Tennis, Peak Performance, and Transcendental Meditation

Accessing and Owning “The Zone”

“On my very best days I have this fantastic, utterly unself-conscious feeling of invincibility…I’ve got perfect control of the match, my rhythm and movements are excellent, and everything’s just in total balance…It’s a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquility.”

These are the words of Billie Jean King describing the in-the-zone experience – action within silence, effortless, where the player feels as if overtaken by the elegance of perfect motion. Performance is being conducted exquisitely from an inner state of stillness.

Every professional tennis player has been there, and if she’s been there, she wants to get back there. And when she gets back there, she wants to stay there. The question is how to get there and then own it? The great players seem to be in the zone continuously, for that is what makes them great. But what is it that separates the perennial top performers from the rest of the field?

According to research conducted by Dr. Harold Harung, associate professor at Oslo University in Norway and Dr. Fred Travis, director of the Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, USA, what separates world-class athletes, like the perennial top tennis players competing at the highest levels, from the rest of the field is their neurophysiological status. Their study found that, compared to the other athletes, those competing at the highest levels have higher levels of brain integration, mind-brain development – a totally superior level of neurophysiological functioning. It is this status that is at the basis of peak performance, the zone experience.

In an interview with New Mavericks, an organization with the quest to find out what makes great people tick, Dr. Harung laid out a Unified Theory of Performance that he and Dr. Travis created based on their research of world-class athletes.

This Unified Theory of Performance is comprised of 4 components:

• Brain Integration
• Psychological maturity
• Frequency of peak performance (fulfilling moments)
• Mind-brain development of the organization or the social context in which the player operates.

Among the four components they found the most important to be brain integration, the level of which is really at the basis of the other three. “We have found that active ingredient, that is mind-brain development, and our research and other research suggest that this is much more important than the other factors…the degree of refinement and sophistication of your brain and your mind is the most important factor,” Dr. Harung said.

Greater brain integration means all aspects of the neurophysiology, the mind and the body, are working in collaboration. Peak performers such as world-class athletes have brains that are more orderly, function more economically, and are more awake. In more scientific terms, the brains of peak performers exhibit denser alpha wave activity associated with more basic wakefulness, alertness, and wide-open perception. Dr. Harung emphasized, “If you have an integrated brain, whatever you’re doing will come out on a higher level of performance.”

The message then to every player on the WTA is that to “own the zone” your brain has to perform in a more refined and a more sophisticated way. This is the key. Greater sophistication and refinement of neurophysiological functioning is at the basis of the elegance of movement, which is the ultimate expression of the experience of peak performance or being in the zone.

So how does a player create and sustain this higher level of mind-body coordination? Dr. Harung and Dr. Travis have identified three complimentary ways to do this:

• Exercise – moving the body stimulates the brain. OK, the players already got that one.
• Playing and listening to music – trains the brain to think more holistically, integrates the two hemispheres of the brain triggering peak experiences. I guess the players are on to that one too, because I see so many players walking onto court with head phones on – listening to music I presume?
• Meditation – This, our researchers found, has an effect on the brain much greater than exercise or music, but the greater effectiveness comes only from the direct experience of transcendence.

It is at the level of the transcendent where the brain can be most profoundly integrated, for it is at this deep level, beyond the mind, where all parts of the neurophysiology are found functioning in their togetherness. According to Dr. Harung, “Transcending, going beyond even the faintest thought to the level of great alertness, being wide awake – this is the key, systematic transcendence, systematically reaching the deepest level of our mind.” Dr. Harung continues, offering a way to do this, “There is a technique called Transcendental Meditation that both experience and research show is the most effective technique for reducing systematically mental activity until you reach the most basic level. Transcendence develops all the qualities that define world-class performers – higher brain integration, higher moral reasoning (psychological maturity), frequent peak experiences, and the social environment in which one operates.”

In the interview Dr. Harung also cites very revealing and surprising research quantifying factors that account for an increase in performance. According to this research, the number of years of education, age after 20-25 years, work experience, and incentives account together for less than 5% of performance. And what is definitely interesting for the tennis professional is the research that shows that practice accounts for only 20-30% of performance. So all those repetitive drills on the court and busting your hump in the gym, while important for at least sustaining your level and keeping you fit, statistically will not give you the breakthrough in performance required to make a major move up the rankings. What then accounts for the other 65-75% of performance? It is your level of brain integration. Dr. Harung concludes,”…The brain just has to function in a more refined way. If you can accomplish that, whatever you do, you will be performing on a higher level.”

So, players, the research shows that to be more effective you have to change the way your brain works, which is not something you can just do by changing your mood or assuming some attitude. According to the research, this is accomplished through the systematic refinement of the brain from regular transcending through the practice of Transcendental Meditation. Transcending brings into harmony all the different specific aspects of the brain and cultures a spontaneous ease of flow in the player’s performance on court – for it has to be spontaneous because there are far too many variables to take into account intellectually. Consider the following:

David Foster Wallace, tennis player, novelist, and in his day a frequent commentator on the tennis scene, in his essay, “Federer Both Flesh and Not,” offers the following scenario:

It is not possible for the human mind to calculate all these variables. Wallace comments on this impossibility: “No CPU yet existent could compute the expansion of variables for even a single exchange – smoke would come out of the mainframe. The sort of thinking involved is the sort that can only be done by a living and highly conscious entity, and then only unconsciously, i.e. by combining talent with repetition to such an extent that variables are combined and controlled without conscious thought. “

Peak performance or being-in-the zone is that level of brain integration where all these variables are spontaneously integrated into a wholeness that conducts the shot for you. You don’t have to think about it. You just have to be. It is this level of mind-body coordination that transcends the intellectual notions of tactical maneuvering, leaving the player free to flow in the spontaneity of perfection.

This is what Billie Jean King was experiencing. This is what all the greats of the game experienced and are experiencing. Again from Wallace, “A top athlete’s beauty is next to impossible to describe directly. Or to evoke. There is about world-class athletes carving out exemptions from physical laws a transcendent beauty that makes manifest God in man…Great athletes are profundity in motion.”

Wallace, commenting on his chances of competing with the top tennis players of his era, wrote: “I could not meaningfully exist on the same court…And it’s not just a matter of talent and practice. There’s something else.”

He was right. There’s something else. And now you know what it is.

Anyway, that’s how I see it.

(Please note: Dr. Harung and Dr. Travis’s book regarding athletic performance is: Excellence Through Mind-Brain Development: The Secret of World Class Performers. Also, I have included here the link to Dr. Harung’s interview with New Mavericks:)