Golf course Self 1 and Self 2 that Timothy Gallwey has been w | Professor M

Golf course

Self 1 and Self 2 that Timothy Gallwey has been writing about in the Inner Game books go hand in hand with System 1 and System 2 in Thinking, Fast and Slow (Amazon) of Daniel Kahneman. To be precise, Gallwey’s Self 1 corresponds to Kahneman’s System 2; Self 2—to System 1.

In a nutshell—Self 1 is the conscious self, while Self 2 is the subconscious.

According to Gallwey’s coaching experience, one’s athletic performance would improve after learning to turn off Self 1 and let Self 2 do more of the work. And this goes both ways. One can use tennis, or skiing, or golf, or any other practice as an arena for improving one’s ability to get Self 1 out of the way. (Though, of course, the skill of putting Self 2 on pause also seems useful.)

Using a completely different narration style and language, though also in an athletic setting—through golf—Steven Pressfield explores similar concepts in The Legend of Bagger Vance (Amazon). Pressfield’s book, if you forgive the pun, might have as well been called The Bhagavad-Golf.