Self Coach Tennis: How To Be Your Own Best Self Coach by Neal Newman
Review by Jimmy Parker
Neal Newman has gotten a lot more than most people would have out of a body that is taped from head-to-toe. He’s won 40 National Championship gold balls, 4 World Doubles Championships, and many other tennis tournaments while wearing wraps and braces on most available appendages and joints. So it’s not been his physical superiority that has driven his excellence!
As Bobby Jones once said about golf, “The most important 6 inches in the game are between your ears.” I think Neal would agree that the same could be said for tennis. (Now I see why he often wore a headband – it was so he could have a wrap for his brain pan!)) His book is designed to help you improve your performance and experience on the tennis court; and off the court as well!
Newman brings to his subject a wealth of experience in many areas. And writing a book is in his DNA – his mother and step-dad were best selling self-help authors. He draws on years of experience in neuro-linguistic programming, Ericksonian approaches, and Gestalt Therapy. A lifetime of counselling and running group seminars, in addition to his extensive and excellent background in tennis, have made him uniquely equipped to help us tennis players help ourselves.
What Neal is offering us are tools by which we can better handle the interplay between our Self as player and our Self as coach. Does your inner coach berate you, offer helpful corrections, or panic under pressure? Probably all of us have either benefited from the tutelage of a good coach, or wished we had access to one. Self Coach Tennis provides a multitude of proven approaches to becoming our own “good coach.”
I think it’s fair to say that the book is dense with suggestions. If one approach doesn’t resonate with you, there are many other ways with which to experiment. Newman draws on his extensive knowledge in the field of Psychology to offer different models for reshaping attitudes and ultimately, performance. For example, he came up with the acronym DEEP, which stands for Discrete, Effect, Everyone, Practice. He then explains the thinking behind each of these terms as they apply to improving your tennis. Its his way of simplifying and making more accessible some profound concepts.
Many of his methods of teaching the reader how to become a better self coach involve ideas and terms that we’re already familiar with. But part of the author’s genius is in clarifying and grouping these into understandable chunks. For instance, he puts together a list of several Core Mental States: relaxation, concentration, confidence, motivation, determination, enjoyment, patience, and imperturbability. He then embarks on a deep dive into how one would achieve and utilize these concepts oncourt. Think how much better you could play if you actually were able to manifest all of these characteristics while playing matches! Neal offers the hope that we all can, and his book provides the means to do so.
Most of us would agree that if it were possible to put two perfectly even tennis players into a match with each other, the mentally tougher of the two would win. But how does one become “mentally tougher?” And exactly what is involved here? Are you just born with it or else you’re out of luck? Dr. Newman explains that the field of psychology has identified specific mental skills and ways for us to implement them that can benefit everyone. As tennis competitors, we can feel when we have achieved a good mental frame, and we can feel what the effect of that has on our performance. So it’s not just airy-fairy stuff!
Our internal dialogue determines to a great extent the way we see the world, and the way we operate in it. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to improve the dialogue and the relationship between our Self and our Self Coach!