The Two Minds

[johnyandell]

Your thoughts on John Newcombe, "The Two Minds"?

[gzhpcu]

Your thoughts on John Newcombe, "The Two Minds"?

Great interview. Andy Murray should watch it and learn to smile when the going gets tough as John Newcombe suggests. Positivity is so important.

[arturohernandez]

John,

In general I love the content on tennisplayer.net. I really got nothing out of the interview. I think the main problem is his use of the word mind. He says the subconscious stores everything. In essence this is correct but he really uses the wrong terminology. He is talking about all of our memories and the memories we have in mind now. Then it shifts to talking about the body. I have been thinking a lot about this topic with regard to tennis and am convinced that the language is all wrong.

I was even going to ask if I could write a guest article on it. We can discuss this more off line if you think I could.

I have to state that I am a cognitive neuroscientist by training so a lot of this comes into my research and teaching.

I have thought a lot about my mental and physical states and how they fit in with the science.

The segment ends by saying we should do things with the body, breathe and smile.

So is it the two minds. The body and the mind. Two minds and one body. Into how many pieces can we break it up?

The video presents a jumble of all that stuff and doesn't really go anywhere.

Sorry to be so harsh. I am an optimist by nature but I would not take lessons on the mind from someone who won 7 grand slams.

I am sure he could teach about tactics, conditioning, technique and improvement in the physical parts of tennis.

A young player in ITF tournaments could learn from Newk by having him around to mentor him in tennis.

I think a buddhist meditator or a therapist would do a much better job with mental coaching.

Andy sees a therapist and so did Lendl. Phil Jackson brought in experts to teach his athletes to perform better through mindfulness

Athletes go to experts for help

We should too.

Arturo

[klacr]

Great interview. Andy Murray should watch it and learn to smile when the going gets tough as John Newcombe suggests. Positivity is so important.

Andy Murray always loses in the body language department. Exerting a positive sense of self and situation in stressful times has many benefits, all of which can help you turn the tide of a competitive tennis match.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA

[johnyandell]

arturo,

OK email me. Thanks for the good words about the site. Personally I got a lot out of the interview. And Grand Slam champions often are the best sources on mental game if not necessarily technique. The "expert" model has it's pluses and minuses just like all. Saying what to do and doing it are two different things. If you haven't done it, then what you say may or may not be true and valuable.

But I am always open to adding perspectives on Tennisplayer.

[stotty]

Interesting perspective from Arturo.

I liked the video. It's always good to know what former top players think and how they went about things. I have to say however that the toughest thing to change in a student is their mentality.

I think the modern phenomenon of introducing former grand slam winners to a coaching team is rooted in the quandary many coaches of top players haven't been there and done it themselves, which must occasionally play on the minds of top players. One player chose to tackle this as we know, and so opened the gates for others.

[arturohernandez]

rethinking my initially strong reaction

After reading the two points acknowledging my view but adding that GS champions have done it, I rethought my view. I agree that doing and thinking about it are two different things. My sense is that it is very difficult to verbalize these things and that by adding labels our ability to understand breaks down. In that sense, Newk may actually be really good at understanding the mental game. The problem is how to put into words. So his weakness may be in expressing it. But I do stand by my view that there is something very off in the way people think about the mind. And that fallacy affects their road to improving their mental game. I'll email you (John) offline with some of my ideas for a potential article.


Arturo

[don_budge]

The Two Minds…Newc's take on "the collective unconscious"

After reading the two points acknowledging my view but adding that GS champions have done it, I rethought my view. I agree that doing and thinking about it are two different things. My sense is that it is very difficult to verbalize these things and that by adding labels our ability to understand breaks down. In that sense, Newk may actually be really good at understanding the mental game. The problem is how to put into words. So his weakness may be in expressing it. But I do stand by my view that there is something very off in the way people think about the mind. And that fallacy affects their road to improving their mental game. I'll email you (John) offline with some of my ideas for a potential article.

Arturo

Hi Kyle,
Found this, since you were mentioning Roy Emerson hitting slices at a tennis camp.... Enjoy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXDwZMY1LTg

I don't know arturohernandez…I sort of liked your strong reaction and maybe you should extrapolate on that a bit.

I like John Newcombe. I like him a lot. When he was a player he seemed to be pretty happy go lucky. A happy bloke…playing tennis then having a few to many beers after his matches. He supposedly had some drinking contest with "W" once. "W" may have ended up in a car accident…DWI possibility. Not certain of the particulars. A former girl friend of mine went down to "Newcombe's Tennis Ranch" last year. I guess the tennis came in a close second to the party potential.

Newc sort of talks like he has done a great deal of drinking through his life. You have to respect his tennis mind but he was much more lucid and clearer in his thoughts when he was side kicking with Tony Trabert and Pat Summerall in the booth at the 1984 U. S. Open…just after he had played the Senior Men's singles semi against Stan Smith. Now he sounds just a tad "worn". This business of two minds wasn't very clear at all to me and I am not certain if I could really follow his train of thought. It seemed to be a bit of a runaway train…short of a train wreck. Although Peter Freeman does an amazing job of trying to reign him in at the end with the Novak Djokovic/Roger Federer story at the end of the tape.

I like Peter Freeman too. He seems to be spending a lot of time down there at Newcombe's Tennis Ranch. He's a good interviewer who asks half way decent questions and tries to get out of the way. He did a nice job with Roy Emerson in Emmo's backhand video lesson.

This is my all time favorite tennis interview…you know the one. Or do you have mental problems…you cannot be serious!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW0gQ2dP2aI