Playing tennis, I didn't tie in my self-worth into winning or losing matches.
Martina NavratilovaRead
I can teach many sports, but obviously, tennis is the one. When you do other sports, you see things from different perspectives: different footwork drills, body positions, angles and geometry. All that stuff is helpful, and so when I do other sports, I can see things, because once you know one sport, then the other sport becomes more clear.
Interpretation
Learning different sports can enhance understanding and skills in tennis.
This quote emphasizes the value of cross-training and how engaging in various sports can provide new perspectives and insights that improve one's performance in a primary sport, such as tennis. Martina Navratilova highlights how the principles of one sport can clarify and enrich the understanding of another, ultimately helping athletes become more versatile and aware.
In practice
During a sports coaching workshop, I used this quote to illustrate the importance of diverse training methods.
Playing tennis, I didn't tie in my self-worth into winning or losing matches.
I just wanted to play tennis. It wasn't a job. It was an ambition. I knew I could make money at it. I was 18 - old enough to think I could do it, young enough not to consider the consequences.
To those people doubting Serena Williams, writing her off - do not do that to a champion.
So many athletes are afraid to use their platform to do the right thing and speak what they feel, and that's very depressing. Sure, they are afraid of insulting people and losing money because of it, and everyone wants to make the maximum amount of money in their lifetime. But at the expense of who you are? I don't know. That just wasn't in my DNA.
I am just sorry my own mother had to live under that regime for most of her life. I was lucky. I got out and, 14 years later, Czechoslovakia became a free country. So I feel anger, even fury, at this bloody system that ruined so many people's lives for no reason whatsoever.
When you make a lot of money, it just means you made a lot of money. It doesn't make you a better person.
The foundations of any subject may be taught to anybody at any age in some form.
A few modern philosopher's assert that an individual's intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased. We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism.... With practice, training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment and literally to become more intelligent than we were before.
No child in Africa, and in fact anywhere in the world, should be denied education.
The newspaper is a greater treasure to the people than uncounted millions of gold.
I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why they're here. If they like their jobs. Or us. And I wonder how smart they were when they were fifteen. Not in a mean way. In a curious way. It's like looking at all the students and wondering who's had their heart broken that day, and how they are able to cope with having three quizzes and a book report due on top of that. Or wondering who did the heart breaking. And wondering why.
How often we all have heard speakers begin by calling the attention of the audience to their lack of preparation or lack of ability. If you are not prepared, the audience will probably discover it without your assistance.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.