As a life coach, I help people to take control of their ‘inner game’, and therefore take control of their life.

“It’s the game of life. Do I win or do I lose? One day they’re gonna shut the game down. I gotta have as much fun and go around the board as many times as I can before it’s my turn to leave”.  Tupac Shakur

The term “the inner game” was introduced by Timothy Gallwey in his book The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance

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“There are more players that have the talent to be the best in the world than there are winners,” says Timothy Gallwey, the author of several books about the mental side of tennis, golf, and other pursuits. “One way of looking at it is that winners get in their own way less. They interfere with the raw expression of talent less. And to do that, first they win the war against fear, against doubt, against insecurity—which are no minor victories.”

via The New Science of Triumph – Newsweek.

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A Conversation with Tim Gallwey

After several years of planning, production recently launched for Tim’s upcoming “Inner Game” television special targeted for initial broadcast on Flagship PBS Station WGBH later this year.

As part of this new “Inner Game” media initiative a “Conversation with Tim Gallwey” was also filmed.

From “Inner Game of Tennis” to his recently released book “Inner Game of Stress” Tim provides us with an all encompassing and enlightening commentary about his work, his journey and his “Inner Game”.

A phenomenon when first published in 1972, the Inner Game was a real revelation. Instead of serving up technique, it concentrated on the fact that, as Gallwey wrote, “Every game is composed of two parts, an outer game and an inner game.” The former is played against opponents, and is filled with lots of contradictory advice; the latter is played not against, but within the mind of the player, and its principal obstacles are self-doubt and anxiety.

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Tim Gallwey in his best selling book “The Inner Game of Tennis”, showed how visualization can be much more effective than verbal instruction. As a tennis Pro, he became aware that each pupil’s mind seemed to contain two entities. A Self 1 who observed and commented on the play, and a Self 2 who actually did the playing.

Before a shot Self 1 would issue alI sorts of commands such as “keep your eyes on the ball”, “bend your knees”, “follow through”.

Then, after the shot, would come a verbal analysis – usually critical. When asked why they did this, most players would respond, “I am just talking to myself”.

Gallwey rationalized that “I” and “myself” had to be two separate entities, otherwise no conversation would take place. He developed the theory that Self 2 would be better taught by nonverbal means, and that the “relationship” between Self 1 and Self 2 must be improved to optimize performance. Indeed he observed that an athlete’s peak performance usually occurred when the verbal Self 1 was almost totally set aside. Players on a “hot streak” almost never analyzed what they were doing -they were immersed in the physical action and played instinctively and unconsciously. As soon as they tried to exercise conscious control, they lost their fluidity.

Gallwey, therefore, taught his players to engage, or distract, the verbal Self 1 during play, by describing external events. They would say “bounce” when the ball bounced, or “hit” when it struck the racket. They alternatively would be told to say the words of a song. These distractions, left brain activities, allowed the right brain and limbic system to control the physical play and make all the highly complex intuitive calculations that are involved in assessing ball speed, direction and angle of bounce.

The importance of not over-analysing and of not verbalising an essentially non-verbal activity, was further re-inforced when `Inner Skiing’ was introduced. Small children, it was noticed, could learn to ski well in a day. Adults learn (or are taught) to depend more and more on verbal analysis and to trust intuition less and less.

The inadequacy of the verbal hemisphere controlling the subtle but essentially physical movements of skiing, is made all too obvious when you observe the jerky movements made by people who are clearly rehearsing their instructors words in their minds. The fluent skier very often cannot even describe how he or she does it – yet obviously knows on a non-verbal level. Consequently increasing emphasis has been put on teaching skiing in nonverbal ways – and the positive results can be dramatic.

via The Power Of Your Imagination.

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Federer

In thinking on this topic I remembered Tim Gallwey’s classic book, “The Inner Game of Tennis,” which I read a couple of years ago, and pulled it off the shelf. Gallwey has some interesting thoughts on competition, which I won’t go into in depth here, but I was struck by a quote at the beginning of the book attributed only to Maharaji, who the book is also dedicated to and I assume is his spiritual teacher: “What is the real game? It is a game in which the heart is entertained, the game in which you are entertained. It is the game you will win.” What do you think, athletes? How does competition fit in with your spiritual life?

via Thoughts Happen: Are Buddhism and Competitive Athletics Compatible?.

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Inner game is what enables you to act. Nothing less, nothing more.

The Longer Answer

Timothy Gallwey first coined the term ‘inner game’ in his book The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance. He wrote that “every game is composed of two parts, an outer game and an inner game”; where the outer game is fought against another opponent and the inner game is fought against your own inner doubts and fears.

via What is Inner Game?.

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To improve your vision, it is important to understand the direction of the visual axes and the intersection point when looking at visual objects at different distances. In the last exercises, we found out that while gazing at close objects, the visual axes converge, and while moving the gaze to far-away objects, the visual axes diverge. It is easier for people with myopia to practice convergence. When looking into the distance, though, they do not visualize an intersection point for the object. One myopic person told me: «When I look at people, I direct my sight not at their faces, but at the air between me and them.» I was surprised that he understood how he saw things. Usually myopes do not clearly understand how they use their eyes. I have observed many people with myopia and have noticed that in most cases they can not play the inner game of vision. This term was created by the tennis coach Timothy Gallwey in his book The Inner Game of Tennis:
“In every human endeavor there are two arenas of engagement: the outer and the inner. The outer game is played on an external arena to overcome external obstacles to reach an external goal. The inner game takes place within the mind of the player and is played against such obstacles as fear, self-doubt, lapses in focus, and limiting concepts or assumptions. The inner game is played to overcome the self-imposed obstacles that prevent an individual or team from accessing their full potential.”
I mean The Inner Game of Vision when I tell you about extraocular muscle sense, warm-up exercises, relaxation massage, imagining visual axes and an intersection point, the fusion of left and right eye images. It is the level 1 of the inner game for developing the basic conditions. Soon I will tell you about some techniques to create flashes of clear vision, zooming of eye sight and other techniques. It is the level 2 of the inner game. The highest level 3 will be presented with The Space Games. In this lesson, you will learn how to control divergence with the help of your imagination and muscle sense. I will show you pictures to help you imagine (inner game) and pictures that you can see (outer game).
Lesson 14 – Controlling the visual axes

Look at the picture below. Direct your sight at the cross between the circles. When your visual axes are crossed on the monitor, you see one red and one green circle.

Hold your index finger between your nose and monitor. If you see it doubled and both images of the finger are equally bright, it means that both eyes participate equally in the visual act. The picture below shows what you can see in this case of The Outer Game of Vision:

Now the visual axes are converged and you can feel strain in the extraocular muscles at the bridge of the nose. The medial rectus muscles are working. In the diagram below you see the direction of the visual axes. If you feel the muscles and imagine the direction of the axes, you’re beginning to play The Inner Game of Vision:

Now relax the medial rectus muscles and move the intersection point of the visual axes from the cross to an imaginary point behind the monitor as if you are looking into the distance. If both eyes participate equally in vision, the image of each circle will double. Ok, the divergence is complete. You can see two red circles, two green ones, and two crosses between them as in the picture below. You will notice that during divergence of the visual axes, the strain of the medial rectus muscles at the bridge of the nose decreases. If a person finds it easy to do this exercise, then he usually has a low degree of myopia. If it is hard to do this exercise, the person usually has medium or high myopia. The picture below is what you should see while doing this exercise and it shows The Outer Game of Vision:

Now incline your head a little to the right or to the left so that both pairs of circles unite at one level. Control the medial and lateral rectus muscles. Try to fuse the middle circles. The picture below shows what you can see with fusion of the middle circles if both eyes work simultaneously. Middle circle opalescence shows the retina’s struggle for leadership. It is an impressive show of The Outer Game of Vision:

The diagram below shows the placement of the visual axes like part of The Inner Game of Vision:

It is necessary to understand that the intersection point of the visual axes is actually behind the screen surface. Most of these exercises are based on imagination, understanding, and control of the intersection point of the visual axes. If both eyes participate in vision equally, the images fuse and the intersection point is a point of binocular fixation. In looking around at objects, we move a point of bifixation in three-dimensional space by means of smooth pursuit movements and fast saccadic movements.
Love your eyes. Respect your eyes. Take care of your eyes.
Dr. A. Davydov

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yoga karen moss

Yoga is hot. There is hard yoga, soft yoga, hot yoga designed to make you sweat, and even competitive yoga.

To those of us who have spent our athletic lives straining, lifting, grunting, running, jumping, or chasing a ball, this is very strange. Not that we aren’t envious.

When I see someone sitting on their heels or bending over and palming the floor I am as impressed as I am by that guy “Rubberman” who stuffs himself into a suitcase at Grizzlies games. Flexibility is a distant buy ambien online usa memory. My joints went into semi-retirement 15 years ago.

I also envy anyone with mental discipline. My mind still turns to moussaka sometimes when I have a crisis of confidence, no matter how much I practice or how many times I reread Tim Gallwey’s “Inner Game” books about Self One and Self Two.

The trick is finding the mental discipline to achieve mental discipline. And I think this is where yoga comes into the picture. Roy Bell, one of my squash partners, has been doing yoga for five years. At 52, he is the leanest and most flexible player in our group and is rarely injured.

Read the rest of the article here.

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“I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable” General Eisenhower

The author Tim Gallwey talks about the idea of goal mobility – “The ability to move towards our desired goals. Not just to achieve them but to enjoy the process. To adapt and change as necessary and to achieve them in the right time and in the right place”

Be prepared to be flexible and adaptable with your plan, but always stick to your goal. Expect change, BUT always keep your purpose clear.

We all face obstacles when we work towards our goals. We have three options.

Our first option is to look at the obstacle, get discouraged – say ‘that’s too much for me’ and give up.

Option two sees us fight it out – ‘whatever it takes, I’ll get over it, under it or through it’.

The third and best option is to stop and reflect and say to ourselves: ‘ before I try to get beyond this thing, I am going to try to find a vantage point where I can see what is over the other side. Then if what I see is worth it, I will do what ever it takes to get over or around the obstacle’.

If it is not worth it, I’ll drop the plan, and find another path to my goal.

When the going gets tough, focus on how far you have come not on how far you must go.

Progress has little to do with speed, but much to do with direction.

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The term “the inner game” was first coined by Timothy Gallwey in his seminal work The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance.
In this book, Gallwey discusses the difference between the “inner game” and the “outer game”. Where the “outer game” includes the techniques and skills needed to be a good player, the “inner game” is about having the right mental approach while practicing and playing.
Gallway went on to publish several more books, extending the concept of “inner game” to include books on “Golf”, “Work”, “Skiing” and “Stress”. Check out Timothy Gallway’s bibliography for more details.

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