When practicing, no one watches me. However, in a match there are others watching even if they are only the other competitors on the next court during changeovers.
The presence of other people possibly critiquing my style of play makes me want to try harder and thus mess up.
Larry, you bring up a very good point, thanks for sharing.
You need to approach this from 2 sides:
1. The first reason why you worry about opinions of other people is because YOU are not comfortable with your own game style.
This creates insecurity in YOURSELF and thus you are vulnerable to critical opinions of others.
If / when you accept your game style as ok, you will be able to "win" the battle of opinions in your mind - your opinion of your game against other's opinion of your game.
You will know that you are right and they are wrong.
2. The second reason why you worry is because you ASSUME that the opinion of others is critical. You may not have the proof, you just assume that they think critical of you.
Why can you assume that?
Because it is YOU who thinks critical of other's game styles and we all assume that people think the same as we do.
Once you become more accepting, less critical and less judgmental of others, you will also ASSUME that others feel the same way towards you.
Therefore, you will not feel the same pressure.
I know it's hard to grasp sometimes but in order to change others, you first need to change yourself.
Other people just mirror your insecurities.
Of course, there are also really negative people in which case you need to know, that they only PROJECT their own problems onto you.
There isn't a single well known person who is not criticized by some group. Eventually you need to decide that they are wrong and be confident in your own opinion. Then you become invulnerable.
The Right Perspective by: Larry Adrales
Good points. You make a lot of sense. I'm more critical of my game than I am of others and often wish I could play like some of the 5.0 + players. I guess it's more being oblivious to the surroundings which will come with more exposure to matches and getting comfortable with my game. This mental stuff is hard to grasp sometimes.
