I love tennis. For anyone that knows the game, I think I’m probably a 3.0 on the NRTP scale. On a good day. But I love to chase down balls (like a dog?) and the satisfying, dopamine inducing thrawp when I wack (gracefully hit?) the ball from my racket’s sweet spot. I love the competition, the vitamin D, and the whole thing. But why am I so average? There’re a lot of reasons; physical, mental, the amount of experience I have (a couple years) and otherwise, but I’d like to share my favorite reason of why I’m not great at my favorite sport.
I can’t keep my eye on the damn ball. Now I’m not saying I’m swinging and looking over my shoulder or reading a book or looking away. I obviously see the ball. I don’t look away, but I hit best, really best, when I’m watching the ball hit the ground and my racket, and sometimes leaving my gaze there for just a fraction of moment after I hit it. And that is the hardest thing in the world for me to do. Why? Because my zen game is shit. That’s the game I need to work on. They say in tennis, it’s all in your head. I remember reading Open, Andre Agassi’s (my favorite tennis player) autobiography and I’m thinking to myself “this dude is possibly the best ever, but just couldn’t get out of his own way. What’s wrong with him?” Then of course I walk on the court and I repeat to myself, “eye on the ball, keep your head down, eye on the ball, eye on the ball, head down, watch it hit your racket.” Ball comes to me and my brain breaks. “hit the ball! put it away! don’t fuck up!”
I don’t have a point to this note (blog post?) other than tennis, my favorite game, puts a magnifying glass on my greatest weakness. My struggle with being absolutely still, in my mind. Calm and confident, together. Unfrazzeled.
Some people say chess is the ultimate intellectual game. Or go. But I think it’s tennis. People tell me I’ll be better if I hit more balls. Perhaps. 10,000 hours. But I think I’ll make my first order of magnitude improvement in my game when I can walk on the court and truly detach. I’d love to see how that manifests itself in my personal and business life. Working on it. Writing helps.