Non-Judgmental Awareness

Non-judgmental awareness is the cognitive posture that makes the Inner Game possible. It is the practice of attending to what is actually happening — the feel of the racket in the hand, the tension in the shoulders, the quality of the breath, the character of the thoughts arising — without immediately sorting the observations into categories of success and failure, right and wrong, good and bad. The practice sounds simple. It is cognitively demanding, because Self 1's primary function is evaluation. The analytical mind encounters a sensation and immediately judges it: this is good, I should do more of this; this is bad, I should stop doing this. The judgment is automatic, nearly instantaneous, and it activates the entire Self 1 apparatus — the instruction, the correction, the worry about whether the correction will work. Non-judgmental awareness interrupts this automaticity by inserting a gap between perception and evaluation. The performer notices without judging. Observes without correcting. Registers the information as information rather than as evidence requiring