Originated by Timothy Galwey, The Inner Game of Tennis describes an approach to overcoming obstacles to learning. Galwey’s proposition, first published in 1972 and based on his observations of different styles of tennis coaching, is that people learn more from experience — from trial and error – than from being instructed. What stops them learning is interference from an instructor, people on the sidelines, or from within themselves. The key tenet of his approach is:
Performance = Potential – Interference
Coaches who tell you what to do and/or provide constructive criticism unwittingly get in the way of learning, he maintains. By contrast, the most successful coaches focus on removing interference, on helping people concentrate on the task. They accept that people are inherently talented and create the environment, where experimentation will be effective.
Two further formulae in The Inner Game of Tennis are:
- Too much challenge + Too little safety = fear
- Too much safety + Too little challenge = complacency
Galwey characterizes what happens when people fail to perform to their potential as a conflict between two selves. Self 1 is the brain, which has the habit of telling Self 2 (the body) what to do. When Self 2 already knows what it needs to do, Self 1 interferes and gets in the way of performance.
These simple concepts have been applied to a wide range of sports and skills – that is, to a very basic level of coaching. Their application to more complex issues, which require greater self-understanding and self-awareness, is limited, however.
© David Clutterbuck