The Lesson Lounge - Tennis Warrior

Your Link to Professional Thinking!

Self-discipline is the key to creating momentum

Often it takes time to make subtle connections between two principles that seem unrelated, especially in the realm of the mind. For instance, you have momentum in a match and you have self-discipline in your practice sessions. How does one affect the other? What impact does self-discipline have in establishing momentum in a match?

If you stay with the Tennis Warrior System you will see many different connections that will help you advance your game and your thinking rapidly. It’s a philosophy, a way of thinking that most of the top pros have mastered. Like anything else in life, learning will take time, patience, knowledge, and practice. To see the big picture you must understand the connection between these principles. That’s why I have a website, email lessons, books, and tapes to help you begin to embrace all the dimensions of the game.

To see the vital connection between self-discipline and match momentum you must understand two principles.

1. The key to tennis is consistency, the key to consistency is concentration, and the key to concentration is self-discipline. 2. Consistency establishes momentum

Since you take your mind with you wherever you go, the self-discipline you develop in your weekly practice will become a mental habit that you bring into your matches. How can this help your match play? In your practice sessions you were self-disciplined to continue practicing week after week regardless of the failures, frustrations, and obstacles. This self-DISCIPLINE you enforce on yourself in practice begins improving your CONCENTRATION. The key to CONSISTENCY in tennis is CONCENTRATION, therefore when your CONCENTRATION improves so does your CONSISTENCY! You become more CONSISTENT not only in your practice sessions, but through the failures, frustrations, and obstacles of a match. As a direct result of self-DISCIPLINE in your practice sessions you become more CONSISTENT in your match play. Remember, you bring your mind with you wherever you go!

Now, where does MOMENTUM in a match fit into this scenario? Well, if you have not yet figured it out, CONSISTENCY ESTABLISHES MOMENTUM. The CONSISTENCY you have established in your practice sessions through self-DISCIPLINE now helps you establish MOMENTUM through the ups and downs of match play. You learn that when you are in trouble in a match you must exert self-DISCIPLINE and reestablish your CONSISTENCY to get the MOMENTUM back. CONSISTENCY ESTABLISHES MOMENTUM! As a bonus in your match play you will begin thinking automatically and instinctively from the habits you formed in your practice sessions.

But listen carefully, if you have not developed self-discipline through the ups and downs in your practice sessions, then in your match play your only focus will be on the failures, frustrations, and obstacles. You have not conditioned your thinking properly and gaining back momentum will be impossible.

THUS THE self-DISCIPLINE YOU HAVE DEVELOPED IN YOUR PRACTICE SESSIONS HAS A MAJOR IMPACT ON MOMENTUM IN YOUR MATCH PLAY.

Have you ever noticed that the best athletes in the world are the most self-disciplined. Make no mistake about it, the best athletes have not only developed their physical talents through self-discipline, but they have simultaneously molded their thought process right along with it.

You can and must do the same!

Although your week-to-week practice with repetition may seem insignificant relative to the big picture, this consistent practice has far-reaching mental implications that WILL be the difference between winning and losing a match.

Tom Veneziano