10 Minutes of Tennis: Mental Health is More Than A Crisis

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With that said, let's get started with 10 Minutes of Tennis.

Today, this is 10 Minutes of Tennis.

The world renowned tennis pro tennis coach to the stars.

No, I don't know that we can say that.

And we have you ever, yeah, you've taught famous people, but we won't worry about it.

It's just the high energy of the morning, I apologize.

So Justin Yeo, Australian in Puerto Rico, I think right now he's Australian in the locker

room, but that's all right.

We will get started today with mental health.

Now very broad topic when I just say mental health.

But my question is, is this actually an epidemic or is this just life and maybe there's a little

bit of overreaction going on?

Wow, well, you hit a big topic right there because you came in with the epidemic feeling.

Epidemic, we can talk about COVID, right?

So yes, didn't help.

I think we all need to identify something and that makes it very easy.

There are two different types of mental health going on right now in conversation.

There are two parts, meaning the average Joe or the amateur tennis player or the natural

community player as people talk about it is getting a lot of mental health better by playing

tennis.

So one of the most important things after the epidemic was how quick tennis came back and

how many people started to identify that tennis was helping their mental health because of

the anti social.

The other advantage of the epidemic was tennis was something that people could do outside

because they were distanced from each other and still be able to do something.

So mental health was in the epidemic and even nowadays is still very good for the community

tennis player.

On the other side where it's a big subject is on the professional tour, while people are

not identifying and people aren't talking about it enough, except there was one that talked

about it very well was Alcharez.

Alcharez came out as a youngster, was explaining the grueling tour of having to play so many tournaments

and how hard it is on the body.

What we do have to understand is it's extremely hard on the brain as well mentally.

To be able to keep up that kind of continuity all the way all year round and because of the

amount of tournaments, so a lot of best of three tournaments, there was a lot, you got master

series, you got thousands, you got two 50s, you got so there's a lot of tournaments now at

the highest level and if they can't keep it up then there's more players coming up underneath

that are pushing it harder and harder that the better players have to keep up with a deep

calendar of tournaments and that never used to be there.

It used to be more the big grand slams and then lots of little tournaments in between but

the bigger like the point system has made it a lot tougher on players nowadays and that's

what they're talking about mental health and it's become a big thing, Osaka, Curios, even

my, I raised a little girl at the age of five who just made it into the main drawer of

the strain open, Destiny Ava and Destiny, Love you, Love you, I know the family very well but

she went through some mental stuff because of family and so again there's all these big

conversations about mental health on the pro-tool level that people are getting confused because

when it comes down to the community player or the amateur player, it benefits very differently

and so that's where I think needs to be described and we're going to try to do that in a few

podcasts to make people understand the difference between the two and the advantages of the

me.

And I love that distinction because you get a chance to say mental health, we assume, oh I

guess we got to talk about Osaka now, it isn't really that, it is just how is your mental

health, how is your physical health, how is your emotional health, how is your family,

is it healthy, right?

You can, we can ask these questions and for the social player is what we call them, the

social player, maybe even me, going out and playing tennis is good for me, I get some exercise,

I get my vitamin D, I feel good, I can go play with my friends and hit the ball around

and let out some frustrations.

But it doesn't necessarily, I'm not going through that grueling schedule like the pros are,

it's a different thing, they're running a business.

And what I want to add to that too is tennis allows the biggest thing is to disconnect.

Like everyone these days is so connected, so wired all the time.

Once you get on that court, you're in your own world, no one's bothering that world and

you can just give you a chance to refocus, re-boot, re-get everything going.

And so it really does help mental health for the amateur tennis player to be playing tennis.

And the other thing too, we can't, this isn't something that hasn't been around, right?

I mean, I just did a Tony Robbins course and spoke to Tony just briefly and he talks about

Agassi, back all the way back, all the way back in the 90s where he helped him regain,

his feeling on the court of being up to win again.

And then he rebooted and went from here in the rankings to back to the top.

And Tony talks about that heavily.

And so way, way back, you know, and then I can talk about, isn't John Rodic's a great friend

of mine.

And Johnny talks about Marty Fish, because Marty Fish, when they went through the academy

together with Andy, was one of the talented players of the whole group.

And he just, mentally just wasn't there, just couldn't do everything that everyone else

could do.

And then Marty talks about, he came back, gave everything he could, showed his talent,

and took everything out of him to get to that top 10 level.

And he just couldn't manage it because mentally it was really tough for him.

So it is a very different subject when we're talking on the professional side versus the

amateur side.

And that's where I think there's a lot of confusion.

I would love to get Murphy.

This is one of you Murphy's things with mental health, that's partner with Gautanus and

Mr. Sean Boyce, the master of Gautanus.

So I think we've got really cool stuff coming up on the wire in the next few podcasts if

we can get more organized.

I'm trying my best to see if I can get Krios to talk and Ash Bytey.

Ash Bytey will tell you some of the things that she went through, because she had the challenge

of breaking off the tour and coming back to the tour to try to do it on her own terms.

And then she left again on her own terms because she wanted to do family.

So mentally that's a whole thing as well because she came out, she left at the top like why

would you leave?

And so there's a lot of conversation here about mental health that people are getting

confused about.

And I'd like to do some sessions to try to get that clarity for people to understand.

There are benefits on both sides and there's a weakness, hard weakness and these are the

reasons why.

So yeah, and good conversations to have for those of us playing on the weekends and getting

our exercise this way.

But then also maybe some good conversations to have to say why are some of these young adults

struggling, but it's not a surprise.

We've seen it in the movie industry when young stars all of a sudden you've got McCulley

Culkin or you've got these young kids that all of a sudden are wealthy and famous and

they're 13 years old and they have no idea how to handle it and either to their parents.

So we've got these 17, 18 year olds that come in and they've got some, they're making some

good money.

They're having to run a business and make hard decisions and train and work their body.

It's a lot for them and we just think back to the days where we didn't have all of the

press conferences and all of the media.

Maybe it isn't that much worse than it used to be.

We just know more about it.

Well, yeah, we made, but it's still got me.

Yeah, you came back.

Wow, sorry people about that.

I was writing the channel of something and then just disappeared.

So I'll finish this way.

There's a big subject coming that everyone is not talking about.

Even my great friend Patrick Marito, Glouc, nobody seems to bring this up and it needs to

be talked about on Instagram, Facebook, anything live.

It needs to be talked about so the amateur player really truly understands this and player development

as well.

Internal and external mental thinking and that has not been covered and that's one of

the things that you can count the while out everyone to understand and help.

You're going to have to stay tuned because I'm not going to feed you that now because we

have no time.

Exactly.

When we covered that, we have an episode of 10 minutes of tennis last year talking about

that.

We do.

We've touched that topic.

We will cover more coming up.

That is true.

Well, Justin, you know, I appreciate it.

And we will dive deeper into this over the next few months.

Thank you, sir.

This has been 10 minutes of tennis with Justin Yo, Australian and Puerto Rico.

Thank you, sir.

We'll see you next week.

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