Ritualizing Your Game

John Yandell

Ritualizing Your Game. What could that mean?

In the last article I outlined how mental imagery—including both the picture and feeling components—are the basis for building strokes with world class fundamentals. (Click Here.) I have also previously written about using imagery in shot execution. (Click Here.)

But in this article let's first go over how that works again and suggest some specific key images for the strokes. Then let's look how to marry that with another critical component in the mental game—the time between points.

The combination gives you a comprehensive way to play competitive tennis, staying primarily in the non-verbal world. It allows you to ritualize entire matches and stay emotionally positive in the inevitable ups and downs. The process will not only improve your results, it will increase your enjoyment of being a tennis player.

The Choke

Ever have this experience? You get a short forehand and an open court, a chance for an "easy" winner. Then this thought goes through your mind; "God, I hope I don't miss this."

Then you do. It's a classic example and it often happens over and over again below the highest levels.

All players, even at the highest levels, choke occasionally. But at the elite level it's the exception to rule.

So why are the "easy" shots often the hardest for so many players? The answer is too much verbal thought.

When you say to yourself "God, I hope I don't miss this one" you introduce doubt and negative emotion. And at the same time you shift yourself into the world of internal verbal dialogue.

The outcome is paralysis when you actually try to hit the shot. After you choke the shot there is often more internal verbal talk berating yourself for the "easy" miss.

That in turn can lead to more negative thoughts and more misses. This dialogue in your head, once launched, can go on for multiple points or even the rest of a match. The belief that you will choke becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Antidote

There is a two part antidote to get out of this negative mental world. The first is developing and using a series of very specific positive technical images that you develop and test in practice and use to execute in matches without verbal thought. These are what I call stroke keys.

In the Ultimate Fundamentals section (Click Here) I've outlined what I think are the core positions in high quality technical strokes. These are likely to be the most effective images for stroke keys in on court execution.

On the groundstrokes it's likely to be the turn, the contact point, or the finish. It could be one, or two, or all three. Or it could be a mental movie of the stroke moving through the positions.

On the serve it could be one or more of the key positions in the upward swing—as shown in the Roger Federer animation at the top of the article—or again, a movie of moving between them.

Or it could be something else you discover for yourself. Another good example is the image and feeling of your hand and racket turning over in the windshield wiper motion. Whatever the key, the process is the same. You focus on the ball with your eyes and use your mind's eye to visualize the key. Then let the swing cover the key image.

If you have developed the ability to do this in practice and seen the key work to produce the stroke, these images can be a huge, positive force under pressure. You can literally see and feel yourself make the shot in the split second before you hit it, without words and without verbal doubt.

Of course you never know for sure if you will make a given shot, but you have a choice about how you approach it mentally and emotionally. You can talk to yourself in words and induce uncertainty, or you can choose to visualize yourself making the shot using the image of the key.

So instead of doubting whether you can make that "easy" short ball, you cut off the words and instead pre-visualize the image and the associated positive feeling of making it.

Again, you visualize the key as a mental blueprint projected into space and swing out over or through the projected image. And it's not just on certain balls, you can use the visual keying process ritualistically on literally every shot.

Billie Jean

Years ago I was interviewing Billie Jean King. She told me that she began to notice that she was spontaneously pre-visualizing certain shots. So she began to work out mental images for everything. And then began using them systematically on the court.

I think this process probably underlies how great players play—and why they so often can't describe how they hit the ball in words.

For most of them, it just happens naturally and spontaneously. They may or may not be conscious of this process.

But they know enough to avoid trying to translate it into verbal analysis. Andre Agassi put it this way: "You have visions of what you are going to do before it happens." Here is how a friend of mine who has won dozens of gold balls described it. "I play my best when I just follow the images in my head."

I believe that any player can develop this same ability for themselves, learning to literally flood the mind and body with positive imagery and feelings. You have the choice to be negative or positive. The images give you a way to be positive.

In my New Teaching Method series, I outline more specific key images and how to use them on all the strokes. (Click Here.) You can actually make a series of written charts of your own key images—one or more for every stroke. When I was coaching in the juniors some of my players kept the charts in their racket bags and reviewed them before or even on changeovers during matches.

Between Points

So stroke keys are one half of the solution. But's it's not just during points that negativity can take over. Another major problem is what players do and say to themselves in the time between points.

Typically the total time actually playing points is far less in matches than the times in between. And these longer periods are often when players engage in prolonged negative self talk.

This is where the second half of the ritualization process, based on the work of the great Jim Loehr, merges with the use of imagery during play.

Decades ago, Loehr began studying what great players actually did between points. His seminal articles going back to first days of Tennisplayer are still the best exposition of this ever created, along with training models to develop them for yourself. (Click Here for the first one in the series on between point behavior (and the rest of the mental game) but read them all.)

Loehr found there was remarkable consistency in what top men's and women's players did between points. He divided their behavior into 4 stages.

Positive Physical Response

The first stage he called Positive Physical Response. No matter what may have happened in the point, the player turned and walked away maintaining a positive physical body language with the shoulders up and back and also usually shifting the racket into the non-dominant hand to help relax the hitting arm.

Stage 1 could also include a fist pump, but these Loehr believed should be reserved for big points or turning points. Unfortunately, in junior tennis this has been copied, exaggerated, and wildly over utilized with players sometimes screaming and pumping after every point they win or even shaking their fists at opponents.

At the pro level, this became the annoying pattern of Ana Ivanovic, who tended to pump her fist after every point she won as if it was match point in a Slam final. The problem here, in addition to a sportsmanship issue, is that it creates an emotional roller coaster.

Players get over excited when they win points and this leads to too much disappointment when they lose them. We know from the work of Allen Fox, Craig O"Shannessey and others that in a close match you win about half the points and lose about half the points.

If you are constantly going up and down emotionally it exhausts your mental and physical reserves. Fox once put it this way, "Every point is important. But not too important. There will always be another point."

And yes players like Nadal and Federer and Djokovic give their share of fist pumps and other physically demonstrative expressions, but these are reserved for big shots at big times.

Relaxation

The second stage Loehr discovered was relaxation. The goal was to recover physically and emotionally from the point.

The players focused on their breathing and refrained from conscious thought. They frequently looked down, focusing on their strings.

They walked deliberately across the baseline, keeping their back to the opponent. Then they might walk back and forth behind the baseline for several seconds depending on how difficult or stressful the point had been. They might towel off. Stage 2 could take 5 to 15 seconds.

Preparation

Stage 3 is preparation. It begins when the player starts to move into position to play the point. This is the time players manage the strategic and emotional direction of the match.

The first step is to make sure you know the correct score. Then to decide how to play the next point.

The player might physically rehearse a given stroke or strokes, visualizing the execution. He might visualize a serve placement or a return target. Stage 3 usually takes between 3 and 5 seconds.

Ritual

The fourth stage Loehr discovered is the ritual stage, used to keep the player relaxed and to deepen concentration. If you watch pro players, you will see that they follow precise individual rituals and that they rarely deviate from them, even over the course of a five set match.

Rituals are an oasis of comfort in the uncertainty of match play. On the serve the ritual includes several ball bounces, followed by a pause, before the start of the motion. This keeps the player from rushing the serve. On the return, it can be crouching in the ready position, or taking a few quick steps in place.

Loehr found that completing the 4 stages was especially important when a player had missed a shot or lost a tough point. Look at the classic animation of Guga going through the stages after missing a backhand.

Completing the 4 stages should take a minimum of 16 seconds up to the full time allotted between points.

Synthesis

This combination of between point behavior with imagery and stroke keys used during the point gives players a complete blueprint for focusing and staying positive. You may or may not execute all the dimensions perfectly, especially at first, but over time the results can be amazing.

Here is the story of an adult tournament player I worked with on both stroke imagery and between point rituals, who had been ranked in various age and ability divisions over a 20-year period.

"I won a lot of matches but they were often emotionally draining and I began to question why I was still playing. When I started working in John's system, the first thing I noticed was how fearful I was to hit winning shots.

"Some voice inside kept telling me I was going to miss. As I started to develop key images and use them on the court, I was amazed.

"I'd played competitive tennis my whole life and had hit very few winners under pressure. I'd decided that I was a choker, and that the only way to win at the big moments was just to keep the ball in play.

"Visualizing that I would make shots helped me learn to believe in myself. For the first time in my life I started to hit a lot of easy winners.

"The between point rituals were critical as well. They just felt good. They helped me turn off my internal dialogue, stay more relaxed and be more focused on what I was trying to do. It was two halves of the same whole."

So that pretty much summarizes what it means to ritualize your matches—and the huge positive impact it can have. Next let's look at how one more component that fits into all this. The role of offcourt visualization.