FREE SINGLE PLANE CLUB FITTING

The human potential is an amazing thing.

Dr. Andy Walshe has spent a career trying to understand it…in athletes, musicians, leaders and others who want to perform at their best.

He has spent time with Olympic ski teams, and many well-known athletes and performers. And for seven years, he played an integral role in the Red Bull Stratos project which culminated in 2012 with a successful (and record-breaking) high-altitude free fall from 127,000 feet by Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner.

I spent time with Andy last week during a meeting at the Kauffman Foundation where he presented many of his research and findings over the years, including some great stories from sports and performance arenas.

What stood out for me most is that while Andy and his team are quantifying human potential like never before, they are also validating one of the key concepts that Moe Norman used to talk about.

A few of my takeaways:

• There is a difference between Perceived Risk and Actual Risk.
• Managing Risk and pushing yourself past fears is a key to realizing your performance potential.
• Andy and his team are beginning to quantify in new ways the profound benefits of proper rest (read: sleep) on high performance.
• Responding moves you toward your goal. Reacting gets you stuck.
• We are capable of so much more than we think…if we can learn to get out of our own way.

Yes…there it is! “…if we can learn to get out of our own way.” Moe Norman used to say all the time: “You just gotta get out of your own way.”

The challenge for most golfers is that:

• They worry about the risks ahead. (“What if I hit it in the water?)
• They struggle to interpret events in objective ways. (“Oh crap, I hit it in the water!”)
• They fail to take a “winning or learning” mindset onto the course. (“I hit it in the water…I’m such a loser!”)

And while much of the game of golf is about mastering a physical skill, a great deal of thriving and performing at one’s best on the course is about managing the thoughts, feelings and emotions that are part of the experience of playing the game. (Don’t ignore this!!!)

At Liminal Collective, the organization that Dr. Walshe leads, they challenge the athlete’s fears by putting them in a room with a bear, or a box of snakes. (Yikes!…I know!!)  Or they help the athlete grow their self-concept – their sense of what is possible for them –  by teaching them to hold their breath under water for 4-5 minutes…all within the course of a single day-long training experience.

Moe Norman knew about human potential on the golf course. And while he didn’t have the language or the scientific understanding that Dr. Walshe and his team have uncovered, he had a way of facing his fears on the course – and of getting out of his own way.

What did Moe do?

• He sought to play with an alert attitude of indifference.
• He learned to tune-in to his feelings and emotions…monitoring what was supporting his performance, and what was impacting it negatively.
• He learned to care a little less. To be indifferent to the outcome, even if it wasn’t aligned with his objective.
• He learned to play from his authentic self, and not let his ego take over. He learned to get out of his own way

What can you do?

Much the same.

• Become more aware of your feelings while playing the game… and the thoughts that drive them.
• Reframe your interpretations about the “bad” things that happen on the golf course. See if you can label the “bad” situations on the course as a gift or a learning opportunity, instead of “…more proof that I am a terrible human being.”
• Respond to what happens on the course. Don’t react. Let objectivity and curiosity drive your behavior. Don’t let your ego – and all that it “needs” create knee-jerk reactions.

And as much as anything, commit to improving your skill set. (But recognize where you are on your skill journey at any given time. This perspective is important in fast-tracking your development.)

It’s warm in Florida and Phoenix! See you there soon!

All the best & have a great week!

-Paul

When avalanche safety experts teach back-country skiers how to avoid getting swept up in life-threatening avalanches, they take an interesting approach.

These safety guides teach skiers that when they are poking and checking the snow and terrain beneath them as they move along mountain ridges, they should not look for proof of stability in the snow.

Why not?

When stability is what you are looking for, and when you find it, it is – in a sense – the permission you are looking for to go ahead and do what you want to do.

This is a problem because it may not be thorough enough.

Instead, they teach the skiers to test the snow for proof of instability. In fact, because avalanches are so serious and deadly, they encourage the students to search relentlessly until they find instability.

What is paradoxical is that they are encouraging the students to search for what they DON’T WANT…not for what they do want. Skiers WANT to ski.

But they are also humans, susceptible to confirmation bias – a tendency to search for information that confirms beliefs or assumptions. They have invested a lot in getting to where they are (at the top of a mountain.) and the last thing they want to do is turn around and walk down the mountain. They (the skiers) will naturally look to confirm that conditions are acceptable to ski – much more so than looking for reasons to NOT ski

The safety instructors are attempting to get them to think differently.

As golfers on the Single Plane Swing journey, we can all benefit from understanding this approach.

If you are at all like me, my guess is that you want to confirm that you are swinging properly. You probably look to things like ball flight, video, and even comments from SPS golfers around you to confirm that what you are doing is correct.

But that can be problematic.

(For a long time, I could maneuver in ways that could get the clubhead back to the ball pretty square, creating some pretty nice ball flight. And this was all I needed to confirm that I had “nailed’ the Single Plane Swing.)

A better way to approach this is to look for “proof of instability” in your swing. And then look to remove that instability – one piece at a time.  (Todd and Tim Graves would say – start with Address position.)

What does this look like?

It looks like seeking proof that you haven’t mastered the swing yet: …that you are off-plane in the backswing, or that your trail leg has straightened and locked in position 2, or that you have not maintained proper leverage in position 3…etc.

It looks like being willing to say to an observer or a coach at a 3-Day School…  “How far back did I set the club?” …or: “Tim, what are you seeing here?” …or “Clay, did I slide forward too much?”  …etc.

If you want to make your Single Plane Swing better and stronger, stop looking for confirmation that you are getting closer.

Instead, think differently about this problem. Be willing to go to the experts – and beg them to tell you what they see wrong about your swing. This may be the fastest path to mastery.

It’s not life and death – as in avalanche avoidance training – but it help you learn WAY faster.

Have a great week!

-Paul