We Need to Talk about 'WINNING'

The Discovery

Our chances of winning more tennis matches seems to have improved dramatically over the last two decades and I don’t think it is isn't simply due to an improvement in racket technology. 

 What I have experienced during my tennis teaching career has been a huge proliferation of methodologies and the teaching Academies that seem to accompany them. I became deeply involved myself. I became qualified in all of them and they promised much. Exotic drills repeated endlessly; fashioned in some sun baked Academy. Brutal gym sessions producing peak condition and the winning psychology; mental toughness not allowing a poor internal narrative drag me down.

So the recipe was know your stuff. Repeat daily, get super fit and stay positive. And who could argue with that? After all, all one needs is more commitment.

And how great my charges looked. Even I began to improve as a player. Addicted to this new found work ethic all I needed was more. More commitment, more stamina and an ironclad frame of mind. We would film ourselves daily, safe in the knowledge that we would someday be immune to those painful losses to which we still seemed unjustly susceptible.

So a sense of Justice grew within us. The sentiment seemed to be,

“We have done everything we possibly can to become good tennis players. If we lose, it won't be our fault.”

So committed were we to this new regime that the dirty business of playing matches became anathema. Why bother? I'll only have to compromise my beautiful technique and turn into a hacker. So training and hitting became the order of the day.

One day, I was asked to play for a local League. Well, at least one of the matches was going to be a singles. The idea of putting my beautiful tennis self into competition was somewhat daunting but I agreed, nonetheless.

What close fought and brave matches that first season provided. Aesthetic Beauty matching the heroic struggle. The single win I obtained from the five matches I played was enough to convince me that Justice has been served. So, like a beautiful lily pad in a pond of mediocrity, I would soldier on into another season. 

Then there was the Brazilian. Ricardo, try as I might, could not be beaten. An Aphrodite of the court he was not but he beat everyone. Strangely, it wasn’t a tennis match where I found the clue as to how to beat him. It was chess that provided a glimpse into a new dimension where an elusive win may, just may, be possible.

Chess had always been a source of fascination to me. It doesn't have the methodology of our tennis system. It doesn't seem to care about beauty or repetition. Winning was imminent in every move. More immediate than it is in tennis. Again, I couldn't beat him. If it is possible, he seemed to be using the same strategy in tennis as he was in chess. So I asked him, 

“How do you win all the time, what's your secret?”

He replied, “ I watch what you do and try to disrupt it until you make a mistake.”

“OK, what do you think I should do to win?”

He replied, “Stop trying to win with every move. You're so focused on yourself and what you're doing, it's like your tennis. Too many winners and so too many errors.”

The next time I took to the court to play Ricardo, I decided to take heed of what he said and play in a different way. I wouldn't go for any winners. Instead, I would try to force him into making mistakes.

So the match began. After the first ball was hit I felt like a different person, not simply a different player. I played shot after shot into the court without any regard to beautiful technique. It felt horrible. It felt like I was going against everything I believed in with ‘the beautiful methodology’. 

 I won. I had finally beaten him. I had played like him and not hit one single winner and he blinked. I never lost to him after that. What I had learnt from the experience was to have a profound effect on not just myself but those around me.

 Almost instantaneously I could see the flaw in the beautiful methodology. I could see why parents were so frustrated (and so much poorer). For decades we have been indoctrinated and seduced by the methodologies. This process of mystification continually prevented us from asking the right question. Yes, we were fitter. Yes, we were happier and felt better. Yes, we looked fantastic. But we failed to ask the right question, so no wonder we could not find the right answer. "How do I win?"

From that moment, the moment that question is asked, the scales fell from our eyes. We were no longer hypnotized by form. What was once Spectacular and Beautiful immediately lost its power. The year of clarity had begun and a very new and very powerful system was born. Something the like of which tennis has never seen. It is not simply a New Era, it is a revolution.

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