The Tennis Player’s Guide to the Universe
Tennis is game of speed, and of touch, and of strategy, and of strength, and of agility, and of stamina, and of emotion, and of placement, and of power, and of technique, and of balance, and of intelligence, and of heart. In those ways, and many more, tennis is much like life. The game can be thrilling, heart-breaking, exhilarating, exhausting, adrenaline charging, poetic, frustrating, joy inducing, and sublime. The game of tennis offers us a striking metaphor for life in the real world. This game can move you to tears, tears of elated bliss, and tears of brutal pain, loss, defeat. One can go, quickly, from salivating over the potent of victory into the throws of depression over unexpected, unfathomable, and unseen loss. The game is heaven. The game can be hell.
Anyone who has played the game of tennis knows how addicting and repelling the game can be. I have known “great athletes” who have come to the game after mastering others sports, only to wind up exasperated by the challenge of becoming proficient in the game of tennis. The Beautiful Game, as it has been called (at least by me), offers the accomplished player much on a psychological and even spiritual level, and yet, can utterly perplex a soul used to mastering a more average or common sport (as all others are). Tennis will take the common athlete and reduce him to tears, sending him away cowering, sniffling, and crying to his mommy. This is a game for true athletes. Only those with gladiator hearts should venture between these lines. Studies have proven, in fact, that aside from full contact sports, tennis is singularly, the most physically demanding and destructive upon the body. Many shall aspire to become great at this game, but few shall travel successfully upon this road. The sooner you accept this the better off you will be. Accepting this truth is what prepares you for reality and for the tough but satisfying work ahead.
What is so compelling about this game to me and to many others, aside from the physical and mental rewards, is the vastness of experiences on the court, experiences which have such a direct connection to the game of life on so many levels. This game, like few others, perhaps because its so mano a mano, is a striking mirror to the reality of life in the world, yea, even life in the universe. Deep spiritual truths unfold for us within this simply drawn box upon the terra firma.
In the rambling prose which follows my hope is to help you understand just how magnificent and complex the game is. As you continue to read, my aim is to confront you with truths which will challenge you, inspire you, and embolden you to take up the game with a renewed vigor. For some, this may actually be your first true attempt to pursue this grand game. Others of you, having experienced the game before, and having quit or lost your drive for excellence, I hope, will find a renewed understanding of and passion for this game.
Why? What’s so important about this game? Why should anyone have such an interest? Your very soul is at stake, that’s why! The pages which follow are your guide to tennis, and to the universe.
Getting a Grip
I was introduced to the game of tennis through my step-father when I was about ten or eleven years old. A good athlete, intrigued by how graceful and athletic the game appeared to me when I watched my step-father, Don, play, I quickly became enamored with a sport which seemed to offer more than any I had played before. I was a strong soccer player in grade school, an all-star baseball player, and even a good basketball and football player despite my being undersized. Sport had always come easy to me. Tennis, with the mix of athleticism, artistic expression, mind-games, quickness, and power, hooked into me like a drug. Once I started it was game over. While I continued to play and even excel at other sports over the years, everything else gradually lost its allure in light of the glorious splendors the game of tennis offered me. Today, after a junior career and a college career in the game, and having just passed “mid-life”, I love the game more than ever despite the fact that it has left the body with many an ache and pain. What I have gained through playing this game cannot be overstated. What must be stated, is that all the years of training, all the hours on the court, all the injuries, all the mental torture, and all the wins and losses–they have all been worth it. My life, and indeed my soul, has been enriched by the game.
The game which originated, perhaps with the ancient Egyptians (or some form of it perhaps), and which has given me so much, and gives so much to so many others around the world now, began, for me, with a handshake, a handshake with my step-father, Don, who had some seriously calloused mitts from playing and teaching for so many years. As he shook my hand that first time on the court and locked his piercing blue eyes onto me, it was as if he were saying, “All that follows from this point begins here in this handshake”. For some reason, I got it. And because I got it, embraced it, and built everything upon that foundation, that grip, the game has unfolded for me in lovely ways. Today, when I have the opportunity to teach, that handshake, that grip, is right where I start.
The grip is everything. Its the foundation. Get the grip right, and you have something to work with. Its the foundation of all the other techniques in the sport of tennis, AND life.
When a student of the game approaches me for the first time and wanders onto the court I bring them directly to the net. I have with them a sort of Vince Lombardi moment that goes a bit like this, “Inside these lines the game will unfold. But if you want to really play this game as best you can, you have to remember today, your first day. What I am about to tell you may be the most important thing you have ever heard, really. First, this game WILL get a grip on you. That is the central truth of tennis. The game will hound you down, it will capture you. And, YOU need to get a grip too. The whole game is dependent upon your grip, and as you will see over time, the grip has many variations, intricacies, uses, and reasons for being. The grip is your foundation. This is where we start.”
At this point I ask the sojourner to stand facing the net, and me, and hold out there hand as if to shake mine. As they do so I place the racquet into the palm of their hand so that the racquet’s strings are vertical as they point the racquet toward me. “Like a good handshake”, I say, “The grip on the racquet must be strong, sincere, but ready for adjustment at any moment”. This is the starting point. Now it’s on!
There is, of course, an entire universe of teaching which must take place from this point forward, but for now, the grip must be understood, embraced, and mastered. Once the game has its grip on us, and once we have mastered the grip(s), things we never thought possible take place in us and for us. The grip of the game transforms us from spectator to performer, performer/devotee.
As simple as this may seem, the truth of the grip is a bit more vast than we may first assume. That being so, sufficient time must be spent on this foundation before we can even begin to hit, run, and play. We need to spend some time here in order to get the grip right. So, here we begin.
…to be continued!!
Bruce Smith
optimuslife.org