Serving Up Some Yogic Tennis

 

In ninth grade, I read a book called The Inner Game of Tennis. At the time, I had no idea whether or not it was a good book, because I was in ninth grade. And I had no idea whether it was just a fad, because I hadn’t read enough books like it to compare. What “sort” of book it even was…likely I couldn’t have identified a genre (because: ninth grade). 

Regardless, I took it to heart. Retroactively, it is clearly a personal growth book, practically a meditation book, wrapped around the sport of tennis. The Inner Game of Tennis popped into mind recently when I was pondering the value of hitting the ball “at two-o’clock,” the part of the ball I was instructed to aim for when I hit a serve. The difference between simply “watching the ball” and seeing “two-o’clock” on the ball itself is remarkable. It narrows down the focus. It’s actually a yogic idea, in that it intentionally filters out every distraction, leaving a very narrowly defined spot, such that one can’t help but be Here, Now.

Lily has Here, Now tattooed on her wrist, but that’s a story for another day. 

I’d forgotten all about that book until Wimbledon 2022, when a tennis commentator referred to it, and I realized that the book, whose cover I can still see clearly in my memory, remains relevant—what an amazing gift to have somehow read it decades ago, when it was released! In retrospect, clearly that book had planted a seed of pioneering consciousness long before I knew of yoga, or consciousness. And interestingly enough, when I resurrected tennis after a 25-year hiatus, I experienced the re-training of my body as yogic. In order to re-learn tennis, I had to clear my mental space moment by moment, amusedly banishing thoughts such as "I can’t."

And the truth is, it’s not just tennis: everything is yogic, everything is yoga. Yoga is simply union. Yoga really has nothing to do with becoming flexible; flexibility is merely a fringe benefit. What yoga does--if you’re truly doing yoga as opposed to merely stretching--is teach you to recognize the thoughts that keep you from fully experiencing any given moment. It brings us into union with ourselves and potentially the Universe.

In tennis, for instance, it’s so unhelpful to get mad at the teacher, or at yourself. It’s tempting, when the going gets tough, to blame someone, but after 25-plus years of yoga, I know beyond a doubt that my mental reactions don’t help the learning, training, or reprogramming process. 

If “everything” is yogic, what does that actually include? It includes grocery shopping, social media consuming, car driving, people meeting, child rearing…all are opportunities to draw upon the felt concept that while we have almost no control over the world around us, we do have 100 percent control over our reactions to the world, in any situation. Yoga is an opportunity to practice that, to strengthen the muscle of consciousness, so that the “muscle memory” of true consciousness takes the reins when we find ourselves in challenging, uncomfortable, or undesirable situations. 

As I re-learned to hit the ball in this second phase of my tennis life, the moment I felt a smidgen of anger at the tennis teacher, or an impending frustration that it was taking too long to re-train my body to play the modern tennis style, I simply let go of that potential thought and re-routed myself back into the present, which is the only time I—or any of us—can actually make a difference. That's how yoga works. Time spent on the yoga mat is practice for everyday life.

When Yoga Meets Politics

No matter who wins the election, 50% of us will be dissatisfied. Rather than thinking we know which individual political candidate will create the change we want, what if we hold some other common vision? Rather than needing to know exactly how you want that vision to LOOK, or who’s going to pay for it, imagine that there is a bigger and better version of the world than you’d ever dreamed…and FEEL it. What if we all did that? Why not walk around with a vision of the world you'd like to live in, and meet your opponents in the middle?

Heaven on Earth

Blogging gets the word out as soon as possible. No need for a middleman. No editors. No publisher. No agent. None of that stuff that shuts us down, that makes us say, "I can't." The time between expression and publication can be seconds. It is practically like being psychic: experiencing the same thoughts as each other, almost at the exact same time. How synchronistic. It's cool to know I could send this out and reach a million people all at the same time.

Yes, I humor myself. Surely there are only a couple hundred thousand people reading this. But that's not the point--instant connection is the point. And jobs. We have just put...how many people out of jobs? by inventing blogging. How many people don't have jobs because the communications industry is slowing down...because it's becoming obsolete... And don't think I'm not majorly bummed out. I am! I love paper! I love ink! I love fonts! Some books are stunningly beautiful to me. But hey, maybe they'll keep creating the amazingly lovely ones, and they'll become art, having nothing to do with "getting published." No more mass published crappy paper tree wasting ink wasting millions of copies of books, but just a select, collector's type of object d'art. Hey, who knows? I don't.

But what I do know is, we have millions of people worrying about lack and scarcity. Yes, in our portfolios, and yes, on our Mother Earth as well. And what I know about that is, it drags us down. I have been learning about energy for years and years, and one thing I have learned is that your thoughts can either lift you up, or weigh you down, and it's your choice.

I can have $11,000 in my checking account and feel rich, or I can have the same sum in my checking account and feel broke. And life goes so much better when I feel gratitude, even and especially for the little things.

So instead of freaking out that there are dwindling jobs (because of course every adult needs to work 40 hours a week (unless you're really driven and work 50 or 60)), how about if we were joyful about the dwindling jobs, because it means In The Future, Hard Work Is Obsolete. Isn't that why our forefathers worked so hard? Didn't they tell us that? They said, "We are working hard so you won't have to." They essentially wanted to give us a better life, and they did.

But what if we could take a quantum leap, and not have to work so hard--on an outrageous scale? I mean...my daughter gets out of college and there is no job waiting for her...because we simply don't need to work that effen hard anymore! She will have time to enjoy her retirement right away! Doesn't that make so much more sense, in terms of living in the moment? Doesn't it make so much sense in terms of our health? Do you think stress diseases are epidemic by accident? No, it's a conscious creation, a belief that created the horrific: "work one's fingers to the bone." Oy!

I'm not concerned with HOW my outrageous proposition could possibly work. I'm just proposing a suspension of disbelief.

I highly recommend that we raise our sights, and imagine a life in which our kids only need to work about oh, ten hours a week. Tops. And they can spend the rest of their time in life-enriching ways, doing something they believe in, for free, because they believe in it. Like...healing the planet. I can totally see it happening, and I think my daughter would fit in really well in that world. What I see in her as a lack of ambition may just mean she's been pre-programmed for an easier existence, a fun existence, an existence in which all that matters is her heart's desire, and creating planetary One-ness.

What seems like ages ago, Katybeth's Cole found Lily's hat under something at school. It had been lost for weeks, and it was my favorite hat of hers; Jay had gotten it for her so on top of it being cute, it was evocative. I sent Lily to school with $5 for Cole, because, to me, the hat was priceless and I would have put up a $5 reward in the first place if I'd have thought of it; in fact I bet it's a great way to actually get kids' lost clothing back! Anyway Katybeth and I had a conversation in which she said, it's something he'd do for a friend, he absolutely doesn't need money for it, don't even go there; and I countered with, I want him to have the experience that living one's life, simply being a good friend, effortlessly brings rewards. (I also pay my daughter--every time she makes me laugh so hard I cry. It's maybe 4 times a year, but she is always poised to make her comedic move, so we have a fairly entertaining domestic life, very sit-com. (More fun for both of us than the usual "allowance.") Hello, if anyone out there wants it, sit-com idea: the yoga-teacher mom whose daughter imitates her in a smart-assy way, but the mom, because she's a yoga teacher for god's sake, does not react. I'd like my daughter to play the daughter and I'd like...hm...one of the former brady bunch girls to play me.)

Anyway, in sum, all I'm saying is, what if life could be way better than we ever realized? What if we don't really need half of the stuff we've learned--or owned? What if we could free up that time and space for relaxing, enriching activities, in bodies that brimmed with life? What if in paring down our long workweek and our major expenses we could also turn the health of the planet, and its people, around? Isn't it worth fantasizing about? What would you do with all that extra time and energy? What might your kids do, if they don't have to worry about mortgages, health care, unemployment rates, when they grow up? It would not hurt to imagine that, because everything that's ever happened was first a thought. Right? Cars. Airplanes. Computers. And other things that may now be turning obsolete. Is there anything wrong with a huge shift in which people will work less? It might hurt for awhile, for some people, like an unwanted diet, but it will help tremendously for all of us to see a positive end in sight, rather than more of the same.

The world IS changing--why resist? The future could exceed our imaginations.