Our question for discussion today comes from Fabrice who asks:
“I had myself a moment of discouragement yesterday, when I got out of a practice session. Even though I have seen some clear progress, I am still not consistent–hence not confident in certain shots. I feel like I hear over and over the same advice, yet I can not apply it in a satisfying way. So my point is, maybe the limit to ‘facing your weakness’ approach is that it might lead to reveal your own limitations–and then what? Since I can’t go further, should I quit? Or do I just go back to avoiding those parts of my game?”
Excellent question, Fabrice. First and foremost, know that:
We all have certain built-in limitations.
For example, not all of us can be professional athletes. We have genetic, or physical limitations that will legitimately limit how good we can get at the game of tennis.
HOWEVER, I feel like very, very few people ever actually realize what their potential is, or even get close to guessing it.
There are three main types of limitations that tennis players come up against. We will discuss those first, and also what you can do to beat those limitations before I get to Fabrice’s question of if he should quit or not.
Limitation #1: Effort
Effort Limitation: You already know what you need to do to improve x,y, or z, (could be anything from fitness, backhand, strategy, etc.) and what your weaknesses are, it’s just a matter of putting in the focused repetition necessary to improve it. However, there is a limitation to the amount of effort you put into it.
This might be through no fault of your own!
For example – maybe you’re a working professional with a spouse and children without whole lot of your time to spend on your tennis game.
There also might be a lack of effort in terms of not wanting to focus that much on it. Meaning you just want to go out and have some fun and it’s not that important to you wether you get from 3.5 to 4.0. However, if this is you, then you probably aren’t actively looking for ways to improve your game in a focused way, which means you can safely rule yourself out of that category since you’re reading this article 🙂
No technique gets better by simply knowing what to do. You can know what it’s going to take, but without the focused repetition–you will not get better.
I have mentioned a book in my podcast several times called “The Talent Code”, and it points out that in a lot of cases our ‘natural ability’ has nothing to do with how good we get at something. It has much more to do with the quality of your practice, and what you practice.
It takes the programming of neurological pathways to actually learn a physical skill. The common phrase ‘muscle memory’ is used a lot here. Your muscles don’t have memory, but your brain does, and when you repeat a skill over and over the stronger and easier it is for your brain to use that pathway. That’s what it takes to build up the ability to repeat a skill over and over again.
No way to avoid it: You have to build those pathways through repetition.
This is where most tennis players hit a wall, is with the focused effort. They either don’t have the discipline, the time, or desire to put in the focused repetitive effort to hone a skill, or to learn a new one. As a result, their game stagnates.
Limitation #2: Knowledge
Knowledge Limitation: You know that x,y, or z is a weakness but working hard isn’t improving it anymore. Progressing from here is now a matter of exerting the correct effort; knowing which element to work hard at, and how to do it in order to make a difference.
For example, you might go out and practice your serve. A solid, hour-long practice session. However, if you don’t know that a specific element of your technique is terrible (a poor racquet drop, perhaps) then making large improvements to performance might be completely impossible due to the technical deficiency. Practice all you want, but without that knowledge you will never be aware of your full potential as a tennis player.
As the cliche states: “You don’t know, what you don’t know”.
If you knew that the racquet drop issue was present then you could go ahead and work on improving it. Without that knowledge, how could you possibly solve the problem?
This is the limitation most often found in more dedicated players. I say more dedicated because effort and time is not a limitation for them. They are putting in plenty of time, and they are willing to put in the hard hours of focused repetition but those reps aren’t directed toward the right things because they simply don’t know what they are.
How can we remedy this issue?
Self Research: This solution might require a lot of trial and error but it’s still absolutely viable. A player might do some self video taping and actually look at the technique giving them issues, then try to go out and correct it after learning from a free instructional video on YouTube.
It’s important to note that with this method a player may still not be aware of which element they need to practice, even after studying their stroke in great detail. Enough knowledge of the stroke fundamentals themselves must be present to accurately diagnose what the root problem is.
The benefit of self research is that it’s free and often times enjoyable for the player trying to improve. There’s a definite satisfaction for many in effectively solving a problem within their own game.
The main problem with this solution, however, is that the root problem may never be found out after dozens of hours of research and practice focusing on the wrong things. A very frustrating thing for most people.
Hire a Professional: Your professional may be online or in person! Most people are still taking lessons in person, which is fine. There are pros and cons to both methods. Whichever way you go you will be directly receiving information and it can really short-cut the trail and error time to figure out whats wrong.
The benefit of hiring a professional is that it will save you time. Of course, the con here compared with self research is that it costs money.
Limitation #3: Athletic
There is no doubt about it, there are definitely circumstances where there is an athletic limitation and improvement just isn’t possible. However, this is very rare. You can always find a way to keep making small improvements. I don’t care how old you are, or how ingrained your current habits are! It might take more effort or practice but that doesn’t mean you cant improve.
You can ALWAYS improve. It’s always possible if you concentrate on the right things and put in the required focused repetition.
So going back to Fabrice’s question. “Should I quit once I’ve found my limitations?”
Before you can answer that question for yourself you need to identify where your limitations have been. Is it a time/effort limitation, or is it knowledge limitation?
Then you need to decide for yourself if it’s worth it to you to pursue fixing those problem areas. Some people are happy just going out and there playing, and they don’t care if they get better or not. They are just happy to be on the court experiencing the game and that’s great. Forgetting about improving your weaknesses and just having fun with what you have is certainly an option
If that isn’t you, and you need to be improving to feel satisfied then it’s up to you do decide if its worth the time, effort, and/or money to beat those limitations and become a better player.
At the end of the day I can’t answer that question for you. You need to decide what the answer is for yourself.
I truly hope the answer ends up being a resounding “no!”. Learn to love the process of getting better at this great game. Learn to fully appreciate it’s joys, challenges, and even the frustrations. Accept that no matter how hard you try you’ll always make mistakes, and you’ll never be perfect. Instead, love the fact that you’re simply out there in the sunshine working hard at a game you appreciate and enjoy. Many people never get to experience that. All of us are blessed for being able to.
Fabrice, thank you for question and I hope you find something in there to help you figure out where you want to go from here with your game!
