BIO-MECHANICS FOR DUMMIES: NATURE OR

NURTURE

 

 

This is the conclusion of a three part series exploring the value and significance of sports science in learning and teaching tennis.  In the first part we explored the ‘science’ of hitting balls, while in the second part we focused on the role of a coach in facilitating a player to reach his full potential. 

 

A great deal of the new science serves to indicate that the old science was simply wrong and highlights the need to make changes.  In this function, it is extremely helpful, but what I think would be interesting to see is how players would develop if we told them very little and instead allowed them to develop more naturally.  How would players move if they were not taught open or closed?  How would a player grip a racket?  How would they take the racket back?  Where would the follow-through finish?  If we took away all ‘knowledge’ as such and stuck with the absolute basics, what would happen?  All we would need to do is to create situations and intentions and then allow the body to ‘find’ the correct movements all by itself.  Decisions would obviously still be made, but instead of these decisions coming from the conscious mind, they would come from ‘somewhere else’.  My experience suggests that this ‘somewhere else’ that is accessed when the conscious mind is silent is of infinitely greater wisdom and that mistakes are impossible when life is lived from that space.  Not coincidentally, one’s tennis will be the best it can be when played from this same state of being; this instinctive state of being is called the zone state; and when individuals describe this state as ‘playing out of my mind’, it is exactly that!

 

Certainly it is not necessary for players to know (with the mind) as much as coaches because this ‘knowing’ will interfere with their ability to feel.  And here lies the real crux of the matter, knowledge can be helpful if it is used wisely, but it cannot be a substitute for  the ‘knowing’ that comes from feel and a heightened personal awareness.  If science is at odds with a player’s feel, personally, I always encourage the player to explore new things openly, but to ultimately trust one’s own feel above ‘scientific proof’ of what ‘should’ be done.  My intention is not to eliminate the role of the facilitator; on the contrary, he or she has a crucial role to play in creating and isolating situations and intentions where learning can take place through heightened awareness.  However, this role is about 20% of what it takes for a player to reach their potential.  A crucial 20%, but 20% all the same! 

 

I have always held that it is better for a player to have no coach rather than poor guidance because having no help forces one to develop feel and an independence that is essential for success in competition, but for individuals whom we may consider ‘experts’ to give us ‘wrong’ information will make it much harder to find the flow.  Ideally, it would be best to have a facilitator as opposed to a teacher, someone who can allow the natural learning process to happen through bringing in the ‘right’ intentions and creating the situations that will allow the individual to progress as a tennis player.

 

Ultimately, I think it is essential to remember that tennis is a game of feel and the ‘knowing’ has to happen at a cellular level, not an intellectual level.  Look at the way we learned to walk.  Bruno Bettleheim, a reputed child psychologist, said that if we could talk before we learned to walk; learning to walk would be the single most traumatic human experience.  There would be books on how to walk, theories on the easiest and quickest way to walk; science would flex its collective muscle at finding the ‘right’ way to walk.  And yet, look at how we learn to walk.  It is a relatively pain-free exercise that we all go through and surprisingly enough look how similarly and effectively people walk.  How did that happen?  Without any instruction!  Perhaps because, given our physiology, there is only a limited range of variations available, especially since we learn to walk at a time before the conscious mind is developed and therefore there is little fear, apprehension or tension.  In other words, we were in a relaxed state when we learned how to walk and that afforded the process, not coincidentally, more than a modicum of grace and effortlessness. 

 

If only learning to play tennis could be just as easy.  Perhaps it can, but first we need to re-create a child-like state of fearlessness (as children the state came unconsciously, but as adults it has to come consciously).  That can only happen if the mind is silent and relaxation can happen.  The biggest obstacles to silence and relaxation are desire and fear.  All fear is rooted in the mind; and so the ‘goal’ is to go beyond the mind, so that we can access the greater intelligence of the ‘being’ (for want of a better word).

 

Presently, most teaching consists of learning in a very haphazard manner.  After every error most facilitators feel the need to say something, whether it is relevant or accurate seems to be immaterial.  After a short period of time, the tennis lover expects a comment or explanation after each error, or sometimes the tennis lover is the one who demands to know why the ball was missed.  This symptomatic type of teaching is a hoax, the tennis lover walks away with a great deal of information and a sense of getting his money’s worth and the facilitator feels he has earned his wage through the transference of all this information.  But really, nothing has happened and the tennis lover is basically hitting the ball the same way he was before, he simply knows more.  The real litmus test is; has improvement happened?  Is the tennis lover’s body now capable of executing the shot that he or she was unable to do before?  My experience is that biomechanical behavior simply does not change through verbal instructions unless you are working with excellent athletes who are capable of assimilating that information and transforming it into different actions and then simply letting it go.  To have that much control over one’s own body as to change muscle memory immediately over a verbal instruction is rare, although some individuals are at times and in certain situations able to do it.  For the vast majority of individuals trained (through years of repetition) behavior is extremely difficult to change and all the talking in the world will simply not have any affect.

 

We have to find a midpoint between ignoring science and trusting it totally.  One of the problems is that the human psyche is always looking for easy solutions or short cuts.  Too often, a player goes to a coach hoping he can wave a magic wand and make him a dramatically better player.  Players think good biomechanics are this magic wand.  That someone is going to tell them something that is going to completely transform their game with a minimum of effort.  In the face of adversity, mental weakness will dictate a search for the Holy Grail, the magic wand, the quick and easy solution.  There is no magic wand and there is certainly no easy short cut to being a good tennis player.   All things being equal, players will improve primarily as a result of how hard they work and how much physical and mental skills they possess. 

 

Obviously, there are many qualities an individual must possess to become a champion and my understanding is that technical perfection is a small component of the overall mixture. And it is given far too great an emphasis for a number of reasons.  One major reason is that it is so easy to see; it is the most superficial layer of success.  Some of the other qualities needed to excel are much more subtle.  Qualities such as athletic ability (not every one has the same potential), physical skills, fitness, rhythm, timing and the mind and its ability to focus, be relaxed, centered and silent through the rigors of competition.  It is natural for players and coaches to focus more on the obvious qualities that are relatively easy to change, rather than the more subtle, difficult to change, qualities that they know very little about.

 

The truth is that, for the most part, players largely develop naturally, with very little help from outside sources, as they always have done; this despite the attempts of coaches to convince others and themselves that they are responsible for all the success.  Any successful academy or coach has players with both similarities, but also differences.  Many great players develop with mediocre coaches.  Often a coach can develop one great player, but not more.  Why is that?  I am not trying to simplify things by saying it’s a case of either or, but my understanding is that players develop largely because of their own talent and hard work (hitting lots and lots of balls!) and the coach has a limited role to play.  A good coach can be a valuable facilitator, but he cannot create something that does not exist, although he can, at best, bring out what is already there!  Having said that, there exist numerous players who do not realize their full potential and who could benefit from a competent facilitator.

 

There is a similar dilemma for tennis teaching professionals to embrace the magic-wand theory.  How can we be considered experts in our field and yet admit that there are numerous things that we don’t know?  How can we charge large fees while acknowledging that we cannot make players good, all we can do is to facilitate change by creating situations and intentions where players can learn all by themselves to the extent that they can?  Make no mistake; this is an important and essential role, just not as big as coaches would like everyone to believe.  To be at peace with our own limitations and all that we do NOT know is a sign of great wisdom.  However, in mainstream society, not knowing is a sign of ignorance, failure and shortcomings.  Small wonder then, that coaches are reluctant to allow things to happen naturally. Often, it is their interference that obstructs the natural learning process and makes progress difficult.  The best coaches will find some balance between nature and nurture, while leaning heavily towards the awe-inspiring wisdom of nature!

 

Individuals are investing a great deal of time and energy in becoming successful athletes and most of them are suffering great emotional pain in terms of anger, frustration and fear.  This misery has become so common that most players do not even recognize the pain they are putting themselves through and many consider it a ‘normal’ part of the competitive experience.  This torture is self-inflicted and totally unnecessary; in my understanding, it can also become an enormous obstacle to the pursuit of excellence. 

 

Instead, if players could just relax and allow the learning process to take place, to work hard as they possibly can (joyfully), without focusing on the result, they would be able to avoid the struggle that most athletes (it is the same in every profession!) fall prey to.  Relaxation comes from being totally absorbed in the process and in understanding that there is no reward beyond the intrinsic joy that comes from being present.  Tension and anguish arise when the mind is focused on the result, which arises from desire, which in turn comes from the fallacious belief that external rewards can some how enhance the quality of your Life.  They cannot!

 

Coaches need to realize these very same things if they are to impact the lives of their players.  If they have this understanding they can then steer their wards towards that very same direction.  This can be done by knowing when to speak, but most importantly knowing when to keep silent and just continue hitting or feeding balls and thereby allow the player’s body to discover the best way to hit the ball, which it will!  Yes, sometimes less is indeed more!

 

 

HAPPY HITTING!!!