I'm going to tell you the secret
to playing great tennis and winning more matches and it's a
simple 2 step process.
1.
Get a few lessons, get your strokes
perfected, and then practice them until
they are consistent and automatic.
2. Turn your
conscious mind off and let your
subconscious mind control your matches.
Simple, right? We
wish! But how many times have you heard
a sports announcer say something like,
"he's in the zone", "she's playing out
of her head", "he's unconscious!"
Obviously all the pros have done step 1.
It's when they accomplish step 2 that
they have stellar performances. We play
our best when we turn off the part of
our brain that worries about the future
or dwells on the failures of the past.
Even if it's the failures of the past 10
minutes. Our subconscious mind has the
muscle memory and instinctual movement
covered. Ideally, all we need the
conscious mind to do is keep up with the
score! Actually, a focused, but calm
conscious mind can implement and analyze
strategy...but you have to be careful.
The more input you give the conscious
mind, the more it takes over...judging
your performance, assigning more
importance to outcomes, and generally
interrupting the flow of the
subconscious mind and body.
