Way of the turtle

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Way of the Turtle

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I played conservatively. I even changed my grip from the pen hold to
the more accurate traditional style (the way one holds a tennis
racket) and my paddle from the spongy ones that give lots of spins
to the sandpaper ones that are better for defense since they are less
responsive to the spin of the opponent. I knew that the best player
had superior spin technique and would not have any problem han-
dling my comparatively feeble spins so if I were to do well against
him I was better off with a paddle that weakened his advantage of
superior spin technique.
My strategy paid off as I slowly beat my next two opponents in
close and exciting matches. That meant that we were now down to
two players and I would be playing in the championship round
against a much superior player, the one we all expected to win the
tournament. I would have to play my best game and he would have
to break for me to win, and we all knew it. All the Turtles were pres-
ent for this final match, which pitted youth and energy against expe-
rience and skill.
As we started to play, I noticed something: My opponent really
wanted to win the match; he was taking it very seriously. It was
obvious that it was very important for him to win. He had much to
lose since he was already considered the superior player, already
counted as the best. In contrast, I had nothing to lose. I already had
won the tournament as the rest of us saw it. No one expected me to
win or even thought that I could win.
He won the first few points pretty easily, in fact, so easily that I
began to worry that I might get shut out, skunked. But as I adapted
to his superior speed and shot placement and played extremely
defensively, I started to wear him out. He was playing more aggres-
Mastering Your Demons
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sively than he normally would have because he wanted to finish me
off quickly. I was playing more conservatively because I knew it was
my only chance. I started to get longer volleys before he won the
point, and then I finally started to win points—not many at first but
just enough to keep me in the game. As I began to win more and
more points, my opponent’s play suffered. He started to become
angry with himself for letting an inferior player gain any sort of
advantage.
Slowly the advantage tipped in my favor, and I started coming
back in the second game of the match. I clawed my way back to
even and then went on to win that game. So at the end of the first
two games we were tied one to one, but the momentum was in my
favor with one game to play.
The final game was a battle. We fought back and forth with the
game tied and with each of us being one point from victory on sev-
eral occasions. Finally, I hit the last shot and he missed. In the end,
the pressure of the tournament, of proving that he was the better
player, got to him and he cracked. He was assuredly the best player.
I knew it and he knew it, but in the end that didn’t matter, and he
lost because he couldn’t handle the pressure. The win meant too
much to him, and that affected his play.
My superior opponent was also not successful in the Turtle pro-
gram. I believe this was the case for the same reason that he lost
the Ping-Pong tournament. His ego was too tied up in his own trad-
ing for him to be able to see that the reasons for his poor perform-
ance were inside him. Not coincidentally, the Ping-Pong expert was
the same Turtle who believed that Rich had given me secrets that he
had not been given. It was too hard for him to see that the reason I