ANTICIPATION

The mind is ahead of the action, and this is an advantage vis a vis one's adversary, be it a person or an abstraction, or life itself. If you react to an event, hit a ball, or respond to a serve microsenconds earlier than expected, this takes time away from your adversary, who receives the respond sooner than expected and thus has less time to think and react.

In a game of tennis the champion stops hitting the balls he had always done, when, after bounce, it reached the apex of its arc. Now he positions himself inside the court, advances against the ball, and hits it before it reaches its maximum height. In so doing he deprives his opponent of precious microseconds needed to reposition himself on the court, in order to decide on the next stroke.

This anticipatory effect is characteristic of young people, full as they are of energy. It needs to be redirected, to prevent its dispersion, which can be acomplished by training, as much as possible, the capacity for concentration and the application of energy on a single point, topic, or goal.

In popular jargon this anticipatory effect is called "having reflexes" or "getting the jump". You have to have reflexes to avoid an accident, escape from a dire negotiating situation in business, return a tennis serve that comes your way at 120 m.p.h., or close a deal with an indecisive client.

This spark allows one to guess, a microsecond sooner, where the ball will be, or what the next question is going to be, or where the danger of an accident lies.

The capacity to get the jump is often decisive in victory and it forces the adversary, if there is one, to be on the defensive, depriving him of the initiative and forcing him to run backwards in order to respond, therby making him feel inferior. The one who has the initiative is the one who has the morale to prevail. His victory is a foregone conclusion.























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