Tennis merged with yoga tonight, and I loved it.
Stephanos Tsitsipas beat Jannik Sinner at the Australia Open after 5 long sets. He was asked what changed at the start of the final set that pushed him on to win. What did he tell himself?
To answer this question truthfully, as must be his default, he first warned the audience that it may be technical and people might not understand it.
“I relaxed my wrist for my serve” he said.
This type of minor adjustment elite athletes deeply appreciate. A runner, a swimmer, but also anyone completely engaged and engrossed in what they are producing with their bodies: a musician, a singer… they understand that tiny, minuscule changes make profound impacts to the outcome.
Yoga is all about awareness, and refining that awareness to a point of mastery.
Yoga begins with behaviour and ethics but is mostly understood through the body. A person who has great mastery over the energy moving through their body will therefore have mastery over their emotions and mind and self.
Titsipas’ minor adjustment was not about releasing the wrist. It was about having a mind so attuned to the inner world of the body and the situation that he could sense where and how changes needed to be made. And it worked! He was right. What an awesome level of connection. This is a whole system experience. This is not about the wrist. It is about being a person who understands the mind and can use that mind to merge with the body, listen to its millions of different messages, even under stress, even when tired, even when being watched by millions across the world, and make that perfect subtle adjustment so everything clicks back into harmony.
From my experience, this state of refined awareness feels like a heightened or elevated state. There is a tacit spirituality.
The mind is immersed in an interoceptive state. It is not worrying about the future or churning up the past. The information from the body in this one lived moment is lit up.
As Jim Courier says “Minor adjustments have major impacts.”
So at your desk, dive into that interoceptive state, let the body be felt and make a minor adjustment. You might release your jaw, or roll your shoulders, or sit forward on your sit bones so your chest lifts. In standing, you might place the feet evenly under the pelvis or lift the chin when scrolling through your phone.
And it feels a little more special than just a bodily movement, if it feels like something in your spirit has changed. Then great. That’s yoga. And it is special.
I really hope you take this with you in to your yoga and into your life.
I am so thankful for Tsitsipas and his honesty. It meant that he did not underestimate his audience. He trusted that something so personal and specific and “elite” is true and real for all of us in some way.