Before we talk about the Transcendent Self in tennis, I would like to share my experience as an amateur runner.
For many years I have practiced running. I’m training almost every day, continuous intense training, running series on the treadmill, using the gym and everything that involves physical training. Quite often I run races of 10km, 21km and even 42 km.
Popular races have between 3,000 and 20,000 runners participating. In a 10km race, the winner finishes the race in 30 minutes on average and the person coming in last finishes in 1 hour or maybe more. So, my question is: What motivates the person who ends in last with a time of over an 1 hour to run when he knows in advance that he will not win? What leads him to train almost every day?
If you have ever run a 10km race you will have felt the lack of oxygen, sometimes the urge to vomit, and the pain in the legs. What makes a runner to push himself to those extremes whilst knowing that he will not win the race or win anything at all? Runners are not a few people, we are thousands of people running knowing that we will not receive a prize, so where does this energy come from? The answer is simple: Self improvement
Within the enormous and endless learning process offered by running, it teaches something very important: winning means beating yourself. Running teaches you to focus and improve yourself. You do not compete against anyone, only against yourself. Once you have finished the race, your mind immediately starts devising a plan on how to do better in your next run. The focus is a 100% on yourself.
In many talks I have had with tennis players, I always tell them the same thing: "each person should run a marathon at least once in their life". After running 30 km, it reaches a point where the mind tells you to stop, to leave, which is called the famous "wall". If you think that you still have 12km left after running the 30km, you will give up, and you will perceive it as an impossible feat. However, something inside you pushes you to continue. You focus on the next step and every step which follows. At that critical moment, it is only useful to focus on going step by step, to only to situate yourself in the present. If you look too far ahead, it is almost suicidal. The body and mind focus on short, manageable goals.
In the previous blog we had mentioned that the competitive self has 3 possible answers from the survival: Submission, Flight and Fight, where the fight was, from the competitive point of view, is the best option. However, there is something else, there is a status of very high competitiveness that is above the fight and is the status of "maximum performance"(the Zone). A status where no matter who you are, the commitment and focus is on doing and acting with complete honesty, regardless of what may happen. There are no judgments, no prejudices, no expectations or obligations. The focus is on doing it (your current activity), and on seeing how it can be done better.
There is a video on YouTube that explains that status very well, the video is called: "Messi is a dog" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-3HrqDXpUE&t=42s)I think that video shows exactly what I mean. Messi not only plays against opponents, Messi's competitive self is totally focused on what he does and not what happened, is happening or could happen, Messi is only interested in scoring a goal.
There is a tennis player who reminds me of that video: Rafael Nadal. Nadal is also a dog, no matter the result, the blisters on his hands or feet, if he is winning or losing, Nadal keeps running and competing, does not judge the ball as possible or impossible, Nadal runs, hits and immediately goes out to for the next shot, there is no judgment, there is only pure action. Many athletes can be mentioned with these characteristics: Federer, Djokovic, Sharapova, Michael Jordan, and many other athletes who reinvent themselves continuously. All of the have the same characteristics: they want to be better than they were yesterday today, and better tomorrow than they are today. The focus is on the development and constant improvement of technical, tactical, physical, mental, emotional skills, etc.: "The Ideal Self as a source of goals that inspires the Training Self that looks for tools for the Competitive Self to try to apply them in the competition in self-respected environment ". That is, Teamwork: The Transcendent Self.
Every time I compete in a race I feel that energy that comes from the Transcendent Self, not only in me, but in all the runners despite knowing we will not be the person who finishes the race first, we will give everything to improve by 5 seconds on our best Time. We might not win the race, but we will win by improving ourselves.
On the other hand, I have seen and I see too many tennis matches where the players totally lack that spirit, the spirit of the "dog". I see too many tennis matches where the players justify themselves behind excuses not to compete and thus be able to "explain" the defeat. Players who are more aware of the "what they will say" and what they can say on Facebook, that focus on competing with dignity and respecting themselves and their opponent.
Players with tremendous conditions, who crash and fail because they are not able to focus their Selves in the same direction. Players who seek for respect without respecting themselves, who seek for recognition without recognizing themselves, to be accepted without accepting themselves, to compete without being competitive, and who seek to win, without having learned how to lose, and, most importantly, without first having dominated their ego.
It is more than clear that the training of tennis does not happen only to train the shots, the tactics, the fitness, that is the easy part. The difficult part, at the same time the great challenge, is to work on the emotional management, and understand that what is beyond tennis. First there is the development of the person, their environment (parents, friends, brothers, family) while teaching and proposing to:
Focus on self-improvement
Play point to point.
Focus on performance
Take each match as a reference to adjust the next
Permanent feedback status.
Give it absolutely everything.
Continue competing when it seems like you cannot do it anymore.
Accept external variables.
Focus on the goals.
UNDERSTAND THAT THE RESULT IS A RESULT OF PERFORMANCE.
RESPECT
Be HUMBLE
The best performers are not necessarily those who are the most talented in their sport technically or physically, but those who have great resilience. Their ability to learn from failure and their ability to insist when others gave up is what sets them apart. The best performers win, even if they lose