The Warrior Mentality

[klacr]

There is a warrior mindset in a disrupting game. There is a disruptor mindset in a warrior game.

There has to be. Good work Geoff. Take care of that gout.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[GeoffWilliams]

Toughness warrior mind set comes from a childhood of deprivation, or of the large need to prove yourself better than another/and or/parent's ideas of who/what/how/why you should be. Warrior athletes and sports are filled with the ghetto kids of the world, the deprived eastern/serbia/russian/blocks of people who know the truth: to win the battles ahead, you must starve/suffer/train/through awful tough practices, before fighting, and eat after killing your enemy. I went to a mainly black school system in Richmond, ca., yet without any speed held many of the all time distance records: mile, two mile, due to the ability to suffer a huge amount of pain for a longer amount of time than my faster team mates: with no coaching, no mentor, no equipment, no track, just attack dogs to dodge in the streets of Richmond: Rottweilers, Dobermans, Shepherds, no pit bulls back then at all. Football, boxing, futbol, mma, all are predominantly filled with warrior mind set types. Those who not only know how hard they have to work, but do it for the pleasure of the future kill; and to avoid being killed at all costs. Make your first serve at all cost. Make your return at all costs. Make no unforced errors at crucial moments. The mental mind set is all important. It's why Nadal has a winning record against all the top 30 players in the entire world. He has the most tough, dominant warrior like mentality.

Although tennis has a delicate side to it, which is strange when balancing the mind. The soft hitting disruptors stay with that side predominantly, and never hit hard nor learn to. The biggest current blaster with the softest touch: Jerzy Janowiz. He can win Wimbledon if his mind were not pout oriented. Federer's ability to balance hard and soft along with a tough mind, are more relevant to his success than his technique or his equipment. I'd like to write a piece about the deprivation/causality of the warrior mind set.

There are no athletes in fox holes and everyone is a vegetarian between meals. Ha, ha. Victory only exists out of the great desire of the player to gain advantage at the expense of the beaten: whether the beaten is his opponent, or himself. The only way to gain advantage over yourself is to improve: mind set, strokes, tech., equipment, diet/practice/tactics/training/partners/balance/foot work/unit turning/split stepping/jamming shots/stamina/energy/kinetic path way/outlook upon loss/or victory.

[ghl312]

Wow. Great post. Listen to this guy. Those are the kind of insights that make this site worthwhile.

Thanks for the positive feedback.

I can't say enough how much I appreciate that mindset. If only the juniors I coach could have half that resilience. Still trying to find the best ways to cultivate toughness like that. Would love to see more articles on coaching and developing from a mental perspective.

[GeoffWilliams]

I really liked reading the article. Great insight into the mind of clearly a very mentally tough player. I think anyone can take a lot from the article. Even a great disruptor has to have a warriors mindset. However one chooses to play in order to maintain a high level the mindset must be there. An unrelenting burning desire to impose your game on your opponent is what it's all about. Nadal imposes his game on federer by forcing longer more physical points by taking away his opportunity to attack. Federer imposes his game on djokovic by disrupting his patterns with big forehands, although it's not always enough. The best players of all time have been able to impose their game on their opponent with whichever style they happen to play with.

Wow. Great post. Listen to this guy. Those are the kind of insights that make this site worthwhile.

To give you an idea of my mind set, I was working on a UC berk. job, moving the basketball players shower room when harmon gym was being renovated, and, I broke my wrist, with a hole hawg drill, caught on a 4" round circle saw drill hole, a huge amount of torque. I could not leave the site and go to a doc, so I fashioned a metal splint: aluminum door threshold bar, bent it to fit my hand/wrist, lined it with foam, and cast it after setting the wrist myself, and cut it in half, but taped during the day so I could work with it set, but remove it once home. ONce home, I removed it nightly, and ran a large high speed heated Panasonic Panabrator model vibrator horizontally back and forth, and back and forth, across the break, rivaling gout for pain. The pain of a vibrated bone break puts many into shock instantly.
The idea was to speed up healing, by speeding up the vibratory rate of the area, and increase blood flow. It healed without any side affect pain, in three weeks which would normally stay cast for six weeks in plaster but the removable cast allowed for the warrior mentality to adapt. I covered the cast during meetings with a rain jacket, as it was the rainy season, and once I sold bids, worked with the cast visible, while clients said,
"Wow. I didn't see that cast during the estimate!" One of ten broken bones in a dangerous job and dangerous hobbies. But it illustrates the out of the box thinking a warrior has to have to win against all odds and all comers and all breaks. To prove it was healed completely, the day I removed it, went out in a rainy day, hit with Dr. Dave Weiland on the uc berkeley campus, and slipped, fell right on the wrist in the rain, and it was fine.

[ghl312]

I really liked reading the article. Great insight into the mind of clearly a very mentally tough player. I think anyone can take a lot from the article. Even a great disruptor has to have a warriors mindset. However one chooses to play in order to maintain a high level the mindset must be there. An unrelenting burning desire to impose your game on your opponent is what it's all about. Nadal imposes his game on federer by forcing longer more physical points by taking away his opportunity to attack. Federer imposes his game on djokovic by disrupting his patterns with big forehands, although it's not always enough. The best players of all time have been able to impose their game on their opponent with whichever style they happen to play with.

[lobndropshot]

The only unfair advantage a player can hope for is a true love for the game.

[GeoffWilliams]

I'd take my back hand over Joel's any day! As soon as I got gout, I stopped eating: alcohol, coffee, meat, bread, tomatos, beans, mushrooms, dairy, etc. The pain has not stopped, just dropped down to about 10%. The article is only ridiculous if you think so? That would make your opinion the deciding factor. The truth is, I'd beat any 60 yr. old in the world with the same amount of gout with these tactics! Ha, ha. Just putting on the tennis shoes for this filming of the pieces was bad. But Jy needed some footage, so. Tennis is a warrior sport, for some, and for most, it's not. Those who adopt the warrior mentality go furthest, learn the most, train the hardest, take losses harder, work harder to improve, remember more, and improve faster, for a longer time period.

The truth is, regardless of past life truth or history, all of us have in our DNA: killing and being killed in war. sporting games are just the symbolic by product of our need to kill and be killed. Nothing is more enlightening than death, and nothing is more obvious than loss. Those who are oblivious to loss don't care about their own history. We should train as if our lives depend on it, because they do.

Paraphrasing U. Grant: "There's no secret to the art of war. Go out, find your enemy, hit him as hard as you can, as much as you can, and move on."

Or the Asian master of war: "Those who go into battle not knowing if they are going to win or lose have already lost."

Or: " I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion." Just insert disruptor as a sheep! Ha, ha.
Alexander the Great

So anyone with the desire to see my article removed has already lost the battle. So, I dub thee, Battle Boy Bowt.

[bowt]

seems like you have been really disrupted by joel druckers article and his pretty backhand drive lol

honestly this article is absolutely ridiculous apply your warrior mentality to food

should be removed

[gzhpcu]

Geoff, sorry to hear about your gout problems, but remember that diet is also a contributing factor and being 220 lbs doesn't help. Avoid rich food. Get better soon...

[don_budge]

This, that and the other thing...

285 bhp, but with the very short gearing, it feels like a lot more. The gears are about 20% shorter. Lowers the top speed, but ups the acceleration and pulll, and that is what I need on mountainous roads. Much better than engine modifications which lower the lifetime of the engine. I could have made it a turbo, but then would have to install the picnic tray which I don't like and also have the turbo lag. My Dad had a Porsche dealership in Bakersfield mid-1950's, and that is when the Porsche bug bit me.

From "Warrior Mentality" to "Elite Porsche Dealership". Cue "The Disruptor". Biting tongue.

I haven't read the article yet…but having read everything else from "Equipment Guy" I look forward to the experience. Certainly one must be a bit of tough guy…with an assassin's heart. Relishing the kill. But there is another side of it too. One must also be philosophic about the whole deal. It isn't brute primal force. In fact there are many facets to this "Diamond hard look of a Cobra".

Most sorry to hear about the gout. Terribly debilitating…particularly when coupled with extra pounds. This is the real fight in life…where the real inner warrior kicks in. Tennis is small potatoes when compared with issues like these. God speed…man.

[gzhpcu]

Phil,
How many many horsepower?

285 bhp, but with the very short gearing, it feels like a lot more. The gears are about 20% shorter. Lowers the top speed, but ups the acceleration and pulll, and that is what I need on mountainous roads. Much better than engine modifications which lower the lifetime of the engine. I could have made it a turbo, but then would have to install the picnic tray which I don't like and also have the turbo lag. My Dad had a Porsche dealership in Bakersfield mid-1950's, and that is when the Porsche bug bit me.

[John Yandell]

Phil,
How many many horsepower?

[GeoffWilliams]

There is more than one way to be a warrior on the court.

Domination, Disguise, diet,

training, tactical changes, attacks, psyche, jamming shots, base line game, transition to the net, net play, all have their own mind sets besides serving and returning mind sets, although first strike of the ball in most matches, always determines who will dominate play. Returners of note do it with aggressive returns, and servers of note do it with aggressive serves. Those who don't take chances or who don't outright attack, are not in the top tier.

Being over weight is obviously a horrible way to start the match! That and gout are the reasons I don't belong on the arena any more. It is an arena. It is a war out there when your self and pride are on the line. Those who claim their self is not on the line when playing matches, are not being honest. If that were the truth, we would neither feel good nor bad upon victory or defeat.

It's not cheifly symbolic when you come off the court hurting inside and out. If you play hard the pain is there whether you win or lose.

[GeoffWilliams]

None of those shots that change pattern were hit softly.

[arturohernandez]

The warrior/disruptor

I like the warrior idea. But it seems that there is a bit of disruptor needed when facing a skilled opponent. Tennis is such a game of adaptation that even when one can play like a warrior and feel in control, things can change quite quickly. In that sense, I think the disruptor is always there. Think about Sampras hitting down the line forehands to get Agassi out of his preferred inside-out forehand pattern. Or Nadal hitting high topspin forehands to Federer's backhand. Or Federer slicing his way around a clay court to break Djokovic's winning streak in 2011 at RG. All of them play like disruptors because it is impossible to beat someone at that level through pure skill. Being a warrior is great but I have lost many matches by being outwarriored by a better opponent. But I have won many matches by adapting and finding a way out when I thought it was not possible.