Come One, Come All

Come One, Come All

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The focus of my blog is to present ideas and suggestions about how we can improve our golfing performance and enjoyment of the game by intelligently applying mental approaches and techniques that optimize our mental, physical and emotional states. To this end I’ll report on a variety of techniques that have proven themselves or seem to have promise.

However, over the years I’ve found that many of the best techniques surface from talking with golfers like you about what you actually do to improve your mental approach to the game. I like this approach because your ideas and techniques are ‘field tested’ and not hypothetical.

So, come one, come all. We request your input. Write and tell our SPA community about the mental techniques you employ to improve your performance on the course or during practice.

Conversely, if you have a specific challenge or problem, tell us about that also and we will try and offer helpful suggestions.

Your Body Wants to Do What You Tell It! Managing Your Internal Dialogue

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The purpose for working on your mind game is to optimize your mental, emotional and physical states while engaging in the game of golf. This series on the Mental Game is focused on providing you techniques to accomplish this objective.

Technique: Managing Your Internal Dialogue

Bill was a shot ahead in his club championship on the final day. On the first tee he pulls his drive deep left into the woods and he immediately begins to berate himself with a series of invectives that culminates in slamming his driver back into his bag. He walks down the fairway shaking his head and mumbling to himself. “You dummy… you idiot, what a dumb way to start.” The day goes downhill from there as the mistakes begin to accumulate. Remember that day?  Perhaps you’ve started a round this way yourself?

I have an important question concerning the above scenario. How does your brain and body know you are just kidding and don’t really mean it? The answer is, it doesn’t.Whoops.  Do you really want to send a message to yourself that you are a dummy? Do you actually believe this message? I think not. When analyzed, this is just your way of demonstrating your disappointment in yourself and your performance in that moment.

Let’s examine this phenomenon for a minute. What we know is that your body is always arranging itself to support the state you are in, whether you are aware and conscious of that state or not.

For evidence I would ask you to try the following. Stand up and demonstrate being mildly depressed. Having done this demonstration dozens of times I know what you will do. You will drop your shoulders, look down and to your right, change your breathing to your abdomen area and let your entire body go into a slouch. The reason, you KNOW what a state of depression looks like and can represent that state in your body. It is your body’s way of doing what you are asking.

Now, try the same exercise, only this time, demonstrate being very exuberant. You will pull back your shoulders, look up and begin to breathe briskly from your upper chest and most likely begin to smile slightly. Again, your body is arranging itself to support the state you are instructing it to adopt. With this arrangement, comes an entire supporting internal set of chemicals, both good and bad.

Here is a statement that most people find profound once they understand the implication for self-management. For every thought, you have there is an associated physiology. For every physiology you have, there is an associated thought.

That’s right. Your body is always listening to your dialogue and seeking to put itself into a supportive state, even if that state is not resourceful.  Remember my example of how Bill’s performance went downhill as he told himself he was a dummy and an idiot?  He was literally undermining himself by ensuring his mind and body and emotions were in a non-resourceful state. He wasn’t giving himself a chance

Managing Your Internal Dialogue

Unless you are electrically or chemically altered you have a constant stream of dialogue running through your mind. Your internal dialogue is that omnipresent voice that is constantly pumping out advice, warnings, adulation, or admonitions. Often times your dialogue is plainly nonsense.  What I want you to understand is that your body and emotions are paying attention.

Therefore, it makes sense to be aware of what instructions you are issuing and practice positive dialogue and techniques when seeking to become skilled at any sport (or anything else in your life). This approach holds true whether you are practicing on the range or playing around.

There are two approaches to managing your internal dialogue that I’ve found work well.

  1. Block the dialogue for a brief period. With training and practice you can learn to shut your internal dialogue down briefly (10 seconds is really good). If you are plagued by too many thoughts during your swing, try these techniques.
    1. Try humming during your shot. You can’t hum and think at the same time.
    2. Focus on your breath by being aware of the air coming in and out.
  2. Become aware of when your dialogue turns negative and learn how to re-program your thoughts into a positive direction.
    1. Develop a series of ‘go to’ positive statements about specific conditions you will experience in playing golf.  You hit a bad shot and your thinking is to “store this as feedback for getting better” or “how lucky I am to be out here playing golf”or “what an interesting game”.
    2. When you become aware of negative thoughts, give yourself 20 seconds to let go of the negative emotion. Go ahead and have the negative emotion and then let it go.
    3. Establish what we call the 10-YARD RULE.This means you never allow yourself to ruminate on a bad shot more than 10 yards from where you hit it. Rumor has it that this is one of Tiger’s secrets.

Practice these management techniques prior to getting on the course or range and you will shorten the time between having a negative dialogue and eliminating it. Remember, your objective is to optimize your performance, so keep your resourcefulness at peak states and give yourself a chance.

Moe’s Swing Unusual?

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‘Ignorance is bliss”. I don’t know who said it but in the case of Moe’s swing, nothing could be more true.

Two years ago at a “Top 100” golf instructor dinner, I will never forget the numerous conversations in which Moe’s name was mentioned. As a matter of face, I have never been to an instructor gathering where Moe’s swing wasn’t discussed. Now how could that be? Let’s do a bit of simple deduction. Let’s look at a few facts. Fact 1: Some of the greatest golfers talk about Moe as the best ball-striker who ever played the game. Fact 2: The best instructors, including many of the top 100 teachers, talk about and envy Moe’s ball-striking ability. Fact 3: The goal of a great golf swing is to swing the club on plane. Fact 4: Moe swung the club on plane better than anyone because he started and impacted on the same plane. Fact 5: Moe’s swing was considered unconventional.

Now, after looking at all of these facts, where swinging the club on plane is the goal and the greatest players and instructors consider Moe the best – wouldn’t it make more sense that Moe’s swing is considered a standard as opposed to unconventional. There is more to my argument. Consider that back pain is one of the leading causes of injury and is the most common problem for golfers of every level and golf continues to be one of the most difficult games to learn, master and play.

Wouldn’t you think, after considering these facts, that someone might look at Moe’s swing as a SOLUTION to these problems as opposed to unusual? Well, as you know, I do. I see Moe’s swing as THE solution. The problem is that most people have been convinced, by watching golf on television, that conventional golf is bio-mechanically correct. Could it be possible that the tour players are wrong? The answer is unbelievable, yes. The tour players, at least most of them, are starting their golf swings in a biomechanically inferior position at address. How could this possibly be?

I call it the “One Mistake” where the players hang the arms directly below the shoulders – straight down- at address. Why do they do this? I really don’t know. But nobody else does either. I have talked to hundreds of instructors and nobody can explain why any player would hang the arms straight down. The only answer they can come up with is that “this is where they hang”. Logical? Not really. Because if your task is to strike a golf ball, with a golf club where the ball away from you – it makes no sense whatsoever to hang your arms in any direction other than one that is in alignment with the ball you are intending to strike.

So, logically, you should align your arms with the object you are intending to strike. So why is that so unusual?

The Evolution of Simple

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Skills, such as playing a musical instrument or striking a golf ball are complicated tasks learned through repetition. The brain requires a certain amount of reinforcement and repetition to retain a sub-conscious – non-thinking action that we call “skill”. When it comes to the amount of reinforcement and repetition, there is no “simple” way to give the brain the number of experiences.  If it takes 100,000 repetitions, for example, you must put in the time to give ourselves at least this many experiences.  Even Moe, who I once asked why he kept practicing even at the age of 70, said “To make it (his swing) stronger.

Repetition of a task makes the skill stronger. This might seem a bit discouraging however, studies show that anyone who diligently practices two hours a day, can master any skill in five years. This evidence alone should be enough to get you off of your couch. But when you do, another question arises – “Where do I start?” And the answer to this question is the evolution of simple.

Simple is a term often used by the golf instruction industry to attract customers. Once the customer buys in, however, he often finds himself once again confounded by the amount of effort it really takes to achieve a good golf swing. To me, the golf swing is very simple however, my learning process was not. I put in many hours and I would be lying to you if I said that it was easy. When I asked Moe how he learned to hit a golf ball so well, he answered very profoundly, “hard work, it takes hard work”.

So if you understand at the outset that it is going to take time and effort, you are then ready to realize what it means to be simple. Simple, by this definition is the difference between easy and hard. In other words, there is an easy way to do something and a hard way to do something. The goal, therefore, is to use the easy way of striking a golf ball and in doing so, you will be able to achieve a lasting, pain-free, and maintenance-free way of playing golf. Simple means longevity and when compared to “conventional” methods, just makes sense.

Moe Norman’s golf swing is simple for a number of reasons often discussed in our teaching. It’s simplicity, we call the Single Plane, is founded on common sense – the common sense of starting the club on the same plane as impact. What could be more simple than that?  And because of the “start where you impact” Single Plane, there are stresses and rotations of the conventional swing are no longer necessary. But be careful. This does not mean that there aren’t any rotations in Single Plane Swing which is often the assumption of those who first observe Moe’s swing.

The fact is that there are the perfect amount of rotations in Moe’s swing. What we call bio-mechanical efficiency. Another way to look at bio-mechanical efficiency is the perfect amount of movement to achieve the task. In Moe’s case, the task was moving a golf club in such a way as to strike a golf ball with perfect backspin. When you look at the golf swing from this perspective, your task is to move the club – not strike the ball. From this perspective, simple becomes more easily understood. Simple means efficient.

With this in mind, you can now begin by modeling Moe’s Single Plane Golf swing and allow yourself to refine the movements necessary to achieve Moe like efficiencies. This means a bit of trial and error and much practice. So as I always recommend, start using video analysis to monitor your movements.  This is a sure way to keep on track and short-cut the process of learning a truly Simple Single Plane Golf Swing.

Practicing Distinctions

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Several years ago I ran across a fascinating video that taught me a lot about the techniques magicians use to complete their illusions. On the video was a circle of 8 people in front of an elevator dressed in black and white. They had two basketballs and the instructions given were to count the number of passes and bounces as the 8 people walked in a circle. Pretty simple task huh?

What ensued was nothing short of a reality check. In the course of the 30 seconds the group passed and bounced the basketballs, a person in a full gorilla suit walks into the middle of the circle, beats his chest and then exits the other side.

The magic; not one individual in the 200-person group I was in saw the gorilla. How was that possible? The answer is called intentional misdirection. We were told to count the passes and bounces and in the process of focusing our attention on what was asked we missed the gorilla. Several people actually missed the gorilla the second time during a replay because they were still watching the balls. A few hard cores refused to believe it was the same video.

The point here is that the brain is wired to generalize, delete and distort massive amounts of information all the time. It is set of functions allowing us to operate in the world and they are very useful. The downside is that we miss things right in front of us (like the gorilla) because we are pre-disposed to see what we are looking for or what we’re expecting to see or what we are told to look for.

Is it any surprise that when four people witness a traffic accident they all give different reports of what happened? Not at all, because during the stress of the event they were highly focused on a narrow portion of the event.

The implications are important to intelligent practice. Recently, during my own deep practice session I watched a video replay of my own swing about 10 times looking at plane angles and trying to figure out a glitch. My attention was totally on my lower body movement (knees, hips) and on my arms as they moved in and up. After 10 viewings I still hadn’t seen the problem.

Finally the bolt of lightning hit and I noticed head movement (meaning spine) from a DTL perspective that was quite obvious and clearly put me in the wrong position. My immediate reaction was “how did I miss that the first 10 times?”

The answer was misdirection. I had programmed myself to look at something specific and that was all I was seeing …..over and over.

Remember:

  • Take a broad view when analyzing swing issues, particularly on film
  • Look at your whole swing first and then narrow in on specifics for review
  • Develop a checklist based on the Single Plane Solution graphics from DTL and Front View
  • When studying the SPS DVD, be sure and take the time to make distinctions beyond what you are instructed to see. You will be amazed at what you can notice.

More Moe,

Dr. Ron

Why We Choke and How to Prevent It

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You’ve practiced the 2-foot putt a thousand times on the putting green and on your carpet. You make it 99.5% of the time. It’s a no-brainer. This time you’ve got a $5 Nassau on the putt and your foursome buddies are all watching intently. Whoops, you pull the putt left. What happened?

Answer: You just suffered a jolt in your mental processing: you have just choked under pressure.

In a recent article Dr Sian Beilock, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Chicago demonstrated how the brain, under certain conditions, would work to sabotage performance, most often in pressure-filled situations that deplete brainpower critical to many everyday activities.

It’s tempting to dismiss such failures as “just nerves.” But to Dr. Beilock, they are preventable results of information logjams in the brain. By studying how the brain works when we are doing our best – and when we choke – she has formulated practical ideas about how to overcome performance lapses at critical moments.

Beilock’s research is the basis of her new book, Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting it Right When You Have To, published Sept. 21 by Simon and Schuster, Free Press, 2010.

“Choking is suboptimal performance, not just poor performance. It’s a performance that is inferior to what you can do and have done in the past and occurs when you feel pressure to get everything right,” Sian Beilock

Memorable Golf Choke:

Some of the most spectacular and memorable moments of choking occur in sports when the whole world is watching. Many remember golfer Greg Norman’s choke at the 1996 U.S. Masters. Norman had played brilliantly for the first three days of the tournament, taking a huge lead. But on the final day, his performance took a dive, and he ended the Masters five shots out of first place as Nick Faldo executed flawlessly to take the win.

Choking in such cases happens when the skill circuits executed by the brains of extremely accomplished athletes go awry. Thinking too much about what you are doing, because you are worried about losing the lead (as in Norman’s case) or worrying about failing in general, can lead to “paralysis by analysis.” This paralysis occurs when people try to control every aspect of what they are doing in an attempt to ensure success. Unfortunately, this increased control can backfire, disrupting what was once a fluid, flawless performance.

“My research team and I have found that highly skilled golfers are more likely to hole a simple 3-foot putt when we give them the tools to stop analyzing their shot, to stop thinking,” Beilock said. “Highly practiced putts run better when you don’t try to control every aspect of performance.”

Preventing Choking

Pressure-filled situations can deplete a part of the brain’s processing power known as working memory, which is critical to many everyday activities. Working memory is lodged in the prefrontal cortex and is a sort of mental scratch pad that is temporary storage for information relevant to the task at hand, whether that task is doing a math problem or preparing for a tough three-foot putt.

Beilock’s work has shown the importance of working memory in helping people perform their best, in academics, sports and business. Talented people often have the most working memory, but when worries creep up, the working memory they normally use to succeed becomes overburdened. People lose the brain power necessary to excel. Our task is to limit over-capacity to the working memory.

Six Specific Actions You Can Take Under Pressure

  • My own research has shown that something as simple as humming or singing helps prevent the portions of the brain that might interfere with performance from taking over. Try and think about your backswing when humming, it can’t be done. I often tell golfers to hum when getting over what would usually be thought of as an important putt.
  • Meditation practice can help as it is training to help calm the mind and body.
  • Pre-shot routine – having a habitual pre-shot routine allows you to build habit and reduce your mind’s internal chatter. This is very helpful and reported by many to help when under pressure. Focus your attention on following the routine.
  • Adopting ‘an alert attitude of indifference’. What this means is to minimize the importance of outcome. Make it less significant to you while still being alert to the situation. This was a favorite saying of Moe Norman and clearly showed his recognition that over care in a situation works against high performance.
  • Stay in the present. What this means is pay attention to what you are doing without thinking about the future. You will hear high-level athletes often say ‘don’t get ahead of yourself.” Good advice.

Like all high-performance techniques, the time to practice is prior to the event. Use this winter to integrate some of these techniques into your mental set and gain an advantage by achieving optimal mental-physical-emotional balance.

Enjoy.

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