{"id":32286,"date":"2021-04-18T22:57:37","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T02:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=32286"},"modified":"2021-04-24T17:21:46","modified_gmt":"2021-04-24T21:21:46","slug":"two-selves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/two-selves\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Selves: Tennis Strategy Focuses on Balance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What are the two selves when you&#8217;re playing tennis? Why do you need them to be a good player?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The two selves of your tennis game can help you be a great athlete. Self 1 is your ego-mind, which is your own understanding of yourself and your beliefs. Self 2 is the physical self that plays tennis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more about the two selves of your tennis game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Two Selves<\/strong> of Tennis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>To understand the two selves, consider what players often say to themselves on the court\u2014it\u2019s all technical:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Keep your forehand level.<\/li><li>Meet the ball in front of you.<\/li><li>Get up for the ball.<\/li><li>Bend your knees.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>When players fail at these technical instructions, they start scolding themselves.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When players talk to themselves this way,&nbsp; the \u201cI\u201d doing the talking and the \u201cself\u201d listening are, in essence, <strong>two different selves. We\u2019ll call these \u201cSelf 1\u201d and \u201cSelf 2,\u201d and they are at the very center of learning the Inner Game.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Self 1 <\/strong>is the \u201cI\u201d or the \u201cego-mind\u201d\u2014the part of the brain that questions the actions of the body and chastises the body for mistakes or rewards it for success.&nbsp;<\/li><li><strong>Self 2<\/strong> is the \u201cmyself\u201d or the body\u2014the physical self that is able to perform remarkable actions on a regular basis.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The <strong>key <\/strong>to improving your tennis game (and the rest of your life) is to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-improve-your-relationships-2\/\">improve your relationship<\/a> between <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/self-1-and-self-2\/\">Self 1 and Self 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Think about Self 1 and Self 2 as two distinct humans:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Self 1 is constantly repeating itself and yelling at Self 2, even though Self 2 knows what to do and has heard it before.<\/li><li>Self 1 is also creating actual physical stress in Self 2: cheek muscles tightening and lips pursed.<\/li><li>Self 1 doesn\u2019t trust Self 2 and then gets angry when Self 2 screws up.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>By using your two selves, you can improve your game and find more balance. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What are the two selves when you&#8217;re playing tennis? Why do you need them to be a good player? The two selves of your tennis game can help you be a great athlete. Self 1 is your ego-mind, which is your own understanding of yourself and your beliefs. Self 2 is the physical self that plays tennis. Read more about the two selves of your tennis game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":32401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,43,48],"tags":[263],"class_list":["post-32286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","category-self-improvement","category-sports","tag-the-inner-game-of-tennis","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Two Selves: Tennis Strategy Focuses on Balance - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What are your two selves in sports? In tennis, you have self 1 and self 2. You&#039;ll need to master both selves in order to play your best.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/two-selves\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two Selves: Tennis Strategy Focuses on Balance\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What are your two selves in sports? In tennis, you have self 1 and self 2. 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