Recover Quickly
Tennis is not like any other game. It’s you against an opponent but mainly you against yourself and the game doesn’t really stop. There’s not a lot of time to sort through what you are doing or thinking. This is one reason why it’s important to not think but just do. The way thinking happens in tennis is a flaw, really, in the way our brain is designed to operate. When good things happen you do a fist pump and move on; quickly. When you make a mistake any number of scenarios many follow and most of them are not facilitate or good. Why we are wired this way is hard to say exactly. Some of it is how we are hard wired and some of it is how we are brought up. Regardless, in tennis you have to be able to recover quickly.
How does this happen? The first step is to build an awareness of the moments when you go off the deep end (this is not my language this is what I hear from my tennis players): what, why, how, where, when. This retrospective can happen by writing a reflection after practice, having moments of forced awareness during practice by using 1 minute timeouts or asking your coach to stop practice when s/he sees you going off the deep end.
After you build awareness it’s important to have an alternative, reaction route. 🙂 You can’t keep reacting and responding in the way you are now by going off the deep end, right? There are many alternatives. How do you want to react in situations that don’t go the way you want them to go? Routines are very helpful because your brain is focused on it versus focusing on the ‘mistake’. Breathing is also helpful and for similar reasons. Imagery, a dong lyric, words, etc. It can also be very helpful to learn how to shrug is off and move on.
How do you connect the awareness with the change (and this is not a simple, quick process)? There has to be what I call a ‘bridge’. The bridge is what connects the awareness with the new behavior because how are you going to remember to change your reaction in a heated moment without a reminder? You probably won’t! What I’ve found is that a visual bridge is usually the best. It has to be something you can see that will remind you to move into another direction: a word placed somewhere you’ll see it, a rubber band around your wrist, etc.
This process takes time and consistency but once you have a plan you will be able to recover quickly! It took you time and consistency to learn how to play tennis. Your brain is in the driver seat when it comes to tennis. If you want the driver to know what to do and where to go, you have to train her/him.
Happy fall!
Dr. Michelle
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