacharyburt.com/2010/06/zen-skill-development-and-the-inner-game-of-tennis-this-post-is-not-about-tennis/
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Perceval
This is more or less how I played tennis in high school. I never had the best
skills, but my doubles partner and I were great at getting under the skin of
our opponents—essentially making them play down to us.

The whole purpose of drilling—in whatever field of life, whether sports,
academics, military, etc—is to get you to stop thinking about what you're
doing. In tennis, if you're thinking about how to hit the ball you're going to
mess up your shot. You need to get your brain out of the game and rely on
muscle memory: footwork, positioning, grip, bend your knees, brush up stroke,
eye on the ball, follow through.

Once you frustrate your opponent and get them thinking about their game their
technical advantage has been mitigated. Smile at them, talk a bit of trash,
ask them questions, position yourself aggressively to signal that you don't
rate their shots/serves highly, lob the ball, hit volleys at their feet, etc.

Not the most noble way to play, but a sure way to keep yourself in the game if
you never had the money for private lessons.

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edkennedy
Excellent post and advice. The Self 1 / Self 2 comparison reminded me of the
book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. They discuss both a rider and elephant, the
intellectual and emotional sides of the self. The metaphor is useful in that
it shows how effective motivating or controlling that self 2/elephant can be.

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bitwize
See also: _The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_

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sabat
I saw a clip from 60 Minutes in college that showed Tim Gelway teaching tennis
to a group of middle-aged people. None had ever played tennis before. He
picked the person who showed the least potential and within 20 minutes had her
serving better than I've ever served in my life. It made a huge impression on
me. The book isn't really about tennis; it's how the human mind is meant to
think and learn, and how far off we are in our preconceptions about those
things.

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Yrlec
My mom is a psychologist and she travelled to the U.S. just to attend one of
his courses (we're Swedish). She had never played tennis but she got elected
as the one he would teach how to serve and she managed to hit almost all
serves after 20 minutes. She got so excited that she brought me to the U.S. to
practice for a couple of days with Tim Gallwey's tennis-partner Sean
Brawley.Throughout my life I've always been extremely bad at performing under
pressure (especially in tennis) but he taught me things about myself which
improved my tennis more in an hour than a full year of practice with any other
coach. I never became a good tennis player (partly because I'm cross-eyed and
therefore lack normal depth perception) but I've had amazing use of the tricks
he taught me and a couple of years ago it helped me win the World Championship
in NHL 2004. It still amazes me how I managed to overcome my extreme
performance anxiety (which has always stopped me from performing well when it
mattered the most) and focus, while having four TV-cameras right behind me. It
was like someone else was playing for me.

