Hi and welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast, your place for free, expert, tennis instruction that can truly help you improve your game. Welcome to episode number 378 of the Essential Tennis Podcast. Today we're going to be talking about the top tennis lie and it's a lie that we tell ourselves, it's self-deception and it's something that will keep you from reaching your goals, keep you from progressing, keep you from playing the type of tennis that you really
could play if this lie didn't hang around. So, quick story, this is from, and actually the whole episode is going to be based on a story about a student that I had recently who was really experienced been playing tennis for a long time. He's 70 years old and has aspirations of continuing to improve, develop and go on to eventually play national level tournaments. So, this is somebody who has a really high tennis IQ, has taken lots of lessons, has played lots of matches, has been around
the game for a long time. And we spent most of the first chunk of our time together working on technique and doing analysis. I showed him what he had to improve and how he could do it with his technique and how he moved his body and that went as expected the way it usually does. But he wanted to set aside time later on in the day to work on tactics and what he told me specifically was,
I'm looking for the best ways to improve my competitive results right away. So, he was hoping to uncover some kind of positioning pattern or target pattern or some kind of tactical thing that he could learn, implement and get some really quick results. Which tactics and strategies, there's oftentimes those kind of opportunities there for singles players and doubles players. And so, that can be really exciting for players to be able to find out, where am I standing in the wrong
place or aiming in the wrong place and losing points that I could be winning. So, totally understood where he was coming from there. So, we warmed up, hit serves and returns, played a bunch of games together. And as we were playing together, I was recording our point play. And so, just I was just evaluating what I typically do is just hit exactly at the level of my student, maybe a little bit below to see what they would do in order to try to take control of the points and be offensive
or basically how they would try to pressure me and win points. And generally, while I'm doing that, I'll just hit the ball right down the middle of the court or maybe I'll just hit it cross-quarts. But I'm not changing direction, I'm not attacking. I'm not like trying to beat them. My goal when I do tactical analysis for a player is to basically play everything neutral, kind of right down the middle of the road relative to my student and then see what they do. And it's pretty obvious to me as we
were playing what we were going to focus on. And so, I grabbed the iPad, started scrolling through our footage of our point play together. And before we actually dove into the coaching, I wanted to test my student. It's important for me as a coach, as a teacher, before I try to explain anything or reveal any kind of lessons. I want to know exactly what my student understands, how much of it, how much what knowledge is already there. I don't want to waste my time or their time by
explaining things that they already totally get. And I don't want to be repetitive. And I want to know where is exactly where we should start this conversation. So I started asking my student questions and testing his knowledge. When the ball goes here, where should you be standing and when you're standing here and your opponent is there, where should you generally be targeting. And so I asked
several questions, maybe just three or four related to positioning related to targets. And unsurprisingly, the student got all the answers right and was able to tell me, you know, right away, okay, I should be I should be standing there, I should be aiming there. When my opponent does this, then this is the right pattern. And he had all the right answers. And this, if you've been listening, following my content for a while, then you probably know what's coming next. This is just a recent
example of it. I've definitely talked about this in the past. This was just such a clear cut example of it that I felt the need to share it and to use it as an illustration or to call out this this lesson. It's so critical. So I started going back to the points that we had just played. And showing my student examples that were just like the ones that I just asked him about. And in the scenarios where my student had just told me, oh, when the ball goes there, I should be standing
here and or when my opponent does this, I should be doing that. I I scrolled through the points that we had just played together and showed him example after example of my student doing exactly the opposite of what he had just told me he was supposed to do. I'm not talking about like being off the mark by a little bit, you know, being a foot or two in the wrong spot or maybe not being fast enough to cover the right amount of chords, you know, to get to an ideal position.
I mean, literally going left when they should have been going right. I do it doing literally the opposite thing and going to the opposite position aiming for the opposite target that they should have been. And my student student was totally shocked. I could completely couldn't believe it because it was such a disconnect or such a gap between what had just been told to me like the the information or the knowledge that was inside the head of my student and what he was actually doing in the
moment. So how is it possible? How is it possible to have these two kind of different realities? There's the internal reality, the internal knowledge or structure of what we understand. And then it's what what we actually do in real life. It's almost almost like two different people, two different personalities. Well, this is the lie that we tell ourselves. And it's not knowing,
it's not knowingly, you know, it's an assumption, I guess. But we go through life. It's not just tennis, but the rest of life as well assuming that if we know and understand what the right thing is to do, then we must also be doing it. If I know I'm supposed to hit cross court here and I know I'm supposed to be standing there. And I know that's the right thing to do. And you know, in my in my head, in my database of knowledge, it's in there that it must just automatically come out when it
really matters the most. And when I'm in the middle of a point against a tough opponent, then whatever I know I'm supposed to do must just happen, right? Well, that's false. It's false for technique. And I've talked about many examples of that over the years on the podcast here. And in my videos where a player assumes that they're doing X, Y, or Z with their body or with their racket. And it's actually the opposite. And it's also the case for strategy. Believe it or not,
it's not just technique. It's strategy as well. And that's that was why I wanted to use this example today because I think people aren't super surprised that it happens with technique that, oh, I think I look like Federer, but I really don't look like Federer. Like I think I think deep down, we probably suspect what the what the truth might be or what the reality might be. But I think it's different for tactics and in strategy. I think players most of the time assume that it's
easier, right? It's it's not so hard when we're we're not talking about decades of like muscle memory, doing something the wrong way. Like when it's just about making the decision of down the line or cross court, that must be an easier thing, right? And it must it must just kind of percolates a little bit more naturally from our our brain, our like hard drive of like knowledge or understanding. And it must be pretty easy to just have that express itself automatically.
Well, unfortunately, that's not that's not the case. First of all, yes, I would say it is easier than technique, especially if we have decades old bad habits. But you cannot you still cannot just assume that because you know the right answer, you're just automatically going to do the right thing because habits are present in patterns as well. Meaning shot selection patterns, positioning patterns, footwork patterns, there's habits there too. It's not just how we swing the racket. It's everything
that we do every day, every minute of every day. Really, the what we do, how we do it's what we say, how we say it is governed ultimately, mostly by by habits. So how can we avoid this this pitfall both in terms of technique and in terms of strategy? Well, there's only two ways. Wait number one is get feedback from a third party that's clear and accurate enough for us to
internalize it and then take it to heart and then take action to change our habits. Now this student when we reviewed the footage and I showed him the disconnect between what he knew he was supposed to be doing and what he was actually doing. He made kind of a funny comment. He said to me, oh, that's why I keep getting yelled at by my coach. It was kind of funny. There was a third party
present in his life. He had been taking lessons. He had been receiving coaching and up until the point that he came to Milwaukee, I don't want to say was arguing with or like disagreeing with his coach, but couldn't quite understand why his coach kept yelling at him for certain things that he was absolutely convinced that he was actually doing it the right way, but I don't know like how he would rationalize it honestly. I didn't really dig into it super deeply that his coach would keep
bugging him even if he was doing it. I don't know if he thought his coach was wrong or if his coach was seen the wrong thing or coach was over sensitive about it or something. I don't know. But anyway, just please know that it's very possible to have very good set of eyes across the net from you, have that good set of eyes tell you good information and completely ignore that information. People do that all the time on the tennis court and in other areas of life as well.
That's the whole point of lessons, but unfortunately we're frequently resistant to hearing the truth and also not all communicators, aka coaches or teachers can deliver the message that we need to hear the way we need to hear it when we need to hear it. Some people are more visual learners and some people need to hear an analogy and other people need to have their body guided through the right movement and they can't just hear it or see it like they need to actually experience it.
There's a lot of variables there and even if you're receiving lessons there's no guarantee that you're going to get the right message at the right time and the right way. That's way number one that we can take care of this lie and get rid of it is feedback from a third party aka coach or a teacher of some kind. But there's a second way as well. A second way we can avoid falling for this trap is to use video and just see for yourself.
Take out the third party, take out the chance of having some kind of miscommunication or not receiving it the right way and just see for yourself. Just find out the truth for yourself. There's a couple downsides here. There's the downside of intimidation of new technology and there's also the downside of the fear of maybe seeing things that you won't like or that you
don't want to see. There's also the additional steps of having to take whatever the phone tripod with you to the courts and setting it up and kind of being that weirdo that's recording yourself and nobody else is recording themselves. There's some psychological and some practical challenges and hurdles to jump over if you do it yourself. But in my opinion, there's something incredibly powerful about seeing yourself and getting first-hand experience and not having to rely on the
description of somebody else. Now, if you listen, if you learn best by audible communication and by hearing a description, then by all means continue doing it that way. But hopefully listening to this episode, there's a little bit of voice in the back of your head just wondering like, uh-huh. Like, yeah, I know I learned best x-wires you way and I love my coach and they provide me with
awesome insight. But I wonder if there's anything else there that maybe they're missing or overlooking or it hasn't quite been communicated the best way and so there might be some big gap there that's being missed or not quite addressed the right way. And using video, even in the case for your coaches amazing and working out great can still have huge benefits and watching yourself and learning the truth through your own eyes through a first person perspective. Either way, it's not easy. Either
way, this is a challenge. Like, I'm not here today to tell you, oh, it's a snap and here's the solution and we're going to solve this and you don't have to worry about it ever again. This will always be a challenge and it always has been and it always will be a challenge. It's still a challenge for me, even though I've watched myself thousands and thousands of times as a player, as a coach. I'm still discovering new things about myself and I'm well past that phase where it's intimidating
or fearful or difficult. So I've just done it so many times now that's not any of those things. Now it's just honestly, it's just really enjoyable experience to keep coming away with little nuggets about myself. To notice something a little bit different or nuanced, each and every time I watch myself and it's just kind of deeper and deeper down that rabbit hole of self understanding, self awareness, self acceptance, and it's been a really enjoyable process over the years. Sure, there's
been some negatives too. There's been times where it's been hard to watch, but the overall benefit and positive direction that it's led me down is it's undeniable and super powerful. So hopefully the story was helpful. Thank you so much for listening today. I'm sorry, it's been a little while since I've uploaded. I've been kind of burned out honestly with the book launch coming and a huge increase in demand for my time on the court just the last month or two.
It's I'm taking a break this week actually from posting new videos on YouTube. I haven't done that in about a year and a half. And so that's why I have the bandwidth and the energy today to record this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for your support. I really appreciate it and I'll catch you in the next one. For more free game improving instruction, be sure to check
out EssentialTennis.com where you'll find hundreds of video audio and written lessons. Also, be sure to subscribe to Essential Tennis on iTunes and YouTube where we are the number one resource in the world providing passionate instruction for passionate tennis players. Thank you so much for listening today. Take care and good luck with your tennis.