It may seem a paradox that we speak of the "ego", word that signifies the "I", and oneself at the same time. The I "ego" is in each thought, memory, opinion and even action that we carry out in each moment. Try to be a while without thinking about anything and you will notice that quickly an infinity of thoughts arise in your head. Your work, your friends, the family, your bank account, all of it will slowly parade in your head without any suggestion of your own.. We are speaking of your another "I". The psychologists call it egotistic mind.
How this mind affect the development of our tennis?
Primarily we should clearly know which is the difference between the "I" thinking (mind) and the "I" executor (our body). Especially when we say "I" is the ego the one that speaks, not you.
Look at the following example.
A player, during a match misses a shot continuously and we hear him say: “¡Bad, very bad, your grandmother would do it better!". Another typical expression is: “¡Ass, you will never know how to play tennis!" and many expressions that without doubt you will have heard.
The question is: Who he said it to? There it has to be another person to whom the words are directed to! Effectively, the player is talking to his second "ego". The "I" thinking represses the "I" executor, the body. And each time that it does it the only thing it manages to achieve is that the machine that executes the stroke, the arm, starts losing each time more confidence and consequently do worse and worse.
Every complaint is an interpretation that the mind invents and to which one is willing to believe. Be aloud or inwardly. When one is the in hands of a such manifestation or thought, the only thing he manages to achieve is to slowly sink in negative thoughts that affect seriously their level of execution in tennis.
To the "ego" he likes to complaint. Criticizing your actions, he seeks its own prominence, he desires to take part of the glory that belongs to you, does not want to be relegated to a flat second. After a good service, for example, many times occurs that we make a double fault. Who’s fault is it, without any doubt of the thinking "ego". Clearly, "as I have made a fantastic service, ¡now you will see the following one! The "ego" intervenes in the execution and ¡there goes the double fault! It has stolen participation of the arm impeding it to develop the stroke as it knows by creating doubt in the its execution.
I have read a lot of books about psychology of the sport and all they tell you is how to execute the shots, what you should do and how to do it. But, when problems arise, above all at the moment of competition, few help you to correct your attitude and they do not solve your true problems with which you are confronted in the court. Many are the players with a great stroke technique but that are stopped halfway into their careers. Never reach first positions or manage to be true "great players". The reason is, in the great majority of cases, the interference between the "ego" and the "I".
To reach "excellence" in the tennis, and why not in the real life, there has to be an harmony between these two factors. We do not have to think? Some students they have asked me. Thinking "yes" but to think the right way. Separating clearly what is the execution and what is thought, the "ego" and you. We should be conscious of the voice in our heads and to leave it as what is, the voice of the "ego" which does not have, must not, intervene in the execution of our tennis strokes, which should be carried out in a "not thinking" form, marking the difference among the "conscious" and the "unconscious".
In a previous article, I was telling about a tennis lesson with a lady, she worried because she did not manage to centre the ball on the racket strings. Once all her attention got focused in looking at the hair fuzz of the ball before striking it, it happened that she improved her shot almost instantly. The answer to this small miracle was that she let her arm work, free of the thought of "how to execute the stroke". The arm, by means of the trial-error formula, without bonds of the I thinking, took little time in assimilating the details of the tennis stroke. Only this small advice was sufficient.
In another occasion, a gentleman came saying that he had taken classes for three years, but his tennis continued without progressing. We were working this problem and at the end of two classes he already executed the stroke to perfection. But this story I will develop it in another I chapter…
Pascual Maroto Encinas
Master en Psicología Deportiva-Profesor Nacional de Tenis
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