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JAK'S MONTHLY ESSAY SERIES: Achieving Your Personal Best

The Focus

May 2021

Players don't care enough about it. They take it for granted. Some are oblivious regarding it, actually have conversational catch-up chat sessions during their warm-ups, instead at focusing on the impending tasks at hand.

Some choose to not warm-up at all uttering nonsense like, "Let's not waste any more time warming-up, typically followed by, "FBI?"

Q. Exactly what triggers that counter-productive behavior?
A. Four (4) error prone players attempting to warm-up with three (3) balls… without ball kids. Ambitious at best. Unrealistic for sure.

Yet, it is a necessity in having a good first few games and then a good overall outing, whether it was a winning one or not (winning is not everything!). This is paramount over the long haul in becoming a truly good, rock solid tennis player.

Of course there are the required mechanical/technical shot making skill developed over many hours, days, weeks, months, years. The sweat equity. But that's not it. There's also the athletic ability to motor full-on, alien to the less physically gifted, or, more likely, the less physically motivated whatever your chronology. But that's not necessarily it either.

It is the awareness of a deep focus that's required to manage those myriad mechanical, physical, mental, and emotional tasks at hand. That's what separates eager participants from the exceptional at every level.

Those players are the cool, the calm, and the collected. They are intense, but still relaxed. They always give their best physical effort. They practice patience with themselves. They maintain realistic expectations — not too high, not too low.

Embed from Getty Images

A quieting of the mind that eliminates all unwelcome noise, clutter, and especially self-doubt is a must. A serene state of being of self-belief in the midst of a tornado of flying yellow spheres coming and going. All the while staying can-do positive in the face of any adversity.

Some of us get it, understand it, and exude it. We happily embrace it. We seek its elusiveness and camp out in it for as long as possible with no sense of time, in the moment. We trust it. We bet the farm on it. Everything becomes not only possible but doable.

The game slows down. You're in the "zone" playing out of your conscious mind. Dumbed way down.

It's the commitment to the process, a letting go, that's the path to your best performances, and ultimately the resulting "winning" too.

On court with lesson clients of varying levels, I've lately referred to it as the Tom Brady Effect; quarterbacking a long standing up and down mediocre team of mostly the same players – perhaps analogous to your tennis game at times - into Super Bowl champions [better players] in one season.

That's team [game] management.

 

 

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Past Essays

  • December 2024 - Believing In Your Shots
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  • November 2024 - The Walking Wounded
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  • October 2024 - HEY!… MAYBE IT'S JUST YOUR GYRO NEEDING RECALIBRATING
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  • August 2024 - The Game's Most Difficult Skills & the Most Taken For Granted
    [read more]
  • June 2024 - KNOW YOUR DOUBLE’S IN-POINT SITUATION WHEN BACK or RETURNING SERVE
    [read more]
  • April 2024 - Coulda, shoulda got that: The Art of Poaching
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  • March 2024 - Get Your JuJu On
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  • February 2024 - Giving Opponents too Much Respect
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  • January 2024 - Rally Ball Or Pull The Trigger
    [read more]
  • December 2023 - The Forgotten Stop Volley
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  • November 2023 - "You're Only as Good as Your Second Serve"
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Essay Archives

Click a year to view more essays

2023

  • October 2023 - good misses vs bad misses
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  • September 2023 - Why good players are good players!
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  • August 2023 - On poaching and fake poaching: Becoming a Force at the Net in Doubles
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  • July 2023 - The Beautiful Game is Getting Ugly
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  • June 2023 - The Approach Dropper: Lob Killer
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  • May 2023 - Why club players don't practice
    [read more]
  • April 2023 - DON'T FIGHT TIGHT
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  • March 2023 - Classic finish line failure
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  • February 2023 - Defending the lob over your net partner - The "Switch"
    [read more]

2022

  • December 2022 - E. I. D. - Extended Impact Duration
    [read more]
  • November 2022 - Movement Enhancement to Stay Better In-Point Connected
    [read more]
  • September 2022 - Advanced Visualization 301
    [read more]
  • August 2022 - Tennis' uniqueness: warming-up the enemy
    [read more]
  • July 2022 - Extracting Double Faults Through Receiving Positions... and more
    [read more]
  • June 2022 - Consider Serve and Volley
    [read more]
  • May 2022 - How the Toss Primes the Serve Relaxation Pump
    [read more]
  • April 2022 - Ball Watching and Science
    [read more]
  • March 2022 - Caving
    [read more]
  • February 2022 - Kenny G and Emmo
    [read more]
  • January 2022 - The Knees
    [read more]

2021

  • December 2021 - The Match is with You
    [read more]
  • November 2021 - The Backup Racket in Your Bag
    [read more]
  • October 2021 - Every Tennis Player Can and Should Have a Weapon
    [read more]
  • September 2021 - LEARNING NEW SKILLS: First the Process, Then the Results
    [read more]
  • August 2021 - The Challenge of Visualizing… For Some
    [read more]
  • July 2021 - Playing with both your feet and your hands
    [read more]
  • June 2021 - Finding the Range
    [read more]
  • May 2021 - The Focus
    [read more]
  • April 2021 - About Your Butt Cap
    [read more]
  • March 2021 - The Essential Forehand and Backhand
    [read more]
  • February 2021 - On Being a Doubles All-Courter
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  • January 2021 - Same Grip Volleying Myths
    [read more]

2020

  • December 2020 - On mechanics and style
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  • November 2020 - THE BIG 3: The Glue That Keeps Your Best Game Together
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  • September 2020 - Protocol and Game Tradition Revisited
    [read more]
  • August 2020 - As Good as Your 2nd Serve
    [read more]
  • July 2020 - Shot Shaping
    [read more]
  • June 2020 - Getting a Point in Jeopardy Back to Neutral
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  • May 2020 - A Positive Mind-Set: On and Off the Court in Today's C-19 Reality
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  • April 2020 - The Zombie Tennis Creed – Top Ten
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  • March 2020 - A Roadmap Into "The Zone"
    [read more]
  • February 2020 - The service toss: myths and realities
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  • January 2020 - Shot Gazing
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2019

  • December 2019 - The Dreaded High Bouncing Moonball Dilemma
    [read more]
  • November 2019 - Chalk Flew: Troublesome Line Calling without Hawkeye in Clubland [read more]
  • October 2019 - In the Spirit of Don't Drink and Drive… Don't Think and Hit [read more]
  • September 2019 - Old School vs New School [read more]
  • August 2019 - Getting the Ball Where You Want It [read more]
  • July 2019 - Taking Points Off…What? [read more]
  • June 2019 - Confidence Is Confidence: Take It Wherever You Can Get It [read more]
  • May 2019 - TENNIS INNOVATION IMPLODES [read more]
  • April 2019 - Defending the Court with Older Bones: A Club Player's Guide to Saying "Nice Shot" Less [read more]
  • March 2019 - Do You Have Doubles Rally Tolerance? [read more]
  • February 2019 - I Knew Jimy Van Alen: A Historical Look Back [read more]
  • January 2019 - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Mental Toughness Skills [read more]

2018

  • December 2018 - Less Bling is the Thing [read more]
  • November 2018 - Anatomy of a Doubles Serve Return…from the Inside Out [read more]
  • October 2018 - Older Dogs and New Tricks: Still Improving at Any Age [read more]
  • September 2018 - The All-Important Dynamic of Gripping [read more]
  • August 2018 - The Cinemascope Syndrome: Undermining Your Ball Watching [read more]
  • June 2018 - Serving and Returning Better with a Quiet Eye [read more]
  • May 2018 - The Man Who Breathed for Two [read more]
  • January 2018 - Rituals Anyone? [read more]

2017

  • December 2017 - Why Serving is so Difficult in Clubland [read more]
  • October 2017 - Managing your body and mind in tennis space [read more]
  • August 2017 - Why Bother Breathing to Improve Your Game [read more]
  • May 2017 - The "Maintaining" One's Game as One Ages Fallacy [read more]
  • February 2017 - Punta Gorda Tennis Clubs: Setting the Bar [read more]
  • January 2017 - State of the Club Game: The Growing Death of Sportsmanship [read more]

Check back often for more essays.