What’s the number one thing stopping you from playing your best tennis? Ian Westermann, founder of the world’s #1 online tennis instruction portal, Essentialtennis.com, will confidently say it’s an obstacle you probably never thought of: The ball. The whole point of tennis is to hit the ball over the net and in, so how can the ball be the thing that’s standing in the way? In fact, this is why the ball is such an impediment: your desire to hit a good shot, with the right mix of power and spin, to a specific spot on the court, prevents you from striking the ball the way you should.

From the best-selling author of Zen Golf: Mastering the Mental Game and the tennis champion and world record holder of the Golden Set comes the most innovative and powerful book since The Inner Game of Tennis. Combining deep Eastern wisdom and practical tennis expertise, Zen Tennis will help you get out of your own way and into the zone.

He's been called the best in the world at the mental game of tennis. Brad Gilbert's strokes may not be pretty, but looks aren't everything. He has beaten the tour's biggest names - all by playing his "ugly" game. Now, in Winning Ugly, Gilbert teaches recreational players how to win more often without necessarily even changing their strokes. The key to success, he says, is to become a better thinking player - to recognize, analyze, and capitalize. That means out-thinking opponents before, during, and after a match - forcing him or her to play your game.

Famous three-time Grand Slam winner Arthur Ashe pointed out that many in sports fall victim to “paralysis by analysis”. Athletes on any level can experience the pain of overthinking and sabotaging their performance. Blame many traditional methods of teaching and training. How can we train smarter, not harder? If only our body and mind could perform in a way that’s more natural and instinctive. The best athletes have this quality, but many feel it is simply unattainable for them. I assure you it is not.

This phenomenally successful guide has become a touchstone for hundreds of thousands of people. Not just for tennis players, or even just for athletes in general, this handbook works for anybody who wants to improve their performance in any activity, from playing music to getting ahead at work.

From Andre Agassi, one of the most beloved athletes in history and one of the most gifted men ever to step onto a tennis court, a beautiful, haunting autobiography. Agassi brings a near-photographic memory to every pivotal match and every relationship. Never before has the inner game of tennis and the outer game of fame been so precisely limned. In clear, taut prose, Agassi evokes his loyal brother, his wise coach, his gentle trainer, all the people who help him regain his balance and find love at last with Stefanie Graf.

What makes a champion? What does it take to be the best in the world at your sport? Rafael Nadal has the answers. In his memoir, written with award-winning journalist John Carlin, he reveals the secrets of his game and shares the inspiring personal story behind his success.

Get your head in the game. Master Your Tennis Game serves up quick mental techniques, tactics, and tips for boosting your overall performance and beating your opponents. Train your brain and be the best tennis player you can be. Concise, fun, and easy to listen to, this book offers 50 practical and actionable methods that show you how to stay calm and concentrate during any tennis game. Even if your rival is tough competition, outsmart them with these targeted mental approaches.

There have been other biographies of Roger Federer, but never one with this kind of access to the man himself, his support team, and the most prominent figures in the game, including such rivals as Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Roddick. In The Master, New York Times correspondent Christopher Clarey sits down with Federer and those closest to him to tell the story of the greatest player in men's tennis.

Bruce Lee is a cultural icon, renowned the world over for his martial arts and film legacy. But Lee was also a deeply philosophical thinker, learning at an early age that martial arts are more than just an exercise in physical discipline - they are an apt metaphor for living a fully realized life. Now, in Be Water, My Friend, Lee’s daughter, Shannon, shares the concepts at the core of his philosophies, showing how they can serve as tools of personal growth and self-actualization.

In this spirited account, Billie Jean King details her life's journey to find her true self. She recounts her groundbreaking tennis career - six years as the top-ranked woman in the world, 20 Wimbledon championships, 39 grand-slam titles, and her watershed defeat of Bobby Riggs in the famous "Battle of the Sexes". She poignantly recalls the cultural backdrop of those years and the profound impact on her worldview from the women's movement, the assassinations and anti-war protests of the 1960s, the civil rights movement, and, eventually, the LGBTQ+ rights movement.

Being a man or a woman in your early 60s is different than it was a generation or two ago, at least for the more fortunate of us. We aren't old...yet. But we sense it coming: Careers are winding down, kids are gone, parents are dying (friends, too), and our bodies are no longer youthful or even middle-aged. Learning to play tennis in your 50s is no small feat, but becoming a serious, competitive tennis player at the age of 60 is a whole other matter.

Dr. Nate Zinsser has spent his career training the minds of the U.S. Military Academy’s cadets as they prepare to lead and perform when the stakes are the very highest—on the battlefield. Alongside this work, he has coached world-class athletes including a Super Bowl MVP, numerous Olympic medalists, professional ballerinas, NHL All-Stars, and college All-Americans, teaching them to overcome pressure and succeed on the biggest stages.

Writing from both the cutting edge of scientific discovery and the front-lines of elite athletic performance, National Magazine Award-winning science journalist Alex Hutchinson presents a revolutionary account of the dynamic and controversial new science of endurance.

In this audiobook, we’ll outline Capoeira's basics in terms of techniques and style. This informative guide will give you a brief history of this fascinating martial art and teach you some impressive offensive and defensive movements. You will also have the chance to learn many Brazilian terms and their cultural meanings. This audiobook outlines everything you need to know about Capoeira as one of the types of martial arts.

What’s the number one thing stopping you from playing your best tennis? Ian Westermann, founder of the world’s #1 online tennis instruction portal, Essentialtennis.com, will confidently say it’s an obstacle you probably never thought of: The ball. The whole point of tennis is to hit the ball over the net and in, so how can the ball be the thing that’s standing in the way? In fact, this is why the ball is such an impediment: your desire to hit a good shot, with the right mix of power and spin, to a specific spot on the court, prevents you from striking the ball the way you should.

With the world or combat sports put on hold and hundreds of thousands of students training from home in 2020, the mental study of jiujitsu has become more important than ever. In the highly requested third volume of the Danaher Diaries, there are now over 100 musings from the mind of John Danaher from before and during the worldwide pandemic that drove the BJJ community out of gyms and onto various online training programs. Danaher's writings cover the timely to the timeless as he reflects on the current state of jiujitsu and it's unchanging constants.

Ready to return to the mats? New concepts, new stories, and more brilliance from the leading mind in Brazilian jiu-jitsu can be found in the follow-up to the surprise 2019 hit. This is the perfect companion for your BJJ journey. Short, thought-provoking entries can be listened to as you sit in the parking lot before the gym opens, or after class when you're reflecting on training. Be a fly on the wall in the famous blue basement as you study with the kingmaker to champions like Gordon Ryan, Garry Tonon, and Georges St-Pierre.

Mental golf expert and bestselling author Darrin Gee reveals 50 simple and powerful ways to play the best golf of your life. This book is designed for golfers who know they can play better than their scores reflect. Play great golf by eliminating mistakes. Golf is 90% mental. That means that 90% of mistakes, miscues, mishits, bogeys, double bogeys or worse are caused by mental game errors. Eliminate those errors and you'll cut strokes.

What is the new, revolutionary way people are becoming skillful? How is sports practice and coaching becoming more creative and fun—giving athletes the opportunity to explore and support their own individuality and creativity? A look at the exciting alternative approach to how we learn to move and its implications for practice design, coaching, keeping kids engaged in sports, injury prevention, developing training technology, using analytics, and more.

Famous three-time Grand Slam winner Arthur Ashe pointed out that many in sports fall victim to “paralysis by analysis”. Athletes on any level can experience the pain of overthinking and sabotaging their performance. Blame many traditional methods of teaching and training. How can we train smarter, not harder? If only our body and mind could perform in a way that’s more natural and instinctive. The best athletes have this quality, but many feel it is simply unattainable for them. I assure you it is not.

In The Little Book of Breaking 80, the author, a struggling amateur golfer who finally discovered the true keys to breaking 80 after more than 30 years of trial and error, blows the cover off of the hopelessly doomed conventional approach to golf improvement that keeps most golfers stuck on the endless merry-go-round of frustration and failure.

Ruud Gullit knows better than anyone else that to understand soccer you have to understand strategy. When he started playing soccer, his only "strategy" was to get the ball, outrun everyone else to the other end of the field, and score. At first it served him well, but as he advanced through the sport, he learned that it takes much more than speed to make a winning team.

He's been called the best in the world at the mental game of tennis. Brad Gilbert's strokes may not be pretty, but looks aren't everything. He has beaten the tour's biggest names - all by playing his "ugly" game. Now, in Winning Ugly, Gilbert teaches recreational players how to win more often without necessarily even changing their strokes. The key to success, he says, is to become a better thinking player - to recognize, analyze, and capitalize. That means out-thinking opponents before, during, and after a match - forcing him or her to play your game.

Dr. Joe Parent has drawn on a career coaching the masters to write a hundred easy to understand yet powerful tips for improving any golfer’s score, from the essentials of the mental game to helpful hints to keep your composure. As with his other books, you will find yourself returning time and again to hear what Masters and PGA Champion Vijay Singh call “lessons that make the mental game seem so simple".

As coaches to some of golf's top players, Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott have designed and refined a revolutionary way of teaching the game, with great results. They don't believe in prescribing the same stance, grip, and swing to everyone, followed by hours of purposeless drilling. They don't even believe in beginning with physical technique. Their success has proven to them that a great game begins with a great vision. Every Shot Must Have a Purpose offers cutting-edge techniques for integrating the physical, technical, mental, emotional, and social parts of a player's game.

Wing Chun is the most popular form of Chinese kung fu in the world today, with more than four million practitioners. This guide will fascinate and educate anyone interested in the martial arts, from beginner to master. The art as it is presently understood has been handed down from teacher to student for more than 300 years. Until now, no one has ever stepped back and taken a critical look at why this art's techniques are presented and performed the way they are.

This phenomenally successful guide has become a touchstone for hundreds of thousands of people. Not just for tennis players, or even just for athletes in general, this handbook works for anybody who wants to improve their performance in any activity, from playing music to getting ahead at work.

From the best-selling author of Zen Golf: Mastering the Mental Game and the tennis champion and world record holder of the Golden Set comes the most innovative and powerful book since The Inner Game of Tennis. Combining deep Eastern wisdom and practical tennis expertise, Zen Tennis will help you get out of your own way and into the zone.

A breakthrough program for triathletes - beginner, intermediate, and advanced - showing how to balance training intensity to maximize performance - from a fitness expert and elite coach. Cutting-edge research has proven that triathletes and other endurance athletes experience their greatest performance when they do 80 percent of their training at low intensity and the remaining 20 percent at moderate to high intensity.