The Power of Observation

(Quite Ironic for the writer)

Well, my friends reading this may find it rather ironic that I'm diving into the topic of “observation”, but let’s get to that later.

It goes without saying that “Observation is one of the most crucial aspects of human survival”. For our ancestors maybe, it went from trying not to eat the poisonous berries to in today's age keeping a check on, ‘Why have they unfollowed each other’🧐??

Just a few days back my friend and I, ended up going to Goregaon instead of Thane!! The destination was my friend’s society and I ended up clicking on the very first location that appeared without cross-checking or verifying. And, we were just 15 minutes away from her twin society in Goregaon, when we realised the fiasco which we had created. Now I’d like to put the blame on Snapchat, but my lack of awareness about the surroundings, observation skills and presence of mind are a few things that sometimes end up going in autopilot settings. I’m working on it, and now I’m gonna be nosy or I mean…, “observant” every time I find someone’s car missing in my society.

But, Observation is a quality which I feel isn’t emphasised much upon. How are you gonna ask questions, if you haven’t observed them in the very first place?

So be it the gossip that your neighbourhood aunties pick up from their keen observational skills,

or how Andre Agassi beat Boris Becker in 10 out of 14 times that they played against each other, Observation lies at the crux of all of it!

But did y’all know how did Agassi manage such a close-to-perfect win against Becker? Well, It was all tongue.

It's such a fascinating story which goes on to tell us that, most of the time the answer lies in front of us, all we have to do is not see, but observe.

Boris Becker beat Andre Agassi in the first three times they played. Agassi describes it as “ His serve was something the game had never seen before”. 

But, then what happened that changed the entire course of the game?

Well, After watching tape after tape, and studying Becker's every move. Agassi discovered something about Becker that he himself wasn’t aware of. 

Agassi: “Becker had a peculiar tic with his tongue, I’m not kidding, he would go into his rocking motion, his same routine and just as he was about to toss the ball, he would stick his tongue out.”

It would either be right in the middle of his lip or it’d be to the left corner of his lip. If he was serving and put his tongue to the middle of his lip, he was either going to serve up the middle or to the body. But if he put it to the side, he was going to serve out wide.

And, now the magic or the secret of Agassi’s wins stands unveiled in front of us. But this was the hardest part for Agassi, to not let Becker know that he knew about this.

As he says, “I had to resist the temptation of reading his serve for the majority of the match and choose the moment when I was gonna use that information on a given point to execute a shot that would allow me to break the match open.”

It was not until after Agassi retired where he gave away to Becker that he knew how to read his serve. And, as he describes it,

“We went out and had a pint of beer together and I couldn’t help but say, ‘By the way, did you know you used to do this and give away your serve?’

“Becker about fell off the chair and said, “I used to go home all the time and just tell my wife, it’s like he reads my Mind. Little did I know, you were just reading my tongue.”

Well, you see greater than the skill, the power of observation was what helped in the win against a former World Number player! These glorious matches serve as fantastic examples to draw inspiration from. 

So from today, even I'm going to try and keep my eyes a bit more open, my brain a bit more troubled and my phone a bit more aside, to try and observe the surroundings around me, and so should you! Because you never know where, and what could help you score a win against Becker like Agassi, in life!