Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Tennis and the Conditions (States of Operation)

I just saw the romantic comedy "Wimbledon". A cute little movie that is a slight variation on the usual theme: in this one there is no other man or other woman. Anyway, in the special features of the DVD there is a "making of" featurette that touches on the superstitions of tennis players.

The main superstition, and one that you see in the movie, is that if the player wins a match then he or she will try to keep everything the same in the next game. They'll try to use the same racket, have the same ball-boy on their court, if they arrived late they'll try to arrive late again, etc., etc.

Although this was called superstition in the featurette, in actual fact they are trying to follow a formula for success that they have a vague inkling exists. They don't really know the mechanics but they know that if they keep things the same then the same outcome should happen. Of course, because they don't have the exact formula and they don't understand what the phenomena is that they are dealing with they don't always have the success they were hoping for in the next game.

What they are missing is something that L. Ron Hubbard discovered in the mid-1960s, namely the conditions or states of operation of existence and the formulas for improving them. It is pretty obvious that everything in this universe is in some sort of state or condition but is that condition something random and unpredictable or are there specific predictable conditions? And if one can determine which condition something is in then are their steps one can take to improve the condition?

The answers are: no, yes, yes and yes. No, the conditions are not random. Yes, they are predictable (and there are only a few of them). Yes, you can determine what condition you are in. Yes, there are steps you can take to improve your condition.

There is more data on this discovery here: Improving Conditions in Life

And in this booklet: Ethics and The Conditions

1 comment:

Ken (Me) said...

Your post reminded me of how much I enjoyed the movie "Wimbledon" when it first came out on DVD. I saw it again on TV last night. Another interesting thing shown is an athlete controlling _time_ during a sports match. Even if it was just used as a movie effect, there is the possibility of this ability. Ron talks about it in the Phoenix Lectures and in other books & lectures.

Tennis is also a good demonstration of placing an object in a location in a defined space (Re: The Pre-Logics, in "Scientology 0-8: The Book of Basics"). It's also fun to play. :-)