Inner Game
This is the first in an occasional series of posts designed to give you inner tools that might help you master your outer skills.
Sometimes, in order to win at table tennis, you must win the game of self. I remember once having to face an opponent of much greater skill than I thought I had.
His slam alone could make grown men cry. We were scheduled to play at a bar in Washington DC that had a ping pong table along with all the more common pool tables.
I did some research and found about visualization. Basically, it boils down to spending about 15 minutes per day seeing myself defeat this guy in my mind.
Every day, I’d see myself crushing him, returning his slams with no problem and calmly moving from one side of the table to the next before winning the point. This definitely helped me plan how to play him.
But it didn’t do much about the fact that the guy just plain scared me.
Of course, I didn’t fear him physically! After all, we play table tennis, not Brazilian ju-jitsu. When I thought about it specifically, I realized that I was afraid of being embarrassed in public by his defeat of me. I was afraid of public shame.
Who wants to get beaten in front of all your friends?
Then I read somewhere else that one possible solution for this was to visualize the opponent as the cuddliest pet you could ever imagine.
So I would see him in my mind’s eye as a cuddly teddy bear. (It was the closest I’d ever come to having a real pet).
Every night for two weeks before our game, I’d see him in my mind’s eye as a six foot tall teddy bear, wearing the blue striped warm up jacket and sporting the same goatee my opponent did.
Sure enough, when I rolled into the bar for the showdown, I saw the guy and I just starting cracking up. All I could think of was him as a big, cute teddy bear. How could he be scary?
My hands weren’t even wet as we started to play.
Now, the question you are all asking is – did I win? But that’s hardly the point when it comes to the inner game. After all, these techniques are not results based, they are belief based. The whole point of them is to believe they will work. I’m not telling if I won or not. But you’ll never know if they can help YOU to win until you try.
One thing’s for sure. They’ll make you a better player as you’ll focus all your energy on playing the game without fear, worry, doubt, or any other mental baggage that can hinder your performance.
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