For many players, coaches and parents success at tennis involves mastering the strokes technically, learning how to be tactically intelligent and being supremely fit.
This certainly makes sense on the surface. However, as we begin to compete, we realize that as important as all these things are, there is more to it than that.
There is a glue missing without which this entire house of cards falls apart. If you are lucky, you have experienced this total collapse at some point in your tennis career, if you are really lucky, you experience this on a regular basis and cannot escape it’s crippling affects.
I say lucky because, for many, only this humbling experience provides the motivation to look for something more; to go deeper and search for something much more substantial.
The industry has recognized this ‘x’ factor and named it the mental side of the game and added it as another ‘skill’ to master along with all the others.
Many individuals who have attempted to master the ‘mental skills’ soon realize that these ‘skills’ are not something that can be mastered; they can and do master you, but you will never be able to master them!
Why is that? Is it because these ‘skills’ are not skills at all?
It is not through learning skills (tricks), either external or internal that we can make the ego disappear (even momentarily) and the mind to become silent so that the body can execute freely without fear or tension.
A shift must occur within the individual for these things to happen on a consistent basis.
For many players, these things may happen from time to time accidentally, and at those times incredible tennis can happen, but for others it is a constant struggle to relax and execute easily, effortlessly and freely.
To be explored further…………