Once the door was opened the progress in the inner game of tennis was immediate and ongoing. In three months, students were telling me what was already realizing, that performance, learning, and enjoyment were part of one things, could be “coached” with reliable results,and applied to almost any external endeavor with success. Some leading executives who took lessons realized that this was a different and effective way of bringing about desire change and the corporate level. When asked, by one of them “what does the inner game actually do.” I didn’t have a ready answered, but reflected on my experience and replied: it consistently does three things simultaneously, increases performance, accelerates learning, and greatly enriches enjoyment of the activity. And during this discovery I was participating in all those results; I was the one that needed them most.
I found something in me I could trust, and then when I did all three of those results occurred at once. I even felt guilty that while using this approach, I was learning more even than my students about learning, was enjoying the process even more than they, and at the end they were paying me happily and with gratitude even though it was they who did the learning, and I just created the environment which sought to eliminate judgment,, fear, and doubt my own nemesis. A foundation was being built in me that had me recognize the forces of good were fundamental in a human being, if you ignored what got in the way of them. I was coaching students and learning from my experience what worked and what interfered. I came back to life in a few months. What came to called the inner game was a gift to students, but primarily a gift to me that I committed to take care of and develop it’s potential.