Marin tennis teacher marks 50 years of ‘effortless’ effects

Brent Zeller of San Rafael, who estimates he has taught for 30,000 hours, promotes a style of play focused on breathing and relaxation rather than competitiveness.

It all started in 1974 at the Williamsburg Inn in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Brent Zeller, then a junior at the nearby College of William and Mary and a member of its tennis team in his freshman year, went to the inn and taught his first tennis class.

It’s also the year when “The Inner Game of Tennis,” a book by Timothy Gallwey, came out.

Zeller, like many who read the Gallwey bestseller, spent the next 50 years developing his own “inner game” — not just about tennis, but also about life. About 39 of those years were in Marin.

“By working together instead of competing against each other, great things can happen,” Zeller said this week.

“If you can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, you can still learn to play tennis, but you’ve got to learn those physical fundamentals of tracking and moving and dancing,” he said. “Anybody can do it — if there’s no competition.”

Now 70, Zeller, a San Rafael resident, will return next month to where he started, at the Williamsburg Inn, to celebrate 50 years of teaching an estimated 30,000 hours of tennis classes.

At the inn, Zeller will play tennis, ride an e-bike and generally relax in a small cabin for a month. At the end of his retreat, eight of his current and former Marin students will join him for a four-day workshop guided by his philosophy of tennis education, which he calls “Effortless Tennis.”

“When I play with Brent’s ‘Effortless Tennis’ program, I always go home feeling confident, happy and good about myself,” said Peter Brown, a student of Zeller’s for the last year and a half. “Brent always offers all of the players good advice and lots of positive encouragement about their tennis playing.”

In 1985, a friend in the East Bay invited Zeller to visit him and attend a Grateful Dead concert at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. As Zeller was leaving to go back to the East Coast, the friend said, ‘If you ever want to move out here, let me know. You can stay with me until you find a place,'” Zeller recalled.

Whether it was the appeal of the Dead, or his friend’s invitation, or both, Zeller, who grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, packed up and moved to the Bay Area soon thereafter.

“I always said my tennis could take me anywhere,” Zeller said.

From the East Bay, Zeller migrated to Marin, where he was hired as the tennis pro at the former Baywood Canyon club in Fairfax. The first iteration of his program was called “Tennis for the Body, Mind and Spirit,” he said.

“I thought that was a classic Marin name,” Zeller said, noting that, at that time, he was inspired by another bestseller: the 1980 book by Dan Millman titled “Way of the Peaceful Warrior.”

Over time, Zeller changed the program name, deciding to go with what he had been thinking about since 1974: “Effortless Tennis.”

“The most eye-opening element that I’ve observed in students from my 50 years and 30,000-plus hours of teaching, is that when they first join the program, everyone is way too tense and uptight to perform anywhere close to their potential,” Zeller said. “This is the direct result of the competitive learning system that throws people into competition unprepared.”

“Effortless Tennis” is a method devoid of competition, where relaxation, joy, collaboration and being “in the zone” are the goal — not winning a point or a game or a match. Students are taught to de-stress first, and then learn how to concentrate, Zeller said.

“The trick is to gradually develop the skill of being ultimately relaxed, while maintaining a relaxed, yet laser-like, focus on the ball,” Zeller said. “This is obviously a long-term skill development.”

At the same time, students build muscle memory on how it feels to do a forehand or backhand with ease, grace and even pleasure — without worrying whether it will be a “kill shot” against an opponent.

“I have to say Brent’s ‘no competition, focus on the joy and avoid bad habits’ has completely changed my life,” said Susan Clancy, a former competitive tennis player. “I am not exaggerating.”

In the early 2000s, Zeller put his philosophies into a book titled “Evolutionary Education — Beyond Competition.”

“‘Evolutionary Education’ shows how a non-competitive learning system can transform education and the society as a whole by teaching people to see people as partners in the learning process instead of competitors or adversaries and obstacles to our goals,” he said.

Zeller teaches seven group classes a week under the title “The Joy of Tennis” at College of Marin in Kentfield and at McInnis Park in San Rafael. He also teaches at the student recreation program at Dominican University of California in San Rafael.

Linda Zipperstein, a competitive tennis player since she was a child, had to stop playing at 44 when she suffered a groin tear while hiking on Ring Mountain. She was in pain and unable to do anything physically active for 24 years, she said.

About two years ago, finding herself slipping into depression, Zipperstein said, she enrolled in Zeller’s class at College of Marin “to prove that I could never play again.” Except that Zeller had other ideas.

Zipperstein said Zeller urged her to “stop muscling the ball” and learn to play without stress. It worked.

“Now, thanks to his brilliant understanding of how to enjoy the game of tennis without tensing and muscling the ball, when I hit it correctly, I feel no pain in the body,” said Zipperstein.

“When we hit a ball exactly as he coaches, there is no pain,” she said. “And for me, it still feels miraculous.”

Zeller said the release of pain is due to the omission of stress and anxiety caused by competition.

“Once competition begins, the ego and self-esteem are on the line because we are told that we have to be the winner,” he said. “This tension gets ingrained and exacerbated over 10, 20 or 30 years, seriously inhibiting relaxation, concentration, performance, self-esteem and enjoyment.”

The “Effortless Tennis” model can be life-changing, Zeller said.

“Over several generations with this model as the main educational paradigm, I believe we can bring about major positive change, here and on the planet,” he said.

Allison Loeb, who has been taking Zeller’s classes for five years, agrees.

“This was by far my favorite tennis experience in Marin and I tried many of them,” Loeb said. “Playing with a spirit of cooperation instead of competition is not only more enjoyable, it really improved my tennis strokes.”

The “effortless” part comes through breathing and happiness, she said.

“Brent encourages you to hit every ball with joy and to focus on a sustained rally rather than ‘crushing your opponent,'” she said. “He reminds us to breathe into each shot, and through this focused repetition you develop cellular memory and your shots become easier and more consistent.”

The relaxation enhances the social aspect as well, Loeb said.

“It is so fun to play with like-minded tennis lovers,” she said. “We are there to not only improve our game, but to encourage and support each other.”