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I saw a clip from 60 Minutes in college that showed Tim Gelway teaching tennis to a group of middle-aged people. None had ever played tennis before. He picked t
by sabat 16y ago
I saw a clip from 60 Minutes in college that showed Tim Gelway teaching tennis to a group of middle-aged people. None had ever played tennis before. He picked the person who showed the least potential and within 20 minutes had her serving better than I've ever served in my life. It made a huge impression on me. The book isn't really about tennis; it's how the human mind is meant to think and learn, and how far off we are in our preconceptions about those things.
- Yrlec 16y agoMy mom is a psychologist and she travelled to the U.S. just to attend one of his courses (we're Swedish). She had never played tennis but she got elected as the one he would teach how to serve and she managed to hit almost all serves after 20 minutes. She got so excited that she brought me to the U.S. to practice for a couple of days with Tim Gallwey's tennis-partner Sean Brawley.Throughout my life I've always been extremely bad at performing under pressure (especially in tennis) but he taught me things about myself which improved my tennis more in an hour than a full year of practice with any other coach. I never became a good tennis player (partly because I'm cross-eyed and therefore lack normal depth perception) but I've had amazing use of the tricks he taught me and a couple of years ago it helped me win the World Championship in NHL 2004. It still amazes me how I managed to overcome my extreme performance anxiety (which has always stopped me from performing well when it mattered the most) and focus, while having four TV-cameras right behind me. It was like someone else was playing for me.