The Inner Game

GREGG BELL from the Associated Press explains the influence of “the Inner Gmae of tennis” on the career and playing style of Seattle Seahawks defensive end, Lawrence Jackson.

RENTON, WASH. — Thick playbooks aren’t the only literature Lawrence Jackson dives into during the season.

Let’s see, there’s “Zen and the Art of Archery.” Other entries on Eastern Religion. “The Inner Game of Tennis.” And, for more contemporary awareness, Time Magazine.

He also writes a personal journal.

The Seahawks’ second-year defensive end is currently preparing for Sunday’s game against Jacksonville while he rereads “Zen and the Art of Archery.” The widely acclaimed book introduced Zen thinking to Europe soon after World War II.

“It’s about transcending your technique so you can make it an art form,” Jackson said of the short narrative by Eugen Herrigel. “I’m a thinking person.”

Jackson’s problem during his rookie season as Seattle’s first-round draft choice was that he thought too much. He tried to compute all the game film, game plans and tendencies of opposing offenses during the split second after the ball was snapped. His head was sent spinning, as much by all the data in his noggin as by the blockers and the ball that sped past him.

He was considered a huge disappointment, thrown by many into a pile of underachieving Seahawks top picks from recent years that includes defensive backs Josh Wilson and Kelly Jennings.

But, with his own coaching future in mind, Jim Mora helped Jackson find his way through his self-made fog.

Still the Seahawks’ defensive backs coach under Mike Holmgren, Mora met a couple of times each week during the 2008 season and then after it with this supposedly fiendish pass rusher who had zero sacks in his final 14 games.

“He understands I’m a thinking person,” Jackson said of Mora, now the Seahawks’ head man. “He said, ‘Lawrence, do all the thinking you have to do during the week, so that when you get to Sunday you just play.’”

“Because when you think,” Jackson said, “you lose a step.”

He’s gaining ground now. Faced with Mora’s public preseason mandate that he must start fulfilling Seattle’s high expectations for him, Jackson has three sacks in four games. That’s one more than he had in 16 games last year. He also has four quarterback hits, also one more than he had in all of ’08.

The forgotten 28th overall pick and second-team All-American as a senior at Southern California has, in one month, ascended from an endangered part-timer.

Now, he’s the end Seattle summons for pressure on passing downs. And his importance will grow against the Jaguars (2-2), with two-time Pro Bowl end Patrick Kerney questionable to play because of a strained groin.

“(He’s) quietly becoming a pretty darn good football player,” Mora said. “One of the hidden jewels, I guess you could say, in the 1-3 start is the play of Lawrence.”

From a strict football perspective, Jackson is simply more consistent, according to first-year defensive coordinator Gus Bradley.

“Now, every game you are seeing him get some pressure,” Bradley said Thursday. “I just think he’s matured.”

But there’s more to it than that for the 24-year-old.

In Mora, he seemingly has a coach similar to USC’s Pete Carroll. The renowned players’ friend and free thinker gave Jackson the 1974 book “The Inner Game of Tennis” during his redshirt junior season to get Jackson to relax more during games, to not try so hard and let his athletic ability flow more easily.

“Jim’s a great leader,” Jackson said of Mora. “He understands what it takes to separate yourself from the norm.”

Tags: Inner Game of Tennis, Lawrence Jackson, Seattle Seahawks, Tim Gallwey

Here is a great article from Golf in the Godzone that talks about some of Tim Gallwey’s ideas put forth in The Inner Game of Golf.

Tiger Woods

Steve Williams’ Hitting The Zone came to hand as I searched the shelves of my favourite second-hand Hard to Find book shop.

Steve’s book, co-authored with Hugh de Lacy has been around for some time however having read literally; no let’s not go there, just let’s say lots of golf tuition books, I decided I should at least, buy it for my collection.

And then thought it’s about a Kiwi so maybe a wee word about it will fit the bill for a Golf in Godzone blog.

So here’s a few of my Aha! thoughts while reading what turned out to be a very good book.
And I’d go as far as say it’s a must-read for young golfers.

Not because it’s one of these do this, don’t do that kind of mechanistic methodology tuition books.
It focuses on the mind side of playing this great game.

Its focus on the mind, exquisitely explained in the book’s opening quote.

“Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a half inch course-the space between your ears-Bobby Jones”

My first Aha!
Steve approves of the use of “shrinks” then writes, “Tiger Woods is an exception-the nearest thing to shrinks on Team Tiger are Steve, and Tiger’s [late] father Earl.”

I guess it’s because so much has been written about Tiger’s swing coaches we fail to observe Tiger doesn’t have a favourite “shrink”.

I also liked Steve’s definition of a successful swing and/or performance.

“We could define success in any sport as the natural learned potential stored within the subconscious, minus the negative interference from the conscious.”

-See what I mean when I write it’s a book about the mind rather than mechanical methodology?

Steve’s definition brought to mind Tim Gallwey’s The Inner Game of Golf and Tim’s idea that we have a Self 1 which creates physical and mental interferences with the natural abilities of Self 2.

Steve gets very upset when he hears of his old boss, Greg Norman, being called a “choker”. And I’ll come back to my thoughts on Greg later.

Mention is also made of the rapid fall in form of Ian Baker-Finch but Steve is not naïve enough to suggest he’s got a fast-fix solution for such a huge fall in performance level.

Steve is a great believer in the value of goal-setting and I found this heading kinda cute;
“The pen is mightier than the passing fancy”.

Suggesting that if you don’t put pen to paper and write down your goals. Whatever goal-of-the moment comes to mind is nothing but a passing fancy.

I’m almost there with my Aha! Moments so please bear with me.

A minor factual error but worth commenting on is, when writing about Sam Snead, Sam is attributed with winning the 1946 US Open. Not so it was the 1946 Open at St Andrews.

Sam never did win a US Open and is on record of having said something Greg Norman might have said in reference to his well-documented losses.

Sam said, “It goes without saying that my biggest disappointment was never winning the U.S. Open. I’m reminded of it all the time. It hurts when people remember you for the things you didn’t do, rather than for the things you did do.”

The Great White Shark has a great golfing record but alas all too many people focus on the events where he didn’t quite finish the job.

My thought for the day, and something I did today with some success, but more importantly, enjoyment. Comes from Steve’s thoughts on the relaxation.

“Whatever the on-course relaxation routine, Steve says it’s vital for a player to deliberately break his concentration between shots.
It would be absolutely exhausting, if not mentally impossible, to maintain full concentration throughout the four hours or so it takes to play a round of golf.”

Aha! So when I see Steve and Tiger, talking and laughing between shots, there’s an explanation other than a chat between friends. It’s one of the ways to create a break in Tiger’s concentration between shots.

Slainte

Stan

Tags: godzone, Hitting The Zone, Inner Game of Golf, Steve Williams, The Inner Game, Tim Gallwey

Here is a new article posted in the RACQUET SHOP about what this writer thinks the Inner Game of Tennis is all about.
The Inner Game of Tennis – It’s Not About the Racquet
Posted by Admin in Racquet, Tennis

Amazon has more than 300 reviews of the autobiography of Lance Armstrong, It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life. The reviewers consistently agreed that this book is very inspiring and hopeful.
There are too many messages and lessons in the book, they all relate in this article. However, there are three main strategies that are of particular relevance to the Inner Game of Tennis. Basically, they can be absorbed by the declaration, it is not about the Racket.
The three main strategies are:
1. Do not let others limit your goals or your dreams
When Lance Armstrong was recovering from brain surgery and aggressive chemotherapy, there was a lot of people said that he would never ride again. Even one of his main sponsors dropped Lance, because he believed that he could never recover from the destruction of cancer and related treatment.
Lance refused to betray to define or limit his ability to beGoals and dreams. He was determined not only to ride again, but to win on the demanding Tour de France for his first time. Lance Armstrong went on to win the Tour de France seven times!
Even when he was emaciated, exhausted and worn out, he still maintained his goals and dreams. So the first strategy was is to your goals and dreams even in the face of resistance tended meaning people.
2. Deep in your inner resources
Lance argues that the keyFor him, learning from his illness and survival, that we are better than we know. We are completely underestimate our inner reserves and unrealized capacity, not because we do test the power of our mind. It is often only emerge from a crisis that these inner capacities.
One of the key strategies of the Inner Game of Tennis is to learn to dig deep into our inner resources and develop our untapped potential. This requires the will, determination and willingness to win against all adversity. Lance survivedhis cancer, even though the doctors assume that he is a 3% chance of survival, not had great opportunities!
Here is another striking example. The press, globally and locally, decided at the beginning of the 2007 Australian Open Tennis Championship, that Serena Williams had no chance because they are overweight and not suitable. They did not allow for its underlying basic fitness or ability to open up to her incredible inner resources. You will have the force was so strong that their opponents often in the fadedgiven their sheer determination, even if they led in the game.
Therefore, the second important strategy in order to learn to tap your inner resources against the limitations that we impose on themselves.
3. Make every obstacle an opportunity
Lance Armstrong takes this strategy to his mother, who reminded constantly to him as a child, that he in all obstacle an opportunity to improve. Said in an interview after his first Tour de France, Lancethat his illness has a new opportunity to improve on many fronts. He claimed that his fight against cancer it harder and more patients than even cyclists and more thoughtful, compassion and responsibility as a man, a father and partner enabled.
Therefore, a third key strategy of the Inner Game of Tennis is to improve your game and offending over every obstacle you.
The Inner Game of Tennis is not about the racket. It’s all about you. It is concerned about how your skills to define and maintain your goals, how you access your inner resources and how to obstacles, improve, and your tennis game.

Tags: inner game, Inner Game of Tennis, inner resources, The Inner Game, Tim Gallwey, untapped potential

‘Inner Game’ authors workshop
By Alicia Doyle

A recent article in the Ventura County Star highlights a workshop give by Tim Gallwey and this co-authors of “The Innergame of Stress”, Westlake Village physicians Edd Hanzelik and John Horton.

The possibility of building enough inner stability to withstand the inevitable winds of stress is the focus of “The Inner Game of Stress,” a book by sports psychology expert Timothy Gallwey, who teamed up with Westlake Village physicians Edd Hanzelik and John Horton to provide a guide to mental health in today’s volatile world.

“It’s not a cookie-cutter approach to managing stress; it helps people access their own innate human qualities, which can not only prevent stress but increase the joy in their lives,” said Gallwey, of Malibu. “When a person is clear about the core of who they are, then the changes that take place in the external world do not have the power to throw one off balance.”

Gallwey, Hanzelik and Horton visited California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks on Sept. 23 to discuss and sign copies of the book, as part of the Health and Social Change Lecture Series presented by the CLU Center for Equality and Justice.

The popular “Inner Game” series started with self-help books for athletes and then explored other realms, including music and work.

For the latest book, released Aug. 18, Gallwey, Hanzelik and Horton spent 15 years applying the principles to the management of everyday stress brought on by personal, professional, financial and physical issues to develop a practical solution.

“We go to the core of the problem. The mammalian fight/flight system cannot adequately respond to the human challenges of life,” said Hanzelik, who lives in Calabasas and has an office in Westlake Village.

“We need to play ‘The Inner Game’ and discover a host of resources within us: nonjudgmental awareness, stability, clarity, choice and a personal shield,” Hanzelik said. “This book is unique, because we help people discover a fresh, enjoyable approach to responding to the challenges of life.”

It is about learning specific, practical tools to shift from our primitive stress system to our more evolved human wisdom system, said Horton of Westlake Village, who has collaborated with Gallwey on the “Inner Game” series for more than 30 years and with Hanzelik on stress seminars for 15 years.

“We know that we do not like stress, but we think that is just the way of life. So we try to manage or adapt to stress,” said Horton, who will describe the stress system and how overusing this system opens the door to illness, among other related topics.

Gallwey will discuss specific tools for building inner stability, including how to be the CEO of your own life, as well as a model for learning and growing without self-judgment.

Tags: Edd Hanzelik, Innergame, John Horton, stress, Tim Gallwey, Westlake Village physicians