The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance

by W. Timothy Gallwey

The most common complaint of sportsmen ringing down the corridors of the ages is, “It’s not that I don’t know what to do, it’s that I don’t do what I know!”

I was beginning to learn what all good pros and students of tennis must learn: that images are better than words, showing better than telling, too much instruction worse than none, and that trying often produces negative results.

In other words, the key to better tennis—or better anything—lies in improving the relationship between the conscious teller, Self 1, and the natural capabilities of Self 2.

All these skills are subsidiary to the master skill, without which nothing of value is ever achieved: the art of relaxed concentration.

Such moments have been called “peak experiences” by the humanistic psychologist Dr. Abraham Maslow. Researching the common characteristics of persons having such experiences, he reports the following descriptive phrases: “He feels more integrated” [the two selves are one], “feels at one with the experience,” “is relatively egoless” [quiet mind], “feels at the peak of his powers,” “fully functioning,” “is in the groove,” “effortless,” “free of blocks, inhibitions, cautions, fears, doubts, controls, reservations, self-criticisms, brakes,” “he is spontaneous and more creative,” “is most here-now,” “is non-striving, non-needing, non-wishing … he just is.”

The first skill to learn is the art of letting go the human inclination to judge ourselves and our performance as either good or bad.

When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless and stemless.” We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don’t condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development.

Then, for a moment, my mind turned off and I realized that I hadn’t given Jack a single instruction on his backhand! “But what did I teach you?” I asked. He was quiet for a full half-minute, trying to remember what I had told him. Finally he said, “I can’t remember your telling me anything! You were just there watching, and you got me watching myself closer than I ever had before. Instead of seeing what was wrong with my backhand, I just started observing, and improvement seemed to happen on its own. I’m not sure why, but I certainly learned a lot in a short period of time.” He had learned, but had he been “taught”?

Clearly, positive and negative evaluations are relative to each other. It is impossible to judge one event as positive without seeing other events as not positive or as negative. There is no way to stop just the negative side of the judgmental process.

In some ways the relationship between Self 1 and Self 2 is analogous to the relationship between parent and child. Some parents have a hard time letting their children do something when they believe that they themselves know better how it should be done. But the trusting and loving parent lets the child perform his own actions, even to the extent of making mistakes, because he trusts the child to learn from them.

The changes that Sally made in her forehand lay in the fact that she gave Self 2 a clear visual image of the results she desired. Then she told her body in effect, “Do whatever you have to do to go there.” All she had to do was let it happen.

Letting go of judgments, the art of creating images and “letting it happen” are three of the basic skills involved in the Inner Game.

“No teacher is greater than one’s own experience.”

valid instruction derived from experience can help me if it guides me to my own experiential discovery of any given stroke possibility.

best use of technical knowledge is to communicate a hint toward a desired destination. The hint can be delivered verbally or demonstrated in action, but it is best seen as an approximation of a desirable goal to be discovered by paying attention to each stroke, and feeling one’s way toward what works for that individual.

Once you learn how to learn, you have only to discover what is worth learning.

In short, there is no need to fight old habits. Start new ones. It is the resisting of an old habit that puts you in that trench. Starting a new pattern is easy when done with childlike disregard for imagined difficulties. You can prove this to yourself by your own experience.

Step 1: Nonjudgmental Observation

Step 2: Picture the Desired Outcome

Step 3: Trust Self 2

Step 4: Nonjudgmental Observation of Change and Results

But of course the instant I try to make myself relax, true relaxation vanishes, and in its place is a strange phenomenon called “trying to relax.” Relaxation happens only when allowed, not as a result of “trying” or “making.”

To still the mind one must learn to put it somewhere. It cannot just be let go; it must be focused. If peak performance is a function of a still mind, then we are led to the question of where and how to focus it.

Attention is focused consciousness, and consciousness is that power of knowing.

The second my mind starts wondering about whether I’m going to win or lose the match, I bring it gently back to my breath and relax in its natural and basic motion.

“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 flashes of oneness … When we’re completely immersed in the moment, inseparable from what we’re doing.”

I don’t want to promote the idea of playing angry as the key to winning. If there was a key that day it was that I played sincerely. I was angry that evening and instead of trying to pretend otherwise, I expressed it appropriately through my tennis. It felt good, and it worked.

So I arrived at the startling conclusion that true competition is identical with true cooperation. Each player tries his hardest to defeat the other, but in this use of competition it isn’t the other person we are defeating; it is simply a matter of overcoming the obstacles he presents. In true competition no person is defeated. Both players benefit by their efforts to overcome the obstacles presented by the other. Like two bulls butting their heads against one another, both grow stronger and each participates in the development of the other.

Freedom from stress happens in proportion to our responsiveness to our true selves, allowing every moment possible to be an opportunity for Self 2 to be what it is and enjoy the process. As far as I can see, this is a lifelong learning process.