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by David Lake
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Your Conscious Mind is your Worst Enemy
I have been coaching golfers for many years
and the
first thing that I tell them is to stop
thinking! For
whatever reason, golf is the only sport where
the
participant actually thinks himself out of good
performance. For instance:
- Have you ever thought about how to throw
a ball to someone, actually thinking of how
hard or
how high to throw it? The answer is never -
you just
throw the ball.
- Have you ever actively thought through the
mechanics involved in walking when strolling
down
the street? I do not think that it is
possible to walk and
think about it without tripping yourself up
constantly.
My point is that golf is the only sport, or
any other
activity for that matter, where the mind is
actively
thinking it's way through a physical movement
(such
as the golf swing). This is completely
unnatural and
is the reason that 99% of all golfers constantly
struggle with their swing. In reality, a
golf swing is an
extremely simple movement - you swing a golf
club
and hit a ball resting on the ground. A
three year old
child can learn it in a few minutes without
giving the
movement a second thought. However, as we
become older and wiser our intelligence
dictates that
we must break down every single component of the
golf swing, analyze it, and then try to think
our way
through the movement, which is not only
impossible
but a guarantee for failure.
Whenever I agree to coach a golfer I instruct
them to
bring two things with them to their session:
1) a
headphone radio, and 2) a #3 iron. The
reason for the
headphone is to eliminate the thought process
entirely from the golf swing (listening to a
headphone
while swinging a golf club makes active thought
impossible). The reason that I have them
bring a #3
iron is that a low lofted iron is inherently
more difficult
to hit then a high lofted iron, and by becoming
proficient with it the golfer automatically
becomes
exponentially more proficient with all the
other irons.
Getting golfers to make a good swing is
automatic
when they are listening to the headphones.
Since
their minds are preoccupied their bodies take
over
and very naturally begin producing better
swings right
from the start. The interesting part is that
with every
swing the movement becomes a little more precise
and efficient which is the result of 10,000
years of
evolution - unconscious physical
adaptability (the
ability to perform a movement and then to make
thousands of unconscious infinitesimal
adjustments
to correct any inefficiencies). The end
result is that
after an hour or so the golfer has
automatically and
unconsciously developed a very sound and
consistent
swing. What you have to bear in mind is that
given
time and practice/repetition the human body is
capable of accomplishing extremely complicated
mechanical tasks and in the most efficient
manner.
The problem with the golf swing is that we
try to
impose our conscious thought process into the
physical movement which is a recipe for disaster.
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