The Inner Game of Tennis: The classic guide to the mental side of peak performance
updated 6d ago
updated 6d ago
No matter what a person’s complaint when he has a lesson with me, I have found that the most beneficial first step is to encourage him to see and feel what he is doing—that is, to increase his awareness of what actually is. I follow the same process when my own strokes get out of their groove. But to see things as they are, we must take off our jud
... See moreMatthew Carey added 1mo ago
“No teacher is greater than one’s own experience.”
Matthew Carey added 1mo ago
I can’t describe how good I felt at that moment, or why. Tears even began to come to my eyes. I had learned and he had learned, but there was no one there to take credit. There was only the glimmer of a realization that we were both participating in a wonderful process of natural learning.
Matthew Carey added 1mo ago
Usually the first thing that needs to be done is to deal with the negative concepts inhibiting the innate developmental process. Both the pro and the player stimulate this process as they begin to see and to accept the strokes as they are at that moment. The first step is to see your strokes as they are. They must be perceived clearly. This can be
... See moreMatthew Carey added 1mo ago
When the mind is free of any thought or judgment, it is still and acts like a mirror. Then and only then can we know things as they are.
Matthew Carey added 1mo ago
For the teacher or coach, the question has to be how to give instructions in such a way as to help the natural learning process of the student and not interfere with it.
Matthew Carey added 1mo ago
“Abandon” is a good word to describe what happens to a tennis player who feels he has nothing to lose. He stops caring about the outcome and plays all out. It is a letting go of the concerns of Self 1 and letting in of the natural concerns of a deeper and truer self. It is caring, yet not caring; it is effort, but effortless at the same time.
Matthew Carey added 1mo ago
valid instruction derived from experience can help me if it guides me to my own experiential discovery of any given stroke possibility.
Matthew Carey added 1mo ago
using awareness to “discover the technique” is that it doesn’t tend to evoke the overcontrolling and judgmental aspects of Self 1, which wants to rely on formula rather than feel.
Matthew Carey added 1mo ago