Meeting Tim Gallwey

Meeting Tim Gallwey changed the course of my entire life. Prior to meeting him, I was a highly successful coach working with numerous highly ranked juniors and tour pros.

I had what I thought was a successful coaching philosophy that I had developed with the help of my USC coach, Dick Leach. But I kept noticing oddities and limitations in my coaching experience that other coaches couldn't explain and that made me curious.

So what did I learn from Tim?

What I discovered was how my thoughts and emotions could dramatically interfere with my learning and performance. When that self-interference was reduced, I changed immediately for the better.

I rediscovered how to learn from my own experience by being more focused and present. By closely observing my students I received important feedback that helped me improve my coaching and develop subtle perceptual skills like reading body language; and that awareness is a powerful tool for facilitating learning and change.

I first read the Inner Game of Tennis while in the middle of a terrible slump. (Click Here to order the first edition.) For several years after I got off the tour, I competed in local men's open money tournaments in the Los Angeles area and usually did quite well, winning many of them.

I first read the Inner Game in the middle of a terrible slump.

But suddenly over several months during the summer of 1992 I started playing horribly and lost all my confidence. To make matters worse, I lost to players I had never lost to in my entire life. My ego took quite a beating, and I was desperate for help.

I enrolled in a money tournament in Northern California and bought the Inner Game to read on the 7-hour trip along Pacific Coast Highway. I still remember the tremendous impact the book had on me. It opened my mind up, changed my perception about competition, and helped me get out of my own way.

What stood out most was that I had been my own worst enemy. I had been severely judging myself and getting angry for the way I was playing, which interfered with both my performance and enjoyment.

As I became more observant of my reactions to my shots, I was able to reduce my anger and self-judgment and immediately started to perform better. I found myself playing more free and relaxed.

I won the tournament. I beat the #3 player at UC Berkeley and then the #1 seed in the finals for the $1500 prize. Afterwards I set an intention and was determined to find Tim and speak to him about my experience.

For nearly 6 months I did everything I could think of to track him down, but to no avail. So I stopped trying.

Reducing my anger and self-judgment lead to better performance.

Then one day I ran into a man who had been one of four people to give me a little money when I went out on tour. I hadn't seen Tony in about 5 years.

I invited him to attend a mind/body tennis seminar I had organized at a local club. After attending Tony said to me, "You're really into this mental stuff. I think you'd enjoy meeting my cousin!"

Can you believe that? I had taught him and his kids for nearly 3 years and never once had he ever mentioned the Inner Game or that Tim was his cousin. The adage proved true. When the student is ready the teacher will appear.

Tony arranged a friendly doubles game and we all went to dinner afterwards. It was there that Tim offered to mentor me.

I called Tim several days later and told him I was ready to go. I asked him if we could meet up that coming Saturday to go over the Inner Game manual, which I assumed he had.

And here started my first lesson. Tim told me that there was no manual and that that wasn't the Inner Game approach. He said that going forward my students would teach me everything I needed to know about how to be an effective coach. I would learn how to learn from my own experience.

Tim reminded me that there were several Inner Game exercises described in the book and suggested that I experiment with them as I saw fit. He imagined that I would then have questions come up and that every few weeks he would make himself available to coach me.

In this context, what I mean by coaching is not giving me advice or telling me what to do, rather a Socratic-style of inquiry where he would ask me questions to help me arrive at my own answers. In preparation for my three lessons the next day, I reread the first three chapters of the Inner Game that night.

I couldn't believe how different the book seemed to me. The first time I read the book, it was as a player and certain passages stood out which helped me perform better.

This time, I noticed entirely different passages that were more relevant for my coaching. I would come to learn that our intentions influence our focus which in turn influences our perception.

My first lesson the next day was with Nancy, who told me she had played only a few times. To begin, I stood very close to the net and tossed tennis balls to her forehand to see how her form looked.

Pretty consistently, Nancy swung and missed completely about 6 out of every 10 balls. The other four she hit on the frame of the racket. This went on for about 30 balls and then I stopped and pondered how to proceed.

In the silence I wondered, what was going on in Nancy's experience? So I asked her where she thought she was hitting the ball on her racket.

She pointed to the middle of her racket! I was amazed. There was a clear gap in her perception that was getting in the way. I thought if I could clear up that gap maybe something would change.

Nancy described the feeling of the ball on the strings as "springy."

What came to me was to model a simple task that would give her a direct experience of hitting the ball on the strings. So I went over to her side of the net and modeled hitting the ball up in the air on my racket, letting the ball drop on the ground, and repeating.

I asked her if she felt she could do that. She tried it and performed admirably. Then I asked her if she could feel what it felt like to hit the ball on the strings and she replied, "Yes, it feels "springy."

I then told her I would go back to the other side of the net and toss more balls to her. Her new goal was to simply tell me what it felt like whenever the ball hit the racket and to not worry at all about the result.

I went over and tossed more balls. Her replies went something like this (without me saying one word): Miss-miss-miss-thud-thud-springy-miss-miss-thud-springy-springy-thud-springy-springy-thud-thud-springy-springy-springy-springy-springy-springy-springy-springy.

My jaw dropped open. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. She hit the ball beautifully. Learning was happening before my eyes. In the past the only instruction I would have thought to give in that situation would have been for her to "watch the ball" but I knew that never really worked. By becoming more aware of what she was doing Nancy learned from her own experience without any technical instructions from me.

The lesson I learned from this is that simple awareness is curative. Over the years, this has proved to be a remarkably simple, yet powerful tool that can help people change in a more natural and effortless way.

With these three experiences—learning how to reduce self-interference, learning from my own experience and helping others learn from theirs, and how incredibly powerful awareness is for improving learning and performance—I was off and running. Tim was guiding me through a world that included technical instruction but also went beyond it.

Meeting Tim Gallwey

Sean Brawley