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Don’t overanalyze; simply absorb what you see and try to feel what he feels. Listen to the sound of the ball after it hits the racket and watch the results. Then take some time to imagine yourself hitting the ball with power, using the stroke which is natural to you. In your mind’s eye, picture yourself serving, filling in as much visual and tactile detail as you can.
Step 3: Trust Self 2
In particular, resist any temptation to try to hit the ball harder. Simply let your serve begin to serve itself. Having asked for more power, just let it happen. This isn’t magic, so give your body a chance to explore the possibilities. But no matter what the results, keep Self 1 out of it. If increased power does not come immediately, don’t force it. Trust the process, and let it happen.
The Inner Game Way of Learning STEP 1: Observe Existing Behavior Nonjudgmentally Examples: The last three of my backhands landed long, by about two feet. My racket seems to be hesitating, instead of following through all the way. Maybe I should observe the level of my back swing…. It’s well above my waist…. There, that shot got hit with more pace, yet it stayed in. (The above is delivered in an interested, somewhat detached tone.) STEP 2: Picture Desired Outcome No commands are used. Self 2 is asked to perform in the desired way to achieve the desired results. Self 2 is shown by use of visual
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Fighting the mind does not work. What works best is learning to focus it.
As one achieves focus, the mind quiets. As the mind is kept in the present, it becomes calm. Focus means keeping the mind now and here. Relaxed concentration is the supreme art because no art can be achieved without it, while with it, much can be achieved.
The practice of watching the seams produces interesting results. After a short time the player discovers that he is seeing the ball much better than when he was just “watching”
How does this attention to details translate to other taks?
begins to focus his attention on it earlier than before.
The ball should be watched from the time it leaves the opponent’s racket to the time it hits yours.
Saying the words out loud gave both me and the student the chance to hear whether the words were simultaneous with the events of bounce and hit.
Let the ball attract your mind, and both it and your muscles will stay appropriately relaxed.
and the ball had more speed and accuracy. After I realized how well I was serving, I resisted the temptation to figure out why, and simply asked my body to do whatever was necessary to reproduce that “crack.”
The critical time to know the position of the racket is when it is behind you, and this requires concentration through the sense of feel.
Learning focus of attention is a master skill that has unlimited application.
Attention is focused consciousness, and consciousness is that power of knowing.
It is said that in breathing, humans recapitulate the rhythm of the universe.
When the mind is fastened to the rhythm of breathing, it tends to become absorbed and calm.
I know of no better way to begin to deal with anxiety than to place the mind on ...
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However, even though you don’t know much about what is happening in that state, you can know a lot about what is not happening. You can remember that you weren’t criticizing yourself; you weren’t congratulating yourself either.
Phil Jackson, coach of Michael Jordan and six-time NBA Champions the Chicago Bulls, describes the state of Self 2 focus very well in his book Sacred Hoops: “Basketball is a complex dance that requires shifting from one objective to another at lightning speed. To excel, you need to act with a clear mind and be totally focused on what everyone on the floor is doing. The secret is not thinking. That doesn’t mean being stupid; it means quieting the endless jabbering of thoughts so that your body can do instinctively what it’s been trained to do without the mind getting in the way. All of us have
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I have seen many articles that claim to provide a technique for “playing in the zone every time.” Forget it! This is a setup. It’s an age-old trap. Self 1 likes the idea of playing in the zone, especially the results that usually occur. So Self 1 will try to grasp on to almost anything that promises to take you to what everyone agrees is a wonderful place. But there is one catch; the only way to get there is to leave Self 1 behind. So as long as you let Self 1 be the one that takes you there, it will be there too and you will not be able to go into the zone.
Another way to look at the zone is that it comes as a gift. It is not a gift you can demand of yourself, but one you can ask for. How do you ask? By making your effort. What is your effort? Your effort depends on your understanding. But I would say it always involves an effort to focus and an effort to let go of Self 1 control.
As trust increases, Self 1 quiets, Self 2 becomes more conscious and more present, enjoyment increases, and the gifts are being given. If you are willing to give credit where credit is due and not think you “know” how to do it, the gifts are apt to be more frequent and sustainable.
Self 2 for a long time now, over twenty-five years consciously, and it comes at its own timing, when I am ready for it—humble, respectful, not expecting it, somehow placing myself lower than it, not above it. Then when the moment is right, it comes, and I can enjoy the absence of Self 1 thought and the presence of joy. I like it a lot.
reflect on how to alow this
Thoughts and thinking come and go, but the child self, the true self, is there and will be there as long as our breath is. To enjoy it, to appreciate it, is the gift of focus.
Here and now are the only place and time when one ever enjoys himself or accomplishes anything.
Most of our suffering takes place when we allow our minds to imagine the future or mull over the past.
Our desire that things be different from what they are pulls our minds into an unreal world, and consequently we are less able to app...
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Our minds leave the reality of the present only when we prefer the unreality...
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One can never look good enough. What looks good to one person does not look so good to another. Internal: Confusion about who one really is. Fear of not pleasing everyone and of imagined loneliness.
I had tried to be as honest as I could about the worst possible results. They weren’t good, but neither were they unbearable—certainly not bad enough to get upset about. Then I asked myself, “What’s the best that could happen?”
“Then what do you really want?”
To play the best they can and maximize their potential and performance - to win the inner game.
brings a relief of pressure and an enthusiasm, a renewed focus
It is when competition is thus used as a means of creating a self-image relative to others that the worst in a person tends to come out; then the ordinary fears and frustrations become greatly exaggerated.
Why does the surfer wait for the big wave? The answer was simple, and it unraveled the confusion that surrounds the true nature of competition. The surfer waits for the big wave because he values the challenge it presents. He values the obstacles the wave puts between him and his goal of riding the wave to the beach. Why? Because it is those very obstacles, the size and churning power of the wave, which draw from the surfer his greatest effort.
It is only against the big waves that he is required to use all his skill, all his courage and concentration to overcome; only then can he realize the true limits of his capacities. At that point he often attains his peak. In other words, the more challenging the obstacle he faces, the greater the opportunity for the surfer to discover and extend his true potential. The potential may have always been within him, but until it is manifested in action, it remains a secret hidden from himself.
The obstacles are a very necessary ingredient to this process...
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Winning is overcoming obstacles to reach a goal, but the value in winning is only as great as the value of the goal reached.
Reaching the goal itself may not be as valuable as the experience that can come in making a supreme effort to overcome the obstacles involved. The process can be more rewarding than the victory itself.
In true competition no person is defeated. Both players benefit by their efforts to overcome the obstacles presented by the other.
If I assume that I am making myself more worthy of respect by winning, then I must believe, consciously or unconsciously, that by defeating someone, I am making him less worthy of respect. I can’t go up without pushing someone else down. This belief involves us in a needless sense of guilt. You don’t have to become a killer to be a winner; you merely have to realize that killing is not the name of the game. Today I play every point to win. It’s simple and it’s good. I don’t worry about winning or losing the match, but whether or not I am making the maximum effort during every point because I
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Maximum effort does not mean the super-exertion of Self 1. It means concentration, determination, and trusting your body to “let it happen.” It means maximum physical and mental effort. Again competition and cooperation become one.
When I’m concerned only about winning, I’m caring about something that I can’t wholly control.
When one is emotionally attached to results that one can’t control, one tends to become anxious and then try too hard. But one can control the effort one puts into winning.
very wise person once told me, “When it comes to overcoming obstacles, there are three kinds of people. The first kind sees most obstacles as insurmountable and walks away. The second kind sees an obstacle and says, ‘I can overcome it,’ and starts to dig under, climb over, or blast through it. The third type of person, before deciding to overcome the obstacle, tries to find a viewpoint where what is on the other side of the obstacle can be seen. Then, only if the reward is worth the effort, does that person attempt to overcome the obstacle.”
Self 1 was the name given to the conscious ego-mind which likes to tell Self 2, you and your potential, how to hit the tennis ball. The key to spontaneous, high-level tennis is in resolving the lack of harmony which usually exists between these two selves. This requires the learning of several inner skills, chiefly the art of letting go of self-judgments, letting Self 2 do the hitting, recognizing and trusting the natural learning process, and above all gaining some practical experience in the art of relaxed concentration.
The need to let go of the lenses of “good–bad” judgment of ourselves and others will always be the doorway to the possibility of clarity. And the importance of being clear about one’s priorities, especially the first priority in your life, will never become less important while you still have life.
The cause of most stress can be summed up by the word attachment. Self 1 gets so dependent upon things, situations, people, and concepts within its experience that when change occurs or seems about to occur, it feels threatened. Freedom from stress does not necessarily involve giving up anything, but rather being able to let go of anything, when necessary, and know that one will still be all right. It comes from being more independent—not necessarily more solitary, but more reliant on one’s own inner resources for stability.
Each Self 2 is endowed by birth, regardless of where that birth took place, with an instinct to fulfill its nature. It wants to enjoy, to learn, to understand, appreciate, go for it, rest, be healthy, survive, be free to be what it is, express itself, and make its unique contribution.
The part of my life spent trying to compensate for this negativity by being extra good has been neither enjoyable nor rewarding. Although I usually managed to live up to and sometimes surpass the expectations of those I was trying to please or appease, it was not without a cost to my connection with myself.
What else can be done to promote stability? The message of the Inner Game is simple: focus. Focus of attention in the present moment, the only one you can really live in, is at the heart of this book and at the heart of the art of doing anything well.
