A sense of ‘happening’?
Most of the time we are trying too hard on the court. Everything is an effort. This is especially true of club players who have no respect for their own athletic ability and feel the extra effort has to be put in.
Unfortunately, it is this ‘extra’ effort that creates tension in the body and it is impossible to swing freely when the body is tense. The extra effort involved to ‘watch’ the ball or to ‘find’ the ball. Or the extra effort involved to hit ‘harder’, or to play it ‘safe’.
The symptoms are many, but the cause is very often the same………tension in the body. Eliminate the tension and symptoms magically disappear.
The player is always ‘trying’ to do something because we believe that if we don’t, how can anything happen?
A few days ago, I was hitting some balls and a realization happened that when my racket went out to the side of the oncoming ball, ‘I’ was not doing anything. Somehow, my racket found the ball and each contact was sweet.
For the first time, I was aware of a gap, of ‘me’ just hanging out doing nothing, while ‘my body’ lined up the racket to the ball. It was an amazing feeling, a feeling of doing nothing, but just being a witness to things happening.
happy hitting!