TennisOne Lessons
Crisis Management:
How to Handle the Pressure
This is the second of several columns analyzing the Do
You Think Like a Winner?: Competitors' Questionnaire for measuring the
psychological dimension of your tennis game. This column analyzes your score
for questions 7-12. by Jim McLennan, Senior Editor, TennisONE
(Former President, USPTA, Northern California), and Carol Blackman
The Crisis Management section of the Competitors' Questionnaire examines
how well you handle pressure. To handle pressure situations, you must
be able to control your state of tension or nerves and your adrenaline flow-what
certain sports psychologists call arousal control.
The classic example of arousal control, of playing calmly when the chips
were really down, was Sergei Brugera's performance against two-time defending
champion Jim Courier in the 1993 French Open final. In the fifth set, the
announcers were concerned that Brugera might be tiring. His body seemed
limp and his pace between points was ponderous. Courier, on the other hand,
was displaying his usual pumped-up, super-energetic flair about the court.
But guess what? It was super-energized, super-aroused Courier, not the apparently
dragging Brugera, who made the critical errors during the late stages of
the match. Looking back on the match, it was clear that Brugera was
relaxing and conserving energy between points; his mastery over himself
enabled him to win his first Grand Slam title.
Some insight into Brugera's mastery of his energy and nerves can be found
in Dr. Jim Loehr's studies of "arousal control." I had the good
fortune of attending Dr. Loehr's seminar in 1990, three years before the
Brugera/Courier match.
His seminar was based on experimentation where Loehr had put a heart rate
transmitter on a tennis player so he could monitor the heart rate of the
player during the practice match, on the changeover, between points, and
during points. From this experimentation, Loehr selected an optimal heart
rate between points, during changeovers, and during play. The key,
he said, was to learn to control your heartbeat and your state of arousal
and energy during all aspects of play. Loehr used a feedback device
to train the player to either elevate or depress their heart rate when it
deviated from the optimal level, and this training gave the player an internal
control over their state of arousal. After the seminar Loehr was asked who
he had been training in such an unusual manner. His answer was Sergei Brugera.
Peak performance and medium arousal
Scientists depict an inverted "U" on a graph to describe the relationship
between arousal and performance.
When a person is underaroused and too relaxed, his performance suffers.
Ironically, when a person is too aroused, hyper-alert with the heart beating
150 times per minute, performance will also be very low. For the optimal
performance to occur, the player must be in a state of truly "medium"
arousal. In this state you feel very clear and focused - without being overly
intense. You are neither over-pumped, nor under-pumped, but pumped
just right. But just how much is "just right?" And how can you
practice to control your adrenaline flow, your internal energy, when you're
in a crisis situation.
We all have the ability to play well when we're loose, when nothing causes
us to question whether we can hit the ball in. But quite often there is
a specific event that upsets the apple cart, that causes us to doubt whether
we can place that next backhand or that next second serve accurately into
the court. This specific event can be the size and proximity of the gallery,
the face and reputation of a difficult opponent, or the score in the third
set. Whatever the cause, this event will often cause an over-aroused state
that actually hinders performance. But the crisis situation that creates
the doubt must be managed. To play well we must be able to perform in the
crunch.
Mastering Your Self and Your "Crises"
Two specific strategies can be used to counteract the pressures of these
so-called crises. One strategy involves becoming intimately familiar with
the situation, so that the familiarity enables you to see that the crisis
is in fact readily manageable. The other strategy involves examining your
outlook and the way that you interpret the events in your life.
Plan A - Familiarity
To conquer a situation, you must continually face it, again and again. Just
as an aversion to snakes is overcome by gradually getting closer and closer
to the real thing, the snake, you can never really get over a "crisis"
until you have confronted it many, many times. Repeatedly playing in tennis
tournaments, for example, will help you learn to deal with pressure more
effectively. Another, more practical alternative perhaps, is to create
an intense practice situation, where you truly believe and emphasize that
the next set you play is the finals of a tournament. When taken
seriously, this practice event can become a positive means of mastering
your self and your nerves.
Plan B - Redefining your life
Some years ago, a psychotherapist made a bet with Ivan Lendl that if he
worked with her, he would win the US Open. Lendl had lost in the finals
the last two years, and had something of a reputation as a choker. The psychologist
vowed that if Lendl did not win the Open after her psychological intervention,
then she would pay him a sum of money. Lendl took the bet, and won the next
three US Opens.
She believed that Lendl had created his own pressure in Grand Slam finals,
and his poor performance (to that date) was a function of how he viewed
these events. Her explanation to him, based on a psychological discipline
entitled, "Logotherapy," developed by the famed psychologist,
Dr. Victor Frankl, (his most famous book is "Man's Search for Meaning").
Frankl's theory was that events in and of themselves had only the
meaning that you give them. She challenged Lendl to redefine his Grand Slam
final experience. Lendl had a breakthrough by realizing that in
a Grand Slam final, he couldn't die or lose a limb. He could only win or
lose, nothing more. Sounds trivial but it's really earth shattering. Tennis
is just a game. Pressure only exists if you think that event has pressure.
You are gripped by the tension of a crisis when you feel the event has taken
on a larger significance than it usually warrants. The way to implement
Plan B for mortals like you and is to continually deflate this tennis "crisis."
Tennis is not brain surgery, not bad news at work. Missed backhands are
not blows to my ego, not assaults on my family. In this frame of mind, mistakes
and crises are treated just as the singular, rather unimportant events that
they are and nothing more.
One final tip. Go back to the questions in the Crisis Management section
of the Competitors' Questionnaire, and you will see questions, when put
in the positive, can be affirmations you can use during competition.. The
best one to repeat whenever you "question" your composure is to
rehears the phrase, "I am a cool, calm and collected competitor."
Say it enough times and you will believe it and act on it.
Watch for What's New on TennisONE for future
columns on the Competitors' Questionnaire.
Copyright 1993 "Competitors' Questionnaire," by Jim McLennan and
Carol Blackman. All rights reserved 1993.
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