I’m having fun playing ping pong with my daughter. She’s getting better quickly but already I see the same psychological hangups operating with her as with me.
She was sure the reason she wasn’t doing as well on Wednesday as she was on Monday was because we were playing with a white ball instead of an orange ball, unaware that she’d fallen into the same trap as me with my racquetball (“Jeez, I played so well yesterday, why do I suck today?”) Yesterday, we kept score for a while for the first time and she played worse than usual as she kept thinking about the score.
I don’t want to make basement ping pong into a sports psychology clinic for her, but I do want to plant enough seeds along the way so that she can recognize negative thoughts that are operating just outside of her awareness and how they can get in the way of her performing and having fun, whether it’s sports, or playing the piano at a recital, or anything else. I did a little of this with her three older brothers when they were young, though I’m not sure how much they remember or appreciate. I’ll guess I’ll ask them, since they read this weblog occasionally.
I read a newspaper story this morning about Governor Jesse Ventura’s debut as color commentator for the XFL last night. A reporter wrote that Jesse seemed nervous before the game and when asked about it, he said, “Nah, I’m not nervous, I’m excited.” Like Jesse, I’d rather not admit when I’m nervous. Blaming a poor performance on nerves isn’t cool in our culture; it’s not manly. I can tell when other guys play ‘tight’ during a racquetball match like I did myself last week and inevitably they say something afterwards like “I was tired” or “I couldn’t stay focused” or “I never got in the groove.” Nobody ever says “I was nervous” or “I choked.”
I didn’t say it either last weekend during my racquetball tournament, preferring instead phrases like “I just couldn’t get loose out there” or “I couldn’t play relaxed” or “I could feel how tight I was playing but I couldn’t shake it.” Maybe next time I’ll just say “I was a nervous fucking wreck out there” which would be a little more honest yet have just enough of manly tone to it to not sound like a complete wimp.