The Meaning of Winning
(from The Inner Game of Tennis)
The riddle of the meaning of competition didn’t come clear to me until later, when I began to discover something about the nature of the will to win.
The key insight into the meaning of winning occurred one day in the course of discussion with my father, who, as mentioned earlier, had introduced me to competition and had considered himself an avid competitor in the worlds of both sport and business. Many times previously, we had argued about competition, with my taking the side that it was unhealthy and only brought out the worst in people. But this particular conversation transcended argument.
I began by pointing to surfing as an example of a form of recreation which didn’t involve one in competitiveness.
Reflecting on this remark, Dad asked,
“But don’t surfers in fact compete against the waves they ride? Don’t they avoid the strength of the wave and exploit its weakness?”
“Yes, but they’re not competing against any person; they’re not trying to beat anyone,” I replied.
“No, but they are trying to make it to the beach, aren’t they?”
“Yes, but the real point for the surfer is to get into the flow of the wave and perhaps to achieve oneness with it.”
But then it hit me. Dad was right;
the surfer does want to ride the wave to the beach, yet he waits in the ocean for the biggest wave to come along that he thinks he can handle.
If he just wanted to be “in the flow,” he could do that on a medium-size wave. Why does the surfer wait for the big wave? The answer was simple, and it unraveled the confusion that surrounds the true nature of competition.
The surfer waits for the big wave because he values the challenge it presents. He values the obstacles the wave puts between him and his goal of riding the wave to the beach. Why? Because it is those very obstacles, the size and churning power of the wave, which draw from the surfer his greatest effort. It is only against the big waves that he is required to use all his skill, all his courage and concentration to overcome; only then can he realize the true limits of his capacities. At that point, he often attains his peak. In other words, the more challenging the obstacle he faces, the greater the opportunity for the surfer to discover and extend his true potential. The potential may have always been within him, but until it is manifested in action, it remains a secret hidden from himself. The obstacles are a very necessary ingredient to this process of self-discovery. Note that the surfer in this example is not out to prove himself; he is not out to show himself or the world how great he is, but is simply involved in the exploration of his latent capacities. He directly and intimately experiences his own resources and thereby increases his self-knowledge.
From this example, the basic meaning of winning became more clear to me.
Winning is overcoming obstacles to reach a goal, but the value in winning is only as great as the value of the goal reached. Reaching the goal itself may not be as valuable as the experience that can come in making a supreme effort to overcome the obstacles involved. The process can be more rewarding than the victory itself.
Once one recognizes the value of having difficult obstacles to overcome, it is a simple matter to see the true benefit that can be gained from competitive sports.
In tennis, who is it that provides a person with the obstacles he needs in order to experience his highest limits? His opponent, of course! Then,
is your opponent a friend or an enemy? He is a friend to the extent that he does his best to make things difficult for you. Only by playing the role of your enemy does he become your true friend. Only by competing with you does he in fact cooperate!
No one wants to stand around on the court waiting for the big wave.
In this use of competition it is the duty of your opponent to create the greatest possible difficulties for you, just as it is yours to try to create obstacles for him. Only by doing this do you give each other the opportunity to find out to what heights each can rise.
So I arrived at the startling conclusion that
true competition is identical with true cooperation. Each player tries his hardest to defeat the other, but in this use of competition, it isn’t the other person we are defeating; it is simply a matter of overcoming the obstacles he presents. In true competition, no person is defeated. Both players benefit by their efforts to overcome the obstacles presented by the other. Like two bulls butting their heads against one another, both grow stronger and each participates in the development of the other.
This attitude can make a lot of changes in the way you approach a tennis match. In the first place, instead of hoping your opponent is going to double-fault, you actually wish that he’ll get his first serve in. This desire for the ball to land inside the line helps you to achieve a better mental state for returning it. You tend to react faster and move better, and by doing so, you make it more challenging for your opponent.
You tend to build confidence in your opponent as well as in yourself and this greatly aids your sense of anticipation.
Then at the end you shake hands with your opponent, and regardless of who won, you thank him for the fight he put up, and you mean it.
I used to think that if I was playing a friendly match against a player with a weak backhand, it was a bit unfair to always play his weakness. In the light of the foregoing, nothing could be further from the truth! If you play his backhand as much as you can, it can only get better as a result. If you are a nice guy and play his forehand, his backhand will remain weak; in this case the real nice guy is the competitor.
This same insight into the nature of true competition led to yet another reversal in my thinking which greatly benefited my playing. Once when I was fifteen, I upset an eighteen-year-old in a local tournament. After the match, my father came down from the stands and heartily congratulated me for my victory, but my mother’s reaction was, “Oh, that poor boy; how badly he must feel to have been beaten by someone so much younger.” It was a clear example of the psyche pulled against itself. I felt pride and guilt simultaneously. Until I realized the purpose of competition, I never felt really happy about defeating someone, and mentally, I had my hardest time playing well when I was near victory. I have found this to be true with many players, especially when on the verge of an upset. One cause of the uptightness experienced at these times is based on the false notion about competition.
If I assume that I am making myself more worthy of respect by winning, then I must believe, consciously or unconsciously, that by defeating someone, I am making him less worthy of respect. I can’t go up without pushing someone else down. This belief involves us in a needless sense of guilt. You don’t have to become a killer to be a winner; you merely have to realize that killing is not the name of the game. Today I play every point to win. It’s simple and it’s good. I don’t worry about winning or losing the match, but whether or not I am making the maximum effort during every point, because I realize that that is where the true value lies.
Maximum effort does not mean the super-exertion of Self 1.
Maximum effort means concentration, determination and trusting your body to “let it happen.” It means maximum physical and mental effort. Again competition and cooperation become one.
The difference between being concerned about winning and being concerned about making the effort to win may seem subtle, but in the effect there is a great difference.
When I’m concerned only about winning, I’m caring about something that I can’t wholly control.
Whether I win or lose, the external game is a result of my opponent’s skill and effort as well as my own. When one is emotionally attached to results that he can’t control, he tends to become anxious and then try too hard. But one can control the effort he puts into winning. One can always do the best he can at any given moment. Since it is impossible to feel anxiety about an event that one can control, the mere awareness that you are using maximum effort to win each point will carry you past the problem of anxiety. As a result, the energy which would otherwise have gone into the anxiety and its consequences can then be utilized in one’s effort to win the point. In this way one’s chances of winning the outer game are maximized.
Thus, for the player of the Inner Game,
it is the moment-by-moment effort to let go and to stay centered in the here-and-now action which offers the real winning and losing, and this game never ends.
One final word of caution.
It is said that all great things are achieved by great effort. Although I believe that is true, it is not necessarily true that all great effort leads to greatness. A very wise person once told me, “When it comes to overcoming obstacles, there are three kinds of people. The first kind sees most obstacles as insurmountable and walks away. The second kind sees an obstacle and says, I can overcome it, and starts to dig under, climb over, or blast through it. The third type of person, before deciding to overcome the obstacle, tries to find a viewpoint where what is on the other side of the obstacle can be seen. Then, only if the reward is worth the effort, does he attempt to overcome the obstacle.”