The Secret to the Game

The Parallel Mode Process is not about trophies or money or being the first seed. The PMP is about being one with the competitive environment in which you exist, and by extension, being one with other environments in which you exist.

Modeling this oneness is not something that most tennis pros attempt in their spare time. Writing about how to be one with the game of tennis goes against the grain of a profession that believes the secret to the game is to be found in sound biomechanics and good footwork.

Not that I have anything against sound biomechanics and good footwork, but I certainly don’t feel that the “secret” to the game is to be found in something so parochial. Of course, what is really needed is a definition of the secret we are trying to find. What is the secret we are talking about when we refer to the secret to playing the game? Personally, I believe the secret to the game of tennis is to be found in the zone. I’ll leave what you find there to your own personal discovery, but, believe me, it’s more than just playing better tennis.

A secret is something that is kept from knowledge or view, which implies that the secret to something like playing tennis in the zone is hidden away somewhere, being kept from knowledge or view. Adding to the mystery of the zone are the tennis teachers who keep telling their players that the secret to playing tennis in the zone and peak performance is found through sound biomechanics, winning strategy, and good footwork.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

There is nothing wrong with sound biomechanics, good footwork, and a winning strategy, mind you, but the human peak performance state is not engaged through your biomechanics or your winning strategy, and you certainly don’t get into the zone through your feet. You get into the zone through your operational connection to and interface with the tennis environment as a whole.

If you buy into the traditional approach to peak performance via technical perfection, then, as a recreational player with questionable biomechanics, dubious footwork, and strategic uncertainties, your chances of getting in the zone are located somewhere over the rainbow.

Why is it then, that on rare occasions and for no apparent reason, even recreational players experience their peak performance state? And this unexpected experience of playing tennis in the zone had nothing to do with a sudden soundness in their biomechanics. It had nothing to do with their footwork suddenly becoming proper, and it had nothing to do with their on-court strategy. For some inexplicable reason these average, everyday players suddenly experienced their peak performance state. They suddenly experienced the zone.

Therein lies hidden the secret to the game of tennis. What is that inexplicable reason that players suddenly experience their peak performance state? Why do players suddenly start playing at a dramatically higher level than their norm? What’s up with that? How do players get into the zone? That’s the secret to the game. That’s the secret everyone is looking for.

At Arete Sports, we teach players the secret to the game. We teach players of all levels how to play tennis in the zone, and we do it through changing the way they operationally connect to and interface with the tennis environment.

Many of my fellow tennis pros think the PMP is biomechanically blasphemous because it does not talk about stroking technique or strategy. Rather it takes whatever stroking techniques and strategies you presently possess and shows you how to perform those techniques and strategies in your most efficient and accurate operational interface. In other words, the PMP shows you how to perform your techniques and strategies in your peak performance state.

The PMP doesn’t make your techniques biomechanically sound, it just makes the performance of your techniques more efficient and accurate. 3.0 Joe is not going to suddenly become biomechanically sound in his stroking techniques when he switches from a serial mode of operation to a parallel mode of operation. But in a parallel mode of operation, in his peak performance state, 3.0 Joe’s stroking techniques will be performed more efficiently and accurately than when he performs those same techniques in a serial mode of operation, in his normal performance state.

You achieve your peak performance state not because of better techniques and strategies, but because of a one-to-one connection between your operating system and the tennis environment itself. The chances of 3.0 Joe ever becoming biomechanically sound are slim to none. That’s just the facts. Doesn’t mean 3.0 Joe shouldn’t try to improve his techniques as he continues to play the game; it just means that 3.0 Joe is a far cry from Roger Federer or Lindsay Davenport or whoever the player du jour happens to be this year. If 3.0 Joe ups his level to 3.5 in that same year, he is still living in a different biomechanical neighborhood than the ATP or WTA. Yet improvement in rankings can be achieved via improvements in techniques. No question about it, but the question I pose is this: is that the secret to the human peak performance state? Are sound biomechanics the secret to playing tennis in the zone? Because if they are, then 3.0 Joe will never experience his peak performance state. 3.0 Joe will never know what it’s like to play tennis in the zone.

Fortunately for Joe, the human peak performance state does not require sound biomechanics. Playing tennis in the zone does not require proper footwork or a winning strategy. It just requires a change in the way you use your visual/cognitive/motor operating system as a whole. It just requires that you change from a serial mode of operation to a parallel mode of operation; a change that will take you out of your normal serial interface with the tennis environment and put you into a more efficient and accurate parallel interface with the same environment.

Operationally, that’s all it takes to switch from your normal performance state to your peak performance state, and nowhere in that operational switch does it say anything about your feet. They’re still down there waiting to move, but in your parallel mode of operation, they’ll just move sooner. Your techniques will be the same as before, they’ll just be better-timed. In a parallel mode of operation, everything about your game is the same as in your serial mode; it’s just that all of it is performed more efficiently and more accurately.

3.0 Joe is very capable of raising his level of performance to that of a 3.5 player simply through the added efficiency and accuracy of his performance in a parallel mode. Take your present game and cut out half the errors and your present game is suddenly at a higher-level.

So if I tell 3.0 Joe to cut out half his errors and he’ll become 3.5 Joe, is that good teaching? It’s certainly good strategy at any level of play, so at least the strategy part of the equation is sound. But in order to make fewer errors, doesn’t his technique need to become more biomechanically sound?

The answer to that question is “no.” 3.0 Joe’s performance of his techniques is the problem, not the techniques themselves. Joe’s forehand technique is well within the parameters of what a forehand technique should look like, so what causes him to make errors on his forehand? Is he just a moron, or is he just a human being using an inefficient and inaccurate performance mode? Could this inefficient and inaccurate performance mode be the cause of his hitting errors? Or should we break down his forehand stroke into a dozen parts and figure out what part went wrong on each hitting error?

Contact errors, hitting errors, unforced errors, whatever you want to call them, occur because the stroke as a whole was inaccurate or inefficient in creating a positive contact event. The technique itself was not wrong, the performance of the technique was inaccurate.

Should 3.0 Joe change his techniques, should he work on improving his techniques? Of course he should. But here’s the deeper question: should 3.0 Joe work on improving the performance of his techniques? Should he work on improving the level of accuracy and the efficiency of his techniques? The answer is the same: of course he should. The more efficiently and accurately you perform your techniques, the fewer errors you make. So if 3.0 Joe works on the performance of his techniques, he should see an improvement in his error rate.

Now the big question: how do you work on performance? How do you improve your performance? How do you improve the efficiency and accuracy of your techniques? You can start by switching to your most efficient and accurate operating mode – a parallel mode. That’s how you improve your performance. You learn how to change from your normal operational interface to your highest-order operational interface. You learn how to change from operating in a serial mode on the court to operating in a parallel mode on the court. You learn how to change from playing tennis in the norm to playing tennis in the zone.

That’s the secret.