How to Watch the Pros

Since I'm on parental leave for 8 weeks here, we've gotten very into the French Open. Laura is a huge fan of tennis and I'm very new to the sport. I've had the book "The Inner Game of Tennis" on my bookshelf for at least 15 years. Got time for a quick story on learning from the professional players?

​Dr. Todd Kelly​, my trumpet teacher, gave me this book in college. I was making the transition from "hey I'm pretty good at this" to "let's see if I can do this professionally." He had asked me who I had been listening to for inspiration, and I remarked something like...

"Yeah, but Cody is so much better at [this] than me, I'm not sure how I would learn from him."

That's when he showed me how to study a professional and learn things my own way. So here's my notes from "The Inner Game of Tennis" and that conversation 15ish years ago..

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Learning from a Pro:

The best method to study a professional? Observe without assuming that how they perform is exactly how you should perform. In many cases, for a beginner, this can put a stop to real learning early on.

Instead, allow yourself to focus on what most interests you in what they're doing. Your "doing" self will begin picking up useful elements to use in the future. Allow your natural learning process to lead you in the right direction. Do not force yourself to make the change. Play around and experiment with it a bit, while searching for the possibilities. Doing this, you will use what you can right away, and see improvement as you experiment.

The key is to focus, not on the technical aspects of what's happening, but the awareness of your own actions. Someone who has discovered their best performance can help you discover their best performance. To use theirs as a standard for right way vs wrong way to do it? that can beat you before you even take the court.

in 4 simple steps: 1.) Observe Everything, No Analyzing.

2.) Picture the Detailed Desired Outcome.

3.) Trust your Action Self, Trust the Process, and Let it Happen. 4.) Neutral! Observe what is different (not what is good or bad)

...and this is how I learned to be better at fast diaper changes for Baby Owen and rocking him to sleep.

don't worry, I wrote this during naptime. Aced it.