On Anticipation

Anticipation:

1. a: a prior action that takes into account or forestalls a later action

b: the act of looking forward; especially: pleasurable expectation

2. the use of money before it is available

3. a: a visualization of a future event or state

b: an object or form that anticipates a later type

This definition of anticipation works for explaining anticipation in tennis, both #1 and #3a. The idea being that in a parallel mode the prior action you are taking is to focus on the future, literally focusing on the future depth of contact as you visualize an imaginary window spanning the court in front of you.

By contrast, with serial mode the prior action you take is to focus on your opponent in an effort to read what he/she is going to do. For most players that reads: to guess what he/she is going to do.

The main idea of anticipation is that it allows you to get ahead of your opponent. To anticipate what your opponent is going to do is to give yourself an advantage as well as allowing you to reposition yourself for their shot. Knowing ahead of time what your opponent is going to do has always been taught by watching your opponent in order to “read” their body movements, racquet movements, footwork, whatever it is that you read that will give away what they are going to do with their next shot.

This reading process requires you to focus on your opponent, which, at a minimum, takes 300 milliseconds, 1/3 of a second. That’s just to focus on your opponent. Then, to read what he/she is going to do takes even more time. All that time is spent focusing on your opponent’s process rather than being in your own process, and the only reason we do that is because it seems like the only logical way to anticipate what our opponent is going to do.

The parallel mode process gives you another option. With the PMP you still take a prior action that takes into account a future action. Only the prior action you take is not to focus on your opponent to read his stroke. The prior action you take is to prefocus on your contact zone, which takes into account all of the future points of contact of any shot he hits. It also prepares you to make an immediate countermovement to arrive at any of those future points of contact simultaneously with the ball.

So, in essence, you are focused on the future depth of contact in anticipation of all future points of contact, rather than being focused on your opponent (the past) in anticipation of the future.

Question: which sounds more logical to you?

1. Focus on the past to anticipate the future.

2. Focus on the future to anticipate the future.

Door number one keeps you in serial mode and a variable focus visual strategy while door number two keeps you in a parallel mode and a fixed focus visual strategy. Door number two also keeps you in the zone.

The problem people have with focusing on your contact zone as a form of anticipation is that they are convinced that you have to focus on your opponent in order to see what he/she is doing. I have had people ask this question over and over:

“How am I supposed to anticipate what my opponent is going to do if I don’t watch him?”

The answer to that question is that you don’t have to focus on your opponent to see what your opponent is doing. It is possible to watch your opponent without focusing your eyes on your opponent. In other words, it is possible to see what your opponent is doing while remaining focused on your contact zone. And the best thing about keeping your eyes focused on your contact zone is that not only will you see what your opponent is doing; you will also see everything else that is happening in your visual field at the same time.

To quote Dr. Bill Hines: “see everything, focus on nothing.”