Daily Training by E.F. Benson — Read

The excuse for this chapter in a book written (as set forth), not for the athlete primarily, but for the average man, who is hopelessly incapable of prominence or great excellence in any one branch of athletics, lies in the fact that such a vast number of people nowadays play games, and are so anxious on certain days to do their best at them in some competition, that quite a fair percentage of readers will, it is hoped, pick up a hint or two which may serve them in good stead at that trying moment when they are about to drive a ball from the first tee on some medal day; about to step out on to the glaring prominence of a lawn-tennis court; about to go in (fifth wicket down) when a rot has apparently set in; or, may be, to play a preliminary tie in the City and Suburban Ping-pong Handicap.

For it is at these cold and shuddering moments, which no one can hope to meet with more than stolidity, that one needs to have all one's wits about one, to be able to keep one's nerve, and to have one's strong points at one's fingers' ends, and one's weak points (we all have these, and the better one grows at any particular sport, the more glaring they seem proportionately to become) anyhow passably defended. At one minute, or less, from now it may be that your weak point will be attacked; your drive may land you a full iron shot from the green, a stroke you particularly detest; you may have a scurry after a cross-court return; you may have a yorker on the leg stump. In all such, the important thing is, not only to be prepared for them now, but to have been prepared for them so long before that the preparation has become a habit. Such strokes may still be your weak point, but you will meet the emergencies calmly.