A Physically & Psychologically Healthier Way to Live, Learn, & Play
Beyond Competition

A Physically & Psychologically Healthier Way to Live, Learn, & Play
Beyond Competition

I’ve played sports my whole life, tennis for fifty-five years, and I am beginning my fiftieth year of teaching tennis. In 2022 one of my students, a therapist for more than twenty-five years, asked during her lesson if I had ever heard of CBT, Cognitive Behavior Therapy? I hadn’t and looked into it to discover that this is what I have been doing in my teaching since 1977. Basically, CBT challenges the way we think about something and helps us learn how to shift our thinking in a healthier direction. When we’re on court students will often say, “I can’t do that.” or “That’s going to be really hard.” My reply, “As you think, so shall it be.” I said that to my student recently when she made a similar comment, her response, “That’s CBT in a nutshell.”

Being that tennis contains both physical and psychological characteristics, the Effortless Tennis Program marries physical and psychological behavior therapy. Both areas are developed simultaneously, which makes modifying old habits even more challenging. Not only are we patterning or re-patterning how we react physically, but also how we think.

The process that enables us to learn and remember motor skills, and perform them without conscious effort, is cellular memory, commonly referred to as muscle memory. This memory is deeper than simply in the muscles, it becomes part of our cells; cellular memory is a more accurate term. A similar type of memory happens with our thinking and materializes as reflexive negative thoughts. Through repetition, physical and mental habits, good and bad, are fixed into our subconscious. If we want to correct bad, or as I prefer to call them, “less than optimal” habits, it will take a concerted effort, and the deeper the patterning, the more challenging the transition to healthier habits. Interpreting something as less than optimal rather than bad allows students to appreciate that some aspects may be problematic, but other parts are working. This phrasing helps students move beyond the inherent negativity of bad.

Whatever we repeat programs into our cellular memory, whether we want it to happen or not, there’s no choice, it happens automatically. Cellular memory is our incredible natural learning system. People do understand that habits are formed by repetitive behavior, but many don’t clearly comprehend that this is the foundational process of how we learn, we repeat actions, thoughts, or emotions and that information is imbedded into our subconscious. Cellular memory is our all-powerful learning tool. It’s a wonderful gift. The problem with this gift is that our minds and bodies don’t know whether what we are doing works or doesn’t, it just knows that we have been repeating those actions, thoughts, and emotions over and over, sometimes for years, and that information encodes effortlessly into our computer. The good news is that we can input whatever we want into our cellular memory. We are responsible.

If we enter information into a desktop or laptop computer that we later want to remove, we simply highlight that info and hit the delete button. Unfortunately, for our mind/body computer, there is no delete button. We can’t disconnect or turn off this feature; it’s how we learn. Once habits are patterned, there is no instant way to erase them and start anew. As I say, “Cellular memory, blessing or curse.”

The key condition that makes altering cellular memory possible is a non-competitive learning environment. We live in a society dominated by competition. Our educational system is predicated on a competitive model. This competitive approach to learning is the overriding impediment to changing ingrained physical and psychological behavior. We throw people into a little “friendly” competition before they have learned few, if any, of the fundamental skills, and then wonder why so few excel? It’s the “us versus them,” trial-by-fire, school-of-hard-knocks theory of learning, that’s why. We have been manipulated into believing that this is the optimal method to help everyone be their best. Nothing could be further from the truth. We all learned in and have been indoctrinated by this competitive paradigm. To successfully alter ingrained behavior, competition must be eliminated from the learning process.

Rewiring physical and psychological habits that are patterned into our cellular memory is challenging in any environment, but virtually impossible in competition. When people are competing and trying to make changes in entrenched habits simultaneously, they experience too much discomfort and failure before changes occur; most won’t persevere, and so they either settle for their mediocre habits or they quit. The main reason people quit something is due to a lack of success, they’ve etched restrictive habits into their cells and, because of those ineffectual habits, their skills never advance beyond a rudimentary level, which is not the desired goal or any fun.

Everyone knows that once something is habitual, it is much harder and takes longer to redo those habits than it took to ingrain them in the first place. Because this is reality, we need to be extremely conscious of what we are repeating when learning and teaching. As an example in tennis, if people go out and start hitting and keeping score before they have learned the physical fundamentals, what they are doing looks more like fending off an attacker than playing tennis.

In working on physical behavior therapy we must recognize that in any physical activity there are more and less efficient ways to execute actions. Our initial goal is to pattern the simplest, most efficient foundational movements: Step A leads to Step B, not Step H. As we improve, because the people we are playing with now are more skilled, we have less time to react. We don’t want to have to go back and undo inefficient physical and psychological programmed actions that are slowing our reaction time. Regrettably, most people don’t learn this way; they jump or are thrown into competition too soon, unprepared, and then unknowingly, cement those thoughts and reactions into their cellular memory.

Being mindful is especially important when learning the fundamentals of high skill, fine motor coordination sports or movement activities. Fundamental skills include both physical and psychological components. Many people seem to assume that psychological skills are “advanced skills,” not fundamentals. In actuality, psychological skills are bedrock elements of the fundamentals and must be integrated subconsciously—before beginning competition. The difference between good and great is psychological. Because cellular memory programming is involuntary, it’s harmful enough that people are thrown into competition physically unprepared, but it is criminal to throw them into competition unprepared psychologically. Throwing students into competition underprepared is devastating to long-term growth and mental health.

By cultivating our psychological skills absent any competition, we are able to foster learning those skills in a safe, nurturing environment that makes it feasible to work through emotional issues like frustration, anger, fear, disappointment, tension, self-doubt, and performance anxiety. That’s the beauty of a non-competitive learning model, even without any competition, every psychological issue surfaces while simply learning the physical fundamentals. In the less stressful non-competitive environment, those different facets are able to evolve. Then, once those healthier skills are second nature, if we want to compete, we are prepared for the challenge. Competition is the advanced component of any sport, activity, or academic subject, not something for beginners or people who do not possess the physical and psychological fundamentals required for success.  

While it’s easier to help students learn physical movements who are new to an activity or sport, because they don’t have preprogrammed actions embedded into their cellular memory, those same students do have some psychological habits/issues that are deeply rooted from past competitive experiences, and life in general. What I’ve witnessed innumerable times over the years is that, when there is no competition, previous adverse psychological habits slowly subside and positive habits appear and become part of a new cellular memory. If we can’t do something when there is no competition, what are the chances that we will be able to accomplish that task in competition?

As soon as any form of competition, no matter how supposedly friendly, is introduced, people start developing their first psychological limitations. It is widely accepted that performance anxiety is an inevitable part of learning, that learning somehow naturally creates anxiety. What creates anxiety is being thrown into situations that are more advanced than our current skill level can process, which is the prevailing way most people have been educated. Performance anxiety is learned, it is not a natural part of an optimal learning model. Every time we are in a situation that is more advanced than we are prepared to handle, it adds another level of performance anxiety to our cellular memory. Competitive learning exacerbates tension and programs performance anxiety permanently into our subconscious.

People who come to the Effortless Tennis program share one universal characteristic: they are way too tense and uptight, physically and psychologically, to perform anywhere close to their potential. Most aren’t necessarily tense when they get there, but as soon as they step on court and have to perform, everyone tightens up. This tension is an attribute of our innate “fight or flight” wiring. We feel threatened and so we tighten up. This combo physical and psychological reaction is the direct result of prior premature competitive learning experiences, for which we were ill prepared. In competition, unless we are ascended Zen masters, everyone’s ego and self-esteem are on the line. Ego and self-esteem are powerful motivating forces, and because of this dynamic, the competitive system creates stress and self-doubt from day one, and it builds from there with every similar incident. Inside, we know that we don’t know what we are doing and that realization manifests as stress, tightness, and anxiety.

When competition is eliminated from the learning process, students begin to relax, almost immediately, which opens them up to a whole other dimension in learning. Because there is no competition in the Effortless Tennis program, on any level, students slowly release their built-in and built-up tension and anxiety, lowering their stress levels, raising their performance levels, helping them begin to feel what it’s like to actually be relaxed while learning, and realizing that, if they put in the time, they can be as good as they hoped they could be. With their ego and self-esteem no longer on the line, students begin to experience significant positive change in their overall psychological state. Each day after class students leave more relaxed, better focused, more physically and emotionally fit, and happier than when they arrived. They take this attitude back into their daily lives. A daughter of one of my students told her dad that she loves it when he goes to tennis because he is always in a much better mood when he comes home, and he’s one of the more mellow people in the program. What is learned on court benefits and is transferrable to all areas of life.

One of the outcomes that I was hoping would occur with cellular memory learning is that eventually inefficient or detrimental habits would disappear. Sadly, that does not seem to be the case. Once memories are ingrained, they are permanent. This is again why we need to be vigilant and focused on what we are learning and teaching. Under stress, whatever is most deeply patterned comes out. We have to re-pattern our actions and thoughts to the level where, even under pressure, the new, more effective and healthier memory emerges.

If we are willing and have the time to dedicate our life to changing behaviors, change can happen in a relatively reasonable time frame, but because most people can’t make that level of commitment, and habits are locked into their cells, it’s going to take time—and always longer than we want. Using tennis as an example again, if we are practicing once or twice a week for an hour, it will take a lot longer for change to occur than if we are practicing twenty hours a week. Fortunately, in a non-competitive learning environment, even with a minimal level of commitment, change does happen, just more slowly. It is not a race!

Physical and psychological behavior therapy requires recognizing and admitting that the problem issues are real, intellectually understanding the solution, and then repeating the solution until behavior changes and those changes are woven into the cellular memory. Patience, perseverance, self-motivation, personal accountability, and joy are necessary to see the process through to completion. The high skill nature of tennis combined with the non-competitive learning environment makes Effortless Tennis a great vehicle for understanding the learning process and rewriting physical and psychological behavior patterns.

In review:

• Cellular memory is our automatic learning system that is happening every moment of our lives.
• Our minds and bodies don’t discern whether our repetitive actions and behaviors are beneficial or not, they simply ingrain what we are repeating.
• Once habits are ingrained, they are with us forever.
• When competition is eliminated from the learning process, updating deep-seated physical and psychological memories becomes achievable.
• A non-competitive learning model enables students to be significantly more relaxed while learning, which is vital to achieving our goals and dreams.
• Changing programmed habits is a long-term project, and without competition, it is actually a fun, rewarding, life-enhancing experience.
• Only after positive habits are in the cellular memory is it wise to consider competing. Returning to competition too soon reduces the chances of success, increases frustration, limits results, and decreases enjoyment. Competence before competition!

An important observation from my research is that the cellular memory programming most resistant to change is people’s unquestionable faith that competition brings out the best in us. While it’s possible to perform at extremely high levels in competition, and that is always impressive to behold, it is impossible to achieve our potential in competition. Because of the avalanche of propaganda promoting the superiority of competition, this conclusion may shock many, but I’ll ask the relevant question, “How can we be our best if our opponent is doing everything in their power to prevent us from being our best?” And that is the goal of every successful competitor. We can’t! So in fact, competition prevents us from being our best. The competitive system creates a small percentage of excellence, 10%, a slightly larger percentage of competence, 20%, but competence is not excellence, and a vast majority of mediocrity and failure, 70%. What is that called— a failed system! We are being educated by a failed system.

It is time to hold a mirror up to the competitive learning system and see where it works and where it doesn’t. We are stuck in an evolutionary rut, promulgated by the competitive mindset, that keeps most people existing on an us versus them lower level of consciousness, which diminishes everyone’s development and well being. Only by moving beyond this competitive mentality and being taught and learning to work together, will we ever be able to raise human consciousness and achieve our virtually limitless individual and collective potential. We are amazing beings—if given the opportunity. As I finish writing this paper and think back on the changes I have witnessed in students over five decades, I have the notion that a more apt title may be, Physical & Psychological Transformation Therapy.

Brent Zeller