The Inner Game of Tennis

“The Inner Game of Tennis” by Timothy Gallwey is a short book on the mental side of peak performance for Tennis as well as other sports. The book introduces the reader to a Self 1 and Self 2 that each person possesses. Self 1 can be thought of as the ego-mind. This is the part of ourselves that tries to think/analyze on all of the instructions we receive on how to play tennis better and then try to carry them out. It is always thinking, always commenting, and incredibly judgmental. Self 2 is the unconscious mind and the nervous system, our instinctive self.

The book goes into describing the amazing natural, instinctive, unconscious capacities built into ourselves (Self 2) that are many times impeded by overthinking on how to improve (Self 1). There are billions of cells and nervous system interactions that occur simply to be able to see an opponent’s shot leave the racquet, judge where it will land and where it needs to be intercepted by your racquet and all this performed instinctively with generally less than one second to decide. It is performed by our marvelous unconscious self, created by God, and able to learn by itself through observations and practice with only minimal thought. To try to let Self 1 implement improvements, through over thinking them and being judgmental, causes most people to become tight and inhibits a good swing. As we attempt to hit a shot, Self 1 does a lot of chatting: “Do more. Try harder. You’re not doing it right. Oh, forget it. You will never be good.” Unfortunately, all this does is prevent Self 2, the wise body, from doing what it already has the ability instinctively to do. Of course, we are talking about reaching your top tennis potential which is limited to some degree by our god given natural ability.

The book used the example of a child learning to walk. Without any real instruction it learns to instinctively walk well over time, by watching others and then trying and failing, but eventually its Self 2 figures it out. Along, the way the parents are not judging its failure and thus discouraging it – as it is expected to fail initially. Unfortunately, the author said that most of us talk ourselves into thinking we are worse than we are by relying on Self 1 and judging ourselves excessively.

“The Inner Game of Tennis” was written primarily for tennis teachers and is still a highly regarded book even though first published in 1974. It makes a strong case that an instructor or ourselves alone, teaching/learning tennis or any other sport, should show/be shown the goals to achieve and then approach them with relaxed concentration. I found the book very interesting for ideals to improve my tennis game but just as much for being reminded that, to perform well at almost anything, we need to relax, not be judgmental about our initial failures, and let our instinctive self take over to learn/improve in the activities of life.