Welcome. Raise Your Inner Game Today. I’m David Levin. This is our Tuesday episode so we’re talking about sports and parenting teenage athletes.
So, we’re celebrating today an important birthday. The Inner Game (of tennis) turns 50 this year. I’m Fifty! if you get that reference. [ Molly Shannon. Sally O’Malley. ]
Anyway, of course, the inner game ITSELF isn’t 50. That’s been around as long as humans have. But the TERM, the Inner Game, started with that book. And I think it’s fair to say the whole subject of it as something to think about and work on also started with that book.
It’s written by Timothy Galway. Released in 1972. Still available. And it has helped countless athletes and people in all walks of life.
I also reference it in the intro to Raise Your Inner Game as in I’m standing on the shoulders of giants. That material really is the beginning of mental performance training.
So I thought we should honor it’s 50th by talking about its strengths, and also the ways we can IMPROVE on it to help boost our mental game now.
The basic story of the book is that Tim was a tennis coach and one day, he was observing his players beating themselves up for not playing well and all of a sudden, this thought struck him: “Wait a minute. Who are they talking to? There are two people in there!”
And you can totally see that. The negative voice says, “What’s wrong with you? Why do you keep doing that? You’re such a loser.” Right? And it’s clearly speaking to someone else. And that someone else is YOU.
So that was his core observation. There are two people in there.
He went on to call them person A and person B. One was on your side, the other was that negative voice in your head.
And the main thing I remember him recommending to raise your game was to focus your attention on the seams of the ball. Nothing else. Not the score, not your opponent, not your strategy. Just 100% on the seams of the ball.
And this is funny, but when I read that, as a 12-year old kid, I thought, “This is great. I’ll just focus on the seams of the ball and I’ll be a great tennis player.” Like that’s ALL it would take. Like, I didn’t have to train, or practice really. Just focus on the ball, you’ll be great.
Turns out that’s not the way it works.
What you really need to do is to train and practice and do it over and over until you work all that into your subconscious and your muscle memory. So THEN when you focus on the seams, it helps you get OUT of your head so your TRAINING can come out.
That’s how it really works.
But anyway, there is a huge amount of powerful and helpful insight in his original observations.
The main thing is something you hear me talk about ALL the time, which is just noticing that there ARE two people in there, as he said.
And by the way, this is the same observation I had in my Wizard of Oz moment I talk about in the book, it’s the same as Eckhart Tolle talks about in the Power of Now. It’s not unique to sports or to any particular person. But it is the insight that unlocks everything else.
Until you get that, you are controlled by your thoughts and emotions. You’re basically completely at their mercy. Like a puppet on a string.
Also, it should be said that, that’s exactly where most people ARE. The vast majority of people have never really noticed this basic truth of the Inner Game. Which is why so many people struggle with it.
But this observation opens the door to incredible breakthroughs with your mental game. And the Inner Game of Tennis was the first book to lay it out in such a clear and understandable way.
Where we have improved on that over the years is in what to do with it.
Again, his suggestion was to focus on the seams of the ball. But that is somewhat limited. First, you have to be playing tennis. And of course, our mental game needs go way beyond that.
Others have suggested things like focusing on the sensation of your feet in your shoes, against the ground. A variation on that is the meditation practice of focusing on your breath. Both of those do a similar thing - they pull your attention out of your head and back into the moment. And that’s definitely better.
But what I have found works best is to focus your attention instead on the SOURCE of the distraction. In other words, to the other person in there who’s saying those negative things.
When you focus on the seams or on your feet or your breath, you are sort of looking away from the problem.
It’s like I’m standing here next to you, telling you you’re a loser, and you’re just looking off somewhere else, trying to ignore me. Pretending I’m not there. And that can help.
But it’s even more effective to instead turn toward me and tell me to knock it off.
And that is literally one of the main Raise Your Inner Game skills we teach. You notice the voice, you say, Nope, not now. Quiet. You shut it down and bring your attention back to the moment.
That approach is the best of all for a bunch of reasons.
So anyway, it all grows out of that powerful insight from the original classic, The Inner Game of Tennis. “There are two people in there.”
So today, let’s offer a big thank you and respect and admiration for the crazy Ah Ha moment he had those 50 years ago. Wait, who are they talking to? Still serving us today. No tennis pun intended.
CLOSE
All right, that’s it for this episode. “Happy Birthday, Inner Game! (can you believe it’s FIFTY!)”
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Either way, thank you for listening. Keep up the good work. We’ll see you next time.
