Practice vs Play

[gentles]

Baudi (and others) thx. I was going to ask about slow motion practice. I do not understand your laser setup - how does that work?

 

I have never quite grasped how to do slow motion - I can do what i would call half speed (which is actually closer to 80% when I put radar on it!) but really slow swing feels - what, artificial, and like it is hard to get sense of balance and sequencing right.

 

So how do people that do this really do it?

Yeah I'm in same camp. Slow motion is non-confirming to me. I get better results by doing an isolated drill perhaps at 50% or so. I have several used for different body parts and points of swing. Isolate then incorporate then go full throttle. A sense of force has to be involved. Pure slow motion eliminates that, no?

 

Good one for this is to just try and make a downswing at 1/3 of the speed. The backswing moves slow enough for most people to stay in "conscious control", so just slowing down the downswing allows you to stay a little more conscious, but still maintain the dynamics of a full swing.

[wmblake2000]

Baudi (and others) thx. I was going to ask about slow motion practice. I do not understand your laser setup - how does that work?

 

I have never quite grasped how to do slow motion - I can do what i would call half speed (which is actually closer to 80% when I put radar on it!) but really slow swing feels - what, artificial, and like it is hard to get sense of balance and sequencing right.

 

So how do people that do this really do it?

Yeah I'm in same camp. Slow motion is non-confirming to me. I get better results by doing an isolated drill perhaps at 50% or so. I have several used for different body parts and points of swing. Isolate then incorporate then go full throttle. A sense of force has to be involved. Pure slow motion eliminates that, no?

 

Well here’s the thing. Jim is a smart guy who always proposes this approach. I am thinking there’s something in my understanding of how to do it that I’m missing.

[Nard_S]

Baudi (and others) thx. I was going to ask about slow motion practice. I do not understand your laser setup - how does that work?

 

I have never quite grasped how to do slow motion - I can do what i would call half speed (which is actually closer to 80% when I put radar on it!) but really slow swing feels - what, artificial, and like it is hard to get sense of balance and sequencing right.

 

So how do people that do this really do it?

Yeah I'm in same camp. Slow motion is non-confirming to me. I get better results by doing an isolated drill perhaps at 50% or so. I have several used for different body parts and points of swing. Isolate then incorporate then go full throttle. A sense of force has to be involved. Pure slow motion eliminates that, no?

 

Well here’s the thing. Jim is a smart guy who always proposes this approach. I am thinking there’s something in my understanding of how to do it that I’m missing.

 

I agree and feel the same that I'm not necessarily going about it right. I've done it with middling results but maybe not enough or by going so slow other moving parts are not matching up.

[Jim Waldron]

Slow motion speed is 30 seconds start to finish of swing. Super slow mo is 60 seconds. Half speed is 3 seconds. Quarter speed is 6 seconds.

 

You vary the speed, but earlier stages are done at super or slow mo for fastest imprinting of the new movement pattern.

 

Which is the whole purpose - imprint to level of subconscious mind or habit.

 

You also do step two, which is eyes closed Feel Channel training after you have established good form by mirror results.

 

In the mind-brain/body connection golf learning model that I advocate for, the whole point of working on any kind of physical/mechanical change is to form a dominant habit. You learn it - then you forget about it. Let is stay non-conscious.

 

This does NOT mean you don't need to do full swing speed training - of course you do! The two thing are not in conflict even a little bit.

 

Balance, Tempo and Rhythm practice are all done mostly at full speed.

[wmblake2000]

Thx..

[baudi]

Laser set up is fairly simple.

I made a tool which consists of a steel bar with a grip of ± 16 inches. It has a point laser on the butt end and a line laser at the tip end.

The line resembles the clubface on the floor. The point makes you aware of the take away and the downswing. It is all visual.

All for indoor use.

 

Sometimes i use laser putt for customers to make them aware of face rotation. Then I align the line laser along with the face line.

[wmblake2000]

Got it. Thx

[wmblake2000]

Round 2. Again, this approach to playing was very effective. However, today my speed thru impact was down and eventually I tried to do some stuff (make fuller turn, get hands deeper) and immediately hit the ball less well.

 

So... it seems so far that all the effort to improve swing is restricted to practice. When playing, the best idea is to forget about ‘how’ to make a swing and just to make the swing that I make when clear, relaxed and focused on target. I actually played well this way (very consistent, just not my best possible swing).

 

Shutsteepshut messaged me and suggested that really letting this new approach might take a little while - and I saw this play out today.

 

So a question to you guys who play this way... what do you do when you want to make a mid-course swing tweak? I guess if things are going ok (like they were today) you don’t! But if things are not going well, do you just wait till the range after the round to think about tweaking a swing?

[Nard_S]

Round 2. Again, this approach to playing was very effective. However, today my speed thru impact was down and eventually I tried to do some stuff (make fuller turn, get hands deeper) and immediately hit the ball less well.

 

So... it seems so far that all the effort to improve swing is restricted to practice. When playing, the best idea is to forget about ‘how’ to make a swing and just to make the swing that I make when clear, relaxed and focused on target. I actually played well this way (very consistent, just not my best possible swing).

 

Shutsteepshut messaged me and suggested that really letting this new approach might take a little while - and I saw this play out today.

 

So a question to you guys who play this way... what do you do when you want to make a mid-course swing tweak? I guess if things are going ok (like they were today) you don’t! But if things are not going well, do you just wait till the range after the round to think about tweaking a swing?

 

As much as a head case I can be, the ability to nudge swing in the positive always remains. But only if I let it come to me instead of jumping or forcing an answer. At times I can reflect on what I took in and why it does not feel ideal and from there in quiet fashion tweak.Key is a neutral observe based mind set that has little time for the ego and stays in the moment. "You cannot listen if you're talking" comes to mind here.

[NoTalentLefty]

Now tell this simpleminded golfer , my only thought is drag the club slow on takeaway . Current thought . My old thought was hit the ball on the inside quad of the golf ball. I changed this after it was ingrained. That’s all I kind handle during the swing. Can’t think about any technical stuff without locking up muscles. Does that fit into any of this???

[wmblake2000]

Lefty, Rule #1 in my book: If it works, it works.

 

For me it’s not that I don’t have any swing thoughts/feels but my intention is to simply be open, alert, observing the feels as they happen, with some sense of the target. But pre shot I have rehearsed some feels/motions that are roaming around. It’s like Nard said “let it come to me” makes sense to me.

 

But I certainly don’t have any notion that what I am experimenting with is ‘right’ - I mean I can also imagine a basic thought like slow on takeaway or inside quad could become almost ingrained enough so as to not really interfere with this trust/open state of mind I am thinking works so well.

[wmblake2000]

Round 2. Again, this approach to playing was very effective. However, today my speed thru impact was down and eventually I tried to do some stuff (make fuller turn, get hands deeper) and immediately hit the ball less well.

 

So... it seems so far that all the effort to improve swing is restricted to practice. When playing, the best idea is to forget about ‘how’ to make a swing and just to make the swing that I make when clear, relaxed and focused on target. I actually played well this way (very consistent, just not my best possible swing).

 

Shutsteepshut messaged me and suggested that really letting this new approach might take a little while - and I saw this play out today.

 

So a question to you guys who play this way... what do you do when you want to make a mid-course swing tweak? I guess if things are going ok (like they were today) you don’t! But if things are not going well, do you just wait till the range after the round to think about tweaking a swing?

 

As much as a head case I can be, the ability to nudge swing in the positive always remains. But only if I let it come to me instead of jumping or forcing an answer. At times I can reflect on what I took in and why it does not feel ideal and from there in quiet fashion tweak.Key is a neutral observe based mind set that has little time for the ego and stays in the moment. "You cannot listen if you're talking" comes to mind here.

 

Excellent. That makes total sense to me.

[ShutSteepStuck]

So a question to you guys who play this way... what do you do when you want to make a mid-course swing tweak? I guess if things are going ok (like they were today) you don’t! But if things are not going well, do you just wait till the range after the round to think about tweaking a swing?

 

If I need to right the ship during a round other than trying to make sure my lines and tilts are dialed in at address, I tend to keep things general & global.

 

Other than some iffy setup positions that creep in, there are typically 1 or 2 things that I do in my swing that tend to get a little sketchy, i.e, short and quick with the BS and also not getting to my left side earlier enough during trans/early DS.

 

So if I'm thinking mechanics out there it's more big picture things like completing a turn...or pressure shifting a touch earlier. But even then, those are things I try to rehearse a bit when not over the ball rather than talk myself into during my swing.

 

I would try to figure out the one or two things that are reoccurring issues for you and take things from there.

[wmblake2000]

Thx. This is like a whole new way for me to play. I want to play every day right now to sink it in.

[Chowdah86]

I'm someone you'd think would be a big fan of, say, Tim Galloway, and the notion of unconscious and feel. But nope, I have always been a guy who really believed in core mechanics and played with key swing thoughts - aka deliberate conscious intention of certain feels I wanted to create.

 

That went fine for years, as I slowly improved from my 15 index to a 7, overcoming deeply imbedded bad habits well past middle age. Then I really got to the heart of a more fundamentally sound swing, and the big, all-related changes around a shallowed swing plane. I practice a lot and not totally unintelligently, but wow my game went way south and has stayed way south for 6-8 weeks.

 

Then playing yesterday, on a little pitch shot (which is now a very simple shot for me, no thoughts, just a feel of rhythm) I noticed right near impact myself feel, without any deliberate intent, exactly what impact should feel like. It just ... occurred. And the pitch was perfect.

 

What I concluded was... wow. What if I really do know how to make a swing and don't have to have these deliberate, conscious intentions. What if I just trust myself - my deep mind - because this isn't like Galloway's 'bounce-hit' where he distracts the conscious mind - because at the moment of truth in the pitch I had a 'micro-thought/feel' that was dead on accurate. It was more like, just trust my deep knowledge base to know how to direct the swing. This for the first time made sense to me about how to integrate my practice and improving with playing.

 

So, what I am thinking is.. practice does indeed include a lot of intention because you have to create this deep knowledge base to draw from - 'do this move this way, deepen the internal feel through repetition' but playing is different. What I did yesterday was rehearse whatever feel I believed I wanted, get a clear idea of the shot, what it felt like to hit it, but when I swung, not to try to replicate or create this, but to just pay attention and let my deeper mind direct whatever I needed to do.

 

Any thoughts? I have posted enough stuff that I thought I had figured out only to find a week later that it was total rubbish, and this may be that way, too, but somehow this feels like maybe it is a big deal in my learning how to play this game to my potential.

 

 

 

Its best to play with your subconcious. When a bad shot occurs, review what happened and address it. If the ball snaps left into the woods, your face and path were both going that direction. What part of the face struck the ball? Whats the divot look like? Did feel the ball hit firt or the ground? Address these issues and get back in the zone.

[wmblake2000]

I'm someone you'd think would be a big fan of, say, Tim Galloway, and the notion of unconscious and feel. But nope, I have always been a guy who really believed in core mechanics and played with key swing thoughts - aka deliberate conscious intention of certain feels I wanted to create.

 

That went fine for years, as I slowly improved from my 15 index to a 7, overcoming deeply imbedded bad habits well past middle age. Then I really got to the heart of a more fundamentally sound swing, and the big, all-related changes around a shallowed swing plane. I practice a lot and not totally unintelligently, but wow my game went way south and has stayed way south for 6-8 weeks.

 

Then playing yesterday, on a little pitch shot (which is now a very simple shot for me, no thoughts, just a feel of rhythm) I noticed right near impact myself feel, without any deliberate intent, exactly what impact should feel like. It just ... occurred. And the pitch was perfect.

 

What I concluded was... wow. What if I really do know how to make a swing and don't have to have these deliberate, conscious intentions. What if I just trust myself - my deep mind - because this isn't like Galloway's 'bounce-hit' where he distracts the conscious mind - because at the moment of truth in the pitch I had a 'micro-thought/feel' that was dead on accurate. It was more like, just trust my deep knowledge base to know how to direct the swing. This for the first time made sense to me about how to integrate my practice and improving with playing.

 

So, what I am thinking is.. practice does indeed include a lot of intention because you have to create this deep knowledge base to draw from - 'do this move this way, deepen the internal feel through repetition' but playing is different. What I did yesterday was rehearse whatever feel I believed I wanted, get a clear idea of the shot, what it felt like to hit it, but when I swung, not to try to replicate or create this, but to just pay attention and let my deeper mind direct whatever I needed to do.

 

Any thoughts? I have posted enough stuff that I thought I had figured out only to find a week later that it was total rubbish, and this may be that way, too, but somehow this feels like maybe it is a big deal in my learning how to play this game to my potential.

 

 

 

Its best to play with your subconcious. When a bad shot occurs, review what happened and address it. If the ball snaps left into the woods, your face and path were both going that direction. What part of the face struck the ball? Whats the divot look like? Did feel the ball hit firt or the ground? Address these issues and get back in the zone.

 

“Address these issues†— how?

 

I don’t mean this in a snarky way... I mean if the focus is target/trust then I don’t understand how to do much more to correct other than maybe big, general stuff like shutsteep mentioned.

[Roy D Mercer]

I do not own Fluid Motion Factor but I've studied it and talked to several who have gone through the course either in person or via online. Whatever the process, you're trying to prevent the conscious "thinking" part of the brain from overriding the subconscious "golf-trained" part of the brain while you play. The subconscious is infinitely more powerful and can easily correlate random inputs whereas the conscious area can only process one thought at a time. The real issue is it will also repress or frustrate the subconscious area resulting in really bad swings and a downward spiral of negative thoughts. Time worn swing thoughts or words are merely temporary and very short lived. They can do more harm even. Dr. Carey Mumford's brilliant yet simple Clear Key process sidetracked the conscious brain for about 10-14 seconds and was very effective. Sadly he passed away in '13 and it's no longer for sale though that could change. Al Geiberger used ClearKey when he shot 59 and many other pros / amateurs have used it. Fluid Motion is a little different technique more related to obtaining a feeling of "wholeness" (see Transcendental Meditation, Dr. Frank Travis) but the result is the same: A sense of not thinking or caring (you still try) thus allowing your golf trained subconscious to go to work. You are trying to obtain a state of "flow" where time seems to stand still and your game is effortless. Tiger uses something similar... watch closely and you'll see him repeating the same thing to himself over and over again on the course. He refuses to reveal or discuss what he's really doing. Does Fluid Motion Factor really work? From all I can gather from the few I know who have bought the juice 70 - 80% say it does but like anything you have to work at it to incorporate fully into your game.

[Nard_S]

Yeah this stuff is still relevant to me. I honed in a on a key flaw, correctly for once, lol. This time, did slow motion & some mirror. On the range, stuck to hitting at 70% and patiently grooved. Ignored the "Sally" distance or results, plugged away & took about 1000 balls till I let go and went full throttle with it. The absence of expectation or emotion is a pre-requestit to all this. A sense that emotion has no place in this process at all even if the results are boffo great or piss poor. Keep long eye on the prize. "Spock golf" on some level. It's actually working.