I’m having a brewski at my local sports pub. Six televisions face me. What to watch? The giants are getting destroyed… again. Not watching that… again. Pickleball on another tv. Definitely NOT watching that. Fishing… no. Dodgers game… hell no. Soccer… mmm… possibly. I check in on the last TV. The golf channel. Rory Mcilroy is talking about how to prepare for the pressures of tournament play. AKA how not to choke. Ok… I’m interested. He says, and I quote, “playing practice games… with consequences that mimic the pressure of tournament play”, is how to do it.
Interesting… dont’cha think? I mean, it sounds logical enough, right? In fact, I’m sure you’re heard something similar before. I know I have.
Thing is… it can’t be true! Playing with consequences, that you consciously agreed to, is like trying to tickle yourself. It doesn’t work.
Here’s why…
We’ve all experienced the pressure Rory’s talking about. We faced a big moment in a match and… malfunctioned. (Please tell me it’s not just me.) Heart racing. Mind too. Tunnel vision. Shaky hands. Adrenaline pumping. Our fight or flight response has been activated.
Why? I mean, it’s just tennis, right?
Obviously not! When your fight or flight system kicks in, a lot more than tennis is involved. But… what?
Let’s invent an imaginary player. We’ll call him Bob. Bob desperately wants to be a really good tennis player. He also craves the favorable opinion of his tennis peers. He wants them to look at him and think… “damn, Bobs a freaking stud”. And that’s not all. Deep in Bobs heart of hearts, he would love it if his tennis prowess garnered the respect of non-tennis players too.
Thing is… Bob believes that the only way to get all that stuff is to win… a lot. Meaning… he’s gotta win… a lot, to be the person he so desperately wants to be.
Accordingly, Bob sees every tennis match as a fight for his identity. Of course he freaks out. His overall sense of well being is on the line.
That, I think we can agree, is terminally stressful. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. The reason a person needs to win is the reason they struggle to do so.
What consequences can you dream up that would make any practice even close to being similarly stressful?
Well… sacrificing an appendage, like a finger, or toe… or two, for losing, would do it. Until Bob runs out of ‘em. Financial ruin would be super stressful too. Maybe the loss of a pet… or a loved one. Look, Bobs not going to agree to any of those. Whatever he would agree to possibly sacrifice would be acceptable and therefore not mimic the stress of failing to live up to the identity he craves.
Rory’s plan can’t be true! By the way, it’s not Rory’s plan per se. He absorbed it from the culture he’s been marinating in. We did too.
So did Bob. He didn’t think and then consciously agree to sublet his sense of well being to things he only has partial control over, like the winning of matches, and craving the validation of a bunch of knuckleheads… he doesn’t know and in any other situation wouldn’t give two shits about. He too absorbed all that from the society he’s been marinating in for his entire life.
If you think Rory’s success is proof of his claim… it isn’t. Outside of cloning him a bunch and running each copy through different preparations, there’s no way of knowing whether his success owes to his prep, or happened in spite of it. “Every theory has to be analyzed against all possible consequences, and see if anything else is predicted.” Richard Feynman.
A thought experiment: who’s gonna perform better under stress. The player who acclimates to it… or the player who eliminates it?
Alex Honnold prepared for free soloing El Capitan (climbing without ropes or safety gear) by climbing… with ropes and safety gear. I’ll put that to you another way, he prepared for the incredible stress of climbing more than three thousand vertical feet without ropes, or safety gear of any kind… by reducing the stress in his practices. I’ll put that to you another another way, he trained to keep fight or flight at bay… in a situation that absolutely demands it, by doing the opposite of what Rory said.
Interesting… don’tcha think?
Imagine, while everyone… and I mean everyone else is doing the same thing… trying to solve for pressure by stressifying their practice. Our imaginary buddy Bob eliminated the stress of match play by figuring out how to bring the stress free… exploratory spirit of practice into competition.
By the way, an interesting observation: how few have sussed out the fact that their methods and practices are the same as everyone else’s.
Anyway, you’re right, it’s probably impossible to totally eliminate anxiety. But golly, if a guy can figure out how to climb one of the worlds largest vertical granite faces… with no ropes, and not shit his pants, don’t you think you can probably figure out how to play a match and not feel like you’re fighting for your freaking life?