The Inner Game of Tennis: The ultimate guide to the mental side of peak performance

by W. Timothy Gallwey

The player of the inner game comes to value the art of relaxed concentration above all other skills; he discovers a true basis for self-confidence; and he learns that the secret to winning any game lies in not trying too hard.

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.

Getting it together mentally in tennis involves the learning of several internal skills: 1) learning how to get the clearest possible picture of your desired outcomes; 2) learning how to trust Self 2 to perform at its best and learn from both successes and failures; and 3) learning to see “nonjudgmentally”—that is, to see what is happening rather than merely noticing how well or how badly it is happening.

These inner skills are really arts of forgetting mental habits acquired since we were children.

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.

What I mean by judgment is the act of assigning a negative or positive value to an event.

letting go of judgments does not mean ignoring errors. It simply means seeing events as they are and not adding anything to them.

Judgment results in tightness, and tightness interferes with the fluidity required for accurate and quick movement. Relaxation produces smooth strokes and results from accepting your strokes as they are, even if erratic.

To discover this natural learning process, it is necessary to let go of the old process of correcting faults;

In a society that has become so oriented toward language as a way of representing truth, it is very possible to lose touch with your ability to feel and with it your ability to “remember” the shots themselves.

in their single-minded pursuit of measurable success, the development of many other human potentialities is sadly neglected. Some never find the time or inclination to appreciate the beauties of nature, to express their deepest feelings and thoughts to a loved one, or to wonder about the ultimate purpose of their existence.

Winning is overcoming obstacles to reach a goal, but the value in winning is only as great as the value of the goal reached.

for the player of the Inner Game, it is the moment-by-moment effort to let go and to stay centered in the here-and-now action which offers the real winning and losing, and this game never ends.