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Summary: This book can change your life
Review: I first read this book in early 1989 and it changed my life .With its guidance I totally transformed the way I looked at the world and yes I started winning tennis matches also.I dip back into it every now and then and what I like about the author is that he doesn't dictate to the reader but allows us find our own solutions and thus take ownership of our own destinys.As he says himself anybody with the right amount of sincerity and determination can find their true path in life....."Men play games because God first plays a Game".
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Summary: It's not just for Tennis - in fact it never was!
Review: I have been coaching Olympic shooting sports for more than 25 years, and have incorporated Gallwey's Inner Game and Self 1 - Self 2 concepts into my core coaching philosophy and techniques for 20 years. And it still works! A friend has also used it with swimming and volley ball with excellent results. An ESSENTIAL reference for the serious coach committed to the mental aspects of competitive sports.
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Summary: mind games
Review: I liked this book more and more, the farther I got!
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Summary: Great, not only for tennis
Review: I read this book four years ago on the recommendation of a World Champion in the sport in which I compete - Fast Draw. I had often ranked high at major contests, but had never been able to make it to the winners circle at major competitions during 18 years of shooting. I was pretty sure that the only thing holding me back was the mental game.While reading this book I was amazed at Gallwey's description of mental aspects of competition, and how I had experienced the exact same things. His explanations of how a competitor sabotages his own outcomes showed me what I had been doing wrong. His tips for getting into the correct mindframe made perfect sense, although were probably not the sort of things I would have come up with on my own. After putting these tips into action I really saw a big improvement in my shooting. I won my first major championship within four months, and have been the overall world champion in my sport for three of the last four years. It was the things I learned from this book that allowed me to perform at my top level when the pressure was on.
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Summary: Worthwhile
Review: I read this many years ago and loved it.
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Summary: A Landmark Work
Review: I remember clearly the first time I read this book. It was the summer before 9th grade, almost two decades ago. I'd been playing tennis for about a year. My trusty wooden racquet in tow, I had taken lessons, read every how-to book and tried to follow all the step-by-step pictures. Also, I was getting soundly beaten by friends who'd be playing longer than myself. I found the book in the library and was surprised at how thin it was. Then I noticed there were no pictures. I thought "What kind of tennis book has no pictures? " I started to read there next to the shelves and my life has never been the same. I wound up captain of my highschool tennis team, all-state selection, and along the way crushed the bums who used to beat me. Now I'm almost 30 and a tennis has-been but still play a pretty good game. And whenever I go on the court (be it tennis, basketball, squash) I apply the same principles. I stop trying, stop forcing. Quiet the mind and let it happen. As others reviewers have written in this space, this book will transform your game. It will also broaden your appreciation for what the human body can do. It will enrich your life. This is a classic and indispensible work.
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Summary: I Used This Book To Improve My Bowling... and IT HELPED!
Review: I was in a rut years ago when my bowling coach told me to stop practicing and just read this book. At the time I was entering three tournaments per month, so just quiting practice seemed silly. But hey, I'd been stinking the place up for 4 months and hadn't made a single cut! So I stopped practicing and read this book in two days. I made the cut in the next several tournaments! I scaled back my practicing and just kept the book with me on the road. While I didn't win any tournaments, I placed second in four of them! This is NOT just a tennis book. I recommend this to anyone who has any skills in any sport and find yourself performing below your capabilities. IT WILL HELP! I gave my copy to my dad for his golf game and am buying a new copy as I find myself getting back into my sport.
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Summary: Not just a tennis book
Review: In fact, this is really a book about learning theory and education. Gallwey uses tennis as one example of how this theory can be applied. Yeah, it improved my tennis. It also improved my life!
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Summary: A good beginning insight to mental tennis
Review: May be written quite a long timw ago but contains very simple devices to guide the tennis player through intermediate stages. Effective one-liner self-talks to guide juniors through rough patches and reinforce skill and concentration, e.g. `bounce-hit-bounce' etc. Suffice for beginning coaches to adopt and adapt for lessons without the heavy mental terminology that scares people.
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Summary: Re-wrote my mental picture of me playing tennis
Review: Not a book of technique but one which transformed my attitude to playing tennis. Gallwey explains his transformation from a an ego-driven win-at all-cost player, to a yoga-player who played for the experience without desire to win, to a player who concentrates on making the effort to win. The latter concept, as opposed to being concerned about winning, was the most profound part of the book for me. It explained paradoxes I had felt in competing as purely social player, where often I had not wanted to win. The book has taught me to think less, to concentrate more, and to focus on playing in the present without harse self-judgement. Gallwey insists that he has not written a self-help book, but his philosophy is certainly applicable to wider spheres, not the least learning new sports such as, in my case, roller-blading. I'm trying to just 'let it happen". A book that needs to be kept and read over.
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