The best thing about winning the third set and the match in tennis today, was that my partner, Joe Marshall, enabled me to change my attitude by 180 degrees. Even though I have written about how important the correct attitude is in sports, as well as in life, I forget or am unable to always apply it in a stress situation.
Having won the first set in a tiebreaker and then losing the second, we were really after the third set…the big one. My team was down 3-5, I couldn’t get my first serve in, and Joe and I were missing easy winners. I automatically attempted to excuse myself and make him feel better by stating that “I guess we are both off today.” He slapped me (verbally) right down in a nice way, ordering me to focus on the next point, not think negatively, and certainly not give up. We then played our best points of the day, broke our opponents twice and won 7-5. I even served the winning game.
Given how many unforced errors we were making, I would never have believed we could come back from being so far behind. It was magical. And I had many great winning net volleys and overhead smashes, along with my partner’s numerous gets and points. How does this happen? How do a few words cause not only the renewed determination, but the ability to actually achieve the goal? How does a changed attitude lead to success?
I don’t know. I wish I did. Can you help me understand?
The awareness that it is possible should persuade me to never give up on the court and in my life. We all have our down days and periods, but maybe it just takes someone jarring us out of bad habits and poor attitudes to make us believe we can do it. I know people with positive attitudes are healthier than those who are negative. And those who believe in themselves have a better chance at succeeding in the task than those who are sure they will never achieve their goals.
But how does just believing something actually affect the outcome. Or even just striving and aiming for a target help you reach it? I’ve read that faith can move mountains. But how does that work?
Maybe it doesn’t matter “how,” but only that it does. The cancer-origin doctor I quoted earlier this week said he can see that people like the Japanese who didn’t eat much red meat didn’t have much cancer. Then when their diet changed to be more Western and included more red meat, the number of cancer patients “skyrocketed.” He has no idea exactly what the biological connection is. But he can see the cause and effect.
Ben Franklin eliminated from his vocabulary words like “I hate…it kills me…I could have died…” He said in his autobiography that these thoughts were negative, poisoned his brain, would cause harm. I never forgot that guidance that my father insisted I follow as a child. If I had been playing much tennis then, he might have said what Joe told me today.
Now let’s see if I can apply this advice more often in the future. Like the next time I play tennis. What could be more important?
#1 by Joe Marshall on February 3, 2012 - 12:52 PM
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When you’re down in tennis, it’s easy to make the other guys into magicians. They’re not. It’s easy to make yourselves into losers. You’re not. You are both just guys swatting a tennis ball around. The key points we lost were lost by unforced errors by us, and better consistancy by them. It was just a few shots…..a couple of inches here, a couple of inches there.
Serving out a match always has its own separate drama.
The servers, who have been cruising along, suddenly say to themselves….”Now don’t blow it, you’ve got them.” But it’s difficult for the mind NOT to blow it…..better to say something positive like “Get a good first serve in”, “Move your feet”, or “Keep the ball in play”….some practical advice
that will help keep you in the moment, and solve your biggest problem…..WINNING ONE POINT…..that’s all you can do anyway.
So for us, as returners, the goal is, “Make them play”.
No easy points, no unforced errors…..Make them EARN the victory, and if they can, tip your hats to them……so you lost a tennis match, so what? As the Roman soldiers who guarded the borders of the empire used to say, each beautiful Mediterranean morning, “It’s a good day to die.”
Today might be your last day. The point you are playing may be your last point, so LIVE IT UP! Play your best and enjoy every minute. Even if you send up a weak lob right in front of the net, guess where they are going to hit it, and run there at full steam……IT feels a lot better than standing there bemoaning your fate, and more often than you think, you just might guess right and save the point.
ON the first point of the key break game at 5-3, I figured David would serve and volley. I figured if I could get a decent lob over his head, we could make him run back to retrieve and take over the net. I told my feet to move, and guessed he’d be going for my backhand, which he had been doing successfully. He hit a cautious serve and I was able to get the thing in. That sent a message We weren’t dead yet. Ira smacked a clean winner on
David’s serve to the ad court, and I was able to get another lob in at 0-30. By then we had the momentum, we broke, and when Ira put a couple of overheads away off good first serves of mine in the next game, we had them on their heels, and were able to play another game of controlled aggression to break.
Ira served it out. We shook hands….Great day of tennis for everyone….Let’s do it again.
As far as cancer goes, nutrition is key. Everyone must stay within his limitations to stay healthy. We eat un-natural foods. We compromise our digestive systems, so even good foods leak out and give us immune disorders. We are stressed out.
The AMA has contibuted to the chronic disease syndrome by pumping us full of unnecessary drugs that mask symptoms, poison us, and ruin our digestive tracts. . Worse, they have been convicted in court of trying to put chiropractic out of business, a science that tries to improve health through natural means, helping the body heal itself, and following the Hippocratic Oath Mantra of “Do No Harm”. This is not to say that the has not done wonders with surgery.
All chiropractors and naturopaths study the art of fasting.
A group of licensed medical experts (some of them MD’s) go together in the mid 20th century to form a group know as the American Natural Hygiene Society. These marvelous healers increased the lives and health of millions of people, promoting breast feeding, vegetarian diets, fasting, sunshine, and avoidance of polluted water (especially water with chlorine and fluoride). I could tell you case after case of people I have met who have gone on to have radiant health after being diagnosed with “incurable” degenerative diseases….arthritis, cystic ovaries, sterility, infertitlity, colitis, enlarged prostate, heart disease, liver diseases, emphyszema, asthma, etc…..and all accomplished WITHOUT ANY medications.
Dr David J Scott fasted over 30,000 patients (including me). He had liver problems as a young man, due in part to a drug he was made to take every day for a year during WW2. He helped break the Japanes code back then. He came down with cancer at the age of 32. He kept the cancer in remission for 66 YEARS, running two full time businesses the whole time, dealing with all kinds of pressures, and never taking any medication. He fasted every winter. He just died at the age of 88, busy and productive until the last 2 weeks of his life.
Dr William Esser, in Florida, was never sick in his life. Never took a drug or had an operation. He lived to be 93, playing excellent SINGLES tennis until then, and died quietly in Florida, after also fasting more than 30,000 people. His mother lived to be 99 living the Natural Hygiene lifestyle. Anyone interested in vibrant health should search Natural Hygiene or David J Scott to be introduced to it. There is a famous book written in the 1950’s called “Health For the Millions” by Herbert J Shelton.
It’s a good start, though some of his ideas have been modified by others.