EssentialTennis.com Users Seek the Competitive Advantage and David Gives Them Some Mental Toughness Secrets
David Groemping of Gemini Mental Toughness Training was featured on EssentialTennis.com again to talk about sports and tennis mental toughness. Last time David spoke on the topic of Mental Toughness to Avoid Choking and Finish a Match.
This time he answers questions posed by some of EssentialTennis.com’s podcast listeners.
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Q:
We have all dealt with that “not so easy to deal with” player on the court. You know, the cocky, bad line calling, laugh when you miss a shot, type player. Evil.
These guys for me are the hardest to deal with. When I am on the court, I try to be as gracious as possible in regard to line calls, etc. There is a guy that shows up to our round robin play on Fridays that is unbearable. When you miss, he lets out an audible chuckle, when he hits winners, he does the fist pump and “woo-hoo’s” and stares directly at you. I kind of think its funny sometimes, but to me it can be a bit un-sportsmanlike. Besides wanting to kill him, any other tips would be great.
David:
There is a simple answer- you have to not let him get to you. You probably know this already, but you probably do not have a whole lot of access to having that happen.
The first thing you want to acknowledge is that this type of player is a threat to your concentration or having fun or winning and certainly poses a challenge for you mental toughness.
Then, what there is to do is to give up thinking he is a jerk, or an a-hole or whatever version of wrong or bad or evil that you think he is. You may want to think specifically of what you accuse him of in your head. This is the first thing to let go of because thinking this stuff poisons you and your game.
Also in getting upset with this guy, you are ultimately getting yourself off the hook from stepping up and playing well. Give this up and you will have a whole lot more access to ignoring him.
So once you have given this garbage up, what there is to do now is to really flex that mental muscle, and it really is a muscle, to make yourself focus on mastery, or excellence or your game plan, or whatever it is that you keep focused on during your match.
Side note- if you do not have anything that you keep in mind when you are playing or anything to focus on while playing, I highly recommend you do.
On top of that, they guy is going to do what he is going to do and you cannot control him and you can’t change him. I promise. And no matter what you think about him, how he should or should not be, he will still be the same. Same as you can get as mad as you want at the traffic, but it will still be there. Same with this type of player- and this goes for any type of player that annoys you- grunters, pushers…. All of them
Just accept that he is going to be this way, you cannot do anything about it and focus on what YOU can do to win, which starts by keeping your head in the game.
Q:
When people talk about mental strength, they usually mean coping with nerves. You know you should play better, and yet, you’re afraid to lose, and you play worse. But there’s another aspect. Ian discussed this in his blog on “paying attention.” Mental strength is trying to maximize how you play and not let nerves cause you to play worse than you normally would. However, sometimes people blame a lack of mental strength when they don’t realize there are technical deficiencies. For example, when playing a pusher, they may find they can’t hit hard shots if their opponent doesn’t hit hard shots (they need pace to create pace).
How do you make a judgment that it’s a technical problem that’s causing your problems vs. just plain nerves. And if you decide it is nerves, how do you get less nervous as the match is being played?
David:
This question hits on playing as well in competition as you do in practice.
The best I can tell to be able to judge if it is a technical problem or your mental game is: if you can do it in practice and not in competition, then it is mental. Or if you can do something technical in one type of playing environment and then not in another, then I would say it is mental. I am talking on a consistent basis here.
There is a little more.
A pitfall that a lot of players find themselves in is blaming their technique for a deficiency in performance. It is amazing how your technique can go downhill fast if your mental game is off. My point is that a lot of times, players will point to a technical issue where really, it is an underlying lack of mental toughness that is at the source of the technical issue. This can cause confusion in judging if it is a lack of technical or mental ability.
How do you get less nervous as the match is being played: We could have a whole series of podcasts for this question. I will give you 2 things to help with that:
1) Think about what you are really committed to with tennis. Getting great exercise, releasing stress, giving a good fight, pursuit of mastery, be a fierce competitor or having fun or all of these. These are just some examples. Think of why you actually, really play tennis and you may need to spend some time thinking about this.
Then, try on that you playing tennis has nothing to do with you, winning or losing and everything to do with what you are committed to (which we talked about a second ago). Then what it takes is completely giving up your interest in winning or disinterest in losing and completely focusing on your commitment there in the moment, FULLY. What makes you nervous is that you are focused on winning and losing, and what there is to do is focus on your commitment now, and allow winning or losing be a by-product of how you played and what you are committed to.
This is by no means a complete answer, but a darn good start.
2) This is homework- take 2 pieces of paper. Write at the top of one: ‘winning’ and at the top of the other ‘losing.’
For losing, write a long list. I mean long, listing everything losing means to you and about you and what is the worst thing that can really happen.
For winning, write a long list. I mean long, listing everything winning means to you and about you and what is the best thing that can really happen.
Then- realistically ask yourself, is anyone really going to remember if you won or lost in a week? Month? Year? Can you remember all the matches you won or lost a month or year ago- doubtful- so chances are that it will continue this way.
Also- truthfully evaluate the validity of the lists you made- like is this stuff really true. When you get down to it, when you won or lost, all that it really means is you had more or less points than the other person.
The point of this is that we add a ton of inflated significance to winning and losing that isn’t necessarily that big of a deal and a lot of times isn’t even in the realm of reality
There are a million ways to deal with nervousness and a million causes of it, and these are two pretty simple ways that I thought would make a difference for the majority of people listening without actually being able to speak with them.
Q:
Tennis is SO MENTAL, agghh! I played in a singles match yesterday and I wonder what the Mental Training Coach would say about this: I was off to a good start, 2-0, when my opponent changed things up by coming into the net and putting away my high ground strokes. Now she’s up 3-2. Nerves are not my problem at this point. My problem is I start thinking about the SCORE, worrying about winning the next point because the SCORE is so important, agghhh! I start berating myself, “you should be beating this girl”, etc. She was up 5-2 when I told myself to settle down and treat the next points like a drill. Pick a target and hit every ball there. So I had a three shot plan, for instance I’ll hit every ball to the ad side deep 3 ft in from the baseline. Now when she came into the net I had a plan, I drove it passed her down the line. No changing my mind and throwing up a weaker shot, I stuck to my plan. Of course if I had a opening I’d hit it cross court or get to the net and put it away but on the whole I stuck to my plan of picking a side (usually her weaker deuce side) and I turned it around and won the next game. I lost the first set 3-6 but won the next set 6-1. Pretending that I was drilling took my mind off the score, which MENTALLY gave me confidence and turned my match around. I hope the Mental Coach talks about ways to not worry about the flipping score!”
David:
How to not focus on the score-
Sounds like you did it yourself! Here is what worked so you can repeat it.
You cannot think of the score when you are really focused on something effective, like being aggressive and relaxed, for example, and you id this.
And from time to time it takes giving up worrying about the score, because it will pop into your mind, and then you have to pop it right out and focus on something effective again.
What really worked that you did is you got tough on yourself, made yourself focus on something effective- in this case a strong game plan and didn’t let your mind go to focusing on the score again.
All it takes is doing this from the start of the match, not just when you are losing.
One pitfall is telling yourself to not think about the score. What happens when you tell yourself this, you are thinking about the score. Just quit empowering the thought and focus on something effective, like a game plan or what you are committed to with an iron clad intention to focus on that and that only.
Q:
I have a related question for the Mental Training Coach, and this was sort of touched on during your first podcast interview. I tend to play better when I am behind in a match. How do I maintain the same focus and mental toughness when I am ahead ?
David:
Don’t wait until you are behind to get tough and proactive. Bring the same mentality when you are behind, which you may need to think about what that is for a few minutes that has you play well, and generate that mentality for the entire match, from the start, without waiting to be behind. It takes being strict with yourself. You can do it when you are behind, now just do the mental lifting to get yourself to do this when you are ahead- you are completely capable. It would also make a big difference to do the exercise I talked about earlier regarding winning and losing.
David Groemping
Gemini Mental Toughness Training
www.Sports.GeminiExecutiveCoaching.com
