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TennisOne Lessons Mental States: Superstitions and Rituals Daryl Fisher If you are an experienced tennis player, or if you are just human, you have, with near certainty, experienced a range of what can be called mental states. Though mental states are difficult to define and understand completely, some things are known about them, and, even better, some of those things can be used to help you win more tennis matches. Part of what is known can, in fact, help you exert some control over them through the use of rituals. You have probably heard of rituals before, but perhaps you have not yet understood their influence on you, and the more you know about them the better equipped you are to select and use them successfully.
Mental States While there might never be perfect understanding of mental states, cognitive psychology–the study of learning, development, and expertise–provides some surprising observations as to how mental states behave. For example, you might not have guessed that your mental states could be influenced by the time of day. Extensive research has shown that if students learn mathematics at 2pm every day, then they recall the math better at 2pm than at other times. This does not mean that a student will have forgotten everything that was learned at 2pm if tested at 7pm, but it means that accessing the right mental state for solving math problems is easier at 2pm and so scores tend to be better at that time. Cognitive psychology studies also show a mental sensitivity to location. So if you learn math in only one location, you will recall the math more easily in that location. For sports, this gives evidence for a real home court advantage that goes beyond just the supporting fans.
The experiments providing evidence for the sensitivity to times and places are extensive, and while there are no specific experiments with mental states and tennis, there is no reason that the time and place sensitivity should not be extended to tennis as well. That means if you only play tennis at 2pm every day and only on one court, then you will have at least a slightly more difficult time getting into a winning mental state on other courts at other times of the day. Fortunately, cognitive psychology also provides evidence that you can overcome your time and place sensitivity. For math, one thing that you could do is vary the times and places when you learn math, and it is certainly the same with tennis. That is, by avoiding playing at a particular time and place exclusively, you make yourself able to access your best tennis at any time and at any place. But there is more… Superstitions Though it might seem like a digression at the moment, let us jump to the topic of superstitions. Superstitions by definition are irrational beliefs based on ignorance and fear. Superstitions often arise because we humans are wired to look for patterns, even when they are not there. Due to this tendency, winning ways often become associated with things that are not actually connected. As a result, athletes associate winning with “lucky” clothes, “lucky” things to eat, “lucky” places to eat, “lucky” pre-match activities, and “lucky” personal hygiene and hair maintenance (or lack of it). In this way, athletes create limitless examples of superstitions. With superstitions in mind, consider again the sensitivity our mental states have with regard to time and place. Given that certain times and places can encourage a particular mental state in a person, it is not much of a stretch to imagine that there can be other ways to access particular (winning) mental states that are perhaps more flexible with regard to time and place. If you just guessed that it is possible for superstitions to foster access to mental states in a way similar to time and place, you would be correct. So oddly enough, superstitions are not necessarily connected to achieving mental states, but we can make them connected. Many superstitions have the important potential benefit of being independent of a fixed time or place, and in this way superstitions can be more flexible and perhaps even “portable.” Portability is an important potential benefit given that you would like to be able to access winning states of mind at any place or time.
Based on the previous sentence, it sounds as if superstitions are wonderful and we should all have them in order to access our best tennis. A slight downside to superstitions, however, is that they often come about in a way that was not consciously chosen, and for this reason it is possible to get stuck with unreasonably silly, or worse, “lousy” superstitions. As an example, Bob and Mike Bryan have described a superstition relating to eating at a certain Chinese restaurant every day for weeks, even though the food was terrible, because they associated winning with eating there. Perhaps they were exaggerating the story, but they described losing about 15 pounds because the food was so bad. On the positive side, this superstitious streak seems to have encouraged mental states that aided them in winning the French Open, and fortunately for them there are apparently no long-term repercussions, but to dwell on the winning alone would be to miss the point that superstitions can have problems even to the point of being harmful. Rituals Superstitions typically come about in a way that is akin to accidental, and for this reason they can have their challenges, but they do offer the advantage of aiding in achieving particular mental states. What if you could choose your superstitions? In this way, if you select and control what gets you into the proper mental state, then what might seem like a superstition becomes more like a ritual.
As an example of the difference between a superstition and a ritual, consider the example of eating at a specific restaurant on the day of a big tournament. The act of eating at the restaurant can be either a superstition or a ritual depending on the motivation behind it. If you eat at a restaurant but would rather eat somewhere else, then you are likely acting out of superstitious fear that only exists because you created it. Knowing this can help you simply shrug off the superstition and choose another restaurant. If you do in fact like the restaurant though, and you feel that it helps you relax and get properly fueled to compete, then eating at the restaurant can become a positive ritual. When it comes to match time, it is not the eating at the restaurant that is useful or not, it is the mental state that is initiated that is important. Tennis Applications The best rituals help you achieve desired mental states, but as to what those rituals are, they are as individual as you are and you must choose them yourself. To learn more, however, you can watch some touring pros to see if you can detect their rituals. As a hint, almost every pro has a predictable pre-serve ritual. The reason that pros can imitate each other so well, in fact, is that each pro enacts behavior over and over that puts them into a winning mental state. Rafael Nadal, for example, is particularly ritualized on court. He arranges everything associated with his gear very precisely, including his water bottles. As another example, John McEnroe, in his autobiography You Cannot Be Serious, makes clear that untying and tying his shoes was a calming ritual for him. Andre Agassi, in his autobiography Open, describes how arranging his tennis bag and its contents were an important part of his mentally calming pre-match ritual. Examples from the tour, of course, could go on and on. Once you have become familiar with some of the pros’ rituals, consider what you have done when you have happened to play well. This information will become the initial round for selecting your rituals for the sake of improving your ability to access your winning mental states. You can add and subtract from your rituals over time as you see fit. And remember, you are in control of the rituals. Improving control over mental states is a mixture of skillfully selecting rituals and enacting those rituals, and while this process can never be perfectly mastered, with certainty it can be improved. Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about Daryl Fisher's article by emailing us here at TennisOne. |
