[ Ссылка ] Timothy Gallwey The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance"
A phenomenon when first published in 1974, the Inner Game of Tennis focused on the fact that, "Every game is composed of two parts, an outer game and an inner game." The outer game is played against opponents and is filled with lots of contradictory advice; the inner games is played within the mind of the player, and its principal obstacles are self-doubt and anxiety.
Gallwey's revolutionary thinking, built on Zen and humanistic psychology, was a primer on how to get out of your own way to let your best game emerge.
Billie Jean King called it her tennis bible.
The Inner Game of Tennis helps players overcome the self-doubt, nervousness, and lapses of concentration that can keep them from winning. This classic bestseller can change the way the game of tennis is played.
The book is based on the premise that there are two selves. Gallwey names them Self 1 and Self 2, where Self 1 is the ego-mind or teller (Hit the ball like this) and Self 2 is natural ability or the doer (the actual movement of the muscles to hit the ball). In order to achieve peak performance, one must quiet the mind (Self 1) and let Self 2 do what it knows how to do.
The best way to quiet the mind is not by telling it to shut up, or by arguing with it, or criticizing it for criticizing you. What works best is learning to focus it. (pg 82) Ah, so to still the mind, one must learn to put it somewhere. (pg 83) But what does it mean to focus the mind? Focus means picking up only those aspects of a situation that are needed to accomplish the task at hand. (pg 84) So if youre hitting a tennis ball, all you really need to focus on is the ball. Thats it.
Getting out of the way of Self 2 makes a lot of sense if Self 2 knows the right thing to do.
There is no need to fight old habits. Start new ones. (p 74).
You can communicate with Self 2, just not in the traditional sense, but using imagery and visualization. Gallwey calls this heightening awareness. Become aware of important aspects of whatever you are working to improve, get an accurate image of the correct action, imagine yourself doing that action, and then let Self 2 do the action.
Gallweys 4-Step Process is:
Nonjudgmental observation
Visualize the desired outcome
Trust Self 2
Nonjudgmental observation of change and results.
Its important to note his use of the word nonjudgmental. When observing your own behavior (becoming aware of what is happening), you must do it without judging your behavior as positive or negative, right or wrong, good or bad. This type of analysis of the situation is Self 1 talking, so let it go. Instead just observe the behavior as it is, indifferent to whether its good or bad.
Maybe wisdom is not so much to come up with new answers as to recognize at a deeper level the profundity of the age-old answers.- W. Timothy Gallwey
![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mglMtDVefx8/maxresdefault.jpg)