The Real Magic of Rituals

Tennis star Rafael Nadal performs an elaborate repertoire of rituals before and during every match. When he arrives at the stadium, he enters the court holding a racket in his hand, taking great care never to step on the lines and always crossing each line right-foot first. He places his bag on the bench and turns his tournament ID face up. His chair must be perfectly perpendicular to the sideline. He checks his socks to make sure they are perfectly even on his calves. During the coin toss he faces the net and starts jumping until the coin falls, then runs to the baseline, where he drags his foot across the entire line in a single sweeping motion before hitting each shoe with his racket.

When the game begins, Nadal starts performing repetitive hand gestures that resemble those of Catholics crossing themselves. With his right hand he touches the back and front of his shorts, then his left shoulder, then the right, then his nose, left ear, nose again, right ear and finally his right thigh. At each changeover he picks up two towels. He waits for the other player to cross the line, and then he crosses right-foot first to take his seat. He carefully folds one towel and puts it behind him without using it. Then he folds the second towel and places it on his lap. He takes one sip from a bottle of water, then another sip from a second bottle. Very carefully, he returns the two bottles to the exact same position, the labels facing the same way.

Nadal insists he is not superstitious. In his autobiography, he writes, “Some call it superstition, but it’s not. If it were superstition, why would I keep doing the same thing over and over whether I win or lose? It’s a way of placing myself in a match, ordering my surroundings to match the order I seek in my head.” Who could deny that Nadal’s rituals don’t help him manage his anxiety and find order on the court? He is one of the greatest tennis players of all time.

Over the decades, anthropological studies, including my own, have shown that ritual practices come naturally to us, regardless of our cultures, and further, we expect them to have an effect. But is ritual really an effective stress-management strategy? Or is it simply an illusion, a waste of time or, worse, a dangerous distraction from our real problems?

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