the inner game of tennis by robert gallwey

The living awareness aspect of our human consciousness has an inside, internal dimension, as well as, outside, external dimension. There were, indeed, a number of ritual practices occurring, all of which provide us with some early examples of the athletes working to successfully handle their ‘inner game.’ Willis Crenshaw, our fullback, would arrive in our locker room to quickly take off his street clothes and put on his uniform just 10 minutes before we would file through the stadium tunnel to the field. Ernie Clark, my fellow linebacker, would slam the front of his head (with his helmet on) on the locker room wall five times (boom boom…) just before entering the tunnel that led onto the field. Small rituals like tying my shoelaces 20 times before a game as a way of focusing our game plan and how I would play, did the trick.

Many athletes, including myself as an NFL player (1963 – 1969), were trying to get ourselves ‘right’ mentally: we called it getting our ‘psych on’. Tim Gallwey and Robert Kriegel, a skiing coach and friend of Tim’s, followed up with their book, The Inner Game of Skiing in 1977. Athletes and coaches have always known there is an ‘inner game’ going on in athletes’ minds during their training and performance moments. His book The Inner Game of Tennis broke open the constricted, limited view and awareness of coaches and athletes.

Tim Gallwey, Master tennis coach, first coined the term “inner game” in 1974.

The inner game of tennis by robert gallwey