To Hum is Human

Overcoming Doubt: Trusting Yourself in Times of Uncertainty

• Donnabelle Casis • Season 1 • Episode 1

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In this debut episode of To Hum is Human, I talk with legendary tennis player and coach Judy Dixon about overcoming doubt, trusting intuition, and staying grounded in high-pressure moments—on and off the court.

From Wimbledon to Title IX, Judy shares powerful insights on resilience, self-belief, and listening to your inner voice at any age.


Find me on Instagram @ToHumisHuman and www.sonorouslight.com

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello, friends. Welcome to the very first official episode of To Hum is Human, the podcast where we explore the transformative power of tuning into our intuition to express our passionate purpose. I'm your host, Donna Bell, and I'm so thankful you are taking the time to listen. In this episode, we will explore overcoming doubt, trusting yourself in times of uncertainty. My guest today will show us that when we tune in and trust our instincts and inner wisdom, we can be unstoppable. I'm so excited about what wisdom we can unlock. Judy Dixon is an American tennis player and a former collegiate tennis coach. As a teen, she was a doubles partner with Billie Jean King. On the pro circuit, she played at Wimbledon and the US Open. Judy has also worked as a journalist at NBC, PBS, and ABC, and she was the first woman to do professional sports color commentary, specifically for the Boston Lobsters of World Team Tennis. And not only that, Judy was the first woman nominated for an Emmy Award in sports broadcasting. Judy's in her 70s, yet she continues to play nationally and internationally. In fact, she just returned from a tournament in Alabama and will be off to another tournament in Wisconsin in May. So please welcome Judy. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Now, you are such an inspiration for me, Judy. I've wanted to have this conversation with you for a while now. And truth be told, our connection is through tennis. You were my tennis coach for a period of time when I was playing competitively as a USTA player. But during that time, I felt that what you were teaching wasn't just about tennis, but more about life in general. And what's fascinating is you're in your 70s and you're still competing at a high level. What drew you to this incredible sport?

SPEAKER_01:

I think that I got into the sport as a mistake. And it was probably the greatest mistake I ever made. I grew up in a family where my father would be working. My mother wasn't working. She would go to the beach in the summer and sit on the beach and knit. And I had a younger sister that would go with her and my older sister, seven years older. would go and take group tennis lessons. And I was at the time nine and a half, I believe. And my sister, my older sister couldn't stand tennis. So she said to me, if you go and take my place at these clinics, I will give you a quarter. So the entire summer I went, I took these clinics. I had no idea. I used her tennis racket. At the end of the summer, the coach, the pro at that club said to my parents, Judy has some talent. And my parents said, no, you're teaching Pam. And he said, believe me, I am not. And so that's how it began. And my older sister always said, you know, that she deserves credit. all the credit in the world, plus the money back, right? Plus money back. And so that's how I got into it. But from the first time I hit a tennis ball, it was life-changing for me. Life-changing in a way that when I was quite young, I was quite good. Meaning when I was 11 years old, I was number three in the country. Oh my gosh. And you learn. And again, I was considered to be special, special, special until I started to lose. And then there were years where I was losing a lot and I had to go through all that that meant. And in an individual sport, as opposed to a team sport, learning about losing at age 13, 14, 15 by yourself, it's a big lesson to learn. And how do you come back from that? How do you have grit and resilience at a very early age? early age when in fact you haven't had enough life lessons to have that, right? So then you go through all of the, I would say, depressed time that you do as a teenager and then you come out the other end or you don't. And I did come out the other end. I've never stopped playing tennis. I will watch anybody play. There's something about when I walk on the tennis court, there is something for me that is transforming. I feel like no matter what is going on in the world, the minute my foot is on the tennis court, I feel like I'm safe and at home.

SPEAKER_00:

That's such a profound feeling. And to know that about yourself and about playing this game, essentially, is sort of a way of being in this space. Now, I'm curious, do you think that failure plays a role in in strengthening a player's ability to trust themselves in the future? Can it be a teacher, a valuable teacher failure?

SPEAKER_01:

I think completely. I'll give you two examples. One is I have a grandson now who's 16. He's six foot three. He's a basketball player and he's injured. And he just, my son just wrote me a note saying, can you send a text to Devin? Devin is my grandson. Can you send a text to him because he's very down because he's injured? And I sent him a text about resilience and grit. And I said, a lack of resilience can lead to depression. But if you look at being pushed down or having things happen that are out of your control as a way to learn, then what you'll do is you'll develop grit. And I think that grit is one of the things that determines athletes' ability to perform. In the locker room at UMass, when I was coaching there, the women's team said, The biggest poster that I had up was the word grit and the definition of such underneath. And in my sport, because matches are played day one and then day two and then back to back, you know, day three, day four, day five. And you see that on the pro tour that there isn't time. There isn't time for reflection for the good and there isn't time much for the wallowing in the bad. You sort of get on with it. But grit, I think, gives you the bricks and the mortar that starts to build you up. And without that, and without the losses that come from that, you can't have that toughness. And I think that we make a big mistake, and I would say in this area, in the Valley, where we say everybody wins. Everybody wins, right? So if you're playing basketball, we give everybody five and a half minutes, whether they're the best ones or the not best ones. I think that it's really important to learn about winning and learn about losing. and learning about growing from both of those.

SPEAKER_00:

Adversity, essentially.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. Adversity makes you stronger. I mean, there is no doubt.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, in any competitive sport, there's always the doubt, can I win? And then the doubt of, am I good enough? Yes. Do you think that self-compassion plays a role in overcoming doubt?

SPEAKER_01:

I think that overcoming doubt comes about Because you've done the work, you've done the sort of fundamental work, right? So in order to be good at something, you have to learn the fundamentals. You have to develop a foundation. And once you do that, you expand on those, you refine those, and you refine those in a way that suits your personality. right? So your style on the tennis court, once you've learned your fundamentals and your foundation, what you're going to do to expand that for you is going to be different than what I would do for me, because I have a different personality. I might have a different style and all that kind of stuff. But then I think that the compassion is to understand that you've done the work. There is this thing about If you want to be decent, then you do X. If you want to be good, you do Y. If you want to be great, you do Z, right? And if you have what it takes to be the best, then you optimize your potential. And I think that some of this is physical and a lot of it and most of it is spiritual slash mental. And that is the way with pro tennis. And that is also the way with club tennis. And some of it is to embrace your weaknesses and learn from those and also embrace your strengths. So both of those. But I'm a big person that believes in...

SPEAKER_02:

I believe that in

SPEAKER_01:

adversity, if you have the ability to... Clear your mind to breathe, to understand that you've done the work. Then you open yourself up to the possibility of intuition coming in. And I think understanding that, I mean, we don't understand what intuition is. I don't think we understand that. But certainly to have the sense to embrace that intuition will take over when all the other things, you know, you cannot on the tennis court overthink. Right. I mean, if you overthink intellectually, you will not be able to do anything with your body. So you have to get out of your own way. And that's where I think the intuition comes in. And that's important, I think.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, how would you define intuition? intuition? Because, you know, speak about intuition. I know this just from getting lessons from you and the ability to sort of read your opponent as you're playing. Can you speak about that, please?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I think intuition is the bridge between the conscious and the unconscious mind, right? And it is sort of trusting your inner compass and trusting Trusting that you, I mean, you can't avoid being uncomfortable on the tennis court or any other sport kind of thing. You can't afford being there. If you understand that discomfort is part of the sport, right? It's part of the sport. And then you become sort of at peace with the discomfort,

SPEAKER_02:

right?

SPEAKER_01:

That's fine. And then you have a perception that if I can focus and I'm sort of, keen on this, you know, that if you can not have too much in your head, but if you can sort of channel your focus and keep it very simple, then you allow for the other spaces to be filled with intuition, I think. What happens to athletes at all levels is there's too many thoughts in the head, right? It's very jumbled and And there's too many things I could do. I could do this shot, or I could do that shot, or that person is doing this, or the wind is bothering me. All this, too many thoughts, and then you can't do anything. So it is a matter of clearing out. And it's not a matter of those kinds of things don't go through my head. They do go through my head, but I can whittle them down to a very small focus, probably faster than other people could who are still way out here when the point starts.

SPEAKER_02:

And

SPEAKER_01:

for me, when the point starts, I'm now in here, which leaves the space, right? And I know that this is true because there are times when I'm playing tennis where I am... I know it's not just me hitting the ball. I know that. And those days, I can't bring them back when I want. They just either are or they aren't, right? But they certainly have been there. It's a matter of, I think, being... Again, we go back to this word, mentally resilient. But mental resilience means that you're allowing the intuition to come in and to trust the intuition, right? I mean, too much thinking and tennis makes your body, it has a physical outcome. So your body gets tense and tight, which is the opposite of what you need at that moment. Your breathing gets different and your thinking gets jumbled. Period. End of match.

SPEAKER_00:

That's it. Before you even start hitting the ball like that, essentially. So, you know, tennis is so full. of unpredictable moments. You have no idea. You may have done the report on the player you're playing against, but you have no idea what's going to happen in the match. And so how do you remain calm and composed when the outcome is so uncertain? Like, do you have particular strategies to help you with this mental resilience, just practically?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. So for me, The things that I do when I'm very nervous. First of all, I remind myself that I like pressure. All right. I say to myself, you know, there's this whole thing about Billie Jean King saying pressure is a privilege, right? Yes. And that there is a sign as you enter the center court at the U.S. Open. This is pressure is a privilege. Then there is a sign at Wimbledon. There is a poem by Rudyard Kipling. And it's called If. And the If poem has a line in it that says, if you can treat triumph and disaster both the same. And that's really right, which is you win X, you lose X, right? So it's not, you're not up, down, up, up, down, up, down. And it's all really those two things in those two big tournaments are basically the same kind of thing. So for me, understand that I love to compete. If I didn't love to compete and I'm 75 years old, I wouldn't be playing tournaments. I just would be playing locally because I love it so much, but I love to compete. So I love to test my person hood and my game against other people. Okay. So when things are tough, first of all, I say, enjoy the battle. Enjoy it because that's why you're here. Okay. You've trained yourself. to be ready. And again, I like to do this. So if things are bad, I slow down. I make sure I'm breathing. I go back to the fence. I do play with more intention rather than less. I keep what's important in my mind and what's not important out there. So instead of thinking that, oh, there's my friend Jill over there, or it's at a windy day and i hate wind or whatever could be going through my mind at the time i keep myself very focused and the focus is on a simple strategy i'm going what i can control what i can control is my thought process is very focused my my preparation as i come ready to hit the ball is slow i trust my body um and I trust my breath. And then the other thing I trust is my movement, my movement on the court, because those are the things I can only control what I can't control. And in tennis, I can't make my opponent play a certain way or anything, but there also is for me in a pressure situation, I want to be the person who makes the first move. And so I, I want to be I want to be ahead of what I always say to myself is try to stay ahead of the point rather than behind the point. So it's like being ahead of pain, like you take your pain medication so that you're ahead of the pain. You don't wait until you're in pain and then take the pain medication after. So in the tennis court, I want to be the person in control of the point, whether I miss or whether I don't miss. I'd rather be doing something to someone as opposed to being done And that's just my style.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, and, you know, you've known this about yourself throughout your whole career. This is obviously one of your strengths. And when you think about coaching players, especially club players, I think, you know, in the collegiate realm, they're definitely more programmed to be more assertive and aggressive. But sort of when you're coaching players who aren't quite at that level, but still very good, how do you... guide them to sort of trust and know when they should act sort of more assertively or maybe take a less riskier approach during a match?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think as a coach and as a teacher, First of all, you have to understand the student. Each one is different, right? Each person I teach has a different set of skills, has a different personality, has a different desire. So there is not one way. I don't teach everybody the same way. So my first job is to understand the person, understand what they come to me with, what they come to me with, what desire they have, okay? And then I try to work with that. And in understanding, in teaching, I get a chance to get, maybe after the second hour, I understand who they are. I can sort of get it after a while. Women are different than men when I'm teaching. Women really need support, confidence, less from the head because they're all jumbled anyway, much more in... So there is a term in psychology and they talk about this years ago, something called don't push the river. And that's the term about not adding too much, not pushing too much, not taking, giving someone more than they can handle and which gets them all confused and everything. And so I try to teach that way at this kind of level where I'm giving them always, always, always, I'm trying to give them the support that they need in order to grow. With men, you could be much more assertive, much pushier, much more directive. Because I coached two teams at UMass at one point. And so for the men, it was, you're going to do this because you're going to do this because you're going to do this. And with women, it's, let's see how we as a team can get the best out of you. And so very, very different ways, I think. But But the women, you know, working with women is much more relational, I think. And women learn better when they are relaxed, confident, and open to learning because they're happier. Right? I mean, those are the things that I have to supply for them to allow them to

SPEAKER_00:

almost get out of their own way.

SPEAKER_02:

Mm-hmm. Well,

SPEAKER_00:

I know that that's what makes you such an effective coach because you really do see each individual player. I've seen many coaches out there sort of subscribe this one size fits all approach. If you just do this and it's all about mechanics, right? But they really don't think about the person who's actually there in front of them. And that's why I was really struck by your coaching. And in tennis, there are many rules and strategies that are employed differently. during a match and in these high pressure moments as you stated sometimes as you're playing these sort of rules and strategies just take over the options are limitless in your head so how do you even get your player to just say yes what's the balance between sort of that logic or analysis and then actually the approach you're supposed to be using as a player

SPEAKER_01:

Well, first of all, I think that every person at that level, at the kind of club level or USTA level, if I gave you a piece of paper, if I just gave you a piece of paper and I said, Donna Bell, write on one side your strengths and write down your weaknesses, which side would be longer?

SPEAKER_00:

The weaknesses, no doubt. For

SPEAKER_01:

everybody, right? For every single woman that I teach, the weakness page half is... So long we need another page. And the strengths are, let me think, one or two or three. That's it. Now, my job then is just to make sure that that strength side grows. And the weakness side gets pushed up. So the weakness side, that's the lessons, the lessons of technique, skill, that kind of thing. Those are where lessons come into being. So I make sure that they can serve or they can hit a forehand or a volley in a kind of technique kind of way. And then the other side. is about let's trust a strategy that we can put together that in a time of pressure or in an adverse time, you feel comfortable using because the right side has been taken care of by the technique skills. You can do that. So as far as a skill goes, you can hit eight forehands if you have the skill of it. Now let's put together a strategy that when you're playing a match, you get to use your strengths. But if you only think you have three strengths, that match is going to be over really quickly, right? Really quickly, because my serve's not working today. Now I'm down to two strengths. But if you have a list of, I have a good second serve, I move well, I know how to place the ball where I want it, I'm steady, you know, I can slice, I can whatever. Now the strategy becomes more interesting, right? And I also have more, I have more passion to play. I have more space in my head for the intuition to come in. And now I don't have to think about anything because all I think about is my strategy. And my strategy incorporates my strengths. And my strengths are in my head that I own them. I don't think about them. Like when I play tennis, I don't think that I'm never going to miss a forehand. I don't think about missing. I think about I'm going to hit the forehand there or the forehand there. because I have trust for that. And the trust comes from the confidence and the confidence comes from having done well enough to develop the bricks and everything. But yeah, I mean, again, it has to do with building, building blocks, right? Building, building, building. So if you're always losing or if you're always not knowing, not being able to trust, your technique or whatever, and then you can't allow space in your head for your intuition, then you're going to be a jumble and you can't do it.

SPEAKER_00:

And your opponent will see that. If they're a good player, they'll read that about you before you even start playing and play to that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. In the warm-up, that's where you see, right? I mean... And the funny thing is that when people at this level are playing, there would be many times where you won't notice until 45 minutes into the match, oh, the person's left-handed. I've done that myself. Guilty. And why is that? Because you're not looking out. You're so focused on what's going on in your head, which is, you know, filled with too much, too much, too much, that you can't notice that the person is lefty. Right. I mean, that's the kind. And that's you're not the only one. I mean, that's what happens all the time. Oh, I didn't know. I'm like, how could you not know the minute the person walks on the court? She's got the racket in her left hand because I didn't look. Right. I didn't look because I was I was so here. Right. That's too much. So and then there's no, you know, really what you're hoping for in all tennis matches is heightened flow. And if you've ever had that. That's what you want to recreate, heightened flow. But flow does not happen when the world is a jumble, as we know now with what's going on in the world. Right? Yes. So, I mean, yeah. So, you know, I mean, the way it's going now is our president is throwing a million things against the wall and we're stuck in which one do we focus on and we don't know where to go and all this kind of stuff. And so you just, you get, what does it do to you? It shuts you down. And you feel ineffective. You feel powerless. That happens in sport. But you do in sport, unlike in politics, in sport, you can work to get rid of that. You can work to calm the noise. You can work to avoid the discomfort. You can work to put yourself in a place where you can float.

SPEAKER_00:

and function even. Like sometimes it's so paralyzing when you realize all that's going on in the world and sort of how do you go back to, well, this is what I can control.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

visualization or kind of a rehearsal before you play to sort of say, I am going to hit it there and then I'm going to hit it there.

SPEAKER_01:

So before I serve, when I'm about ready to serve, I'm looking where I'm going to go. So when I'm going to serve and start at the point, that's what I do. Or if I'm going to receive serve, that's what I do. I visualize where the ball is going to go, whether it comes to my forehand or my backhand, I'm visualizing. After that, I can't because I don't have that time and I can't control the next ball that's coming to me. When I'm at a tournament, however, and I look at the draw and everything, I don't spend a lot of time, but I can visualize the matches of people that are in front of me because mostly I know who they are. I do visualize playing them. I don't think about playing them. I visualize playing them because in a lot of cases, I have played them before and I know how the matches flow. I know how they flow. And I'm lucky enough to win a lot of those. And so I have to remember what that, I don't remember what it felt like. I remember what it looked like, what it looked like. So I remember it in the head of that was me hitting the ball. That was her hitting the ball. And that's how it ended up well. So visualization is really important. And I will also say that Years ago, years and years ago, Billie Jean once said to me, she had a double knee replacement surgery, two knees at one time.

SPEAKER_00:

My goodness.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, it was pretty hard. And she took the time to heal and she would sit on her bed every day for 45 minutes with a tennis ball, a tennis ball in front of her on the bed and just look at the tennis ball. And she said, I realized how little when I play, I actually look at the tennis ball. She said, I really looked at it. What did the seams look like? What does the felt look like? I turned it and I felt it. And she said it was amazing to me. And that's also a big deal.

SPEAKER_00:

That's such a curious thing to do, but it makes so much sense because you're right. At the moment, although when you say when you're really in the flow, the ball is as big as a tennis ball. I mean, as big as a beach ball. Yeah. or baseball, because you can really see it and feel it and know how it's traveling. But for her to just sort of look at this stationary ball and take a moment with that, like, I feel like that's such a powerful thing to connect with just yourself and where you're at sort of, you know, during her healing process, but also where she was at in her career, in her life and where she was with her tennis. How, wow. Right. So we're going to hop on to a different scenario here, dealing with or speaking about overcoming doubt and times of uncertainty. You are known as a pioneer, Judy, in women's athletics. And not only for your skills, obviously, but also for being the first person to sue a major university for sex discrimination online. Under Title. And I'm curious, first of all, what led you to make this decision? Because this would, I imagine, bring up feelings of trepidation, maybe pressure or concern about your career at the time. Could you bring us back to that moment and sort of what was going through

SPEAKER_02:

your

SPEAKER_00:

mind?

SPEAKER_01:

First of all, I think you have to remember that I was fairly young. I was probably... mid-20s, maybe 26, something like that. I had been living in Los Angeles, graduated from the University of Southern California, and I got a phone call from the secretary to the president of Yale University. He called me, and he had known me since I was a little girl. I grew up on the East Coast. And he called me and said, would you like to come back and be the women's tennis coach here? And I had just played pro tennis for a year and I found it to be very lonely and I was never going to be good enough. I knew that. I had played Wimbledon and that was my goal and it was like, okay, I'm done. And so, but anyway, I never wanted to be a tennis coach. I said, no, thank you. Okay. He called me back a week later. He said, we only had women at Yale for, I don't know, it was three years or something like that. Two years. We are going to create a position for you, if you take it. It's called Coordinator of Women's Athletics. It's an administrative position. You will report to the Director of Athletics, and also you'll be the women's tennis coach. Okay, so for me, growing up on the East Coast, it was returning home. Yale, obviously, big deal position for someone who's young.

SPEAKER_03:

Sure.

SPEAKER_01:

And it was an administrative position. And so I thought, okay, now I would like to do that. So I went back. The first year I was there, I was, again, I had just come off the pro tour. So I just wasn't used to what I saw there, which was there were no varsity sports at Yale. I mean, it was ridiculous. I had to recruit for seven sports. They were sports. But I did the recruiting for lacrosse. I did the recruiting for field hockey. I mean, I don't know how to do that. I also was privy to the budgets. which were ridiculous for tennis. I mean, my salary was as the women's tennis coach was$10,000 less than the men's tennis coach. And I was also the coordinator of women's athletics and I was paid 10. Wow. There were four indoor courts. The women got one, the men got three. There were no athletic trainers for women. They had to, if men came into the athletic training room, they just cut in front of the women. So the women would invariably be late to practice because all the men would come in ahead of them and push them out of the way. Okay. I mean, the facilities were terrible. It was, it went on and on and on and on. And I, I thought, and I will tell you the story going back. When I was in LA, one time I was playing tennis at the LA tennis club. There are 24 courts there. I was playing on a certain court with a woman who had won Wimbledon, a woman who was number one in the United States, and my doubles partner. Four men, older men, walked out on the court that we were playing on, even though there were 23 open courts. They walked out to our court, and they said, we want this court. Wow. And we had to pack up and leave. Okay. And I never forgot that, not for me, but for this woman, Louise Brough, who was an ex-Wimbledon champion. I thought this is embarrassing and demeaning, et cetera. So then when I got to Yale and this kind of thing was going on, I thought I have a big fairness streak and I'm going to do something about it. So I contacted the EEOC who said, indeed, you have a case. I found a lawyer who would take this on a contingency because I had no money. I'm young and everything.

UNKNOWN:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

And they got involved and we sued Yale, okay? That's big. So I'm coming home from work one day and I pick up the New Haven Register, which is the local newspaper, and my picture is plastered on the front of the paper. The New York Times called me. ABC, Wide World of Sports called me. My parents stopped speaking to me for about a year. Because when you grow up like I did, you do not sue Yale University, right? I was taken to the local restaurant, Maury's Restaurant at Yale, which used to be men only. And by the man who hired me, he offered me$15,000 to go away. You're kidding. Yeah. Wow. And I said no, because I wasn't suing for myself. I mean, he didn't get it. I was suing for all of women's sports, right? All of women's sports. So. It was scary. I was scared. None of this was great. My parents are not speaking to me. It's all over the news. It's all over everything. Summer comes and I get a letter from Yale University saying, we've restructured, of course. We've restructured. Your position no longer is available. And now you're going to become assistant director of media relations. Now, I've never written a press release in my life. I don't know what I'm doing. We're going to change your office from over here to this big building in the gym to Ray Tompkins house, which is adjacent to the gym. And my office was in the coffee room with the coffee machine. So all of the coaches would come in and they're copying and every, you know, it was a madhouse. It was a teeny, it was like a closet. I mean, that's where my office was. And so I knew I had to leave, right? I mean, there was no chance I needed to stay at Yale. And Then I got another job. I got a job working for Colgate-Palmolive, a subsidiary of Colgate-Palmolive called Dancroft Sporting Goods. And when I left, I had, you know, again, Yale lawyers. I had to go get deposition after deposition after deposition. I lived in Rhode Island in Providence, and I had to keep going back to New Haven to the fancy... Yale law offices. But now I have a very thick thing like this, which is depositions, and it says Judy Dixon versus Yale University, and I have that to hold on to. Wow. My lawyer was doing the best he could, but who knows? And then a week before, so three years go by, and a week before we were supposed to go to court, Yale decided to settle. And in settling... they made me sign something that said I would not go to the press for five years. That's fine. That was fine. But the things that come out of it are that when I took the UMass team back and we played the Yale women's team, the Yale coach at the time years later said to the Yale women, because of you, because of you, because of her, we now have what we have, right? Which was quite amazing. And also if you, I mean, this was always amazing to me. If you Wikipedia my name, what comes up is Pioneer in Women's Sports, which I never thought I was a Pioneer in Women's Sports. What I thought I was, was a young woman hating the unfairness of it all, right? I mean, that was my big thing. And I think that when you When you create major change, you don't do it because you're creating major change. You do it because you know it's the right thing to do. And so that's sort of how that happened. And I'll tell you one other story, which is amazing. I was at Yale. They had four tennis courts. The women had one. The men had three. And one day I decided we were going to take two. We were just going to take two. So I said to the women, I'm going to be on the front court. I'm going to be feeding you. tennis balls. You're going to be hitting tennis balls. Something's going to happen. Don't move. Don't blink. Just keep doing what you're doing. So I'm hitting tennis balls. The male tennis coach sends over four men from the men's team and he tells them to serve. Now, if they serve, they're going to hit me in the head. They're going to hit me in the back and serve is going to be quite hard. And so I just stood there and I kept feeding and the women were like, you know, like taking a deep breath. I said, no, just keep hitting it. And then the Yale tennis coach yells, I said, serve to the men because they weren't, they were standing there. And the captain of the men's team said to him, we're absolutely not going to do that. And they walked off the court, right? Wow. Which was, thank goodness that happened, right? There I thought, oh, there is a male advocate that's coming through, right? So there was a lot of pressure on me But if you are, in my case, if you are knowing that, you know, I don't like it when people aren't treated fairly. I don't like it when women aren't treated fairly. I don't like it when animals are not treated fairly, but it's enough to make you stand up. And you don't, and again, I didn't stand up because I thought, oh, this is important. I stood up because I know it was the right thing to do.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I'm thankful, and I'm sure listeners who, especially women players, are thankful for the legacy that you really created. Like, it changed the game. So I will have to say, yes, you were a pioneer, whether you knew it or not at the time, but obviously you felt really compelled to act. And I'd have to say not everyone would have the same sort of stance and confidence enough to feel like they could do something about it. And, you know, what a powerful testament. to that that was in you at the time. And I can only imagine how vulnerable you felt sort of doing that because that's a bit, you know, it's like the giant and you won. Like that was amazing. That was, you know, words can't really describe it, but you've created a legacy. So thank you for that. Thank you for that. That's true inspiration. So As we wind down here, I just want to know, aside from wanting to win, aside from wanting to continue just to be physically active, what keeps you motivated in this day and age?

SPEAKER_01:

So I ask myself that every six months, because now that I'm older and my body is doing things that I'm not so pleased with, I have more injuries, et cetera. I also have an unbelievable connection to the other women that are playing. I play tennis because I love playing tennis. I compete because I love competing. If I started playing poorly, I would probably not compete anymore because I just wouldn't have that resilience that I would need to keep doing that. But what I'm driven to do is to keep the connection with people that live not only in the United States, but around the world. So when I'm pick to play world teams and I go to Croatia or I go to Turkey or I go to Mallorca, I see people that have been my friends for years from Spain or from Africa or whatever. I feel how unbelievable this sport is. Stepping back from competition would be a great loss at this point, a loss of connection.

SPEAKER_00:

And tennis is really a social sport. Like when you think about it, maybe not on the court. Yes. because you're not supposed to, it's a different connection on the court, but there is a sort of camaraderie. There is this support. There is this sort of bringing up other people as they're playing and celebrating their wins and being there for their losses. There's something about that that carries over into just your relationships in life. And there's something quite nourishing and powerful about those connections. So Judy, what's next for you? Is there anything exciting coming up on the horizon?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Well, okay. Besides, you know, Wisconsin is not too exciting. But in October, I will be captain of the Women's 75 team that will be playing in a place called Bol, B-O-L, Croatia. Wow. It's an island off the coast of Croatia. And the USTA sends... the top four women in the United States in my age group, of which I am. And so we'll go to Croatia for 10 days and play against other countries. We probably play against 15 other women's teams. And that's the next big thing for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That's such an honor and such a beautiful way to showcase your skills and working with people and also being a player. Because I've seen you, I've seen pictures of you, and I know how can people stay connected with what's going on with you? Because I know you have a blog and a website. You can go onto

SPEAKER_01:

Judy Dixon Tennis and you can see that I do a blog about the tournament. In fact, I'll do one this week about a tournament I just played and also I do every once in a while I'll also do an instructional piece which I'm happy to do and actually interestingly enough the person that does all this for me Ruth Critcher she's the person that suggests different things she'll say I think we need to talk about women poaching or women serving under stress or how to play mixed doubles, whatever. She sends this out and I go like, oh, I could write something about that. So it's not often that I come up with the ideas myself, but she does that. I do the blog because that's been my experience, but she does the, oh, let's do something on this. And I like doing that. I like it. So I think that that's That's how they can get in touch with me for sure.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I appreciate reading those. And I've sort of implemented some of those techniques as well when I do get a chance to play tennis. Your life, Judy, is such a testament on how to believe in yourself and your ability to maintain a centered approach. It's really helped you perform under pressure in uncertain conditions. But mostly it's your ability to play tennis at such a high level is incredible. been such a journey for you and for the players you interact with the community you interact with it's such an inspiring thing to watch and you've touched so many including myself thank you so I highly appreciate our conversation today and I know listeners will find so many wisdom nuggets as I say in our conversation so thank you again Judy for being on the podcast and I wish you well thank you on your upcoming tour and Yeah, and I'll see you at the courts. Yeah, definitely. Great. Take care. Thank you. Thanks so much for tuning in today. I'm so glad you spent this time with me. If something in this episode resonated, feel free to share it or pass it along to someone who might need that little spark. I'd also love to hear what came up for you. Send me a message or drop a comment on Instagram at ToHumIsHuman. Until next time, keep humming.