The battle is between the desire to control and the ability to trust. The mind is about control and the body requires trust. The desire for control is usually so great that the mind takes over and trust evaporates.
The mind is constantly giving instructions, judging, cajoling, chastising, etc., and is not willing to trust the immense intelligence of the body.
If we truly come to ‘know’ that all the many minds we carry with us cannot help, it may be possible to trust and allow the body to play and thereby fulfill our athletic potential. Winning cannot be guaranteed, but playing as well can be!
To be in the body is scary and that is why it is so difficult to remain there. It is when we feel the most weak and vulnerable, uncertain of what is to come, that the mind becomes active, looking to ‘help’, but resulting simply in giving us a false sense of control and interfering with the body’s natural abilities to play smoothly and easily.
The challenge is not to panic when fear comes in and not to feed or listen to all the mind’s efforts to ‘fix the problem’. The truth is, there is no problem to fix, the body knows how to hit the ball and if we can simply acknowledge the doubts and yet still trust the body to deal with things, we have a chance of winning this ‘battle’.
The signs of an active mind are awkwardness, tension and ugliness in our stroke production, all a result of the body trying to compensate for the mind’s fears.
The signs of the Being trusting the body and not listening to these minds in smoothness, flowing movement and gracefulness.
Experiment, explore and have fun doing it!