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Jan 16, 2005 :: The Monk's Monday Lesson #5
The Monk's Tip of the Week
Many players will battle back from a deficit only to lose in the end. When you are trailing by a huge number, your only thought is to get back in this match. You put all your focus on that difficult task. When you finally catch your opponent and tie the score, a part of you thinks you have succeeded. After all, that was your goal. So you lose your intensity the moment you reach this plateau. You let up for a brief second and you end up losing. Then you tell your friends, “I battled back from being down but I lost hill-hill in the end.”
You did not “come to win” on every shot. You came to tie it up. “I Came to Win” is the mind-set that will put you over the top. An “I Came to Win” player is never tied up at hill-hill. She sees each shot as a challenge in itself and continues the same level of play until there are no shots left on the table.
Sometimes we agonize about breaking open a cluster of balls and focus all our ability on that task. When we open the cluster and get our clear chance for the run out, we blow it. Stay in the present. Place no value on any shot. All shots are the same. All shots have the same value. There are no hard shots. There are no easy shots. There is only this shot. See the shot, know the stroke and then shoot the shot.
