Review: The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey

A fantastic read that’s far less about tennis and far more about how to learn any skill or ability. It is remarkably well written; concise and straight to the point, without the filler material you find in most business books; and a useful read for just about everyone.

Here are some of the key insights I got:

Self1 and Self2

• When you’re learning something, you typically have an inner voice: you might be telling yourself things like, “keep your eyes on the ball” or “you fool, how did you mess that up again?” Here’s an important question: who is talking to whom? You might say, “I’m talking to myself.” Well, in that case, you could look at it as a conversation between two people: in this book, the “I” telling you what to do is “self1” and the “myself” receiving instructions is “self2.”

• Self1 is your talkative, conscious side; self2 is your more quiet, unconscious, automated side. The thesis of this book is that self2 is remarkably good at learning—so long as you can trust it and let it do its thing by stopping interference from self1. If you can quiet self1, then self2 will, almost magically, do the rest.

• Side note: there’s a lot of overlap here with the “system 1” and “system 2” proposed by Daniel Kahneman (as summarized in Thinking, Fast and Slow), but The Inner Game of Tennis was written several decades earlier!

Stop judging, start observing

• One of the keys to quieting self1 is to get it to stop making judgments, such as “you fool, how did you mess that up again?” Note that not making judgments is not the same as ignoring the truth or deluding yourself. You absolutely want to see the truth, but the goal is to see events as they are without adding anything to them. “I hit 50% of my first serves into the net” is an observation. Saying “I hit 50% of my first serves into the net so I’m bad at tennis” is a judgment. Observing is essential; adding labels like “bad” to your observations isn’t.

• Learning is a process of constant growth and change, and there’s no good or bad about it. Not only do labels and judgments like “good” and “bad” not help, they actively interfere with self2’s natural ability to learn, so learning how to observe without judging is essential.

• Side note: being able to observe and state facts without judgment or labels was also one of the key ingredients to successful communication in Nonviolent Communication.

• Side note: make sure to check out the rose analogy in the quotes section below. It’s remarkably well written and does a far better job of explaining this concept.

• Note that not being judgmental is also NOT about “positive thinking.” Positive labels (e.g., “good”) interfere with self2 just as much as negative labels. That’s because you can’t hear a compliment (positive label) without being aware of it’s opposite, so you get one compliment, start hoping for another, and if you don’t get it, you assume the opposite is true, and you’re back to the negative labels. So it’s not about replacing bad judgments with good judgments, but about removing judgments altogether and solely observing.

Stop giving instructions, start visualizing

• Another key to quieting self1 is to get it to stop giving instructions to self2. It’s very common for self1 to be constantly telling self2 how how to do something: e.g., “keep your wrist straight and follow through.” However, these instructions are in language, which self2 doesn’t really speak; and besides, much gets lost in translation from actions to words.

• It’s more effective to visualize the result you want, and self2 will figure out the how all by itself.

• Therefore, the key to learning is to (a) visualize what you want, without giving instructions and (b) observing what you’re actually doing, without judgments. Repeat this again and again, and self2 will figure things out remarkably quickly.

Habits and focus

• Stopping old habits is very hard. Starting new ones is easier.

• Most of us have a habit where self1 judges and gives instructions all the time. Instead of merely trying to stop this habit, you should try to replace it.

• One of the best ways to replace self1’s habits is through focus. For example, focus your attention on the seams of the ball as it spins. Focus on the sound the ball is making. Focus on how the racket feels in your hand. Focus on your breath (a big technique in yoga and meditation!). It’s not about controlling your breathing; it’s about taking self1 and giving it something to focus on—giving it a new habit—so it doesn’t spend all its time judging or instructing.

The role of competition

• The value of winning is directly proportional to the difficulty of everything you had to overcome to win. The harder the goal, the more obstacles you have to overcome, the more skill you have to use, the more satisfying the victory.

• The point of competing is to give each competitor the biggest obstacles. It’s not about ego or showing off. It’s about the fact that the better the competition, the more it draws the best out of you.

• Side note: see the (long) quote I copied about this in the quotes section, as it’s quite brilliantly written and explained.

Quotes

I saved some of my favorite quotes from the book. It’s very, very well written, so it was a challenge not to copy down half the book :)

“Perhaps this is why it is said that great poetry is born in silence. Great music and art are said to arise from the quiet depths of the unconscious, and true expressions of love are said to come from a source which lies beneath words and thoughts. So it is with the greatest efforts in sports; they come when the mind is as still as a glass lake.”

“When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless and stemless”. We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don’t condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.”

“The surfer waits for the big wave because he values the challenge it presents. He values the obstacles the wave puts between him and his goal of riding the wave to the beach. Why? Because it is those very obstacles, the size and churning power of the wave, which draw from the surfer his greatest effort. It is only against the big waves that he is required to use all his skill, all his courage and concentration to overcome; only then can he realize the true limits of his capacities. At that point he often slips into a superconscious state and attains his peak. In other words, the more challenging the obstacle he faces, the greater the opportunity for the surfer to discover and extend his true potential. The potential may have always been within him, but until it is manifested in action, it remains a secret hidden from himself. The obstacles are a very necessary ingredient to this process of self-discovery. Note that the surfer in this example is not out to prove himself; he is not out to show himself or the world how great he is, but is simply involved in the exploration of his latent capacities. He directly and intimately experiences his own resources and thereby increases his self-knowledge.

From this example the basic meaning of winning became clear to me. Winning is overcoming obstacles to reach a goal, but the value in winning is only as great as the value of the goal reached. Reaching the goal itself may not be as valuable as the experience that can come in making a supreme effort to overcome the obstacles involved. The process can be more rewarding than the victory itself. Once one recognizes the value of having difficult obstacles to overcome, it is a simple matter to see the true benefit that can be gained from competitive sports. In tennis who is it that provides a person with the obstacles he needs in order to experience his highest limits? His opponent, of course! Then is your opponent a friend or an enemy? He is a friend to the extent that he does his best to make things difficult for you. Only by playing the role of your enemy does he become your true friend. Only by competing with you does he in fact cooperate! No one wants to stand around on the court waiting for the big wave. In this use of competition it is the duty of your opponent to create the greatest possible difficulties for you, just as it is yours to try to create obstacles for him. Only by doing this do you give each other the opportunity to find out to what heights each can rise.

So we arrive at the startling conclusion that true competition is identical with true cooperation. Each player tries his hardest to defeat the other, but in this use of competition it isn’t the other person we are defeating; it is simply a matter of overcoming the obstacles he presents. In true competition no person is defeated. Both players benefit by their efforts to overcome the obstacles presented by the other. Like two bulls butting their heads against one another, both grow stronger and each participates in the development of the other.

This attitude can make a lot of changes in the way you approach a tennis match. In the first place, instead of hoping your opponent is going to double-fault, you actually wish that he’ll get his first serve in. This desire for the ball to land inside the line helps you to achieve a better mental state for returning it. You tend to react faster and move better, and by doing so, you make it more challenging for your opponent. You tend to build confidence in your opponent as well as in yourself and this greatly aids your sense of anticipation. Then at the end you shake hands with your opponent, and regardless of who won you thank him for the fight he put up, and you mean it.”

“Thus, there are two games involved in tennis: one the outer game played against the obstacles presented by an external opponent and played for one or more external prizes; the other, the Inner Game, played against internal mental and emotional obstacles for the reward of increasing self-realization-that is, knowledge of one’s true potential. It should be recognized that both the inner and outer games go on simultaneously, so the choice is not which one to play, but which deserves priority.”

Rating: 5 stars