Back when I reviewed The Power of Now, I wished that someone would write a better book that tackles the “no mind” concept. Well, it turns out that many years earlier, a person did just that in The Inner Game of Tennis. So yeah, I read a “tennis” book, but it’s not really about tennis. It’s about the natural learning process that we suppress and the goal of the book is to help you tap back into that natural learning process by quieting the conscious mind. Tennis is really just a vehicle to help learn how to tap into that process.
Perhaps what surprised me the most about the book is how old it is. It was originally published in 1974. So for my entire lifetime, there has been this reasonably well written book that honestly could have helped quite a bit in my days as a competitive athlete. It would have certainly helped to have some coaches who read it and could distill some of its wisdom. The shame of it is that by labeling it about tennis, it probably turns away a ton of coaches from other sports who really should read it.
Tennis is of course the sport that the author knows best. He was the captain of the Harvard University tennis team and a tennis coach for many years. The book does address tennis quite often and it would be unusual to find a page or two without some reference to a tennis shot, but it’s all just a simple game to use to explore a concept. You don’t have to have any desire to ever play tennis in order to get something valuable out of this book. It was a fellow coach in another sport that actually recommended it to me.
The book leans heavily on tennis for examples of how to do things. For example, to help get the conscious mind to stop trying to micromanage everything, he recommends focusing it on the ball and let the subconscious take over for the actual actions. He even has some stronger methods like focusing on the seams of the ball or the sound that it makes when it hits the racket. However you achieve it, the key is to get that conscious train of thoughts out of the way.
I know that struggle. I have played many sports and have experienced over-thinking way too often. As a coach, I have seen players who are much worse than I am about it. I at least tend to trust my athleticism. This book really explains what’s going wrong with a lot of players who seem to be working so hard and really trying to fix things, but just can’t seem to do it. I’ve felt that over-coaching is an issue and this book really points to it… especially over-coaching oneself.
So if you have any interest in making improvements in sports, this book holds up quite well even today and can help you. If you have an interest in coaching, make it doubly so.