Tennis Thoughts: Confucius on Tennis

"It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop." - Confucius

Do you know how slowly you can ride a bike uphill before you actually tip over? Four miles per hour. That's right.  Four miles per hour.  Believe me, I know. I was there many, many times on my recent 6 day bike trip through the Canadian Rockies. But even though I could only go four miles per hour up some incredibly steep hills, as long as I kept going, I didn't fall over and I made it to the top of those hills.

So I'm sure Confucius's idea about going slowly but never stopping applies to bike-riding.  And I think it also applies to tennis?  How?  With tennis, sometimes it seems like, even though you're working extremely hard, improvement to your game progresses very slowly. Take your serve for example. You can work on it and work on it and yet it doesn't appear to get any better. In fact, sometimes when you're working really hard on changing some aspect of your serve, it actually gets worse! But, you know and I know that if you keep working, improvement will come. It may be slow, but as long as you don't stop practicing, it will come.

So, apply Confucius's philosophy to your tennis game - work on your game, and even when improvement is slow, keep right on working.  Just don't stop!




© Kim Selzman 2010 All Rights Reserved