The Inner Game and the Culture of Sports Coaching

Sean Brawley

When The Inner Game of Tennis was first published in 1974 it took the tennis world by storm. Tens of thousands of players bought the book and by the letters they sent to author, Tim Gallwey, it clearly helped them to learn, perform, and enjoy their tennis like never before.

Athletes in other sports also found great benefit from reading the book and putting some of its ideas into practice. After a while it even became required reading for the USC School of Engineering, UCLA's Social Studies program, and The Actor's Studio in New York City.

There was one group of people, however, that resisted the Inner Game methodology on its face and criticized its ideas at that time: tennis coaches.

In fact, when I spoke on the Inner Game of Tennis at the 1993 USPTA Conference and wrote an article for its magazine, quite a few of the "old guard" tennis coaches were still denouncing it so many years later. This, despite the popularity of exercises from the Inner Game such as "bounce-hit," which famed authority Jack Groppel told me was the greatest exercise ever created for teaching tennis.

Why would tennis coaches resist the Inner Game so strongly? I believe it was due to how tennis coaches at the time perceived the Inner Game ideas. In John Yandell's first article in his series on the impact the Inner Game had on his teaching and playing, he writes that the Inner Game was a "repudiation of traditional tennis teaching, which was then, as it is now, collections of verbal tips being fed to students by pros with baskets of balls." (Click Here.)

But I think "repudiation" goes too far. If that were the case, then why did ski instructors and golf pros wholeheartedly embrace the Inner Game?

What Gallwey did do was shine the light of awareness on the typical lesson, how it was given, what was happening in the mind of the student, and brought our attention to the fact that a tennis coach could interfere with the student's learning and performance. I believe this confronted the egos of many well established coaches.

Medical Model

As I progressed in my learning of the Inner Game with Tim's helpful mentoring what I discovered was that there is a Culture of Coaching in sports that can best be described as the "medical model" or "fix what's broken" model.

The medical model operates just as we are familiar with. When you are sick or have a broken arm, you go to the doctor who diagnoses what is wrong with you and then prescribes medicine or a procedure to fix the problem and return you to health.

Tennis coaching is still primarily done this way. In a typical lesson, a player comes to the tennis pro with something they perceive is wrong with their game.

Perhaps it's their serve or backhand that is off and they are missing more than they'd like. The tennis pro observes the player's behavior, compares it to the model in their head of what is "right and wrong" and then gives "prescriptive" instructions to correct the behavior.

There is nothing wrong with this model. It has been with us for many years and has been used to help thousands of athletes improve in their respective sports.

But I have found that there are other models that can be used and another approach that is far more effective in eliciting change than most coaches realize. As coaches, isn't it a good idea to be open to new ways of teaching and coaching? Wouldn't it be helpful for our own progress if we experimented with different kinds of approaches and learned from our own experience whether they were effective or not?

Let's take a closer look at the inherent weakness and risk of focusing on what people are doing wrong and focusing almost exclusively on giving technical instruction.

Shadow Side

Because the ocean most coaches are swimming in is "fixing what is wrong" the problems inherent with giving technical instruction can be what Moshe Feldenkreis describes as the "elusive obvious." Right there, easy for anyone to see. But difficult for many to see due to our perceptual filters.

As Gallwey points out, giving technical instruction can cause any player to think too much about what they are doing and create doubt in their ability. A technical instruction is inherently judgmental which often therefore triggers the player's own Voice of Judgment.

Meryl Streep, who is a master of acting and foreign accents, was asked by interviewer James Lipton on the show Inside the Actor's Studio, if she ever had a difficult time on set with her acting. Streep stated, "There was this one time on the movie Dancing in Lughnasa. The director told me to put a little more emphasis on that word here, and a little more lilt on that word there. Before too long I forgot my lines, lost all my confidence and even forgot the reason for the existence of my character."

More recently, long time experienced coach Dai-Lai Wu, posted an article on the Competitive Tennis Coaches Facebook page about his struggles entitled, "You Know What Sucks About Tennis?" He wrote, "When you haven't played for a while or you get out of shape, all the stuff that you didn't do well when you were a real player, crops up again!

"I can hear all my coaches, may they RIP, talking to me every time I let the ball drop too low on my topspin backhand, don't pressure the back of the ball enough on my forehand, or brick a forehand volley because my footwork was bad."

The instructions we give to our students often stay with them for years to come and sow mental doubt that interferes with their experience, even years or decades later.

Another inherent weakness of focusing exclusively on technique is the simple fact that many players who have near perfect technique are still very inconsistent and/or having trouble winning matches.

I have consulted for numerous high performance tennis academies and have seen hundreds of kids who fit this description. There was not much technique wise I could identify that I could teach them or help them learn, but I was able to help them become much more consistent using the Inner Game approach.

One of the best examples that comes to mind is the story of Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A's who was the subject of the book, Moneyball. Beane had been a Golden Boy with near perfect technique, but who, nonetheless had a terrible batting average and on-base percentage. His own personal frustration was part of the motivation that led to his experimenting with a new approach to selecting players.

I know some coaches and players are asking themselves right now how this could be possible given how good sound technique is seen as the holy grail.

The hidden secret is this: the higher the level of performance you go what the player is doing to hit with consistency, accuracy and power is happening at a subtle level which the naked eye can't see.

For example, some years ago I had a conversation with John Yandell that illuminates this. I asked him what the most interesting thing he had discovered that year from his high-speed video that allowed him to see everything in greater detail frame by frame.

He said it was that it was clear now that Roger Federer had 27 variations in the way he could hit the forehand based on stance, hitting arm structure and finishes. You can't see them with the naked eye, but when you slow things way down they become obvious.

Wrong Models?

And lastly, perhaps the most obvious problem with giving technical instruction is that our model of what is right and what is wrong could be wrong. I took singing lessons for a year and a half to experience what it was like to be a student.

Ten years later I met with my teacher again and the first thing she did was apologize for teaching me an ineffective way to breathe, which of course is crucial to the process. And she was a highly regarded teacher of many Broadway singers!

But even when we arguably have learned the correct technique there is still an important question to be answered. I remember many years ago when my friend, Eric Mann, attended one of the first USTA High Performance courses. The latest sports science information about the serve was presented. High speed video of the serve was shown which allowed the coaches to see the serve in slow motion like never before. The coaches were excited and impressed.

And then Eric asked the fateful question, "what is the best way to teach it?" He said everyone had difficulty answering that question and they couldn't reach a consensus. We'll take a closer look towards more effective teaching and coaching in the next article.