Tennis Psychology: How to Cultivate the Great Sports Mind

“I see dead people” is the famous line from the movie The Sixth Sense, in which a little boy regularly communicates with spirits from the Other Side.

There is also a sixth sense in sports.

Not many sports psychologists talk about it because most of them are not champion athletes.

Oh, you’ve HEARD of this sixth sense…but you’ve never really experienced it firsthand.

So they keep quiet about it.

But I’m going to let the cat out of the bag.

The sixth sense is your Great Athletic Mind in action.

Real athletes edit and simplify things.

In a fraction of a second they know what needs to happen, what doesn’t, where to make adjustments.

They process data in a fraction of a second and make it look easy.

Imagine playing with a cat.

They are moving and anticipating without having to think about it.

Tennis commentator Mary Carillo says that the tennis player with the best Great Sports Mind was Martina Navratilova.

“Martine is one of those people who has this great athlete’s mind,” says Carillo, “and hyperanalysis is the opposite of what a real athlete does. What real athletes know is just a kind of organic, almost animal instinct. “.

Martina always seemed like she could anticipate where to go on the court. That’s because she understood the geometry of the court from a VISUAL point of view.

Because the image was etched in her mind, Martina could easily predict the cause and effect of, “If I take someone off the court with this shot, there’s no way I can get to that shot and do anything other than be this”.

Another textbook example of Great Jock Mind was Nadia Comaneci.

Comaneci was the Romanian gymnast who won three Olympic gold medals at the 1976 Summer Olympics.

She was also the first gymnast to receive a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastics event.

Nadia was the queen of not thinking too much.

In gymnastics, you make decisions in 1/100th of a second to achieve the perfect grip, swing, or kick.

It is not a time frame where THINKING is possible.

If Nadia started a gymnastics move and felt it couldn’t be completed correctly, she would switch to a different move, erasing her initial mistake.

Nadia could change a ‘bad’ body move into a move that would score a point in a fraction of a second.

He could improvise anything and no judge could guess what his first ‘thought’ was.

Inside your Great Sports Mind, there is a little TV screen in your brain that shows you a split second before what is about to happen.

When you trust it, your body is capable of things that impress even YOU.

The Great Jock Mind is the essence of being a true athlete.

The problem is that most athletes interfere with their Great Sports Mind.

They think too much and analyze too much.

They question their sixth sense because they think they are smarter than their great athletic mind.

Please…

Your Big Jock Mind knows everything.

You just need to activate it and trust it.

If you want your great athletic mind to come to life, then you must learn to visualize.

When you visualize, you develop your Great Sports Mind.

Your sixth sense takes over and your true awesomeness comes out.

The problem is that most athletes don’t visualize much.

They’ve heard of it…maybe they’ve tried it a few times…but that’s about it.

They don’t realize that all sport is driven by the visual images in their minds.

Great athletes constantly use visual images to guide them in competition.

Some of them do it naturally.

Others trained alone.

Either way, if you’re serious about consistently winning, you need your great athletic mind operating at its peak.

The best way is to slowly and gradually train yourself to see elements of your performance on the screen of your mind.

Start the days you play tennis. When you fall asleep at night, remember your best shots and how you felt. This is a great starting point for developing the master skill of visualization. It’s easy, it’s fun, and it’ll give you momentum on the court without you trying to create it.