Sports coaches have come to recognize that competition proceeds through four recognized stages. Understanding the stages of the competition cycle is a key aspect of mastering the inner game of tennis. It will also help you to persist in your efforts to improve your tennis strokes.
The four stages are described below.
Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence
Before you start to improve a tennis shot, you are often not aware of what you are doing wrong. It may have to do with your swing, your stance, your grip, or the way you approach the tennis ball.
At this stage, you are not aware of your specific incompetence, although you may experience a sense of discomfort or dissatisfaction with the results of your effort. This dissatisfaction leads to the desire to improve the way you play tennis.
Stage 2: Conscious Incompetence
Through your reading, training, or observation, you have now realized what you are doing wrong. You may have been watching a slow-motion video on YouTube and watched Federer play his backhand. You have identified an area for improvement, for example improving the way you grip the racket to complete a backhand stroke.
Now you are consciously incompetent, you are aware of your specific incompetence in relation to holding the racket for a backhand. You start to change your grip in practice and it feels very uncomfortable and at first you are not successful. One of the challenges at this stage is to unlearn established unconscious habits.
It is important to persist despite discomfort and frustration. This is where many people give up, give up and go back to their old way of doing things.
Stage 3: Conscious Competence
If you persist in practicing in a better way (for example, improving the way you grip the racket for a backhand), you will begin to get comfortable with the new grip. You will also start to have more success with your backhand shots.
Improvement in your backhand gives you positive reinforcement to keep up your practice.
You still have to make a conscious effort but you are acquiring the necessary competence, you are becoming consciously competent.
Stage 4: Unconscious Competition
This is the stage where the new backhand grip becomes part of your normal game, you don’t have to think about it as it comes naturally. It does not require any conscious effort.
The old saying, ‘practice makes perfect’ emphasizes this stage of achievement. If he persists in conscious practice, he will eventually outgrow old habits and replace them with new ones that are equally unconscious.
If you reflect on your game while playing tennis, you will notice that there are many things you do on a tennis court that represent unconscious competition, things you do naturally or spontaneously, without conscious thought. These are the micro-skills you have developed over time.
As you gradually move from unconscious incompetence to conscious proficiency in a variety of tennis shots, you are building your inner strength and inner armor. You are developing your ability to win the inner game of tennis.
