Tennis Game Quotes

I mean, five gods in one stomach—dang. That's enough for doubles tennis, including a ref. They'd been down there so long, they were probably hoping Kronos would swallow down a deck of cards or a Monopoly game.

The first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb, when it comes, find us doing sensible and human things -- praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts -- not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs.

It's no accident, I think, that tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love, the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature. Even the structure of tennis, the way the pieces fit inside one another like Russian nesting dolls, mimics the structure of our days. Points become games become sets become tournaments, and it's all so tightly connected that any point can become the turning point. It reminds me of the way seconds become minutes become hours, and any hour can be our finest. Or darkest. It's our choice.

When the mind is free of any thought or judgment, it is still and acts like a mirror. Then and only then can we know things as they are.

But it is impossible to enjoy a tennis game, a book, or a conversation unless attention is fully concentrated on the activity.

When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as "rootless and stemless." We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don't condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.

The ability to focus the mind is the ability to not let it run away with you. It does not mean not to think—but to be the one who directs your own thinking.

Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players - and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxer's opponent provides a kind of companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. In tennis you stand face-to-face with the enemy, trade blows with him, but never touch him or talk to him, or anyone else. The rules forbid a tennis player from even talking to his coach while on the court. People sometimes mention the track-and-field runner as a comparably lonely figure, but I have to laugh. At least the runner can feel and smell his opponents. They're inches away. In tennis you're on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement....

The player of the inner game comes to value the art of relaxed concentration above all other skills; he discovers a true basis for self-confidence; and he learns that the secret to winning any game lies in not trying too hard.

It is said that in breathing man recapitulates the rhythm of the universe. When the mind is fastened to the rhythm of breathing, it tends to become absorbed and calm. Whether on or off the court, I know of no better way to begin to deal with anxiety than to place the mind on one’s breathing process.

Not assuming you already know is a powerful principle of focus. One

You left!” he says, his voice rising. And then he shakes his head and laughs to himself. “You hurt your knee, you lost a couple matches, and you gave up. That’s what you did. You’re saying we’re the same, but we’re not. I stuck around. I had the guts to try. I have the guts to lose. You, you just run. Well, guess what, Carrie? People who are actually playing the game lose. We all lose. We lose all the time. That is life. So we are not the same, Soto. I have courage. You’re just good at tennis.

Fortunately, most children learn to walk before they can be told how to by their parents.

You were fine," she said, a smile quirking up at the corner of her mouth. "I was fantastic.

Fighting the mind does not work. What works best is learning to focus it.

When love is part of a game, it means nothing. When love is love, it means everything.

But who said that I am to be measured by how well I do things? In fact, who said that I should be measured at all? Who indeed? What is required to disengage oneself from this trap is a clear knowledge that the value of a human being cannot be measured by performance—or by any other arbitrary measurement.

A very wise person once told me, “When it comes to overcoming obstacles, there are three kinds of people. The first kind sees most obstacles as insurmountable and walks away. The second kind sees an obstacle and says, I can overcome it, and starts to dig under, climb over, or blast through it. The third type of person, before deciding to overcome the obstacle, tries to find a viewpoint where what is on the other side of the obstacle can be seen. Then, only if the reward is worth the effort, does he attempt to overcome the obstacle.

Letting it happen is not making it happen. It is not trying hard.

Carrie, I do not know how to have an honest conversation with you about your tennis game. Because as good as you are, you have never been able to make peace with failure.

Conversations between people can move like tennis games, swift and unpredictable. There are constant subtle visual and verbal cues, there's innuendo, sarcasm, body language, tone. Everyone occasionally fumbles an encounter, a victim of social clumsiness. It's part of being human.

It was easy to write to Nick, but also competitive and thrilling, like a game of table tennis

The tennis challenger starts strong but soon loses confidence in his playing. The champion racks up the games. But in the final set, when the challenger has nothing left to lose, he becomes relaxed again, insouciant, daring. Suddenly he's playing like the devil and the champion must work hard to get those last points.

But of course the instant I try to make myself relax, true relaxation vanishes, and in its place is a strange phenomenon called “trying to relax.” Relaxation happens only when allowed, not as a result of “trying” or “making.

In tennis, losing your service game was called being broken. If you lost your service without scoring a single point, you were broken at love.

For the teacher or coach, the question has to be how to give instructions in such a way as to help the natural learning process of the student and not interfere with it.

Focus is not achieved by staring hard at something. It is not trying to force focus, nor does it mean thinking hard about something. Natural focus occurs when the mind is interested. When this occurs, the mind is drawn irresistibly toward the object (or subject) of interest. It is effortless and relaxed, not tense and overly controlled.

I don’t recall you playing much tennis. As for the gymnastics…" His sexy growl of a laugh seemed to snag Elliot in the guts. "Yeah, you do have some beautiful moves as I recall. They didn’t require a lot of footwork.

Winning is overcoming obstacles to reach a goal, but the value in winning is only as great as the value of the goal reached. Reaching the goal itself may not be as valuable as the experience that can come in making a supreme effort to overcome the obstacles involved. The process can be more rewarding than the victory itself.

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. ‘How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.’ In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances… and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty. This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

It occurs to me that she is not unique--that all women compare lives. We are aware of whose husband works more, who helps more around the house, who makes more money, who is having more sex. We compare our children, taking note of who is sleeping through the night, eating their vegetables, minding their manners, getting into the right schools. We know who keeps the best house, throws the best parties, cooks the best meals, has the best tennis game. We know who among us is the smartest, has the fewest lines around her eyes, has the best figure--whether naturally or artificially. We are aware of who works full-time, who stays at home with the kids, who manages to do it all and make it look easy, who shops and lunches while the nanny does it all. We digest it all and then discuss with our friends. Comparing and then confiding; it is what women do. The difference, I think, lies in why we do it. Are we doing it to gauge our own life and reassure ourselves that we fall within the realm of normal? Or are we being competitive, relishing others' shortcomings so that we can win, if only by default?

Sometimes, when I’m bored, I can’t help but think what my life would be like if I hadn’t written the book. Monday, I would’ve played bridge. And tomorrow night, I’d be going to the League meeting and turning in the newsletter. Then on Friday night, Stuart would take me to dinner and we’d stay out late and I’d be tired when I got up for my tennis game on Saturday. Tired and content and . . . frustrated. Because Hilly would’ve called her maid a thief that afternoon, and I would’ve just sat there and listened to it. And Elizabeth would’ve grabbed her child’s arm too hard and I would’ve looked away, like I didn’t see it. And I’d be engaged to Stuart and I wouldn’t wear short dresses, only short hair, or consider doing anything risky like write a book about colored housekeepers, too afraid he’d disapprove. And while I’d never lie and tell myself I actually changed the minds of people like Hilly and Elizabeth, at least I don’t have to pretend I agree with them anymore.

Somebody once said that good conversation should be like a tennis match, with each player gracefully sending the ball back across the net; instead, most conversation is like a golf game, with each player stroking only his own ball, and waiting impatiently for the other to finish.

And then also, again, still, what are those boundaries, if they’re not baselines, that contain and direct its infinite expansion inward, that make tennis like chess on the run, beautiful and infinitely dense? The true opponent, the enfolding boundary, is the player himself. Always and only the self out there, on court, to be met, fought, brought to the table to hammer out terms. The competing boy on the net’s other side: he is not the foe: he is more the partner in the dance. He is the what is the word excuse or occasion for meeting the self. As you are his occasion. Tennis’s beauty’s infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win. Which is why tennis is an essentially tragic enterprise… You seek to vanquish and transcend the limited self whose limits make the game possible in the first place. It is tragic and sad and chaotic and lovely. All life is the same, as citizens of the human State: the animating limits are within, to be killed and mourned, over and over again…Mario thinks hard again. He’s trying to think of how to articulate something like: But then is battling and vanquishing the self the same as destroying yourself? Is that like saying life is pro-death? … And then but so what’s the difference between tennis and suicide, life and death, the game and its own end?

Anxiety is fear about what may happen in the future, and it occurs only when the mind is imagining what the future may bring. But when your attention is on the here and now, the actions which need to be done in the present have their best chance of being successfully accomplished, and as a result the future will become the best possible present. So

In a society that has become so oriented toward language as a way of representing truth, it is very possible to lose touch with your ability to feel and with it your ability to “remember” the shots themselves.

We played for about half an hour before I realized we were actually playing two different games. What I’d thought of as ludo was actually a game called gin rummy, and what Warren was playing seemed to be a mixture of craps and table tennis. Once we started playing by one consistent set of rules, though, the fun was really over.

Well, they don't talk to me very much," I said. "You see, they're all grown up, and they have grown-up games like whist and lawn tennis, and talking, you know, just for the sake of talking" (this seemed a strange pursuit to me).

Bowe leans forward on the table and moves his drink out of the way. “This guy, the Inner Game of Tennis guy, he talks about two selves. Self 1 and Self 2. Self 1 says, ‘C’mon, Huntley! Get it together!’ Self 2 is the Huntley who’s supposed to be doing the getting it together.” I say, “I get you so far.” “Self 2 is doing all the work, right? Self 2 is going to win you the game. Self 2 is the hero. Self 1 just yells and gets frustrated and gets in the way.

[I] threw open the door to find Rob sit­ting on the low stool in front of my book­case, sur­round­ed by card­board box­es. He was seal­ing the last one up with tape and string. There were eight box­es - eight box­es of my books bound up and ready for the base­ment! "He looked up and said, 'Hel­lo, dar­ling. Don't mind the mess, the care­tak­er said he'd help me car­ry these down to the base­ment.' He nod­ded to­wards my book­shelves and said, 'Don't they look won­der­ful?' "Well, there were no words! I was too ap­palled to speak. Sid­ney, ev­ery sin­gle shelf - where my books had stood - was filled with ath­let­ic tro­phies: sil­ver cups, gold cups, blue rosettes, red rib­bons. There were awards for ev­ery game that could pos­si­bly be played with a wood­en ob­ject: crick­et bats, squash rac­quets, ten­nis rac­quets, oars, golf clubs, ping-​pong bats, bows and ar­rows, snook­er cues, lacrosse sticks, hock­ey sticks and po­lo mal­lets. There were stat­ues for ev­ery­thing a man could jump over, ei­ther by him­self or on a horse. Next came the framed cer­tificates - for shoot­ing the most birds on such and such a date, for First Place in run­ning races, for Last Man Stand­ing in some filthy tug of war against Scot­land. "All I could do was scream, 'How dare you! What have you DONE?! Put my books back!' "Well, that's how it start­ed. Even­tu­al­ly, I said some­thing to the ef­fect that I could nev­er mar­ry a man whose idea of bliss was to strike out at lit­tle balls and lit­tle birds. Rob coun­tered with re­marks about damned blue­stock­ings and shrews. And it all de­gen­er­at­ed from there - the on­ly thought we prob­ably had in com­mon was, What the hell have we talked about for the last four months? What, in­deed? He huffed and puffed and snort­ed and left. And I un­packed my books.

If someone where playing tennis you wouldn't walk onto the court and begin to have a conversion with them, likewise I think reading is at least as important as a game of tennis.

Well, with that filly in my line of vision blushing like a virgin, something in me was bound to stand at attention. And my walking legs were occupied.

the key to better tennis—or better anything—lies in improving the relationship between the conscious teller, Self 1, and the natural capabilities of Self 2.

Every time you get out on that court, you must play a better tennis game than you played the time before. Did you play your best game of tennis today?” “No,” I said. “Next time, I want you to beat yourself. Every day you must beat the day before.

One reader of an early draft of this chapter complained at this point, saying that by treating the hypothesis of God as just one more scientific hypothesis, to be evaluated by the standards of science in particular and rational thought in general, Dawkins and I are ignoring the very widespread claim by believers in God that their faith is quite beyond reason, not a matter to which such mundane methods of testing applies. It is not just unsympathetic, he claimed, but strictly unwarranted for me simply to assume that the scientific method continues to apply with full force in this domain of truth. Very well, let's consider the objection. I doubt that the defender of religion will find it attractive, once we explore it carefully. The philosopher Ronaldo de Souza once memorably described philosophical theology as "intellectual tennis without a net," and I readily allow that I have indeed been assuming without comment or question up to now that the net of rational judgement was up. But we can lower it if you really want to. It's your serve. Whatever you serve, suppose I return service rudely as follows: "What you say implies that God is a ham sandwich wrapped in tin foil. That's not much of a God to worship!". If you then volley back, demanding to know how I can logically justify my claim that your serve has such a preposterous implication, I will reply: "oh, do you want the net up for my returns, but not for your serves? Either way the net stays up, or it stays down. If the net is down there are no rules and anybody can say anything, a mug's game if there ever was one. I have been giving you the benefit of the assumption that you would not waste your own time or mine by playing with the net down.

The development of inner skills is required, but it is interesting to note that if, while learning tennis, you begin to learn how to focus your attention and how to trust in yourself, you have learned something far more valuable than how to hit a forceful backhand. The backhand can be used to advantage only on a tennis court, but the skill of mastering the art of effortless concentration is invaluable in whatever you set your mind to.

A person can feel pleasure without any effort, if the appropriate centers in his brain are electrically stimulated, or as a result of the chemical stimulation of drugs. But it is impossible to enjoy a tennis game, a book, or a conversation unless attention is fully concentrated on the activity.

The real, many-veiled answer to the question of just what goes through a great player's mind as he stands at the center of hostile crowd-noise and lines up the free-throw that will decide the game might well be: nothing at all.

Once one recognizes the value of having difficult obstacles to overcome, it is a simple matter to see the true benefit that can be gained from competitive sports. In tennis who is it that provides a person with the obstacles he needs in order to experience his highest limits? His opponent, of course! Then is your opponent a friend or an enemy? He is a friend to the extent that he does his best to make things difficult for you. Only by playing the role of your enemy does he become your true friend. Only by competing with you does he in fact cooperate! No one wants to stand around on the court waiting for the big wave. In this use of competition it is the duty of your opponent to create the greatest possible difficulties for you, just as it is yours to try to create obstacles for him. Only by doing this do you give each other the opportunity to find out to what heights each can rise.

It is perplexing to wonder why we ever leave the here and now. Here and now are the only place and time when one ever enjoys himself or accomplishes anything. Most of our suffering takes place when we allow our minds to imagine the future or mull over the past. Nonetheless, few people are ever satisfied with what is before them at the moment. Our desire that things be different from what they are pulls our minds into an unreal world, and consequently we are less able to appreciate what the present has to offer. Our minds leave the reality of the present only when we prefer the unreality of the past or future.

His chief form of entertainment was reading. The last moments he was in a cabin were usually spent scanning bookshelves and nightstands. The life inside a book always felt welcoming to Knight. It pressed no demands on him, while the world of actual human interactions was so complex. Conversations between people can move like tennis games, swift and unpredictable. There are constant subtle visual and verbal cues, there's innuendo, sarcasm, body language, tone. Everyone occasionally fumbles an encounter, a victim of social clumsiness. It's part of being human. To Knight, it all felt impossible. His engagement with the written word might have been the closest he could come to genuine human encounters. The stretch of days between thieving raids allowed him to tumble into the pages, and if he felt transported he could float in bookworld, undisturbed, for as long as he pleased.

The true opponent, the enfolding boundary, is the player himself. Always and only the self out there, on court, to be met, fought, brought to the table to hammer out terms. The competing boy on the net’s other side: he is not the foe: he is more the partner in the dance. He is the what is the word excuse or occasion for meeting the self. As you are his occasion. Tennis’s beauty’s infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win. Which is why tennis is an essentially tragic enterprise, to improve and grow as a serious junior, with ambitions. You seek to vanquish and transcend the limited self whose limits make the game possible in the first place. It is tragic and sad and chaotic and lovely. All life is the same, as citizens of the human State: the animating limits are within, to be killed and mourned, over and over again.

During a match, you are in a permanent battle to fight back your everyday vulnerabilities, bottle up your human feelings. It’s a kind of self-hypnosis, a game you play, with deadly seriousness, to disguise your own weaknesses from yourself, as well as from your rival.

It’s difficult to have fun or to achieve concentration when your ego is engaged in what it thinks is a life-and-death struggle.

Again focus your attention on the can; then let the serve serve itself.

And then but so what’s the difference between tennis and suicide, life and death, the game and its own end?

Every time you get out on that court, you must play a better tennis game than you played the time before. Did you play your best game of tennis today?

The day you give priority to bogus ethics over human reactions, you become a loser. Human reactions are priceless. Rules should never, ever stifle emotions. Tennis is a very human game facing a great danger that it will be strangulated in a cat's cradle of unnecessary or inhumane rules.

When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless and stemless.” We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed.

The player of the inner game comes to value the art of relaxed concentration above all other skills; he discovers a true basis for self-confidence; and he learns that the secret to winning any game lies in not trying too hard. He aims at the kind of spontaneous performance which occurs only when the mind is calm and seems at one with the body, which finds its own surprising ways to surpass its own limits again and again. Moreover, while overcoming the common hang-ups of competition, the player of the inner game uncovers a will to win which unlocks all his energy and which is never discouraged by losing.

There is a Japanese belief that business is temporal, whereas relationships are eternal. That’s true. One day you compete. The next day you partner. One day someone is your subordinate; the next day he or she may be your superior. At its finest, business is friendly competition, just like a game of tennis. As

I have the guts to lose. You, you just run. Well, guess what, Carrie? People who are actually playing the game lose. We all lose. We lose all the time. That is life. So we are not the same, Soto. I have courage. You’re just good at tennis.

Sport, on the other hand, is straightforward. In badminton, if you win a rally, you get one point. In volleyball, if you win a rally, you get one point. In tennis, if you win a rally, you get 15 points for the first or second rallies you’ve won in that game, or 10 for the third, with an indeterminate amount assigned to the fourth rally other than the knowledge that the game is won, providing one player is two 10-point (or 15-point) segments clear of his opponent. It’s clear and simple.

Chess is one of the means we have to save culture, such as Latin, the study of the humanities, the reading of classics, the laws of versification and ethics. Chess is now replaced by football, boxing or tennis, which are games of fools, not of intellectuals.

the inner game. This is the game that takes place in the mind of the player, and it is played against such obstacles as lapses in concentration, nervousness, self-doubt and self-condemnation. In short, it is played to overcome all habits of mind which inhibit excellence in performance.

If the pupil proves to be of so perverse a disposition that he would rather listen to some idle tale than to the account of a glorious voyage or to a wise conversation, when he hears one; if he turns away from the drum-beat that awakens young ardour in his comrades, to listen to another tattoo that summons him to a display of juggling; if he does not fervently feel it to be pleasanter and sweeter to return from a wrestling-match, dusty but victorious, with the prize in his hand, than from a game of tennis or a ball, I can see no other remedy that for his tutor to strangle him before it is too late, if there are no witnesses.

We are taught in this culture that if we can grasp enough pleasurable experiences quickly, one after another, our life will be happy. By following a good game of tennis with a delicious dinner, a fine movie, then wonderful sex and sleep, a good morning jog, a fine hour of meditation, an excellent breakfast, and off to an exciting morning of work, over and over, our happiness will last. Our driven society is masterful at perpetuating this ruse. But will this satisfy the heart?

Were he now still among the living, Dr. Incandenza would now describe tennis in the paradoxical terms of what’s now called ‘Extra-Linear Dynamics.’ And Schtitt, whose knowledge of formal math is probably about equivalent to that of a Taiwanese kindergartner, nevertheless seemed to know what Hopman and van der Meer and Bollettieri seemed not to know: that locating beauty and art and magic and improvement and keys to excellence and victory in the prolix flux of match play is not a fractal matter of reducing chaos to a pattern. Seemed intuitively to sense that it was a matter not of reduction at all, but — perversely — of expansion, the aleatory flutter of uncontrolled, metastatic growth — each well-shot ball admitting of n possible responses, n² responses to those responses, and on into what Incandenza would articulate to anyone who shared both his backgrounds as a Cantorian continuum of infinities of possible move and response, Cantorian and beautiful because infoliating, contained, this diagnate infinity of infinities of choice and execution, mathematically uncontrolled but humanly contained, bounded by the talent and imagination of self and opponent, bent in on itself by the containing boundaries of skill and imagination that brought one player finally down, that kept both from winning, that made it, finally, a game, these boundaries of self.

Conversation is essentially a game of tennis played with a ball of playdough that changes shape each time it crosses the net.

Letting go of judgments, the art of creating images and “letting it happen” are three of the basic skills involved in the Inner Game.

The foregoing has only one purpose: to encourage the reader to respect Self 2. This amazing instrument is what we have the effrontery to call “uncoordinated.

It is Self 1’s mistrust of Self 2 which causes both the interference called “trying too hard” and that of too much self-instruction. The

First the mind judges the event, then groups events, then identifies with the combined event and finally judges itself.

letting go of judgments does not mean ignoring errors. It simply means seeing events as they are and not adding anything to them.

skill of mastering the art of effortless concentration

As one achieves focus, the mind quiets. As the mind is kept in the present, it becomes calm. Focus means keeping the mind now and here.

using awareness to “discover the technique

Turned out an afternoon swim and an afternoon game of tennis registered differently when the morning had been spent drinking tequila. Duke hadn’t known that before and now he did.

All who enter even a little into that state of being present will experience a calmness and a degree of ecstasy which they will want to repeat.

I have found that when players break their habitual patterns, they can greatly extend the limits of their own style and explore subdued aspects of their personality.

The universe had conspired to grant me a single decent game of tennis, and I went in with everything I had. I could see the

What sort of perverse beast uses sex to lure a woman into a game of table tennis?

In any game, the game itself is the prize, no matter who wins, ultimately both lose the game.

Forget should’s and experience is.

Attention is focused consciousness, and consciousness is that power of knowing.

Since the mind seems to have a will of its own, how can one learn to keep it in the present? By practice.

All who enter even a little into that state of being present will experience a calmness and a degree of ecstasy which they will want to repeat. The

To me it makes sense to build any system of instruction upon the best possible understanding of natural learning, the learning process you were born with.

experience precedes technical knowledge.

Like a good gardener who knows when the soil needs alkali and when acid, the competent tennis pro should be able to help the development of your game.

When the mind is free of any thought or judgment, it is still and acts like a mirror. Then and only then can we know things as they are. AWARENESS

Getting the clearest possible image of your desired outcomes is a most useful method for communicating with Self 2,

valid instruction derived from experience can help me if it guides me to my own experiential discovery of any given stroke possibility.

Once you learn how to learn, you have only to discover what is worth learning. Summarized

Tennis: the most perfect combination of athleticism, artistry, power, style, and wit. a beautiful game, but one so remorselessly travestied by the passage of time.

Love is nothing in tennis. But in life, it’s everything.

The arrow is off the string but does not fly straight to the target, nor does the target stand where it is. Calculation, which is miscalculation, sets in….

Jeff’s attention is swiveling between the two of them like he’s watching a game of tennis being played with a kitten’s head instead of a ball.

If you are in any doubt, ask the pro to show you the motion, not tell you about it.

Between the idea / And the reality / Between the motion / And the act / Falls the Shadow.”)

fundamentally, experience precedes technical knowledge. We

Awareness of what is, without judgment, is relaxing, and is the best precondition for change

Competition then becomes an interesting device in which each player, by making his maximum effort to win, gives the other the opportunity he desires to reach new levels of self-awareness.

increased his awareness of that part of his swing. When the mind is free of any thought or judgment, it is still and acts like a mirror. Then and only then can we know things as they are.

Alertness is a measure of how many nows you are alert to in a given period. The result is simple: you become more aware of what is going on as you learn to keep your attention in the now.

[Lizzie Bennington to a reporter who has asked for her opinion about Jack Archer's celebrated thighs.] “When you come back from a set down and bring the match to a final set tiebreak and are a point away from winning the match, only to have what looks like an extremely fit player call a time out because of a cramp and then watch that player sit back and casually converse and laugh while you do your best to keep your mental focus and your body moving so you don’t grow cold and cramp yourself, I hardly think you’d concern yourself with his burgeoning manhood, let alone his thighs!

The job was “a graveyard of politicians” in Washington parlance, traditionally disparaged by the men who held it. The VP before Truman, Henry Wallace, bragged that he had never had so much time to work on his tennis game. “The Vice President has not much to do,” Truman said, referring to himself as a “political Eunuch.” When asked what he would do with his “spare time,” he answered: “Study history.

Uncomfortable without a standard for right and wrong, the judgmental mind makes up standards of its own. Meanwhile, attention is taken off what is and placed on the process of trying to do things right.

Bernard Shaw phrased the experience very admirably: “When we learn something, it feels at first as if we have lost something.” It is so, for instance, with a new stroke at tennis. Our old stroke had been a pretty incompetent affair, of the sort to make a professional laugh. But it had been ours, we were used to it, all our muscles were in the habit of it. The new stroke is doubtless better, but we are not in the way of it, we cannot do anything with it, and all the joy goes out of tennis—but only until we have mastered the new way. Then, quite suddenly, we find that the whole game is a new experience.

Natural focus occurs when the mind is interested. When this occurs, the mind is drawn irresistibly toward the object (or subject) of interest. It is effortless and relaxed, not tense and overly controlled.

if we let ourselves lose touch with our ability to feel our actions, by relying too heavily on instructions, we can seriously compromise our access to our natural learning processes and our potential to perform.

One caution about “the zone”: it cannot be controlled by Self 1. I have seen many articles that claim to provide a technique for “playing in the zone every time.” Forget it! This is a setup. It’s an age-old trap.

Tennis is the sport in which you talk to yourself. No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players. Pitchers, golfers, goalkeepers, they mutter to themselves, of course, but tennis players talk to themselves—and answer. In the heat of a match, tennis players look like lunatics in a public square, ranting and swearing and conducting Lincoln-Douglas debates with their alter egos. Why? Because tennis is so damned lonely. Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players—and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxer’s opponent provides a kind of companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. In tennis you stand face-to-face with the enemy, trade blows with him, but never touch him or talk to him, or anyone else. The rules forbid a tennis player from even talking to his coach while on the court. People sometimes mention the track-and-field runner as a comparably lonely figure, but I have to laugh. At least the runner can feel and smell his opponents. They’re inches away. In tennis you’re on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement, which inevitably leads to self-talk, and for me the self-talk starts here in the afternoon shower. This is when I begin to say things to myself, crazy things, over and over, until I believe them. For instance, that a quasi-cripple can compete at the U.S. Open. That a thirty-six-year-old man can beat an opponent just entering his prime. I’ve won 869 matches in my career, fifth on the all-time list, and many were won during the afternoon shower.

The real, many-veiled answer to the question of just what goes through a great player's mind as he stands at the center of hostile crowd-noise and lines up the free-throw that will decide the game might well be: nothing at all.

If you don’t want to play tennis with me, I’ll ask somebody else, and if you don’t want to play bondage games with me, somebody else will—our relationship will not be less for it. What we share is valuable for what we share. Period.

Whether on or off the court, I know of no better way to begin to deal with anxiety than to place the mind on one's breathing process. Anxiety is fear about what may happen in the future, and it occurs only when the mind is imagining what the future may bring. But when your attention is on the here and now, the actions that need to be done in the present have their best chance of being successfully accomplished, and as a result the future will become the best possible present.

RED HEAD Tight, inhibited, results-oriented, anxious, aggressive, over-compensating, desperate. BLUE HEAD Loose, expressive, in the moment, calm, clear, accurate, on task. It’s what tennis coach Nick Bollettieri calls the ‘centipede effect’. If a centipede had to think about moving all its legs in the right order, it would freeze, the task too complex and daunting. The same is true of humans. Red is what Suvorov called ‘the Dark’. It is that fixated negative content loop of self-judgement, rigidity, aggression, shut down and panic. Blue is what he called ‘the Light’ – a deep calmness in which you are on task, in the zone, on your game, in control and in flow. It applies to the military; it applies to sport; it applies to business. In the heat of battle, the difference between the inhibitions of the Red and the freedom of Blue is the manner in which we control our attention. It works like this: where we direct our mind is where our thoughts will take us; our thoughts create an emotion; the emotion defines our behaviour; our behaviour defines our performance. So, simply, if we can control our attention, and therefore our thoughts, we can manage our emotions and enhance our performance.

Negative judgment of the results of one’s efforts tends to make one try even harder; positive evaluation tends to make one try to force oneself into the same pattern on the next shot. Both positive and negative thinking inhibit spontaneity. THE

Freedom from stress happens in proportion to our responsiveness to our true selves, allowing every moment possible to be an opportunity for Self 2 to be what it is and enjoy the process. As far as I can see, this is a lifelong learning process.

It is interesting to see how the judgmental mind extends itself. It may begin by complaining, “What a lousy serve,” then extend to, “I’m serving badly today.” After a few more “bad” serves, the judgment may become further extended to “I have a terrible serve.” Then, “I’m a lousy tennis player,” and finally, “I’m no good.” First the mind judges the event, then groups events, then identifies with the combined event and finally judges itself. As a result, what usually happens is that these self-judgments become self-fulfilling prophecies. That is, they are communications from Self 1 about Self 2 which, after being repeated often enough, become rigidified into expectations or even convictions about Self 2. Then Self 2 begins to live up to these expectations. If you tell yourself often enough that you are a poor server, a kind of hypnotic process takes place. It’s as if Self 2 is being given a role to play—the role of bad server—and plays it to the hilt, suppressing for the time being its true capabilities. Once the judgmental mind establishes a self-identity based on its negative judgments, the role-playing continues to hide the true potential of Self 2 until the hypnotic spell is broken. In short, you start to become what you think.

thoughts. The concentrated mind has no room for thinking how well the body is doing, much less of the how-to’s of the doing. When a player is in this state, there is little to interfere with the full expression of his potential to perform, learn and enjoy.

The development of inner skills is required, but it is interesting to note that if, while learning tennis, you begin to learn how to focus your attention and how to trust in yourself, you have learned something far more valuable than how to hit a forceful backhand. The

(If the bad tennis player hits very hard, not because he sees that a very hard stroke is required, but because he has lost his temper, his stroke might possibly, by luck, help him to win that particular game; but it will not be helping him to become a reliable player.)

some seem to get trapped in the compulsion to succeed, others take a rebellious stance. Pointing to the blatant cruelties and limitations involved in a cultural pattern which tends to value only the winner and ignore even the positive qualities of the mediocre, they vehemently criticize competition. Among the most vocal are youth who have suffered under competitive pressures imposed on them by parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by making no effort to win

Love', the word, is at the centre of tennis. It is embedded in the unique and eccentric scoring system. Love meaning nothing - zero. Playing for love. That it was, uniquely, a sport in which woman and men played together made it a 'love game' in a social and romantic sense.

Tennis lessons westlake village provide a good coaching for youngest.Because that are very experiance men in tennis.His students on the importance of strength and agility training as well as mental and psychological strength and the roles they play within the game of tennis.

Archie Henderson has won no awards, written no books and never played any representative sport. He was an under-11 tournament-winning tennis player as a boy, but left the game when he discovered rugby where he was one of the worst flyhalves he can remember. This did not prevent him from having opinions on most things in sport. His moment of glory came in 1970 when he predicted—correctly as it turned out—that Griquas would beat the Blue Bulls (then still the meekly named Noord-Transvaal) in the Currie Cup final. It is something for which he has never been forgiven by the powers-that-be at Loftus. Archie has played cricket in South Africa and India and gave the bowling term military medium a new and more pacifist interpretation. His greatest ambition was to score a century on Llandudno beach before the tide came in.

You’re not playing your opponent, you understand that, yes?” I stared at him, unsure. But I needed him to believe that I understood everything I was supposed to be—it seemed like an unbearable betrayal of our mission for me to be confused about any of it. “Every time you get out on that court, you must play a better tennis game than you played the time before. Did you play your best game of tennis today?” “No,” I said. “Next time, I want you to beat yourself. Every day you must beat the day before.” I sat down on the bench next to me and considered. What my father was proposing was a much, much harder endeavor. But once the thought had been put in my head, I had to rise to it. I could not expel it. “Entiendo,” I said. “Now go get your things. We are driving to the beach.” “No, Dad,” I said. “Please, no. Can’t we just go home? Or what if we went out for ice cream? This girl in my class said there is a place that has great ice cream sandwiches. I thought we could go.” He laughed. “We are not going to condition your legs sitting around eating ice cream sandwiches. We can only do that by…” I frowned.

If a mother identifies with every fall of her child and takes personal pride in its every success, her self-image will be as unstable as her child’s balance. She finds stability when she realizes that she is not her child, and watches it with love and interest—but as a separate being.

Children and adolescents play a nearly incomprehensible nuclear strategy game with tennis equipment against the real or holographic(?) backdrop of sabotaged ATHSCME 1900 atmospheric displacement towers exploding and toppling during the New New England Chemical Emergency of Y.W. CELLULOID (UNRELEASED)

Peabody wandered off, scanning the entertainment units lining the wall, wondering what it would be like to be able to afford any amusement available: music, art, video, holograms, VR, meditation chambers, games. Play a set of tennis with the latest Wimbeldon champ, dance with a hologram of Fred Astaire,

One of the things we laughed about was an old episode of The Newlywed Game. The host asked the wives, “What’s the most exotic place you’ve ever made love?” He was likely expecting “The kitchen” or “On a tennis court at night,” but one woman didn’t quite understand the question and answered, “In the butt.

Never take it for granted because soon enough it will be taken away. Time is tough. Every time you go out on the court be thankful. Be grateful. Believe me, I am. If you are lucky enough to be a tennis player you should recognize that it’s a privilege to be able to walk out on that court and play the game.

DAVE THE SHRINK HAD mentioned more than once that he wished I would develop a hobby—advice I resented, as the hobbies he suggested (racquetball, table tennis, bowling) all seemed incredibly lame. If he thought a game or two of table tennis was going to help me get over my mother, he was completely out to lunch.

That’s why just about every top professional athlete has been laid low by injury, sometimes a career-ending injury. There was a moment in my career when I seriously wondered whether I’d be able to continue competing at the top level. I play through pain much of the time, but I think all elite sports people do. All except Federer, at any rate. I’ve had to push and mold my body to adapt it to cope with the repetitive muscular stress that tennis forces on you, but he just seems to have been born to play the game. His physique—his DNA—seems perfectly adapted to tennis, rendering him immune to the injuries the rest of us are doomed to put up with.

I was beginning to learn what all good pros and students of tennis must learn: that images are better than words, showing better than telling, too much instruction worse than none, and that trying often produces negative results. One question perplexed me: What’s wrong with trying? What does it mean to try too hard? PLAYING

Winning is overcoming obstacles to reach a goal, but the value in winning is only as great as the value of the goal reached. Reaching the goal itself may not be as valuable as the experience that can come in making a supreme effort to overcome the obstacles involved. The process can be more rewarding than the victory itself.

Golf is not as much fun without a scorecard. Tennis doesn’t work as well without it. Same for other sports. Somehow, though, we muddle through life without a scorecard, one that’s focused on character strengths, even though most people, if they reflected on it, would agree that in the game of life, these are what truly matter most.

The people who will best survive the present age are the ones Kipling described as "those who can keep their heads while all about are losing theirs." Inner stability is achieved not by burying one's head in the sand at the sight of danger, but by acquiring the ability to see the true nature of what is happening and to respond appropriately.

Only then does he have the chance to go beyond the limitations inherent in the various ego trips of Self 1 and to reach a new awareness of his true potential. Competition then becomes an interesting device in which each player, by making his maximum effort to win, gives the other the opportunity he desires to reach new levels of self-awareness.

Ambition is, if not actively corrupting, corroding. To simply be happy is not enough; to bake a really good pie or play Monopoly with the kids, go out for a game of tennis with a friend--not enough. The wanting corrodes. I thought I was a prodigy until I met a few. I reached for the brush, the light, eventually for the words, and perfection evaded me--even a shadow of what I could see in my mind evaded me until something simply broke, or rather grew: a membrane that sealed me to the past, away from the glassy world. I suppose genius is no picnic, but to be moderately talented is a chronic wound. 'Human speech is like a kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.' How do we adjust to that, what kind of answer is there to such disappointment? To not being able to make what seems so possible to make, play what seems so easy for others to play? To knowing that Flaubert, who occupies another planet from me, felt himself to be a dullard? To be stuck with kettles.

Be like gravity, man, just like motherfucking gravity. When you chase perfection, when you make perfection the ultimate goal, do you know what you’re doing? You’re chasing something that doesn’t exist. You’re making everyone around you miserable. You’re making yourself miserable. Perfection? There’s about five times a year you wake up perfect, when you can’t lose to anybody, but it’s not those five times a year that make a tennis player. Or a human being, for that matter. It’s the other times. It’s all about your head, man. With your talent, if you’re fifty percent game-wise, but ninety-five percent head-wise, you’re going to win. But if you’re ninety-five percent game-wise and fifty percent head-wise, you’re going to lose, lose, lose.

He aims at the kind of spontaneous performance which occurs only when the mind is calm and seems at one with the body, which finds its own surprising ways to surpass its own limits again and again. Moreover, while overcoming the common hang-ups of competition, the player of the inner game uncovers a will to win which unlocks all his energy and which is never discouraged by losing.

Jeremy Bentham startled the world many years ago by stating in effect that if the amount of pleasure obtained from each be equal there is nothing to choose between poetry and push-pin. Since few people now know what push-pin is, I may explain that it is a child's game in which one player tries to push his pin across that of another player, and if he succeeds and then is able by pressing down on the two pins with the ball of his thumb to lift them off the table he wins possession of his opponent's pin. [...] The indignant retort to Bentham's statement was that spiritual pleasures are obviously higher than physical pleasures. But who say so? Those who prefer spiritual pleasures. They are in a miserable minority, as they acknowledge when they declare that the gift of aesthetic appreciation is a very rare one. The vast majority of men are, as we know, both by necessity and choice preoccupied with material considerations. Their pleasures are material. They look askance at those who spent their lives in the pursuit of art. That is why they have attached a depreciatory sense to the word aesthete, which means merely one who has a special appreciation of beauty. How are we going to show that they are wrong? How are we going to show that there is something to choose between poetry and push-pin? I surmise that Bentham chose push-pin for its pleasant alliteration with poetry. Let us speak of lawn tennis. It is a popular game which many of us can play with pleasure. It needs skill and judgement, a good eye and a cool head. If I get the same amount of pleasure out of playing it as you get by looking at Titian's 'Entombment of Christ' in the Louvre, by listening to Beethoven's 'Eroica' or by reading Eliot's 'Ash Wednesday', how are you going to prove that your pleasure is better and more refined than mine? Only, I should say, by manifesting that this gift you have of aesthetic appreciation has a moral effect on your character.

He aims at the kind of spontaneous performance which occurs only when the mind is calm and seems at one with the body, which finds its own surprising ways to surpass its own limits again and again. Moreover, while overcoming the common hang-ups of competition, the player of the inner game uncovers a will to win which unlocks all his energy and which is never discouraged by losing. There

Relaxed concentration is the supreme art because no art can be achieved without it, while with it, much can be achieved. One cannot reach the limit of one’s potential in tennis or any endeavor without learning it; what is even more compelling is that tennis can be a marvelous medium through which skill in focus of mind can be developed. By learning to focus while playing tennis, one develops a skill that can heighten performance in every other aspect of life.

To approach tennis with 'love' may be dangerous if, as Oscar Wilde wrote, 'each man kills the thing he loves' - whether because that love is too obsessive or too critical. Many critics believed that 'love' in tennis was dangerous - that the very fact of this word being used in the scoring system rendered it unmanly. But love is also a hopeful word of celebration; and in the end, the point of writing about tennis is to celebrate the beauty, the glamour and the joy of this unique game.

And during the day, to prevent stress from building up—which makes it harder to fall asleep at night—every few hours take sixty seconds of recovery time the way top tennis players introduce tiny slots of recovery rituals into their game. All you have to do is stop what you are doing, and simply bring your awareness to the palms of your hands or the soles of your feet, or both. Let it stay there for a minute, and feel all tension leaving your body, drifting away from you through your hands and feet.

Do you play tennis, Senator?" "Now and then," he said with a ghost of a smile. He didn't add he'd lettered i the sport at Harvard. "I'd imagine chess would be your game-plotting,long-term strategy." His smile remained enigmatic as he reached for his wine. "We'll have to have a game." Shelby's low laugh drifted over him. "I believe we already have." His hand brushed lightly over hers. "Want a rematch?" Shelby gave him a look that made his blood spring hotly. "No.You might not outmaneuver me a second time.

xThe cause of most stress can be summed up by the word attachment. Self 1 gets so dependent upon things, situations, people and concepts within its experience that when change occurs or seems about to occur, it feels threatened. Freedom from stress does not necessarily involve giving up anything, but rather being able to let go of anything, when necessary, and know that one will still be all right. It comes from being more independent—not necessarily more solitary, but more reliant on one’s own inner resources for stability.

Tennis is not a game. It's a sport and a puzzle, an endurance test. You do whatever you can to win. it has been my enemy and my friend, my nightmare and the solace to that nightmare, my wound and the salve for my wound. Ask anyone who has made a life in this game, who has been out on the clay before they were old enough to understand the consequences of a strange early talent. I know you want us to love this game —us loving it makes it more fun to watch. But we don't love it. And we don't hate it. It just is, and always has been.

Following their line of vision, he found the distraction. The damn tennis team, running the perimeter of the football field in some half-assed formation, following their fearless leader. They weren’t looking at the field, weren’t yelling or causing a scene. Just concentrating on keeping up with Chris. Having been a teenage boy himself, the draw was obvious. Teenage girls. Short shorts. No brainer. At thirty-four, he was past that. Except his eyes didn’t seem to get the “I’m Too Old For This” memo. They were tracking Chris like a hawk tracks a field mouse.

It’s no accident, I think, that tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love, the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature. Even the structure of tennis, the way the pieces fit inside one another like Russian nesting dolls, mimics the structure of our days. Points become games become sets become tournaments, and it’s all so tightly connected that any point can become the turning point. It reminds me of the way seconds become minutes become hours, and any hour can be our finest. Or darkest. It’s our choice. But

Such moments have been called “peak experiences” by the humanistic psychologist Dr. Abraham Maslow. Researching the common characteristics of persons having such experiences, he reports the following descriptive phrases: “He feels more integrated” [the two selves are one], “feels at one with the experience,” “is relatively egoless” [quiet mind], “feels at the peak of his powers,” “fully functioning,” “is in the groove,” “effortless,” “free of blocks, inhibitions, cautions, fears, doubts, controls, reservations, self-criticisms, brakes,” “he is spontaneous and more creative,” “is most here-now,” “is non-striving, non-needing, non-wishing … he just is.

You may not be the greatest living tennis player anymore!” he says. “I don’t know. We don’t know! You want me to keep telling you that, but I don’t know, Carolina.” “I—” “I’m not allowed to have any doubts! I’m not allowed to see you as my daughter, as a human being. I’m not allowed to say that years after retirement there might be better players now, to express any uncertainty whatsoever. So I tell you what you want to hear! So that you have what you need to feel okay. So that you’re in my life. Those were the terms you set up! And I live by them! What do you want me to say?” “I want you to be honest!” My father shakes his head. “No, you want my honest opinion to be the exact thing you need to hear.” I can feel an ache in my teeth from clenching my jaw. I try to loosen it, but it tightens right back up. My father looks at me. “Carrie, I do not know how to have an honest conversation with you about your tennis game. Because as good as you are, you have never been able to make peace with failure.” My chest tightens. My eyes feel dry. “And why the fuck do you think that is?” “I think it’s because—” “It’s because of you!” My father shakes his head and looks down at the floor. It’s as if he’s not disagreeing with me so much as he’s disappointed that this was the turn the conversation took so quickly.

The true opponent, the enfolding boundary, is the player himself. Always and only the self out there, on court, to be met, fought, brought to the table to hammer out terms. The competing boy on the net’s other side: he is not the foe: he is more the partner in the dance. He is the what is the word excuse or occasion for meeting the self. As you are his occasion. Tennis’s beauty’s infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win. Which is why tennis is an essentially tragic enterprise, to improve and grow as a serious junior, with ambitions.

When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless and stemless.” We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don’t condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.

In tennis who is it that provides a person with the obstacles he needs in order to experience his highest limits? His opponent, of course! Then is your opponent a friend or an enemy? He is a friend to the extent that he does his best to make things difficult for you. Only by playing the role of your enemy does he become your true friend. Only by competing with you does he in fact cooperate! No one wants to stand around on the court waiting for the big wave. In this use of competition it is the duty of your opponent to create the greatest possible difficulties for you, just as it is yours to try to create obstacles for him. Only by doing this do you give each other the opportunity to find out to what heights each can rise.

When the National Transportation Safety Board analyzed its database of major flight accidents, it found that 73 percent occurred on a flight crew’s first day working together. Like surgeries and putts, the best flight is one in which everything goes according to routines long understood and optimized by everyone involved, with no surprises. When the path is unclear—a game of Martian tennis—those same routines no longer suffice. “Some tools work fantastically in certain situations, advancing technology in smaller but important ways, and those tools are well known and well practiced,” Andy Ouderkirk told me. “Those same tools will also pull you away from a breakthrough innovation. In fact, they’ll turn a breakthrough innovation into an incremental one.

Well,” he said. “The gap between the player you are today and the player you want to be—” “I want to be the greatest tennis player in the world,” I said. “That gap is not big. We are talking about that vital half-percent improvement. And that’s not found in changing your strategy. It’s in shortening the nanosecond of time between getting to the ball and slicing it across the court. It is going to be found in the minute change you make to the angle of your serve. The details are fine, and they are going to get finer. It is going to be nearly imperceptible, the ways we need to change your game. No one will be able to see it from the outside, but Stepanova is going to feel it. Every time she loses to you for the next ten years.” I could feel my pulse in my ears; my face felt hot. “Okay,” I said. “How do we do that?” “Are you cross-training?” he asked. “I run and do drills.” Lars laughed. “That’s not enough. Stepanova is right about one thing––you need to lose at least a couple pounds. We need you doing sprints, lunges, weight training. You can jump higher to hit overheads. You rarely do—it’s a weakness in your game, in my opinion. I want to see what happens when you blast off the court into the air. Take out some of Stepanova’s lobs before they hit the ground. We start there and see where we get.” “No,” I said, shaking my head. “If we are doing this, I need to know right now that you believe I can bury her. That I can be number one.” “If I am your coach and you do not become the number-one-ranked player for the year,” he said, “I will be disgusted.

Ezra asked me to bring you this,' I said and handed him the jar. 'He said you would know what it was.' He took the jar and looked at it. Then he threw it at me. It struck me on the chest or the shoulder and rolled down the stairs. 'You son of a bitch,' he said. 'You bastard.' 'Ezra said you might need it,' I said. He countered that by throwing a milk bottle. 'You are sure you don't need it?' I asked. He threw another milk bottle. I retreated and he hit me with yet another milk bottle in the back. Then he shut the door. I picked up the jar which was only slightly cracked and put it in my pocket. 'He did not seem to want the gift of Monsieur Pound," I said to the concierge. 'Perhaps he will be tranquil now,' she said. 'Perhaps he has some of his own,' I said. 'Poor Monsieur Dunning,' she said. The lovers of poetry that Ezra organized rallied to Dunning's aid again eventually. My own intervention and that of the concierge had been unsuccessful. The jar of alleged opium which had been cracked I stored wrapped in waxed paper and carefully tied in one of an old pair of riding boots. When Evan Shipman and I were removing my personal effects from that apartment some years later the boots were still there but the jar was gone. I do not know why Dunning threw the milk bottles at me unless he remembered my lack of credulity the night of his first dying, or whether it was only an innate dislike of my personality. But I remember the happiness that the phrase 'Monsieur Dunning est monté sur le toit et refuse catégoriquement de descendre' gave to Evan Shipman. He believed there was something symbolic about it. I would not know. Perhaps Dunning took me for an agent of evil or of the police. I only know that Ezra tried to be kind to Dunning as he was kind to so many people and I always hoped Dunning was as fine a poet as Ezra believed him to be. For a poet he threw a very accurate milk bottle. But Ezra, who was a very good poet, played a good game of tennis too. Evan Shipman, who was a very fine poet and who truly did not care if his poems were ever published, felt that it should remain a mystery. 'We need more true mystery in our lives, Hem,' he once said to me. 'The completely unambitious writer and the really good unpublished poem are the things we lack most at this time. There is, of course, the problem of sustenance.

When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless and stemless.” We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don’t condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is. Similarly, the errors we make can be seen as an important part of the developing process. In its process of developing,

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.” In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors — anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty. This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

Tennis’s beauty’s infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win. Which is why tennis is an essentially tragic enterprise… You seek to vanquish and transcend the limited self whose limits make the game possible in the first place. It is tragic and sad and chaotic and lovely. All life is the same, as citizens of the human State: the animating limits are within, to be killed and mourned, over and over again…Mario thinks hard again. He’s trying to think of how to articulate something like: But then is battling and vanquishing the self the same as destroying yourself? Is that like saying life is pro-death? … And then but so what’s the difference between tennis and suicide, life and death, the game and its own end?

I’ve increased the fastest serve recorded in tennis. Tennis is a quicker game now, since I served at 132 miles per hour. Now almost every player on the WTA is serving faster than we all were even ten years ago. My forehand averages 81 miles per hour. You can’t come close to me on that either. So pay me a little respect, Soto. I’ve won the US Open more than any woman in tennis history, including you. My forehand and backhand groundstrokes have more spin than any other female player ever—last year I topped two thousand revolutions per minute. I am currently the highest-paid female athlete in the world. For someone like me, do you understand what that means? And I’ve spent the most weeks at number one—which is currently three hundred and seventeen. You only have three hundred and—” “Nine,” I say. “Right.” “So you just go around memorizing your stats?” I say, even though I know I’m being a hypocrite.

There had been three of them once: James, then a sister named Fonsiba, then Lucas, children of Aunt Tomey's Turl, old Carother McCaslin's son, and Tennie Beauchamp, whom Edmonds' great-uncle Amodeus McCaslin won from a neighbor in a poker game in 1859. . .But James, the eldest, ran away before he became of age and didn't stop until he had crossed the Ohio River and they never heard from or of him again at all––that is, that his white kindred ever knew. It was as though he had not only. . .put running water between himself and the land of his grandmother's betrayal and his father's nameless birth, but he had interposed latitude and geography too, shaking from his feet forever the very dust of the land where his white ancestor could acknowledge or repudiate him from one day to another, according to his whim, but where he dared not even repudiate the white ancestor save when it met the white man's humor of the moment.

If a man jumped as high as a louse (lice), he would jump over a football field. In Ancient Egypt, the average life expectancy was 19 years, but for those who survived childhood, the average life expectancy was 30 years for women and 34 years for men. The volume of the moon is equivalent to the volume of the water in the Pacific Ocean. After the 9/11 incident, the Queen of England authorized the guards to break their vow and sing America’s national anthem for Americans living in London. In 1985, lifeguards of New Orleans threw a pool party to celebrate zero drownings, however, a man drowned in that party. Men and women have different dreams. 70 percent of characters in men’s dreams are other men, whereas in women its 50 percent men and 50 percent women. Men also act more aggressively in dreams than women. A polar bear has a black skin. 2.84 percent of deaths are caused by intentional injuries (suicides, violence, war) while 3.15 percent are caused by diarrhea. On average people are more afraid of spiders than they are afraid of death. A bumblebee has hairs on its eyes, helping it collect the pollen. Mickey Mouse’s creator, Walt Disney feared mice. Citarum river in Indonesia is the dirtiest and most polluted river in the world. When George R R Martin saw Breaking Bad’s episode called “Ozymandias”, he called Walter White and said that he’d write up a character more monstrous than him. Maria Sharapova’s grunt is the loudest in the Tennis game and is often criticized for being a distraction. In Mandarin Chinese, the word for “kangaroo” translates literally to “bag rat”. The first product to have a barcode was a chewing gum Wrigley. Chambarakat dam in Iraq is considered the most dangerous dam in the world as it is built upon uneven base of gypsum that can cause more than 500,000 casualties, if broken. Matt Urban was an American Lieutenant Colonel who was nicknamed “The Ghost” by Germans because he always used to come back from wounds that would kill normal people.

Well, it's interesting this, because sometimes you come across an experience for which the language lacks a word. You might find that this word exists in another language. I was informed by a classics professor yesterday at Princeton - we were talking about this very thing - that the word does exist. It's called 'energia.' That is that complete loss of self in an absorbing task. Now, the trouble is that the word 'energy' is already firmly staked out for us in English. Psychologists have suggested the word 'flow.' I don't think that quite does it. There is a form of intense human happiness, often not recognized in the moment, that comes from losing yourself in something difficult. You cease to be aware of time; you cease to be aware of self; you experience no particular emotion because you are inseparable from the task. And sometimes it can happen with something as complex as writing, but it can also come with the making of a good meal. A game of tennis, a team game can do it too - you forget that you exist, everything goes except the matter in hand. It's bliss. I wish it happened to me in writing more often.

FUCK IT, I’M BORED.” “Here he comes.” Theo didn’t even look up when Miles rounded the corner and tossed his notebook onto the counter. “I don’t think cursing is going to help,” she told him. “Maybe it fucking will.” Miles seethed. “I hate everyone in that gym. Pick someone.” “No, I don’t want to play.” “It won’t take that long.” “That’s why I don’t want to play.” “Can I do one?” I raised my hand. “It might actually take you more than five questions, too.” Miles quirked his eyebrow. “Oh, you think so?” “If you get this in five, I’ll be thoroughly impressed.” He leaned over the counter, looking eager. Weirdly, weirdly eager. Not like he wanted to rub my face into the floor. Not like he knew he was going to beat me. Just . . . excited. “Okay,” he said. “Are you fictional?” Broad question. He didn’t know me as well as he knew Theo, so it was to be expected. “No,” I said. “Are you still alive?” “No.” “Are you a leader?” “Yes.” “Was your civilization conquered by a European nation?” “Yes.” “Are you . . . a leader of the Olmec?” “How’d you get there?” Theo blurted out, but Miles ignored her. “No,” I said, trying not to let him see how close he’d come. “And the Olmec weren’t conquered by the Europeans. They died out.” Miles frowned. “Mayan?” “No.” “Incan.” “No.” “Aztec.” “Yes.” The corners of his lips twisted up, but he said, “Shouldn’t have taken so many guesses for that one.” Then he said, “Did you found the Tlatocan?” “No.” “Did you reign after 1500?” “No.” Theo watched the conversation like a tennis match. “Are you Ahuitzotl?” “No.” I smiled. This kid knew his history. “Tizoc?” “No.” “Axayacatl?” “No.” “Moctezuma I?” “Nope.” “Itzcoatl?” “No.” “Chimalpopoca?” “No.” “Huitzilihuitl?” “What the hell are you saying?” Theo cried. He’d cut off a chunk of the Aztec emperors and whittled them down until there was only one remaining. But now he had three questions left—two he didn’t need. Why hadn’t he cut it down again? Surely he could have shortened his options and not guessed his way through all the emperors. Was this some kind of test? Or was . . . was he showing off? “You’re Acamapichtli.” There was a fanatical gleam in his eye, another smile playing on his lips. Both were gone as soon as I said, “Almost twenty. Not quite, but I almost had you.” “I’m never playing this game again,” said Theo, sighing and returning to her homework.

Porridge is our soup, our grits, our sustenance, so it's pretty much the go-to for breakfast. For the first time, I ate with a bunch of other Taiwanese-Chinese kids my age who knew what the hell they were doing. Even at Chinese school, there were always kids that brought hamburgers, shunned chopsticks, or didn't get down with the funky shit. They were like faux-bootleg-Canal Street Chinamen. That was one of the things that really annoyed me about growing up Chinese in the States. Even if you wanted to roll with Chinese/Taiwanese kids, there were barely any around and the ones that were around had lost their culture and identity. They barely spoke Chinese, resented Chinese food, and if we got picked on by white people on the basketball court, everyone just looked out for themselves. It wasn't that I wanted people to carry around little red books to affirm their "Chinese-ness," but I just wanted to know there were other people that wanted this community to live on in America. There was on kid who wouldn't eat the thousand-year-old eggs at breakfast and all the other kids started roasting him. "If you don't get down with the nasty shit, you're not Chinese!" I was down with the mob, but something left me unsettled. One thing ABCs love to do is compete on "Chinese-ness," i.e., who will eat the most chicken feet, pig intestines, and have the highest SAT scores. I scored high in chick feet, sneaker game, and pirated good, but relatively low on the SAT. I had made National Guild Honorable Mention for piano when I was around twelve and promptly quit. My parents had me play tennis and take karate, but ironically, I quit tennis two tournaments short of being ranked in the state of Florida and left karate after getting my brown belt. The family never understood it, but I knew what I was doing. I didn't want to play their stupid Asian Olympics, but I wanted to prove to myself that if I did want to be the stereotypical Chinaman they wanted, I could. (189) I had become so obsessed with not being a stereotype that half of who I was had gone dormant. But it was also a positive. Instead of following the path most Asian kids do, I struck out on my own. There's nature, there's nurture, and as Harry Potter teaches us, there's who YOU want to be. (198) Everyone was in-between. The relief of the airport and the opportunity to reflect on my trip helped me realize that I didn't want to blame anyone anymore, Not my parents, not white people, not America. Did I still think there was a lot wrong with the aforementioned? Hell, yeah, but unless I was going to do something about it, I couldn't say shit. So I drank my Apple Sidra and shut the fuck up. (199)

Mr. Fish told my mother that he would make a “gift” of Sagamore’s body—to my grandmother’s roses. He implied that a dead dog was highly prized, among serious gardeners; my grandmother wished to be brought into the discussion, and it was quickly agreed which rosebushes would be temporarily uprooted, and replanted, and Mr. Fish began with the spade. The digging was much softer in the rose bed than it would have been in Mr. Fish’s yard, and the young couple and their baby from down the street were sufficiently moved to attend the burial, along with a scattering of Front Street’s other children; even my grandmother asked to be called when the hole was ready, and my mother—although the day had turned much colder—wouldn’t even go inside for a coat. She wore dark-gray flannel slacks and a black, V-necked sweater, and stood hugging herself, standing first on one foot, then on the other, while Owen gathered strange items to accompany Sagamore to the underworld. Owen was restrained from putting the football in the burlap sack, because Mr. Fish—while digging the grave—maintained that football was still a game that would give us some pleasure, when we were “a little older.” Owen found a few well-chewed tennis balls, and Sagamore’s food dish, and his dog blanket for trips in the car; these he included in the burlap sack, together with a scattering of the brightest maple leaves—and a leftover lamb chop that Lydia had been saving for Sagamore (from last night’s supper).

There is one further point about the virtues that ought to be noticed. There is a difference between doing some particular just or temperate action and being a just or temperate man. Someone who is not a good tennis player may now and then make a good shot. What you mean by a good player is the man whose eye and muscles and nerves have been so trained by making innumerable good shots that they can now be relied on. They have a certain tone or quality which is there even when he is not playing, just as a mathematician's mind has a certain habit and outlook which is there even when he is not doing mathematics. In the same way a man who perseveres in doing just actions gets in the end a certain quality of character. Now it is that quality rather than the particular actions which we mean when we talk of 'virtue.' This distinction is important for the following reason. If we thought only of the particular actions we might encourage three wrong ideas. (1) We might think that, provided you did the right thing, it did not matter how or why you did it—whether you did it willingly or unwillingly, sulkily or cheerfully, through fear of public opinion or or its own sake. But the truth is that right actions done for the wrong reason do not help to build the internal quality or character called a 'virtue,' and it is this quality or character that really matters. (If the bad tennis player hits very hard, not because he sees that a very hard stroke is required, but because he has lost his temper, his stroke might possibly, by luck, help him to win that particular game; but it will not be helping him to become a reliable player.)

Nicki laughs. “This matters to me, Carrie. Putting my whole soul into this game matters to me. These tournaments matter. I’ve dedicated my life to this.” “Well, so have I,” I say. “And you had your chance to shine––you were given that opportunity.” “I took it,” I say. “It wasn’t given to me. Nobody wanted me to be the face of women’s tennis. They still don’t. I had to demand it. Just like I am doing now. So if you want it, you’re going to have to take it from me.” “No,” Nicki says. “That’s what you don’t seem to get. I have taken it from you. I have the record. And if you want it, you’re going to have to take it from me.” I stare at her, and she continues. “I am the best player women’s tennis has seen,” she says. “And I deserve to be recognized for it.” “You are recognized for it,” I say. “Constantly.” Nicki shakes her head. “No, by you. By the person I’ve respected my entire life. The woman I’ve looked up to.” There is no smile on her face anymore. Not even the hint of one. I look over at the TV. It’s playing sports commentary with the sound off. The closed captioning says they are talking about Nicki and me right now. “I see it,” I say, finally looking at her. “Me hating it is me seeing it.” Nicki sighs. “Okay, Soto. I guess I can’t squeeze blood from a stone.” “Look, what do you want from me?” Nicki looks me in the eye. “Don’t worry about what I say,” I tell her. “Pay attention to what I do. I’m back, aren’t I? I’m playing here today. That’s how good you are.” The trainer is done. I stand up. I walk past Nicki and put my hand on her shoulder. “Good luck,” I say. “I’m rooting for you up until the last second when I play you.” Nicki smiles. “You should be so lucky.” I put my hand out for her to shake. And she takes it.

De Villiers was shortlisted for the South African national hockey squad,’ the article says. True or false? False. In truth, I played hockey for one year at high school and was a member of the Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool Under-16A team that beat our near neighbours and rivals at Pretoria Boys’ High for the first time, but I was never shortlisted for the national hockey squad, or ever came remotely close to that level. ‘De Villiers was shortlisted for the South African national football squad,’ the article says. True or false? False. I have never played any organised football (soccer). We used to kick a ball around during break at school and the game has become part of the Proteas’ warm-up routine. That is all. ‘De Villiers was the captain of South Africa junior rugby,’ the article says. True or false? False. I played rugby at primary school and high school, and enjoyed every minute, but I never represented South Africa at any level, either at SA Schools or SA Under-20, and was never captain. ‘De Villiers is still the holder of six national school swimming records,’ the article says. True or false? False. As far as I recall, I did set an Under-9 breaststroke record at Warmbaths Primary School but I have never held any national school swimming records, not even for a day. ‘De Villiers has the record fastest 100 metres time among South African junior sprinters,’ the article says. True or false? False. I did not sprint at all at school. Elsewhere on the Internet, to my embarrassment, there are articles in which the great sprinter Usain Bolt is asked which cricketer could beat him in a sprint and he replies ‘AB de Villiers’. Maybe, just maybe, I would beat him if I were riding a motorbike. ‘De Villiers was a member of the national junior Davis Cup tennis team,’ the article says. True or false? Almost true. As far as I know, there was no such entity as the national junior Davis Cup team, but I did play tennis as a youngster, loved the game and was occasionally ranked as the national No. 1 in my age group. ‘De Villiers was a national Under-19 badminton

I’ll serve first, shall I?” Caroline called across the net as she plucked a ball out of her pocket, stepped up to the line, and tossed it into the air, leaving Millie, who was supposed to be the recipient of the serve, barely any time to get ready. All the breath seemed to leave him as the ball traveled rather slowly over the net. But then Millie drew back her racquet and . . . slammed the ball back Caroline’s way, the force of her swing completely unexpected given her small size. Before Caroline even moved, the ball shot past her. “Was that out?” Caroline demanded, swinging around. “It was in,” called a lady from the stands. Caroline spun to face Millie as Nora flashed a cheeky grin. “Love-fifteen,” Nora called. “I know how to keep score,” Caroline snapped back. Unfortunately, the game did not get better for Caroline after that. Millie had obviously not been exaggerating when she’d claimed she’d played tennis before, but it was clear that she hadn’t been playing with young boys. She was all over the court, hitting anything Caroline or Gertrude managed to get over the net, while Nora simply strolled back and forth, swinging her racquet, and at one point, whistling a jaunty tune. When it was Millie’s turn to serve, matters turned downright concerning. Gertrude was the first to try and return Millie’s serve, but when the ball came rushing at her, she screamed, dropped her racquet, and ran the other way, earning a screech from Caroline until she seemed to recall that her turn was next. “Give her a fast one, Miss Longfellow,” Thaddeus called. Millie lowered her racquet to send Thaddeus another wave. “Miss Longfellow, we are in the middle of a match here,” Caroline yelled across the net. “Forgive me, Miss Dixon. You’re quite right.” As if the world had suddenly slowed down, Everett watched as Millie threw the ball up, and then the racquet connected squarely with it, the thud of the connection reaching his ears. It began to move, and then the world sped up as the ball hurled at Caroline, and . . . smacked her right in the middle of the forehead, the impact knocking Caroline off her feet. Her skirt fluttered up, showing a bit of leg. Millie immediately began running across the court. Darting around the net, she raced to Caroline’s side, and yanked Caroline’s skirt back over her legs. Before Everett had a chance to see what Millie would do next, Abigail was tugging on his arm, and he realized he needed to act . . . the sooner the better. By the time he got to Caroline, made certain she wasn’t seriously hurt, and on her feet, he knew he had to get Millie as far away as possible from her. Caroline was shaking with rage and muttering threats under her breath. Telling Caroline he’d be right back, he nodded to Millie, who was still trying to apologize to Caroline, even though Caroline was not acknowledging the apologies and was resolutely looking the opposite way from Millie. “I really am so very, very sorry,” Millie said one last time before Abigail suddenly appeared right by her side and the crowd that had gathered around them fell silent. “Good heavens, Millie, it’s not as if you hit Miss Dixon on purpose—something Caroline knows all too well.” Abigail leveled a cool look on Caroline. “Why, your forehead is just a little pink. Granted the pink is perfectly circular, but . . . I’m sure it’ll fade soon, so no harm done.” Abigail

Ronald Banilov display both physical and mental prowess. He is a fantastic chess player who invested countless hours into the game during his time studying at New York University. Ronald Banilov is also a great tennis player. He plays as often as he's able to and watches all the major tournaments that are broadcast on TV.

tennis-ball-sized head?

She was being stubborn, so I told her that the ball was in her court—which is an idiom that comes from tennis, although some crazy people think it comes from badminton. Of course, this assertion is completely false, because it would be the shuttlecock is in your court, not the ball is in your court.” Quinn’s eyes held mine, but his face seemed meticulously expressionless when he said, “Why is it called a shuttlecock?” “Excellent question—I’m glad you asked. The word refers to the forward and backward movement it makes during the game: it was named after the shuttle of a loom.” “And the cock part?” My eyes narrowed on him and—by the power of Thor!—I could feel my neck heat. This was entrapment. I cleared my throat and looked away, picking a piece of lint from my jeans before responding. “It has feathers on it.” “Oh. So it wasn’t named after the forward and backward movement of….” “No! No it was not.

He was either working or gaming. He barely even looked at her. Beth had to do everything alone. He wouldn’t come to the club with her for drinks, he didn’t participate in any of the town activities, he wouldn’t go near the tennis courts.

Given anything other than an outright winner by an opponent, professional tennis players can make the shot they want almost all the time: hard or soft, deep or short, left or right, flat or with spin. Professional players aren’t troubled by the things that make the game challenging for amateurs: bad bounces; wind; sun in the eyes; limitations on speed, stamina and skill; or an opponent’s efforts to put the ball beyond reach. The pros can get to most shots their opponents hit and do what they want with the ball almost all the time. In fact, pros can do this so consistently that tennis statisticians keep track of the relatively rare exceptions under the heading “unforced errors.” But the tennis the rest of us play is a “loser’s game,” with the match going to the player who hits the fewest losers. The winner just keeps the ball in play until the loser hits it into the net or off the court. In other words, in amateur tennis, points aren’t won; they’re lost. I recognized in Ramo’s loss-avoidance strategy the version of tennis I try to play.

Question #124 Two boys play 7 games of tennis.  Each boy wins the same number of games, but there are no games that ended in a tie.  How did it happen?

If we were talking about the game of tennis instead of Spelunky, it’s as though this player asked me to remove the net because he was having trouble hitting the ball over it, neither of us realizing that the real problem was that I gave him a racket with broken strings.

Have you played tennis on that tennis court?’ I asked. ‘Oh, don’t talk to me about tennis,’ he complained, ‘my kids have been dying to have a game ever since we got here, but they can’t’ ‘Why not?’ ‘There aren’t any tennis balls on the island.’ ‘You’re joking.’ ‘I’m not. Not one. The shop’s run out and the guy who was supposed to bring some out from the mainland forgot’ Island life encapsulated.

If you are playing tennis, you have a partner, you are a team, and you never go against each other — never. Even if you both play tennis differently, you have the same goal: to have fun together, to play together, to be playmates. If you have a partner who wants to control your game, and she says, “No, don’t play like that; play like this. No, you are doing it wrong,” you are not going to have any fun. Eventually, you won’t want to play with that partner anymore. Instead of being a team, your partner wants to control how you play. And without the concept of a team, you are always going to have conflict. If you see your partnership, your romantic relationship, as a team, everything will start to improve. In a relationship, as in a game, it’s not about winning or losing. You are playing because you want to have fun. In the track of love, you are giving more than taking. And of course, you love yourself so much that you don’t allow selfish people to take advantage of you. You are not going for revenge, but you are clear in your communication. You can say, “I don’t like it when you try to take advantage of me, when you disrespect me, when you are unkind to me. I don’t need someone to abuse me verbally, emotionally, physically. I don’t need to hear you cursing all the time. It’s not that I am better than you; it’s because I love beauty. I love to laugh; I love to have fun; I love to love. It’s not that I am selfish, I just don’t need a big victim near me. It doesn’t mean that I don’t love you, but I cannot take responsibility for your dream. If you are in a relationship with me, it will be so hard for your Parasite, because I will not react to your garbage at all.” This is not selfishness; this is self-love. Selfishness, control, and fear will break almost any relationship. Generosity, freedom, and love will create the most beautiful relationship: an ongoing romance.

Once games required an actual place to play them, whether on the chess board or the tennis court. Even wars had battle fields. Now global positioning satellites grid the whole earth and put all of space and time in play. Warfare, they say, now looks like video games. Well don’t kid yourself. War is a video game—for the military entertainment complex. To them it doesn’t matter what happens “on the ground.” The ground—the old-fashioned battlefield itself—is just a necessary externality to the game.

It is not helpful to condemn our present behavior patterns — in this case our present imperfect strokes — as “bad“; it is helpful to see what function these habits are serving, so that if we learn a better way to achieve the same end, we can do so. We never repeat any behavior which isn‘t serving some function or purpose. It is difficult to become aware of the function of any pattern of behavior while we are in the process of blaming ourselves for having a “bad habit.“ But when we stop trying to suppress or correct the habit,we can see the function it serves, and then an alternative pattern of behavior, which serves the same function better, emerges quite effortlessly.

Part 3: Permission (page 112) I decided to play the game of rejection letters as if it were a great cosmic tennis match: Somebody would send me a rejection, and I would knock it right back over the net, sending out another query that same afternoon. My policy was: You hit it to me, I'm going to hit it straight back out into the universe.

Pickleball is a sport most people have never heard of but is a big deal in Florida's retirement communities. It is a geriatric version of tennis played with Ping-Pong paddles and a Whiffle Ball on a court similar to a badminton court... Jeff Laughlin, a North Carolina sportswriter, visited a pickleball match and reported that "the absurdity of the name can only be rivaled by the absurdity of the sport itself." Because the rackets are pretty lightweight and the Whiffle Ball is, well, a Whiffle Ball, no on can hit the ball hard enough to get it past an opposing player. The result is a game featuring "long, arduous volleys" that seem to end mainly once someone gets tired of swinging the racket or it's time for lunch. Laughlin characterizes the sport as "incredibly easy and boring," but to aficionados, apparently, it is a great way to work up a thirst for an afternoon martini.

The person vulnerable to stress and procrastination is saying: “This project is me. My boss or client must love it, or I’ll feel rejected as a person. If I can’t make ten sales today I’m a failure. Whether I’m a winner or a loser in life will be determined by how well I do on this project.” With your work bearing a weight as enormous as the determination of your worth and your future happiness, stress is inevitable. You need some form of escape to relieve the anxiety and to disengage your self-esteem from how well you do at this game of tennis, this exam, or this job. In such a predicament, procrastination can serve as a delaying action and as a way of getting you past your perfectionism. If you delay starting your work, you cannot do your best and so any criticism or failure will not be a judgment of the real you or your best effort. If you delay making a decision, the decision will be made for you and you will not have to take responsibility if something goes wrong.

Support and encourage your Self 2, knowing that the stronger it gets, the more it will take to throw you off balance, and the quicker you can regain your balance.

It’s not about the win or the loss; if we’re here to experience, then we are free.

If you reflect upon your own highest moments or peak experiences. You will probably also remember them as moments of great pleasure, even ecstasy.

Anxiety is fear about what may happen in the future, and it occurs only when the mind is imagining what the future may bring. But when your attention is on the here and now, the actions which need to be done in the present have their best chance of being successfully accomplished, and as a result the future will become the best possible present.

So the question is: How long do you need to practice in order to achieve excellence? Extensive research, it turns out, has come up with a very specific answer to that question: from art to science and from board games to tennis, it has been found that a minimum of ten years is required to reach world-class status in any complex task.

Somehow the anger had taken me beyond my own preconceived limitations; it took me beyond caution.

It is only against the big waves that he is required to use all his skill, all his courage and concentration to overcome; only then can he realize the true limits of his capacities. At that point he often attains his peak. In other words, the more challenging the obstacle he faces, the greater the opportunity for the surfer to discover and extend his true potential. The potential may have always been within him, but until it is manifested in action, it remains a secret hidden from himself. The obstacles are a very necessary ingredient to this process of self-discovery. Note that the surfer in this example is not out to prove himself; he is not out to show himself or the world how great he is, but is simply involved in the exploration of his latent capacities. He directly and intimately experiences his own resources and thereby increases his self-knowledge.

When we experience any event, a unique network of neurons is activated depending on the nature of the event. Watching a sunset? Visual centers that represent shadows and light, pink, orange, and yellow are activated. That same sunset a half hour earlier or later looks different, and so invokes correspondingly different neurons for representing it. Watching a tennis game? Neurons fire for face recognition for the players, motion detection for the movements of their bodies, the ball, the rackets, while higher cognitive centers keep track of whether they stayed in bounds and what the score is. Each of our thoughts, perceptions, and experiences has a unique neural correlate—if it didn’t, we would perceive the events as identical; it is the difference in neuronal activations that allows us to distinguish events from one another.

7.​What are some common game patterns that you use? 8.​What are some common game patterns that work against you? 9.​What kinds of serves do you commonly use? 10.​What kinds of serves give you trouble? 11.​What is your preferred way to return serves? 12.​What types of serve returns give you trouble? 13.​What variations do you often use in the beginning of the match? 14.​What tendencies do you have at the end of a close game? 15.​What do you fall back on as Plan B when losing? 16.​What do you fall back on as Plan C when losing?

Then it occurred to me that I could walk outside and contrive to take a spill, or squeeze out the window on the rear staircase on HmH and fall several meters to the steep embankment below, being sure to land on the bad ankle and hurt it, so I’d not have to play. That I could carefully plan out a fall from the courts’ observation transom or the spectators’ gallery of whatever club C.T. and the Moms sent us to to help raise funds, and fall so carefully badly I’d take out all the ankle’s ligaments and never play again. Never have to, never get to. I could be the faultless victim of a freak accident and be knocked from the game while still on the ascendant. Becoming the object of compassionate sorrow rather than disappointed sorrow. 

I couldn’t stay with this fantastic line of thought long enough to parse out whose disappointment I was willing to cripple myself to avoid (or forgo).

As the Stoics say: “Do what you must; let happen what may.” We can inoculate ourselves against the bite of disappointment by switching from external to internal goals: not winning the tennis match but playing our best game; not seeing our novel published but writing the best, most honest one we are capable of writing. Nothing more, nothing less.