The Inner Game of Tennis: One of Bill Gates All-Time Favourite Books by Zach Kleinman, W. Timothy Gallwey, Pete Carroll

4.02 AVERAGE

pnov25's review against another edition

5.0
informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

cindyy_reads's review against another edition

3.5
informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

seemsfool's review against another edition

5.0
informative inspiring reflective relaxing medium-paced
This is going to one of my favourite books. It changed my view of tennis and any other aspect of life. I have read quite a few books about mindfulness, meditation and psychology. But this book seems to help me connect all the dots. A classic can’t be missed. 
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sebx's review against another edition

4.5
emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

lxu213's review against another edition

5.0
This book is a game-changer. It helped me avoid a meltdown the next day at work when it was ten pm before a big release and the code I had pushed had broken our service.

Inner Game of Tennis is so much more than the game of tennis. In fact, I completely skipped the sections about tennis strokes… because, well, that’s not why I’m here :). Galloway, with an incredible inner game (wtf at the snowstorm story), has helped me see how I am my biggest enemy - by criticizing my (other) self, by being anxious about the future, by trying too hard, by being caught up in defining my self worth by my skill in . He’s shown me that the only true game worth playing is the Inner Game.

Takeaways I hope to internalize and call upon when needed:
- That there are two selves, the body and the mind, and when the mind criticizes the body, the body cannot “flow” or do what it knows how to do. How to quiet the mind and let the body be.
- The power of making judgment-free observation. Instead of “my serve is shitty” or even “my backhand is amazing today”, simply observe where the ball goes or what is happening.
- The chapter on competition is mind-bending. Never would’ve imagined someone could argue that true competition = true cooperation.

And of course, I can’t help but wonder if my 15-year old self had read this book, maybe she wouldn’t have choked away all those many many stressful and not fun tennis matches

ernielove14's review against another edition

4.25
informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

omelette_of_fury's review against another edition

4.5
inspiring reflective relaxing medium-paced
There’s a reason this is a classic. I enjoyed how it dovetailed nicely with other mindfulness books I’ve read this year. The discussion around competition was enlightening as well, definitely a new perspective. 
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selenes_luna's review against another edition

4.0
informative medium-paced
sharbear's profile picture

sharbear's review against another edition

2.0
informative
I like the ideas about more observant, naturalistic learning but wasn't exactly picking up what they were putting down about how this would be applicable to non-physical activity learning, which I think requires more conscious intention than implied. Not much to take away for me. 

moorejs's review against another edition

4.0
takeaways about ego interfering with improvement, and that for physical movements reps with careful observation is probably much more effect than "trying hard" and/or cueing.
mostly unconvincing but after reading this I could nail my frisbee forehand the very next session.. so it helped me.