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 360 of the Essential Tennis Podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. We're going to be talking about something really important, definitely a mindset, kind of topic today. We'll be asking the question of ourselves, what are you risking? What are you risking as you work on your tennis game?
And I'm actually going to start with a story about a video that I just recently saw, and it might not make sense at first while I'm telling you this story, but it's, I think it's really important. And the mindset and the contrast between that story and what we're going to talk about related to tennis learning or tennis improvement, I think is super, super important. So over this past weekend,
I was watching YouTube videos taking a little bit of a break after doing the yard work. And I don't know why, but YouTube recommended a video to me of a skateboarder, and the thumbnail was just incredible. I don't watch skateboarding videos. I appreciate and respect skateboarding in terms of the athleticism and just kind of the skill that it requires to be a good skateboarder. But I haven't consumed much of that content. So I was a little bit intrigued why they would recommend it
to me. And the preview image was really intriguing as well. It was a picture of a, like a very zoomed out picture. And kind of in the distance was this, it was kind of a from the top overhead kind of shot of a skateboarder who was skating towards a huge flight of stairs. And the title of this video, if you want to go check it out, is Jaws J. W. S. versus the Leon 25, Leon as in the city in France, L Y O N. And so what this picture was, is of the skateboarder skating towards 25 stairs
that were made out of stone. I'm not sure if this is like a church or maybe some kind of government building or a bank or something like that. It was a big stone kind of courtyard and then leading to a set of 25 stone steps. And it was apparent from the preview image in the title that this guy was trying to jump down on a skateboard, these 25 steps. So I watched, I watched the video and it was incredible, extremely inspiring as somebody who I want to improve
myself. I'm trying to improve myself on many fronts as a person, as a coach, as a player, which I'll talk about in a very upcoming episode of the podcast, been working on my own game a little bit again. And so I love watching people challenge themselves, take on risks and try to get better at whatever their arts or whatever their craft is. And so this was a really inspiring
example of that. And it told the story of these steps and how years before, I think like a decade or earlier, a different professional skateboarder had attempted to jump down these these same steps and couldn't accomplish it. In fact, blew out his knee and like really major injury as a result of trying this trick. And so now is kind of current day. I think this video is three or four years old and a different professional skateboarders there with the older one that had attempted it
previously, kind of famously attempted it. And nobody had ever made this jump before him. And the goal was for this new, rather this younger professional skateboarder to actually complete the feet of jumping down these steps. And so it documents, I think over the span of two days or so, the challenges that come up against with security and having a police called and multiple different runs and attempts from this professional skateboarder of making this jump. And it shows his failures
as he attempts it again and again. And he's again, just kind of big stone slab, you know, style steps, 25 of them. I don't know for sure what the drop was, but I'm guessing, you know, the vertical drop from the top to the bottom where he's attempting the land is probably about 15 feet, maybe 15 to 20 feet somewhere in there. So three meters, three to four meters. No, I'm sorry. That would be like five meters, five or six meters somewhere in there, my fault.
And so it's really significant just the vertical drop of it down onto stone on the bottom of the steps. But he's also building up enough speed that he can carry the distance down past the bottom step so he can safely land on the, you know, the flat part down at the bottom of the steps. So he's building up, I don't know what looks to be like 10 miles an hour or 10 or 15 miles an hour, a fast
speed and then jumping off the top and trying to land down at the bottom. So as he's attempting it and failing, he's getting more and more excited because he's sensing that it's possible as he does more attempts. But the failures are just brutal because he's landing from 15, 20 feet up, traveling 10, 15 miles an hour, falling, you know, down on his skateboard and then onto the
stone, the concrete down at the bottom. And it looks extremely painful and many of them I'm sure, you know, were, you know, occasionally he's just kind of laying there and obviously in pain. And he's just absolutely sacrificing his, his body, he's risking his safety, he's risking possibly like a career ending injury, just like that previous professional border who had tried it. Possibly he's risking his career and potential retirement because he's trying this
feet that nobody's accomplished before. So why am I telling you this story? And by the way, I recommend watching the video just really, really well documented, really well put together and just very inspiring events for me watching it anyway. Again, it's JAWS versus the Leon
25. And so why am I telling you this story? Well, think about tennis improvement. What are we, we risking when we head out there onto the court and we train, we try hard, we push against our limitations, we work to try to improve and do something better than the way we did it last time because we want to be, call them a better athlete, a better competitor, we want to win more matches, we want to hit better shots, et cetera, et cetera. What are we, what are we risking when
we go out there and put in that work? Well, we, we are risking things. And I'm going to talk about four briefly. The three kind of ones that come to mind first are kind of the more tangibles time. I guess time isn't actually tangible, but you understand what I'm saying. Like it's a very apparent one right right in front of you. You're, you're sacrificing. There's some opportunity cost there. When you spend an hour working on your backhand, that's an hour you could have spent
doing something else. So we're risking potentially wasting our time. We're risking potentially wasting our energy and our effort. We're risking potentially losing a bunch of money. Whether that be court time or the case of balls that you bought or the lesson or the clinic or maybe the, the traveling, the traveling event that you're going to instructional events or camp or whatever
it happens to be. We're risking those things and those things aren't trivial. But I'm sure you can see how I'm kind of contrasting that against the, what is this skateboarder risking by attempting this, this trick. But here's a fourth thing that we're risking and I, I really honestly believe that this is the main one that stands in the way for tennis players. What else are we risking
when we work hard at our game? We're risking our ego. Just think about that for a moment. When we make that grip change on our serve or we try to make that swing path change on our backhand, we're risking getting worse before we get better. We very well, you know, may drop a half a level before we even come back to where we started. We all kind of intuitively understand that that's a possibility when we make some kind of significant change in our game. We risk losing the players
we normally beat. Again, big, you know, ego thing of being used to beating Sue or Jim and now I was saying they beat us while we're making the, the investment in whatever this change happens to be. We risk missing shots that we normally make and maybe in a team practice or a drilled group or something like that. You know, if you have a reputation for whatever, you're down the line forehand and then all of a sudden that just kind of goes away for a couple weeks or a couple months
while you're working on a change. These are all things in the back of our mind that we would rather not go through, right? Of course, if we could avoid all of those things and get better, that would be fantastic. But unfortunately, that's not real life. We have to put those things on the line. We have to put those potential losses on the line anytime we make a change. And we know in the back of our minds that maybe it won't even work out the way that we hoped in the long run. Maybe we'll invest
that time, we'll invest that energy, we'll invest that money and we'll get worse at first. And we'll lose to some players that we normally beat and we'll miss some shots that we normally make. And it might not even be the right move. There's certain things where you just don't know until you try, especially with technique, like until we figure out how to integrate it into the rest of our game, there's never really any guarantee that you're going to see a substantial long-term boost
or benefit. Maybe you have really strong trust in the direction you're headed and the coach who's guiding you, but there's never any guarantee. And so there's kind of two points I'm trying to make here. First of all, what we're risking compared to many other ventures and many other activities isn't really that big. In the grand scheme of things, compared to that skateboarder, trying to land that jump down 25 stone steps. He's risking literally his entire career.
And his body, bodily harm and injury. We're risking missing a couple of shots and maybe losing a couple matches. But that pull of the ego and of not wanting to give up the reputation that we have and the results that we're used to, that's a real legitimate and strong pull. And so I think it's important to be aware of that. And mindful, it's important to be aware of the contrast and the relative risk, the relative sacrifice that we're potentially making. It's important to know what's
on the line. And then also know, is it worth it for you? Is it worth it? Some players don't want to risk anything. And that's totally fine. I'm not judging those players. I'm not making any kind of value statement that they're not real tennis players or anything like that. If you don't want to risk anything and you just want to have fun, then awesome. Enjoy the game. Enjoy all the benefits that it has, even without putting anything on the line. You need to decide for yourself,
what is it worth putting on the line? Which of those things are you willing to potentially part with for a short period of time or forever? You know, you don't get that time back. You don't get the money back. And so there are real sacrifices that need to be made in in order to make real improvement possible. So today, I just wanted to bring those things to the forefront, give you something to think about. Hopefully expand your perspective a little bit. So thank you for listening.
I really appreciate it. And I'll talk to you in the next episode. 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.