Getting a Grip Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  Chapter 1 - Blasting Through the Comfort Zone

  Chapter 2 - Girls Don’t Play Tennis

  Chapter 3 - The Land of Plenty

  Chapter 4 - Academy 101

  Chapter 5 - She’s Not All That

  Chapter 6 - Back to Basics

  Chapter 7 - The Training Wheels of Professional Tennis

  Chapter 8 - The Big Time

  Chapter 9 - The Grand Dame of Grand Slams

  Chapter 10 - Hitting My Stride

  Chapter 11 - Reaching the Top

  Chapter 12 - Ego Check

  Chapter 13 - In the Zone

  Chapter 14 - Derailed

  Chapter 15 - Another Hit

  Chapter 16 - Keep Running

  Chapter 17 - Happy?

  Chapter 18 - Baby Steps

  Chapter 19 - A Resolution

  Chapter 20 - A Phone Call

  Chapter 21 - On My Own

  Chapter 22 - C’est la vie

  Chapter 23 - The Search Continues

  Chapter 24 - The Virtues of the Peanut

  Chapter 25 - A Hag with a Frying Pan

  Chapter 26 - A Girl’s Best Friend

  Chapter 27 - The A - Team

  Chapter 28 - Roman Holiday

  Chapter 29 - The Wolf’s Mouth

  Chapter 30 - Gladiator

  Chapter 31 - Gold Isn’t Everything

  Chapter 32 - Injustice Served

  Chapter 33 - A Chemical Army

  Chapter 34 - Back in the Saddle

  Chapter 35 - Diet Secrets of the Sumo Wrestler

  Chapter 36 - Call Me Ox

  Chapter 37 - A Pumpkin by Midnight

  Chapter 38 - Live to Work or Work to Live?

  Chapter 39 - A Well-Timed Rain Delay

  Chapter 40 - A Passing of the Grunting Torch

  Chapter 41 - Where Is the Panic Button?

  Chapter 42 - Worth a Thousand Words

  Chapter 43 - The Little Black Dress

  Chapter 44 - Just Jump

  Chapter 45 - A Certain Je ne sais quoi

  Chapter 46 - Embrace the Fear

  Chapter 47 - Life 101

  Chapter 48 - Home

  Index

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada),

  90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green,

  Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road,

  Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books

  India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ),

  67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2009 by Monica Seles

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned,

  or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do

  not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation

  of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Most Avery books are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchase for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, and educational needs. Special books or book excerpts also can be created to fit specific needs. For details, write Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Special Markets, 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Seles, Monica, date.

  Getting a grip : on my body, my mind, my self / Monica Seles.

  p. cm.

  Includes index.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-03264-0

  1. Seles, Monica, date. 2. Women tennis players—Yugoslavia—Biography. I. Title.

  GV994.S45S

  796.342092—dc22

  [B]

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the

  time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for

  changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does

  not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For those who aren’t willing to settle for a life

  less than they are capable of living.

  Acknowledgments

  Many, many thanks to John Steele and Dana Beck, for seeing this book through from an idea bouncing around in my head to the bound version; to Megan New-man, for her keen eye and endless enthusiasm; and to Miriam Rich and the rest of the crew at Avery—you are a team I am proud to be a part of.

  To the great tennis fans who have stood by me through thick and thin and who never stopped cheering. Thank you for inspiring me to reach heights I never thought possible, both on and off the court.

  And heartfelt gratitude to the women who have shared their own weight-loss stories with me. Your honesty and determination continue to motivate me every single day.

  Introduction

  Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I wish I’d paid better attention to those words. When I was nineteen years old, my life was turned upside down and for the next ten years I was caught in the grip of that kind of madness. Bouncing back and forth between the two extremes of excess and deprivation, I was searching for the key to getting my old life back. But I was in a no-man’s-land of severe imbalance, and by living in an all-or-nothing prison, I wasn’t really living at all. The harder I tried to be the old me, the farther away from her I found myself. I searched for answers in the same places and I put myself through agonizing patterns of behavior in a futile attempt to reclaim who and what I once was. I knew I was a tennis player, I knew I used to dominate that sport, and I knew I used to be a happy person, but for ten years those identities eluded me.

  Before my reality was ripped away in 1993, I’d been on top of the world, ranked number one in professional women’s tennis. My whole life was in front of me. A dream future was mine for the taking. I was jet-setting around the world, signing autographs for fans, meeting fascinating people, eating in the best restaurants, staying in the swankiest hotels, and earning a phenomenal living by playing a game I loved with all of my heart. Life couldn’t have been any better. And then in an instant it was all taken away. A deranged knife-wielding fan stabbed me in the back during a match and my life changed forever. Although the physical scars healed, the emotional damage cut much deeper and I was plunged into a fog of darkness and depression that I couldn’t see my way out of. I retreated into my own head and numbed myself with self-sabotaging behavior. Food became my comfort and my poison. The rational side of my mind knew what I had to do to reclaim my life but the emotional side wouldn’t allow it. I felt paralyzed. Taking any sort of positive action seemed like an impossible feat, so I remained stuck in the same place for a decade, spinning like a neurotic hamster on the wheel of quick fixes and extreme diets and devastated that I couldn’t be
the person I wanted to be. I plunged myself head-first into Einstein’s definition of insanity, and it took a long time to get back out.

  During those years, January 1 was a magical date for me. A day that shone a little brighter than all the others. A fresh start. Another opportunity to get myself together, to be the person I wanted to be. To be better and happier. Every New Year’s morning I’d wake up with a buzzing in my body and mind as I once again convinced myself that this time it would be different. This time it would be my year. This time I was going to turn my life around. This time I’d be the person I longed to be. What resolution did I make over and over again? To win another Grand Slam? To reclaim my position at the top of the tennis world? To work on my conditioning and strength? To get a mental edge on the game? No. My insanity was firmly entrenched in one goal: to be thin. I was 100 percent convinced that it was the key to solving all of my problems. If I could just be thin, then everything would be okay. It became an obsession. The first few days of every year were recorded in detail in my food journal:

  January 1, 1999

  A Binding, Unbreakable, Must-Do Resolution: Lose Thirty Pounds. This number is NON-NEGOTIABLE. So far, off to a good start:

  Ran on the treadmill at 7.0 mph pace for an hour and did three hundred sit-ups before a two-hour hitting session. Ate one piece of wheat toast (dry) and water with lemon for breakfast.

  One apple and one-half baked potato (dry) for lunch. Will have one piece of grilled chicken breast and small salad with no dressing for dinner. I will lose thirty pounds in six weeks.

  I will do it.

  The first page of every journal from every year was almost identical. Blinded with the optimism that putting a new calendar on the wall brings, I was always on my best eating and exercising behavior for the first few days. But then something would happen to stress me out, and in the time it took to open a bag of potato chips, I was thrown right back into crazy thinking. It was the same every year: not one word of tournament goals, learning a new life skill, or trying to quiet my mind. Just get skinny. I know what you’re thinking: Weren’t you an athlete? Weren’t you working out every day? Didn’t you have the best trainers and nutritionists? Yes, on all counts. But I was still fat and I became an expert in hiding my body under layers of clothing. It’s amazing how the benefits of a six-hour workout can be destroyed during a twenty-minute eating binge. And I became very good at lying to my nutritionists and coaches about my workouts and eating habits. I couldn’t be left alone for a minute. I couldn’t trust myself enough to be by myself. The pounds piled on until I’d gone up four sizes and forty pounds. The bigger I got, the smaller I felt as a person. But I didn’t know how to stop the madness. I didn’t know how to break out of the steel box I felt trapped in. I tried every diet, every workout regimen, and consulted every top fitness expert, but nothing changed and I was convinced I was destined to be an unhappy person in a body that didn’t feel like my own.

  Then something happened. I took a break from tennis and took a huge leap of faith. I got rid of all of the experts and advice givers, stopped counting calories, threw out my long-standing rigidly adhered to schedule, and began to spend time alone. I stopped looking for answers on the outside and started listening to the quiet voice inside of me. A fundamental shift in my mind was taking place, and suddenly I knew that the problem wasn’t what I was eating, it was what was eating me. In the blur of the nonstop tennis tour, I’d never had enough time or enough quiet to be alone, to listen to myself. It was like getting to know someone I’d seen around but never really let into my life. And, to my surprise, I liked her. I began to take baby steps out of my comfort zone and started to do things I never would have considered before. The more I lived little snippets of real life, the more I wanted to keep doing it. As my days filled up with quality, my stomach stopped feeling empty. Somewhere along the way my body and my mind formed a truce. Once I stopped looking for the elusive one-and-only answer to my problems, my life finally began to fall into place.

  I know what it feels like to be depressed and frustrated. I know what it feels like to stay fully clothed on a hot day at the beach. I know what it feels like to be miserable in your own skin. I know what it feels like to raid the kitchen cupboards late at night and to wake up filled with angry regret the next morning. I know what it feels like to think you just can’t catch a break, that an ominous cloud is following your every move. I know what it feels like to want to give up. I have something to tell you: It doesn’t have to be that way. You can change your life if you want to.

  This is the story of my road toward happiness. It has been a long, twisting, exhilarating, and sometimes backtracking journey, but it’s all been worth it. I’m finally in the place I wanted to reach for all those years.

  1

  Blasting Through the Comfort Zone

  For twenty-eight years, I was known as a tennis player. It had been a long time since I played a professional match, but the thought of giving up the security of that label had terrified me. Tennis player. A short, easy description that everyone is familiar with. It’s who I was to the outside world and it’s what I’d been calling myself for as long as I could remember. But it was time to move forward. I was ready to leave the past behind.

  On February 14, 2008, I announced my official retirement from tennis. I’d been playing in exhibitions here and there, but I was tired of waking up every morning wondering if today was the day my foot was going to self-destruct again. When it felt good, I could play the way I had when I was at the top of my game, but when it felt bad, I couldn’t walk on it. I spent years debating back and forth in my head whether I had it in me to make another run for the top. I didn’t want to do it anymore. I was tired of the debate. I waited so long to make it official because I wanted to be absolutely sure it was the right decision. I wanted it to be on my timetable and I wanted to claim complete ownership over the choice to close that chapter of my life. All the what-ifs about whether I could regain my former glory and win another Grand Slam began to fade away. My life was filling up with things other than tennis; I was feeling more content than ever before and the fear had left me. It took a long time to get to this point, but I knew that I didn’t need tennis to define who I was anymore.

  At the time of the announcement, I didn’t think twice about the date. It just happened to be when my agent, Tony Godsick, released the statement. But it’s funny that on a day reserved for lovers, I declared my relationship with professional tennis to be over.

  Somebody once told me that tennis is your husband, your boyfriend, your fiancé, and your best friend all rolled into one. It takes up every second of your time, every ounce of your energy, and every thought in your head. It had also been my adolescence, my education, my entry into adult-hood, and my ticket to see the world. It had been my entire life and had tested me on every possible level. Somehow I’d come out the other side in one piece. Even better than one piece: I’d come out whole and healthy and strong. While staying out of the public eye, I’d been able to rebuild and fortify my core and I decided to put it to the ultimate test: ballroom dancing in front of millions of people. If I was going to test my newfound inner strength, what better way to do it than by risking total and complete public humiliation on reality television? Dancing with the Stars was my mom’s favorite program, so when the opportunity arose to be on it, I gave it some serious thought. I had several strikes against me: two left feet, the inability to wear heels, stage fright, and absolutely zero dance experience. My mission to embrace my fears would be taken to a whole other level. My friends thought I was crazy when I decided to do it: “Monica, you know that you have to actually dance on that show, right?” they asked. “Are you sure you want to do it?” No, I wasn’t completely sure, but what did I have to lose? I gave my new favorite answer to every opportunity that life threw my way: “Why not?”

  I was paired with Jonathan Roberts, a show veteran who looked as dashing in person as he did when he partnered Marie Osmond, Heather Mills, and Rachel Hunter o
n television. One of the most patient people I’ve ever met, Jonathan wasn’t fazed by my hips’ complete inability to shake. Over and over he painstakingly went through the steps for our first two dances together, the fox-trot and the mambo. I had some prior work obligations, so we couldn’t hunker down in the L.A.-based dance studios like the other contestants. Jonathan gamely met up with me all over the place: we practiced in any empty rooms we could find in Tokyo, Florida, and New York, eight hours a day for four weeks. With one week to go before the show, we headed to L.A., where the filming took place, for last-minute dance step cramming. My inner perfectionist kicked in when, with five days to go, I scheduled our dance sessions for seven in the morning.

  “Seven?” Jonathan asked in disbelief. “I’m not even awake until nine.”

  “But I don’t know the steps yet!” I was starting to panic. We’d just shared practice time with Christian de la Fuente and Cheryl Burke and they looked unbelievable gliding across the floor. I knew I was in trouble, and Jonathan—who had seen some of the other practices—wasn’t pulling any punches. “Monica, I’m going to be honest. We’ve got an uphill battle.” The whole I’m doing the show for fun mantra was being replaced with I’m terrified of making a fool out of myself.

  “Okay, how about we compromise and make it eight o’clock?” he offered.

  “All right, but not a minute after.” I was having flashbacks to being thirteen years old and, having just moved to Florida from the former Yugoslavia, showing up at the Academy’s courts at 6:40 a.m. for a 7:00 a.m. session. I was so used to the tiny windows of time that were given to me on the adult courts in my hometown of Novi Sad that I didn’t want to waste a second. By the time a coach arrived, I’d already be warmed up and ready to launch straight into hitting. I’d mellowed a lot since then, but that Type A, gotta-get-it-right girl was still lurking inside me. We practiced our routines a hundred times and I videotaped Jonathan executing the more intricate footwork that I couldn’t get down during our rehearsals. At night I’d go to my hotel room and watch the footage over and over again, pausing it to practice in front of the mirror. I was relieved that the first episode of the show would feature the guys. All I’d have to do was sit in the front row and smile. But I became even more panicked when I saw how good they looked. They looked like naturals. Even the guys who weren’t as coordinated could pull off a decent performance by standing in one place while their professional pixie partners twirled and sashayed all around them.