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Inner game

A concept that lies at the basis of today’s form of holistic Coaching.  The author of the concept of the inner game is Timothy Gallwey, who has described this method in his book “The Inner Game of Tennis” (1974). The Polish edition was published in 2009. After the success of his first book, Timothy Gallwey wrote his next books about how to use the inner game in other sport disciplines (skiing, golf) and finally he came up with a book „The Inner Game of Work”.

This concept is based on supporting others in their attempt to reach perfection in different areas (sport, business, music or others). All work (change) is done at the level of the mind.

Timothy Gallwey distinguishes between an outer game – physical exercises which should bring specific results, like an increase of muscle tone or improving a score, and an inner game, that is work at the mental level, mainly concerning the attitude.

In the inner game, it is very important to set a clear goal, which the body can follow and achieve.  For example, it is difficult to control all hand muscles and tendons when serving a tennis ball, but thanks to precisely imagining the target (goal), our sub consciousness will take care of the proper positioning of the arm and hand.

Another important issue is to avoid judgment and generalisation.  Gallwey writes, that in most cases we face a rival not across the tennis court, but the one sitting in our heads.  Therefore, we should emphasise the description of reality at the level of facts and not their interpretation, for example: difficult ball, he is better than me, this serve was not a good one.

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