The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey is a surprisingly brilliant, wise and lucid book, only incidentally about tennis. It’s about anyone improving any skill and I found it so apt and appropriate; I wish I found it earlier!

It’s going to be a privilege to guide you through my notes and reflections.

Gallwey starts off by talking about learning. He says that conscious learning is a very difficult thing – instead, as humans, we are naturally mimetic learners: we imitate others. It is very very difficult to instruct someone on how to do a skill, but it is easier to show them and let them try to naturally copy you. Our brains are wired for this. This is fundamental: if you want to learn a new skill, you’re going to be much better off watching a video than reading instructions.

In order to really explain this, I need to talk about another concept which I haven’t mentioned for a while – sorry, spirituality enthusiasts – the ego! If you are not your ego, then what are you? Eckhart Tolle might define you as being your attention; David Hawkins might say your ego is your self whereas you are your Self. But Gallwey instead constructs a model of Self 1 and Self 2, and I found it superbly accessible. I will try to do it justice.

Your Self 1 is your “teller”, your Self 2 is your “doer.” In tennis, it is Self 1 who gives racket instructions, saying “Okay, now follow through from low to high” but it is Self 2 who actually performs the action. Self 1 is your mind or ego wheras Self 2 is your real Self and body.

Self 1 is the person who constantly gives you instructions in real-time. Since I don’t actually play tennis, I’ll use basketball as an example. It’s when bark instructions at myself like, “watch his hands!” or reminding myself to jump before I shoot, correcting for a shot that fell short last time, that I involve Self 1. It’s when I praise myself for a clean shot, or try to get too cocky, that I involve Self 1. It’s when I criticize myself that I involve Self 1.

Back to learning: when we are given verbal instruction, it is to Self 1, but when we see a well-practiced skill in action, learning occurs through Self 2, the body. Self 1 is not useful at all for learning! In fact, all it does is interfere with the process. Every time I “involve Self 1″ I am more likely to commit an error! You may notice that when you are “in the zone”, all thoughts disappear. This is because you are acting through Self 2, trusting it, and therefore have no need for Self 1 and its thoughts. When “in the zone”, you excel so well because you are acting from your place of real knowledge: the body. (By the way, even though Self 2 is preferable, Gallwey comforts us by noting Self 2 is always there – we just choose to leave)

This two-self model has a lot of fun practical implications for kicking ass in real life.

First, if you want to fuck with your opponent, you should try to engage his Self 1. If your opponent is doing particularly well that day, ask him if he can tell you what he is doing. By consciously articulating it, he is engaging in Self 1 and detracts from Self 2′s ability to perform naturally. Although this is a tennis-specific tip, another thing that Gallwey suggests is standing very close to the service line when returning a serve; by forcing yourself away from the baseline, you are giving yourself less room for error and are more forced to rely on your Self 2 instincts. Furthermore, your opponent may feel that you are insulting his serve and feel the need to punish you (Self 1), increasing the likelihood of an error. The book has many tips like this, including ways in which we psych ourselves out of the zone.

A more important and general, practical application regards improving our skills. With this model, what do we do next?

1. Observe. The mere act of observing your form as it is now will likely lead to improvements. Indeed, the mere act of not trying to change it will allow you to see it as it actually is. You will notice if you are doing things in a blatantly poor or sloppy way. Also, observe the form of a pro whose abilities you want to mimic.
2. Feel/image. Picture yourself performing the skill in such a way that yield a precise desired outcome. Get it perfect a couple times in a row. Take note of how it feels, and also of any other relevant sensory details: what kind of sound the wind makes, what sound the  ball makes when it hits, etc. If you picture it in your mind and you don’t actually achieve the desired outcome in your mind, keep rehearsing it mentally until you are able to do so perfectly.
3. Trust & Allow. Execute the skill, and trust yourself (your Self 2!) that you will be able to complete it faithfully. If you do not succeed, do not despair; have faith in the process.
4. Observe. Observe the new outcome; observe your new performance. Also, once again observe the perfect performance, in the name of mimicry. In essence, repeat step 1.

From personal experience, I can concur this is a crystallization of the best way to enhance and improve skill.

From a theoretical perspective, such as the “Law of Attraction”, the idea is to set your intention and let the chips fall where they may. This is an extremely liberating mindset, eliminating performance anxiety: all you have control over is whether or not you set the intention and whether you bring the effort. You can’t have anxiety over a process over which you have control.

Gallwey recommends bringing as much attention to the process as possible, and staying in the moment. A few notes about this, because this book really enhanced my understanding of the concept of “the now“. When we are in the moment, things are literally lighter. This is not necessarily religious, but actually very physical. Our attention is focused on our environment and therefore our eyes are more open, taking in as much from our surroundings as possible. Because our eyes are open, we take in more light. (Convenient that I just read a book on body language, it’s nice how things converge.)

If we notice that our ego (Self 1) begins to flare up, such as after missing a bad shot or even doing exceptionally well, Gallwey advises we turn our attention to our breath. This doesn’t mean breathing intently, deeply, or anything like that – though those may be good practices, maybe. It just means observing but not interfering with the automatic process of breathing. This is especially useful between points, when we tend to automatically start fantasizing about the future consequences of the outcome of the next point.

From extensive personal experience, Gallwey also talks about the best ways to teach someone, which is by asking questions that encourage them to pay better attention to their own habits and processes. This makes me think of one of my favorite collections of Zen stories and koans. It also makes me think of how many of the greatest teachers of real philosophy - Socrates, Buddha – teach lessons not directly, but indirectly, through negative space. This may be a way to evoke learning through Self 2 without invoking Self 1! I used to think that I might have a gift for explicitly articulating all the wise teachings that are so annoyingly taught indirectly. Maybe that would only interfere with the learning process, though. Or maybe with more practice, I can paint the brushstrokes outlining the negative space more clearly. We’ll see.

(I want to do some exploration on the science of guiding people towards epiphanies; as we know, you can never win an argument. The only thing you can do is maybe point them in a direction where they realize something for themselves, but they will probably only be motivated to go in that direction if they can explicitly see that it is in their short-term best self interest at the time being.)

More practical stuff: Gallwey also elucidates the best way to correct a habit. Habits are useful in that they produce results. Instead of trying to change an old habit, we should just figure out what new result we want, and then create a NEW habit that guides us to the new result. Much more practical.

At the end, the book veers more into the psychological realm. It actually explicitly mentions Transactional Analysis, a VERY interesting topic. It talks about the three types of sports “games”: those who are playing to be Good (either to look good, winning admiration from others; to play for perfection, resisting that to be human is imperfect; to compete, in order to be better than other people and receive admiration and control); those who play for social reasons (to make or keep friends); and those who play for health or fun (enjoyment of the game). I definitely recognized a lot of myself playing the Good-o game, as well as the social reasons (taking up video games I don’t enjoy so I can meld socially).

It reminds me of an epiphany I once had: if you really enjoy something for pure reasons, you would do it by yourself. (This is one reason why I stopped smoking and playing video games. I don’t enjoy the solo practice of those activities.) If the description of these “games” is of interest to you, I highly recommend you check out Games People Play by Eric Berne and look deeper into Transactional Analysis.

The book concludes with a philosophical look at competition. If we play and enjoy best when we use Self 2, then what is the point of competing? Isn’t it aggressive and therefore anti-cooperative? I found his answer to be particularly insightful and edifying. We value a competitive opponent because it encourages us to push our skills to new heights. When we are faced with difficult obstacles and become stressed, if we instead “eat” that stress and use it to leverage our focus and energy to new heights, we enjoy a greater experience of our true nature, self, and skills, and we know ourselves deeper.

I really recommend The Inner Game of Tennis and you can get it on Amazon here. Caveat emptor:  if you don’t know anything about tennis, you will likely become somewhat frustrated by the book. But if you have even the most basic understanding of it (e.g., distinguish between forehand, backhand, and serve), then it will be great, even if you don’t like tennis.

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