Can we apply this trick used by Musicians?

[Michael Shanker]

Hey all,

 

I've been trying to change my horrible swing into a good swing, but I've been doing the horrible one for 30 years, and it's really hard to change.

 

I can learn new things on guitar... been doing that for 30 yrs too.

In fact, learning new things is one of the primary goals on guitar... Not so much in golf.

 

So, it seems we musicians have been holding out on you golfers for a while, and I thought I'd share the secret.

 

NO MISTAKES

 

There. It's that simple. You practice your new move in such a way that you can do it flawlessly every time... no faster.

I don't care how slow you have to go. Go even slower until you can do it perfectly 100% of the time. Then keep doing it.

Only after you're getting bored doing this simple thing can you speed up - but only a tiny bit - and you must measure it somehow.

 

So all I have to do is never take a full swing, quit playing golf entirely, and just learn the new move - no ball - at a painfully slow speed?
Sounds easy!

 

 

 

 

 

[uscheese]

Sure but we all wanna hit the ball far and have no patience!!!

[phizzy30]

Trying to get the right feel and self correcting is good at half speed which is what I do.  Then apply speed when you think you have it down.  Hit some balls afterwards to see if you've self corrected.  If not, then go back to square one and repeat.  However, I don't think that starting the motion at a painfully slow speed is productive. 

[Nard_S]

No mistakes doing it the wrong way. Perfecting incompetence. I joke.

We know a lot more about teaching music than teaching golf. 

[Nels55]

3 hours ago, Nard_S said:

No mistakes doing it the wrong way. Perfecting incompetence. I joke.

We know a lot more about teaching music than teaching golf. 

Correct.  I have spent countless hours doing slow motion practice of some move I got from a pro or video or book etc. that is completely counter to the way that I can swing effectively.  If a person is going to drill in a movement its very important to make sure that the movement is correct for the particular person.  

[Nard_S]

4 minutes ago, Nels55 said:

Correct.  I have spent countless hours doing slow motion practice of some move I got from a pro or video or book etc. that is completely counter to the way that I can swing effectively.  If a person is going to drill in a movement its very important to make sure that the movement is correct for the particular person.  

And you can add movements that correctly match the other movements.that in themselves have to be somewhat correct too. It's not about perfection it's about having less imperfection.

[aenemated]

I can't personally recommend learning anything at all from musicians 😂

[jonsnow]

23 minutes ago, aenemated said:

I can't personally recommend learning anything at all from musicians 😂

Keith Richards could teach us all how to survive embalming. Who else could have played Jack Sparrow's father in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End?

Edited July 10, 2023 by jonsnow

[toc]

Not really a new idea, any good teacher will have you ingrain a new move at a slow speed, only hitting the ball a fraction of normal distance.

[dfeldss]

Definitely can speed up the learning process..just gotta make sure you're actually doing what you think you're doing

[jut111]

That’s the difference inmo. The feedback loop is almost immediate in music - bad note for instance. 
 

in golf if you’re relying on ball flight as feedback which is the equivalent to the bad note your doomed.  Can’t directly tie the action to the feedback. 

[bladehunter]

19 minutes ago, jonsnow said:

Keith Richards could teach us all how to survive embalming. Who else could have played Jack Sparrow's father in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End?

Not any live men that I can think of.  🤣.  I mean he was perfect.  And scary to think that he required no prosthetics or makeup to pull off the look.   

[bladehunter]

5 minutes ago, jut111 said:

That’s the difference inmo. The feedback loop is almost immediate in music - bad note for instance. 
 

in golf if you’re relying on ball flight as feedback which is the equivalent to the bad note your doomed.  Can’t directly tie the action to the feedback. 

Lol.  Have you ever been in a blades vs GI iron debate ?  You just pushed the nuclear button.   Duck !! 

[airjammer]

I’m sure there is something to learn from musicians but there are way more forces at play than a piano player pressing the keys in the right sequence and then speeding it up. 
 

For instance, in golf you are supposed to create enough momentum in the backswing that you are basically throwing the club back and then slowing the club down after half way back so practicing slow can’t replicate that and the chain reaction that happens after that.  So for me personally, I don’t 100% agree with training slow is the only way or best way to learn a full swing.
 

I tend to lean toward something on your body to give you extra awareness of a position like a hack motion device or a external focus like avoidance of hitting a alignment stick or box. 
 

 

 

 

[Soloman1]

Yes, golf needs tabs.

 

Golf and guitar are alike, endless debate and opinions. Les Paul or Strat? Gretsch or Epiphone? Marshall or Fender? Pedals or clean?

 

What are we talking about here, shredding, blues, jazz, pop, rock, yacht rock, oldies, grunge, metal, classical, finger picking, strictly rhythm, he doesn’t want to make it cry or sing?

 

🙂

 

I think dance classes might help a lot of people…

 

Edited July 10, 2023 by Soloman1

[golfarb1]

Goto any range and watch people hit balls. The majority will be hitting driver . A very small % will be practicing hitting balls with a slower and shorter than normal swing .

The poster should ditch making smaller swings because they are boring and follow the lead of most golfers and bang away with a driver . 

[SNIPERBBB]

1 hour ago, Soloman1 said:

Yes, golf needs tabs.

 

Golf and guitar are alike, endless debate and opinions. Les Paul or Strat? Gretsch or Epiphone? Marshall or Fender? Pedals or clean?

 

What are we talking about here, shredding, blues, jazz, pop, rock, yacht rock, oldies, grunge, metal, classical, finger picking, strictly rhythm, he doesn’t want to make it cry or sing?

 

🙂

 

I think dance classes might help a lot of people…

 

Or you can be good at something like playing fiddle but you do it completely wrong. 

[me05501]

As a fellow musician I'm not sure I support this particular analogy. 

 

Playing a guitar lick very slowly and very quickly uses the same muscles and dexterity. One is faster than the other but the outcome (tone) should be identical. Nothing prevents the sounds of the notes from being the same when played at any speed. 

If you slow down a golf swing too much it becomes very difficult to maintain the same relationships between your upper and lower body, your weight shift and club position, etc. that you should feel during a swing with some speed behind it. If you actually hit a ball the flight will not be the same shape or trajectory produced by a faster swing. You will be misleading yourself. 

 

IMO the better way to perfect the golf swing is by shortening it and making sure you understand the dynamic positions of the middle 50% and produce your desired contact quality and shot shape. Then you can add the 25% on either end without too many adjustments. 

[rondo01]

1 hour ago, me05501 said:

As a fellow musician I'm not sure I support this particular analogy. 

fellow musician here. I agree with you. Mainly: most musical instruments rely on hand eye coordination and fine motor skills. Golf is a game of proprioception. Conducting is, in my opinion, most similar to the same skills as used in golf.

[Chunkitgood]

There are conceptual similarities between golf and playing guitar, but only at a very high level of abstraction: both involve a certain level of technique before art can be produced.  With a guitar you can speak to people and make a ton of money with three open chords, which pretty much any dummy can learn to do.  Golf is different not just because there is less immediate useful feed back, but because the parts of the body used to play well are themselves less enervated and have less brain resources connected to them than the fingers.  You just don’t have any awareness of what your right lat is doing to control it the way you can your fingers, so golf must be learned either implicitly like children do, or via some sort of understanding of the ends and means of the process that substitutes for well defined and recognized tactile sensation.  The golf teaching profession as a whole as far as I can see has failed to produce the necessary understanding or any way to convey it to students.

 

The desire to use primarily the hands and arms, which people can immediately feel and manipulate, to swing the club needs to be overcome.  The body exerts force on the club head which then exerts force on the body (the two are in essence orbiting each other), which force needs to be resisted by the arms and hands so that the club head may strike the ball properly.

 

And very few musical instruments are on the ground such that you have to lean over to play them.

[596]

I can atest that slow motion and 1/2 swings done correctly on the range WILL result in that motion being ingrained and feeling natural and improving your swing.  But, it has to be done correctly, followed up on and done hundreds and hundreds of times, if not thousands.  I've been working on the correct hip turn for nearly a year now.  I've hit thousands of 1/2 swing and slow motion shots.  My swing is much more consistent and scores have dropped since I started this practice. 

 

Slow motion practice has to be done correctly.  You have to be able to "feel" the change each time for it to produce the correct results in 1/2 swings or more.