Intimidation

So, as you all know, I've been playing a lot of tennis lately. And, for the most part, I play against one guy - my buddy Tucker. Tucker is, frankly better than me at everything. In fact, since we're pretty similar, I'd say that Tucker is even better than me at being me. I'm better than him at Halo, but I think that's one of those things like being better than someone at chess. Yeah, its quasi-impressive, but you don't want to tell girls about it.

Anyway, I'll play Tucker at tennis, and he'll usually win. And he'll usually win big. When I play him, I'm so concerned about making a mistake that I make several of them.

But yesterday, I played my friend Brian. And I was a lot better against Brian than I am against Tucker. In fact, I pretty much dominated because the only two games that I lost were based on my own mistakes.

And here's the funny thing. When a serve happens in a game against Tucker (my serve or receiving his), I expect to lose the point. When I win, it's because he did something stupid, or I did something amazing.

Against Brian, I expected to win every point. And if not, I at least thought it was up for grabs.

And I guess it has to do with intimidation. Against Tucker, I've lost the majority of the time. So I base how I play against him on all the previous times we've played. I know that he's going to get a lot of points and win a lot of games, and I'm going to have to take points and games when I can get them. It's why I get frustrated when I make a stupid mistake, and it's why I'm so defeated when he's able to return a really nice serve I make. Because, honestly, I need the breaks.

When I made a mistake against Brian, I was okay. I knew I was going to be able to do better the next time, and I had confidence that I could come back and win any game.

What's really funny is that Brian's probably better than Tucker at tennis...he's just really rusty. He's able to spin the ball in really awesome ways, and his serve is a lot harder. The problem is, based on his rustiness, that he makes a lot of mistakes. His great serve wouldn't land inside the box, and he had to do a softer one to avoid double faulting. He'd try a really nice slice or drop shot, and it hit the net or went out.

So, as we played, I knew that if I played a nice and conservative style, he'd screw up. And it allowed me to try some things that I wouldn't dare try against Tucker.

It's the kind of stuff that needs to translate into my games with Tucker. Because then our games might actually be pretty competitive.