[beder]

The author mentions “The Inner Game of Tennis” as an example of how to train in images and feelings, not words, and I highly recommend it to basically anyone, not just tennis players.

If you’re doing anything that you might hear “don’t overthink it”, then it’s for you. It was recommended to me by a friend who played competitive Foosball; I read it as an instructional about playing chess; and later, after starting to play tennis, I read it again, and I think it’s equally applicable to all of those.

[mpalczewski]

Do you mind expanding on how you applied it to chess. I'm curious how you translated it to this domain. Watching the seems of the tennis ball doesn't seem to translate in an obvious way to me.

I've read the book, and I'm definitely one of those that tends to overthink. I tried reading one of the other books in the series and found it not nearly as helpful.

[beder]

Here’s an example for chess: I found that I was repeating the same lines and the same ideas over and over during matches. One of the key points in the book is to simply observe what you’re doing without judgment. I realized that I’d fixate (especially under time pressure) on an idea that didn’t work.

I tried working on this with deliberate practice on cycling through different areas of the board. There’s a mental feeling (not too different from the physical feeling of swinging a racket) of working through a line, and then moving to another area and trying a different line.

[shard]

For another take, there's "Thinking fast and slow". Along with "Happiness Hypothesis", these 3 books all talk about a similar split in two way of thinking.