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Inner Game of Tennis

TheCoach · 47.6K views · 2012-05-19 · 12:15

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Overview

A 1970 demonstration of W. Timothy Gallwey, author of The Inner Game of Tennis, teaching a complete beginner to play tennis in about ten minutes. He chats with her, feeds balls and gives positive feedback instead of instruction.

On Hacker News

HN commenters use it as a vivid demonstration of learning by quieting the conscious mind, and recommend it alongside the book.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2015–2016

Topics

Education & learningProductivity & self-improvementSports & athletics
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timothy gallweycoachinglearningtennisfeedback

What people said

andy_ppp · 2016-09 · Strong recommendation

[VIDEO] This video of Timothy Gallwey teaching a woman how to play tennis. In 5 minutes. The book is one of the best I've ever read (go get it now), it's about mental focus, improvement by not trying and about not judging your results. I was sitting in front of a really difficult problem earlier today but I kept persisting at it even though at points I got frustrated ("I'm not sure I'm smart enough to do this...") I managed to stop thinking for a bit and try again without understanding the code fully and it ended up working. I'm not saying being intuitive always works with programming but sometimes if you feel out of your depth it can really help push you through.

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leoc · 2015-11 · Recommendation

Obligatory Inner Game of Tennis TV feature: [VIDEO] and specifically related to keeping the eyes on the ball: [VIDEO]

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deepnet · 2015-05 · Reference

Conversely the conscious mind can also make it harder to learn things. I refer to the "Inner Game of Tennis" by Tim Gallwey [VIDEO] As a teacher he tries to distract the conscious mind so learning can take place.

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Sources

Video by TheCoach, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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