Deyo reverses the red dust meditation behind Zvi: Look directly into the abyss to pick up the gems in the dark

There is a sentence in "Archery and Zen Heart": "The tension of the bow often needs to be loosened and tightened before the middle way can be found!" ”

Anxiety and nervousness were in the air in the warm-up room before the start of the French Open quarter-finals, and the shadow of Djokovic's embarrassing retirement in Melbourne a few months ago still flashed in Djokovic's mind. In that match, he endured not only unimaginable pain from his body, but also from unforgettable pain in his soul.

As twilight slowly shrouded the Philippe Chartier Stadium, Djokovic tried to walk into the pitch with a relaxed attitude, waiting not only for a formidable opponent, but also for the psychological shadow of his inner self-denial. He stared at the red earth, as if to draw some ancient energy from it.

However, the match was relentless, and as Zverev's ace hit the ground, the brutal score of the 4-6 defeat in the first set became a kind of reality that shone into Djokovic's heart.

Zverev's performance was impeccable, he stood in front of Djokovic like a wall, and repeated counterattacks from the baseline caused Djokovic's tactical system to briefly collapse. What's even more fatal was that the German's serve in the first set was as precise as a scalpel, and Djokovic couldn't find any flaws.

But the real crisis comes from Djokovic himself, and the winds of Roland Garros let his unforced mistakes out of control – those backshots that deviate from the sidelines are like the shadow of Jung's personality: "The pent-up fear is embodied in a high-pressure situation as a technological metamorphosis." ”

Jung said, "You can't conquer your psychological shadow unless you dare to look it in the eye!" "Looking straight into the shadows? It's like looking straight into the abyss, committing yourself to terror? But I'm afraid, afraid of repeating the mistakes of the past, afraid, afraid of history repeating itself, but it seems that blindly being afraid will only make people retreat further and further. Actually, life is just a practice, practice and practice, practice and practice, what you experience is just experience, what you get is just what you get, everything is just that, it's not that complicated.

The awakening began with a subtle change in the second set, when the 38-year-old Djokovic began to tune in to his breathing and let himself relax as much as possible, a seemingly trivial adjustment that was so deadly.

Looking at the data, we can see that Djokovic's first-serve success rate soared from 54% in the first set to 83%, and the landing point was like a pendulum switching between the inside and outside corners. In addition, he has cut back on more risky attacks and instead used deep spots to suppress Zverev's vulnerable forehand, a change that means that once Zverev is stuck on the left side of the pitch on the return line, Djokovic can suddenly lure him to open the net with a small ball.

One of my favorite books recently, "Jung the Sorcerer", has a sentence that impresses me: "Only by looking directly into the abyss can you pick up the gems in the dark." ”

Yesterday, I said, "The deepest paradox of tennis is that when you stop trying to win, you win it." "Do you want to believe in yourself when everyone doesn't think you can do it? Have you yourself confessed that this is an irresolvable fate? If you fall into the abyss, you will also be swallowed by the abyss, and only by listening to the cry in the abyss can you find natural peace.

Lendl once taught Murray, "If your opponent falls, you just need to put one foot on his throat." "The very essence of Lun's cold philosophy of competition is actually the essence of the professional arena, where there is only winning and losing, and there is no pity. This mirrored Djokovic's eyes in the deciding set, when Zverev fell to his knees with a forehand error, the Serb showed no mercy and served three consecutive balls into the outside corner.

It's hard not to be reminded of the supreme state of "shooting without shooting" in Archery and Zen Mind, where everything is decided before it happens, the self listens to the self and feels, and the spirit is preoccupied with what happens.

In fact, every time I watch Djokovic's matches, I always think, where does this unique tennis temperament come from? Why does Djokovic always show more focus and terror in desperate situations? It wasn't until later that I realized that this duality had been foreshadowed early in Djokovic's life.

The war-torn Belgrade was Djokovic's childhood, and under the bombing of NATO, he had to train on a court converted from an abandoned swimming pool - the whistling of shells and the sound of tennis balls were intertwined, and the violence of survival and the poetry of sport may have been reconciled in the depths of his soul in this situation. So, while Zverev hesitated at the crucial point, Djokovic's shot went beyond victory and became a declaration of existence itself.

In the book "Mindset Wins", it is often said that belief can reconstruct reality. I always wonder, what kind of belief can reconstruct reality? Perhaps this is just like Hegel said in "The Phenomenology of Spirit", the beginning of everything comes from "being", that is, the "determination" of being, determination is rationality, just like God created the world, the world needs light, there is light, the world needs water, there is water, the key to all this is only "being", lies in "determination".

While the 38-year-old was questioned about his difficulty in challenging for a 25th Grand Slam, Djokovic turned his age into an advantage: he kept his heart rate steady at the end of the third set, and he used his experience to predict Zverev's tendency to play a second serve in the middle, leading to precise ambushes on break points. So when Djokovic raised his hands in celebration after his victory, everything was like his trembling fingers after winning gold at the Olympics, because "pain and ecstasy are two sides of the same coin."

After a rest day off, Djokovic will face Sinner in the semi-finals, which may be an indelible shadow for Zverev for Djokovic. When Sinner dragged Djokovic off the altar last year, the world number one has now sat firmly on the throne for 52 consecutive weeks, and has been praised as "on par with Federdjou", and more subtly, Zverev said that Sinner's style of play resembles Djokovic.

I think, even though a lot of people have already decided about this game, that almost no one but Alcaraz can challenge Sinner right now. However, I think that the real key to victory or defeat is hidden in the proverb of "Archery and Zen Heart": "The tension of the bow often needs to be loosened and tightened before the middle way can be found." Sinner's 21-game winning streak on hard court is a testament to his unrivalled dominance, but clay has always been his Achilles' heel; The wisdom accumulated by Djokovic's 13 four journeys in the French Open can deconstruct the power worship of the new generation. When the technology converges, the outcome will depend on who reaches the "empty" realm first, and who can empty themselves and concentrate on this game will be able to take the lead and win the game.

But whether he wins or loses, Djokovic's standing on the back of Roland Garros has long become an eternal allegory - even if they are getting old, those souls who are reborn in the abyss of the soul have long been forged into sharp arrows that have shot through the bullseye called fate again and again.(Source: Tennis Home Author: Lu Xiaotian)