The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey | Trails

The Inner Game of Tennis

The Inner Game of Tennis

W. Timothy Gallwey

Expert Intuition

Expertise defies formalization; conscious effort defeats itself.

The one element of the stroke Paul had tried to remember was the one thing he didn’t do! Everything else had been absorbed and reproduced without a word being uttered or an instruction being given! 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.

Imitation powers both learning and conformity.

First, by simply watching. ... He simply absorbs visually the image in front of him. This image completely bypasses the ego-mind, and seems to be fed directly to the body, for in a few minutes the kid is on the floor doing movements very similar to those he was watching.

Mastery means bypassing conscious thought entirely.

The common factor in each of these descriptions is that some part of the mind is not so active. Athletes in most sports use similar phrases, and the best of them know that their peak performance never comes when they’re thinking about it.

Removing friction sometimes creates chaos.

“Sure,” she replied with a lilt in her voice, “I was thinking I might make a tennis player after all.” She was right. Joan was beginning to sense the difference between “trying hard,” the energy of Self 1, and “effort,” the energy used by Self 2, to do the work necessary.

Getting worse precedes getting better in skill.

It is a painful process to fight one’s way out of deep mental grooves. It’s like digging yourself out of a trench. But there is a natural and more childlike method. A child doesn’t dig his way out of his old grooves; he simply starts new ones!

Decision-making speed determines conflict outcomes.

But time is a relative thing, and it really is possible to slow it down. Consider: there are 1000 milliseconds in every second. ... Alertness is a measure of how many nows you are alert to in a given period.

Ego-dissolution enables both transcendence and manipulation.

In other words what was missing was Self 1. What was left was Self 2. Because Self 1 is not in the picture, sometimes we say, I didn’t do it, it just happened.