Mind over matter - 3/8/2009
So, an interesting thing happened the other day at the driving range. Yes, another golf reference— bear with me here as we aren't able to ski all winter here in Chicago.
I've been taking golf lessons since November with a terrific coach. I typically take an hour lesson every other Saturday. We've made huge progress with my swing and I'm consistently amazed with the parallels between golf and skiing and most of my other hobbies and skiing, for that matter. All winter I've been very mechanical with my swing, keeping certain swing thoughts with me as I smack balls out onto the frozen tundra of the driving range from a little heated booth. I think of stuff like pre-rotating my hips in the back swing, maintaining spine angle, triggering the swing with my right elbow, releasing the club, etc. These are things I work on for hours at a time— I've probably hit 1500 balls at the range this winter.
So, the other day I'm really working my driver hard, and for whatever reason I'm consistently spraying balls to the right (AKA slicing the balls with a vengeance). I know what the problem is: it's a swing path that cuts across the ball in such a manner that it puts massive amounts of side spin on the ball. If I think of nothing, clear the mind, and really lay into the ball with the driver, this is what occurs. It is not my grip or club face position at address. It's basically my natural "default" swing. I can stop it if I really focus on keeping the face square to the ball in the back swing, taking the club back on the correct path and such. But, if I just go up there and crank it, it's going to cause property damage to anything on the right side of the course.
So, I tried something new. I thought to myself "what if you just try to hit it way left instead? Give it a big hook?" So I did. I thought, let's crank this one left. And, sure enough, it went left. Big time. I did it over and over again. I thought of nothing but cranking it way left, and sure enough I got a nice big hook out of the ball (a right to left curve in the flight path). So then I thought, "well, this is stupid but, uh, let's try to hit it straight". Sure enough, the ball went straight. I'm not kidding. I'm dead serious here. The point is that I put all of the mechanics aside and just thought of the RESULT, and my brain figured out the rest.
We do this in bowling all the time. I lay down the bowling ball with X amount of side spin and forward momentum and 60 feet later it ends up in a 6" wide pocket between two pins with a perfect combination of side spin and forward momentum and angle (when I actually hit a strike correctly, which is not often). There is no way that I consciously thought about the mechanics of my ball path and rotation during that strike— I just visualized the result and my brain figured out the rest.
This episode on the range the other day was the first time I've ever used results-based thinking in a golf swing. In visualizing the result, my brain calculated the "firing solution" and told my body to do things that I typically consciously have to think about on the range. I felt my takeaway lock into a more correct path as I initiated my backswing, and I felt myself crush through the ball with mechanics that typically take lots of swing thoughts to achieve. So, perhaps we need to set aside the mechanical thoughts and just visualize the result. Visualize our path and movements through the course and let our brains sweat the details in the end.
They say that in golf you should never take mechanics to the course. You leave your mechanics at the range and you focus on playing the game. Whatever swing you arrived with, you play with. If I were to equate this line of thinking to water skiing, wouldn't we only worry about "swing thoughts" during open water practice and drills and leave it behind when running the course? Sometimes visualizing the result frees your mind to come up with the correct solution, in essence achieving the same thing that you were trying to do while juggling all those tips in your head. I can't wait to try to free my mind in the course— after all, the mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Comments:
h2odawg79, 3/9/2009: Maybe Nike said it best when they said ; -"Just do it"!!! Of course WTS, maybe we should also pay homage to Clint Eastwood who wisely said: -"A man Must know his limitations"... I believe you are absolutely right! The mind somehow knows all things. The only thing that normally stands between good and great is ourselves.(our cluttered thoughts) Henry Ford said; "Whether you think you can or you think you can't -You are right"... I feel like my mental "Auto Pilot" will only engage when I can quiet the noise of confusion in my mind and "Just do it"... This same "Auto Pilot" also allows me a more clear directive for calmly "knowing my Limitations" without a diagnostics procedure! (i.e.-Whether I should lay it up in front of the water, or just go for the for the green...) So, for me anyway, applying excessive mental "Self Limitation" is always the accidental and Killing result of over thinking it... (I'll finish this paragraph someday when I can learn to consistently shut my mind down "on demand," "short cut" or "Default"!!!) -ha, ha...h2odawg79, 3/12/2009: I was thinking about this topic and how we never think about the mechanical process of throwing a rock at something... We naturally ONLY focus on our objective, -Hitting the: ___( "whatever it is"...) and our "auto pilot" simply adjusts about a million things instantaneously while calculating the speed, Launch angle and trajectory without ANY help from our analytical intellect! Since, golf, slalom and many other sports do require a high level of good technique in order to operate at a high level of performance, -This is possibly where slowing down the boat, learning and ingraining proper techniques in our Minds & Bodies would help... We then could eventually add speed, cut line and "Just do it" or at least be able to run the course Void of all the Mental Head trips that Kinda take the fun out of it anyway! Besides, lets face it, -Some people can just Naturally throw a rock much better then others anyway. Making it rather unfair on ourselves to Always expect unrealistic "Hollywood" results in Everything we do...
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