10 Minutes of Tennis: Mental Health :: How can the social player learn from the struggles of the pros?
Transcript
Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the GoTennis! Podcast powered by Signature Tennis.
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Speaker:Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the GoTennis! Podcast powered by Signature Tennis.
Speaker:Check out our calendar of Metro Atlanta tennis events and letsgotennis.com.
Speaker:And today is 10 minutes of tennis with World renowned tennis coach Australian in Puerto Rico,
Speaker:who I believe might be in Naples or somewhere.
Speaker:He's, you never know people.
Speaker:You never really know where Justin is.
Speaker:But right now we are continuing our mental health conversation.
Speaker:And this one is as we watch, this question is as we watch the mental health struggles of
Speaker:these superheroes, of these athletes that are out there performing and running their businesses,
Speaker:which is a thing we forget sometimes.
Speaker:They really struggle to keep up.
Speaker:Sometimes we forget these are 19 year olds that are top 10 in the world trying to figure
Speaker:out just how to run a business.
Speaker:But Justin, my question is, can we the social player?
Speaker:I guess you and I are considered industry coach types.
Speaker:But can the social player, the weekend player, the league player, what do we get from this?
Speaker:Yeah, I think with this question, I thought I would just write down a whole bunch of things
Speaker:that would get to help people understand, I guess the worst fundamentals are the things
Speaker:that the professionals are going through that you could use because at the end of the day
Speaker:we're all playing tennis.
Speaker:So whether they're playing at 3-0 or 4-5 or 5-0, they're still playing another player
Speaker:up the other end that goes through the same level of challenges at the same game.
Speaker:So I always try to make people realize we're all playing at a certain level, but we all
Speaker:go through the same mental state.
Speaker:The difference between obviously the professional to what we do is we still leave the court and
Speaker:go back to work and go do what we got to do.
Speaker:That is their job.
Speaker:So some of them too, what we've got to understand have been sacrificing a lot of things since
Speaker:the age of 4-5 and they've only known one thing and they're hitting very tennis balls to make
Speaker:a career out of it.
Speaker:So they've got a lot of invested interest, they've had a lot of other people behind them
Speaker:than the regular Joe.
Speaker:But that doesn't take away from the regular Joe who's still practice a lot, so wants to keep
Speaker:improving 3-5 to 4-0, 4-0 to 4-5.
Speaker:So I'm going to give you a quick one, so I'm going to run through in real five.
Speaker:Understanding attention span.
Speaker:If you want to learn a little bit more about it, you can go on Google, there's a ton of
Speaker:stuff you can learn on it.
Speaker:I'm going to give you a three main one, intensity, size and movement.
Speaker:Intensity is basically meaning what's the intensity of my attention span?
Speaker:Like how high am I, how pumped am I, how focused am I?
Speaker:Size is the length of time I've been keeping my attention span because we go in weights and
Speaker:we try to learn how we can increase the size.
Speaker:And I'll talk about that in a minute.
Speaker:Movement.
Speaker:Our attention span relies on physical movement.
Speaker:So you see the players jump up and down and some players are really quattent slow.
Speaker:But you can really tell how we can help our attention span by three main things like that.
Speaker:So that's it.
Speaker:I think for a lot of people they don't understand attention span and then by not understanding
Speaker:the core of where the mental focus is, it's really hard because you're looking for all these
Speaker:elements without actually understanding really what attention span is all about.
Speaker:Mind drifting and how to manage it.
Speaker:So basically trying to come up with tricks to identify one, your drifting meaning you're
Speaker:thinking about the bikini girl walking in the back of the court versus focusing on
Speaker:the next point and bikini girls just a little exaggerated.
Speaker:But at the end of the day everyone knows what I'm talking about.
Speaker:Their mind comes up the court versus being on the court.
Speaker:Internal versus external.
Speaker:You've all heard me talk about this a ton.
Speaker:When you walk off the baseline you're thinking that forehand sucked, I sucked.
Speaker:What's wrong with me today?
Speaker:But I'm a blab that's internal.
Speaker:External is looking back under the court and saying, this is the tactic I'm going to do.
Speaker:This is the game plan my coach came up with or this is what I thought about at the change
Speaker:of end on how to beat my person tactically and that's how to think externally which makes
Speaker:you go more into I would say good momentum, good focus versus internal focus.
Speaker:And that makes me think of identifying with a player.
Speaker:So we watch these players on television, the men, the women, the mixed doubles, we watch
Speaker:it all and we look at that one player and say, oh that guy reminds me of me.
Speaker:Or kind of I picture myself like them and then I picture a ruble of type who is always fighting
Speaker:with himself and everybody knows a friend that might have that same kind of internal struggle
Speaker:all the time because it isn't necessarily that's an outward representation of the internal
Speaker:struggle and those are the kind of things we can see and go, oh man, do I look like that
Speaker:on court?
Speaker:I don't know that that's a good example for my wife and kids, right?
Speaker:Yeah, I mean we can go back, we call it the go to Federer.
Speaker:I mean Federer at the start was smashing rackets and was carrying on and he learned to find
Speaker:the silent part that we all adored and that we all appreciated and that we all looked
Speaker:up to and admired.
Speaker:But at the start, late junior years and even early professional years, he had a real demon
Speaker:and he learned to quiet that demon down but demons can be raised a lot mentally and emotionally
Speaker:from other things that are written down here which is physical conditioning.
Speaker:If you're not as good as in shape or you're not as fit as you need to be the other guy
Speaker:better, as your physical condition comes down, your emotion comes up higher which changes
Speaker:your mental state as well.
Speaker:So be aware of your physical conditioning, that's really important, change events, drink
Speaker:in water, having a snack, change time between points.
Speaker:If you rush from one point to the next point, you haven't given yourself a chance to reduce
Speaker:the heart rate and increase to improve the breathing, sleep and recovery.
Speaker:You haven't slept well, you haven't done a few good sleep nights, that's going to be
Speaker:a big one that's going to change your mental state when you go to play.
Speaker:So negative to positive thoughts, you have to do this many a times in play development
Speaker:which you could do it in adult stuff as well and that is what's the same bad word that
Speaker:keep coming up and find what positive change those words so that when they come up, you've
Speaker:written down what can be changed and what information will fix that negative.
Speaker:I like that a lot because it makes me think of the mental health benefits of tennis.
Speaker:Now it isn't just of tennis by virtue but it's of the fact that I want to be a good tennis
Speaker:player and therefore I'm going to do these things which are going to help me be a better
Speaker:tennis player and all of those things are good for my longevity, they're good for my health,
Speaker:they're good for my mental health.
Speaker:If I really want to be a great, I don't know what poker player, maybe we don't get the
Speaker:same health benefits from that, from preparing for something else I guess is what I'm trying
Speaker:to come up with because in this case you're describing good healthy habits that are a result
Speaker:of preparing for my hobby and that's really a great thing.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Even to the things like you can be, I mean, Naples right now, right?
Speaker:95% of the population here can drive very fast, having got very good attention span and they're
Speaker:all over the place.
Speaker:So what do I have to do?
Speaker:Hey, you're going to take me 30 seconds to another two or three minutes to get somewhere.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:Wait, can I sacrifice two, three minutes?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So why would I create stress the whole time on the road?
Speaker:Same thing when you're on the court.
Speaker:Why rush?
Speaker:Why keep pushing?
Speaker:Why try to?
Speaker:People, a lot of juniors try to rush things to go through the pain when actually they need
Speaker:to reflect and go through it and be up the other end.
Speaker:And I am Roger Federer.
Speaker:I am Roger Federer.
Speaker:I am Roger Federer.
Speaker:I am Roger Federer.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And Ruben, Ruben, is a good example because he is very high in intensity.
Speaker:We don't know he's background.
Speaker:We don't know how he was raised.
Speaker:We don't know all that stuff.
Speaker:He obviously has a lot underneath and he's going to learn to have to keep channeling and
Speaker:keep channeling it.
Speaker:This has to reason why sometimes people get injured as well because they keep pushing and
Speaker:keep pushing and the mind can control and push the body.
Speaker:But then if we push it too far, something breaks.
Speaker:We get to listen.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Mentally, it's a big thing.
Speaker:So trying to go back to what you are saying, what the average player or what the amateur
Speaker:player can learn, there are things like adrenaline.
Speaker:Watch your pump ups because if your adrenaline goes too high, the first thing your body is going
Speaker:to do is shut down.
Speaker:The heart rate comes down.
Speaker:The mind says straight away, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker:really high."
Speaker:So now I am going to bring you all down.
Speaker:So you might win one big point, come out like Balmau, like Nadal, and then the next
Speaker:two points you lose, and you're like, "What happened to my momentum?"
Speaker:You got nothing left.
Speaker:My adrenaline was so high that my mind said, "Hey, bring everything down to catch up."
Speaker:I have tons of tests.
Speaker:My momentum swings, watch them, manage them, figure out what they do, what they don't
Speaker:do.
Speaker:And what I mean by that is, journalize after a match, what works and what don't work,
Speaker:journalize, journalize, and what you do is once you start reading back, you'll start
Speaker:to realize where the patterns are of what you do to manage momentum or what you do to feel
Speaker:positive to get a win.
Speaker:And if you keep writing them down, even if it starts writing down all your failures, because
Speaker:all the negatives, you'll start to understand patterns on how to change those.
Speaker:So I would say journalize is really important to understand every single match adds up.
Speaker:There are patterns in it.
Speaker:I can be the Tony Robbins right now.
Speaker:It happens in everything.
Speaker:Yeah, right?
Speaker:And I was going to say, it sounds like we can go on forever.
Speaker:Maybe we'll do 10 more minutes next week on the same thing.
Speaker:But in this case, it really sounds like I am running a little business, the business of
Speaker:my hobby, in this case.
Speaker:Because if I'm going to write down the notes from my meeting notes and what happened and
Speaker:what didn't happen, because I want to improve, all of it just sounds like I'm getting really
Speaker:good at my hobby.
Speaker:And the benefit here is the mental health benefits of the actions that we take to improve and
Speaker:be better at what we do.
Speaker:Just in word of time, we will come back to it if we need to.
Speaker:I appreciate it.
Speaker:This has been 10 minutes of tennis with Justin Yo.
Speaker:Thank you, sir.
Speaker:We'll see you next week.
Speaker:Thank you, guys.
Speaker:Well, there you have it.
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