A guy sent me an email. “Blah… blah… geez, your website is filled with some crazy ideas.”
I answered. “Blah… blah… not everyone wants to be “better”.
He immediately responded: “… but I do!”
I asked him how long he’s been trying. More than 20 years, he answered. To which I asked… how can any idea seem crazy to a guy who’s been trying to get better for more than 20 years?
He never replied.
Mind reading isn’t a thing. But if I was betting, I’d bet this guy was more interested in the pursuit of “better” than actually arriving at it. One of those people who say… it’s all about the journey.
The quest for “better” is like a maze to the journey people. They kinda know where they are. They have a loose idea of where they want to be… or at least, they have an idea of the experience they’d like to have. But they have no idea how to get it. So they ask someone… usually an “expert”, how to get there.
The “expert” sells them stories… technical perfection, confidence, grit, and flow. These stories are like rainbows. Unfixed… amorphous, visible only from a specific perspective… and then only temporarily. They spend years… maybe decades wandering the maze in search of these things. Oh well… what difference does it make? It’s all about the journey, right?
My mission is guiding people out of the maze. Send up a flare… drop a pin… once I get a lock on your position. I’ll guide you out.
An example: this guy… Alan, asked me to fix his forehand. He was convinced he needed a new one. For sure, his forehand was awful. But I happen to know that there have been a lot of good players with bad forehands. I asked Al why he wanted to fix his. Every pro he’d been to told him his forehand was holding him back. He’d been to a lot of pros.
I asked what, specifically, it was holding him back from. It didn’t seem like he’d thought about that. He pondered for awhile. Then he pointed to a court that had four of our better players on it. “I wanna hold my own with those guys.”
I refused to help him with his forehand.
You should have seen his face. He couldn’t believe it.
“What?! Why not?”
“Two reasons”, I said. “One your forehand is unfixable.”
He looked at me… furious. “Whad’ya mean… unfixable?”
“How long have you been playing?”
“I dunno… like 15 yrs…”
“Dude, it takes almost as long to change a persons mechanics as it did to create them. You won’t live to see a different forehand.”
He grabbed his bag and started walking off my court.
“Don’t you want to hear the second reason?”
“You tell me I suck, refuse to help… nah, I’ve heard e-fucking-nough.”
“Ok… but I didn’t say you suck. Didn’t refuse to help either.”
Blank stare.
You said you wanted to play with guys like Phil, and Manny, and Mike, and Craig, right?”
He nodded.
“You don’t need to fix your forehand to do that.”
“I said I wanna hold my own. Not just be there cause they need a fourth.”
“I get that. And… dude, you’re already there. You just haven’t connected the right dots. Look, you have a good slice backhand. A reliable serve. You can competently volley… off both sides. And… you don’t hit ‘em hard, but you rarely miss an overhead. Your forehand’s not holding you back. Your understanding of the game is.”
He stopped dead in his tracks. The idea that “better” might have been incorrectly assessed had not occurred to him.
I gave him three thirty minute lessons. We talked geometry instead of technique. Played games with constraints… ie. forehands are outlawed, or all groundstrokes are verboten, or one shot and you’ve gotta get to the net. He figured out how to hide his forehand, and bring his strengths to bear.
At the end of our third lesson I put him in as the fourth in the group he wanted to play in. Spoiler alert: he held his own. As it was happening a parade of emotions marched across his face… tension, surprise, happiness, satisfaction. It was awesome.
“And you were so mad at me.” I taunted.
He smiled. “Yeah… well, you certainly can be a dick… but goddamn… you are good at what you do.”
“Dude, I didn’t do anything but put you back on your own path. Which you allowed your “experts” to guide you away from.”
Following is the easiest way to get lost. Take no one’s word for anything. There’s no gain in wandering the weeds… looking for something someone told you about. Pull out a machete… hack that shit down. See what’s real… for yourself.
“Better” isn’t a journey from here to there. It’s bringing there here.