It’s School Time Again …. What Do We Expect From Our Students?

January 20, 2013 by admin

At the end of January each year, we start up our schools again. We typically haven’t taught (in a school setting) for a couple of months (holiday break). The break gives us time to work on projects (new videos, etc..), updating our teaching/schools/camps, etc.. to make sure we can give the best instruction and instructional product in the industry.

It also gives us time to think about and evaluate the past year(s) schools and camps. How the schools went, students reactions to the instruction, facilities, etc.

In this instructional article I want to write about the student … What do we expect / “hope” from our students. This includes students of our schools, camps, or maybe just students who are studying our video instruction and/or watching our webinars or maybe just reading these practice tips.

The first morning of our camp, I like to go around the room and ask our students what they want out of the week, the next 6 months of their golf game, and maybe the next year. What are their goals? What are their expectations?

We typically get the same responses… Wanting to improve their scores, cut their handicaps in half, learn fundamentals better, not have so many “blow up holes”, work on short game, etc.. etc…

After hearing their responses – it typically falls into about 3 catagories (all related):

They want to learn how to improve (score better).
They want to learn how to make less mistakes on the golf course.
They want to be more consistent when they play golf.

What I hear is them saying “I want to learn how to practice and become a better student.”

With that being said – I want to describe the “perfect student” … or someone we believe has the best chance for improvement. The closer the student is to the “perfect student” the faster he/she will improve. This is no question there is a direct correlation in this area.

1. The student is open to EVERYTHING being said.

In other words, everything being taught, he/she is receptive too. Too many times, students have heard (or learned) things different before and they put up a mental “road block” when hearing something new. Playing good golf starts by understanding a method of solid fundamentals. The fundamentals don’t have to be complicated or difficult, but the student must learn the fundamentals within the method. Mixing and matching fundamentals of different methods does not work.

2. The student understands is takes TIME to make changes.

This is a big one… To many want things too fast (me included). I once heard a saying, “If you get something fast, you’ll probably lose if fast”. Cannot be more true when learning a new move, a new fundamental, etc… If you have patience, give it time, understand it will take a little while to figure out, etc. the change will “stick” and most of the time will be something you won’t have to consistently work on again and again. Rushing the process never works, or at least work for a period of time… Quick fixes are just those…. here today, gone tomorrow.

3. The student understands you can not break a bad habit, but rather you CREATE a new habit.

This is a big one. I guarantee you if I interviewed golfers and asked them what they thought they needed to work on in their golf swing, a majority would say they need to break this habit, or that habit, etc… To start, it is basically impossible to “break” anything when it comes to a physical movement you have learned or acquired from the past. What is needed, is to determine what you need to work on and then work on doing it perfect (or as close to perfect) every time you practice. In other words, your body and brain are working together to create something that is good, it is not working “against” each other. How many times have you heard (or maybe said to yourself), “My brain says to do one thing, but my body does another”. We need to work on creating new/perfect habits that are much stronger than the old/bad habits which will in essence get our “body and brain to work together”.

4. The “perfect” student will ASK questions.

This sounds like something you heard in school doesn’t it. But, you’d be surprised how many students will sit in a group, nod their head like they understand everything being said, and then after the presentation is over, will come up to the instructor and ask a “ton” of questions. We love the questions, problem is, if one student has a question, chances are, so do a majority of the other students. So, if you are sitting in one of our schools or camps, please don’t hesitate to ask any question ANY time. If you are watching our videos, webinars, reading e-tips, etc. email us with questions any time. We promise we will do our best to get back to you with answers asap. Please don’t go forward not knowing the answer or “confused” about something.

5. The student understands learning, especially an athletic move / moves, is a PROCESS.

It can be a fun process and the process can be sped up with proper practice, etc. but it is always a “process”. Enjoying the process is the key! Looking forward to making changes and working on those changes is a key! Ultimately understanding there really isn’t anything that is a “quick fix” (as stated before), but rather a process to change and a process to good and eventually, great golf. Understanding the process, looking forward to working through the process, getting help when necessary, will ultimately lead to the golf game the student wants.

Again – As the golf school season begins again (as many of you read this, my staff and I will be teaching at our academy in Orlando) – thought it would be a good time to list what we would love to see from every one of our students in order that they can improve their golf games to levels they can only imagine now.

Remember – Always Practice with a Purpose.

Remember – A little improvement every day, will lead to a lot of improvement over time.

Tim Graves, PGA

Don’t Become What You Resist!

January 7, 2013 by admin

Don’t Become What You Resist!

By Dr. Ron Cruickshank

Beginning now, and until you finish reading this article I am asking you to do something. DON’T THINK ABOUT THE COLOR RED! Seems simple enough doesn’t it? Yet, I know a secret about the mind that perhaps you haven’t discovered yet. It is not possible! In fact, if you can go for more than about 10 seconds from NOW without having the color red flit through your mind please write me as you should be a future subject of some study on mind control. The reality is, the more you resist thinking about the color red the more your mind becomes obsessed with it.

In the mind game this phenomenon has been recognized for centuries and often times gets categorized under the adage ‘what you resist will persist’. More recently, the phenomena have fallen within the scope of scientific interest and put under more meticulous scrutiny. Most notably, Daniel M. Wegner, social psychologist and the Director of the Mental Control Lab at Harvard has been focusing on it. He calls this process ‘ironic process theory’.

The bottom line is that a negation doesn’t work linguistically. Like the title of this article, you can’t tell someone NOT to think about something. The act of reference to a specific object in the sentence forces the listener to access their personal representation of the word. Further, in the presence of mental overload (fatigue & stress) the ironic process seems to prevail and our mind becomes dominated by unwanted thoughts. This becomes the irony and the source of insight into the process.

Practically then, if you have your brain access a mental image by saying to yourself ‘don’t hit it right’ or ‘whatever you do, don’t three putt’, you absolutely increase the potential for these things to happen. In order for your brain to comprehend the meaning of what you are saying, it must access the mental file that represents you hitting it out of bounds or three putting. It does seem ironic doesn’t it?

There doesn’t appear to be an easy antidote for this phenomenon although the mind is conversely drawn to the other end of the spectrum. The undemanding answer would be to focus on what you DO want. Popular culture would then have us develop positive affirmations in the belief that we will be more inclined to move in that direction. However, like most things if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

For years we’ve all been told that positive affirmations will somehow help arrange the universe to conform to whatever we fervently declare. The famous affirmation ‘every day, in every way, I am getting better and better’, was first introduced by the celebrated French psychologist Emile Coue (a typical under achiever, he also discovered the placebo effect early in his career when working as a pharmacist) as what he called an autosuggestion. The belief is that by constantly repeating words or images (autosuggestion) that the subconscious mind will eventually absorb them and thus we will act in a manner consistent with these beliefs.

Autosuggestion intuitively seems more productive than negation, but recent research has also suggested that this too has a downside. A Canadian psychologist, Joanne Wood has been researching positive affirmations recently and found that they can actually work against our incredibly strong need for internal coherence. Wood theorizes that when the actual conditions (reality) present compelling alternative evidence that people get confused and de-motivated. Her research indicates that over reaching with affirmations not based in a realistic perceived probability of success could take you down an ineffective path.

Imagine you are over 50 years old and decide you want to make the next Olympics as a participating athlete. While theoretically possible, most of us would agree that this is irrational optimism and would tend to believe that all the positive autosuggestion in the world couldn’t really make this a reality. Well, I guess nobody told that to Galen Carter Spencer when at the age of 64 he won an Olympic GOLD medal in archery or British rider Lorna Johnstone who participated as an Equestrian in the 1972 Olympics at the age of 70 years and 5 days old.

In recapping the above information relative to golf we can easily surmise that we are caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. If we resist thinking about something we are practically assured, we will think about it or in opposite if we focus on what we DO want and it is not realistic then our cognitive dissonance kicks in and we get a loss of performance. What is to be done? How can we deal more effectively with these performance issues?

Here are three suggestions for finding a workable balance between these two undesirable outcomes in competitive performance when playing golf. These suggestions are especially important in situations that you find anxiety producing. This can range from tournament play to a weekend foursome given that the source of stress is almost always a result of your personal interpretation “that this matters”. The more something “matters” to you, the more likely it is to produce an internal state of anxiety.

“Think” about joining the Single Plane Academy Inner Circle…Learn more HERE.

I Focus your attention to external proceedings not internal.

The research indicates that when competing, performance is improved by focusing on external processes, not internal.

I recently read an interview citation with Doug Sanders, made thirty years after the event by the way, in which he discussed his famous miss of a 2½ foot putt to lose the 1970 British Open. He said.” I made the mistake of thinking about which section of the crowd I was going to bow to…I had the victory speech prepared before the battle was over… It is amazing how many different things to my normal routine I did on the 18th hole.” In other words, he was totally focused on his internal functioning rather than a putt that he would make 99.5% of the time. He functionally distracted himself by not focusing on the task at hand.

Certainly, external distractions can impede performance. Crowd noise, weather, camera noise, gamesmanship or even weather can take your attention away from the task. If your attention is on the wind blowing you about or on the difficulty of your downhill stance, you risk becoming what you resist. Learning how to recognize when defocused and inattentive and then taking steps to intentionally focus your attention can reap big rewards.

II. Maintain Attention on What You Are Doing, Not It’s Meaning To You

The more anxious or doubtful you become during competition the more you should focus on your actions. This is a narrowing of your concentration to directly manageable parts. For example, when lining up a putt, place your conscious attention on insuring your face alignment is accurate to the target line and your set up is correct. These you can control. If your attention or dialogue is that a missed putt is a lost bet or 5th place instead of 4th, the likelihood of an optimized performance is diminished.

III. Conscious Use of Imagery and Visualization

Imagery is widely utilized by athletes to enhance performance. This mental rehearsal methodology has proven to be especially useful in the sport of golf because it supports specific focus on an external target. I also believe the use of imagery helps in keeping ones’ attention focused on external proceedings and helps to separate your feelings of anxiety from the performance itself.

The act of visualization is not totally understood and yet we find some fascinating implications. Some stellar research done by the Cleveland Clinic Foundation demonstrated that just doing a visual rehearsal would actually strengthen muscles. In fact, the act of imagining exercise for 15 minutes a day for 12 weeks was found to strengthen finger muscles by 53% and biceps power by 13.4%. No traditional exercise was done during this research period.

It was found through measurement of brain activity through this research that the act of visualizing improved the brains ability to signal muscle activity. This means the process is much more than emotionally helpful, and in fact helps rehearse and prepare your body for the activity. Why not use this free and helpful tool?

Lastly, I have one last question. Was anybody able to not think about the color red during this article?

About the Author: Ron Cruickshank, Ph.D., is a GGA Master Instructor and the author of the soon to be available book entitled Swing Like Moe Norman- Use Your Brain for a Change and Learn the Swing of the World’s Greatest Ball Striker featuring Todd Graves. This book is written to utilize the latest in neuroscience to help turn you into a reliable and consistent ball striker.

Improve Your Move – Its Like Dominos

January 6, 2013 by admin

Improving Your Move

Are you a consistent ball-striker when you play golf? Or, like so many golfers, do you have back problems? Do you slice the ball regularly? Do you sometimes hit the ground behind the ball – hitting it fat? Are there times when you hit the top of the ball hitting it thin? I bet you didn’t you know that improving the movement of your hips and legs (lower body) could fix any and all of these problems.

Here is a picture of Moe Norman at Impact. What I want you to notice is that his lower body has moved both downward and laterally toward the target. You can see the flex in his knees. There is one extremely important understanding that I want you and all golfers to know: how you move your lower body (from the hips down) affects your spine movement – and spine movement is absolutely central to every single movement of your body.

I want you to think of the movement of the body during the swing as similar to dominos stacked into a line. Once you put the first domino in motion, there is a chain reaction. This chain reaction of one domino affecting the next one in line is similar to what happens when you begin the movement of your lower body during the swing. Once you move your legs and hips, you position the lower spine which then affects how you are able to move every other part of your body including your shoulders, arms, hands and ultimately – the club.

There is a critical connection between your lower and upper body

In this anatomical picture, you can see the hip flexors (muscles attached inside the hip joint) attach to the inside of the leg bone (femur) and the attach on the inside of the pelvis. If you look closely at the pelvis, you can see that the lower spine is attached to the pelvis in the Sacrum area.

The muscles that are attached to the pelvis attach to the legs and the spine. This is a critical juncture of your body – what I call the kinetic link. You can see by the numerous muscles and attachments that if you improperly move the muscles of the legs and hips, you directly affect the spine.

This critical connection between lower body and upper body – centered around the hips – is the focus of our latest instructional product – the “Improve your Move” (IYM) Training Video.

Groundbreaking Instruction

If you want to hit the ball better you must move the golf club better and faster, what we consider on-plane. Improving your lower body move gets to the causes of your golf swing problems which makes our latest product the GGA “Improve Your Move” video instructionally ground-breaking. I haven’t been this excited about an instructional product since the best-selling Single Plane Solution Video. Why? Because this video is more than just golf instruction, explaining the mechanics of what to do.

This video shows you how to train the movements you must have during the golf swing. The IYM video trains you, making it a “doing” video.

Good instructional videos show you the important mechanical movements of the swing, the IYM video goes beyond the mechanics, and shows you exactly how to train the movement behind the mechanics. Similar to difference between understanding how the pieces of a motor works, and being the motor, the IYM video demonstrates that you are the motor of your golf swing and now you can start fine tuning yourself for perfect movement.

Here are some of the areas covered inside the IYM Training video:

Specific exercises to help you gain the strength and flexibility of your lower body including: the Knee Roll, Advanced Hip Roll, Squat Stretch, Chair Twists, Leg Swings, Forward Leg Raises, Side Leg Raises/Side Leg Swings, Arm Circles, Arm Swings and the Side Step exercise.

Also included are golf training exercise including: Single Plane Training and Position and Movement training using the PVC Stretch Drill, Weight Shift Drill and Elbow to Hip Drill.

To enhance your golf position training you will also learn to train with the PVC positions including Positions 0-2, Position 0 to 3 and Position 0 to 4 drills. You will also train with a golf club mastering your backswing with posture training. And to master what Moe called his “vertical drop” we have designed the “bag in the chair” drill to help you train the movement of the lower body to get the trail hip forward allowing the arms to drop vertically.

Then, to help you understand how the legs move you laterally, you will learn the “Step Swing to Impact” drill which will Train you how to move into your lead side. All of these drills will help you reach the purpose of the IYM video – which is to separate the upper body from the lower body.

I firmly believe that there is no better training to help you become a better ball-striker (get to impact) than mastering your lower body move. Yes, the grip, hand action and arm motion are very important but nothing will advance you further than if you Improve Your Move with the lower body training found in this video.

I Hear Palm Springs and Orlando are great this time of year!

December 29, 2012 by admin

To begin, my hope is that you’ve had a very joyous Christmas and a hopeful beginning to the New Year. I know these winter months have been especially busy for us here at GGA, as we prepare for continuing to build the Moe Norman brand by helping any golfer that wants to improve.

While this weather this winter is just getting cranked up in some parts, we will start out 2013 schools in just a few weeks in 2 locations where the weather is pretty good this time of year – Orlando, FL and Palm Springs, CA.

Why in the world would you want to take a golf school in January?

Simple: The winter months are the best time to make positive changes to your golf game. In fact, this time of year is when touring professionals make changes to their swings and games.

You see, in the winter months, you can focus on making the changes without the worry or pressure of how the ball is flying or whether or not you’ll play badly. There’s no pressure to score well, no pressure from your playing partners. When you really think about making a significant improvement, right now is prime time.

That being the case, come join us for one of our schools in these early spring months. You’ll leave with a clear plan for improving not only your golf swing but your entire game. I encourage you to make 2013 a year of continual improvement, and we are here to help you do that.

Since the Mayans missed the whole end of the world thing, we might as well go for it!

Scott Renfrow

Biomechanically Simple is an oxymoron

December 10, 2012 by admin

I am guilty of using the term “biomechanical” as it relates to the movement of the body. This is how I see the golf swing. I see it as a set of bodily movements that in sequence – put a golf club in motion. Yes, this is a biomechanical (act of movement) of the body. But is there really any simple movement of the body? I don’t think so.

Even things you think of as simple such as eating an apple use hundreds of muscles including the muscles in your jaw, not including the muscles in your arms, shoulder and back to bring the apple to your mouth. Think about teaching someone to eat an apple starting from the apple sitting on the counter to the act of taking a bite. It might go something like this:

Reach your arm to the apple and grasp the apple with your hand. Make sure that you hold the sides of the apple as to leave a space where you can bite. Now, lift the apple to your mouth, open your mouth wide enough and press your teeth into the apple. Now, close your teeth as you push on the apple and then gradually pull the apple away from your mouth as you continue to bite downward.

As you can see, describing a simple task is not so simple. Then, if you take into account all of the variables such as how big or hard is the apple? Or how many bites will it take to eat the entire apple? The complication of eating an apple can be mind-numbing. If eating an apple is this difficult to explain, imagine the complication of describing the golf swing. I once figured that to cover a 300 page instruction book would take over 9 hours of video. Yes, the golf swing is complicated because describing human movement (biomechanics) is always complicated. So where do we go from here?

Keep It Simple Stupid – was a term Moe would use often. And I do believe there are simple ways to move the body and difficult ways – especially when it comes to conventional golf versus Moe’s Single Plane Golf Swing. The difference is that Moe positioned his body in a pre-set or “efficient” place that made it easier to do the job of hitting a golf ball. It’s really that simple. Moe started in a better place which makes moving easier.

This doesn’t make describing Moe’s swing any easier or instructing Moe’s swing any less complicated. This is where many students get confused. They think that because Moe’s swing was easier that the instruction should be simple. This is a big mistake. What you need to understand is that your swing will become simplified when you are in the correct positions – the positions of Moe – but sometimes these positions are difficult to achieve. This might be difficult for some of you to hear.

Of course, there are simple ways of explaining things that sometimes work such as describing the trail hand movement as “hammering a nail” or describing the downswing move as a “sitting” motion. Relating movements to familiar things can be useful however, it often doesn’t tell the entire story. The fact is that you only learn the movement when you do the movement. Therefore, doing the movement correctly you will develop your own description because all new movement is unique to the person moving. Where one person feels like a sit, another feels like a squat or a dip. The fact is that it doesn’t really matter as long as the movement is correct.

So my advice to you is to learn to move correctly. This means that you must get past the idea that Moe’s swing instruction is complicated. All instruction is complicated if it is any good. The key is to get past the details and onto the feelings of correct. This is where true learning happens.

WINTER PRACTICE # 2 – Indoor Short Game Practice

December 3, 2012 by admin

As everyone knows who has been at one of our schools, read past instructional material by us, has our instructional material (Single Plane Solution or 7 principles) or just spends a little time at any of our academies, we continually stress building the ENTIRE game rather than just parts of the game.

As we always say, you will only be as good as the weakest part of your game. With this said, we many times fall into the trap of focusing only on our long game and letting our short game slip a little – or worse, putting very little practice into our short game. Fact: 43% of scoring occurs on the putting green (with the putter) for an average 20 handicap golfer. As your handicap goes up, this percentage increases for a scratch golfer about 40% of scoring occurs with the putter. And, as this is the time of year we get minimal outdoor practice, let’s talk about setting up a practice station and method to improve our putting which can be done at home, in the office, on the road, in the winter or any time of the year.

First, we recommend you obtain the following “tools” for your putting station. Putting mat (or smooth carpet in your house), yardstick, Sharpie marker, 2 rubber bands, golf balls, 2 x 4 (about 2 feet long), and a magazine.

Draw a straight line on your putting mat from the hole back to the end of the mat (or at least 6 to 8 feet) – (would definitely recommend getting a mat for this, not sure too many spouses would be happy putting a line on the house’s carpet.)

Next, place 2 rubber bands on your putter face about 1 to 2 inches apart. You can start wide (2 inches) and then work down.

The center point between the 2 rubber bands should be the sweet spot of the putter. When you are placing the rubber bands on the putter – do not make them smooth – in other words – if you hit the rubber band in your stroke, you want the ball to go off line. When practicing with the rubber bands on the putter it will show you if you are making contact with the sweet spot of your putter (making sure you don’t heel or toe your putter which leads to VERY inconsistent putting, in particular, distance control).

Next, take a golf ball (or few golf balls) and draw a line around the ball with the sharpie. Make the line as circular around the ball as possible. You could use a range ball (with lines on it), but prefer you use the same type of golf balls you play with (to develop feel).

Suggest using a tool to help you draw the line around the ball and the tool can be used for drawing the recommended “T” on the ball when you play. Please see Graves Golf Academy Putting System below – including Putting String, Eye Line, and Line-em-Up.

To see more about the GGA Putting System – please go to: http://moenormangolf.com/store/products/gga-putting-system/

or go to: Products above and choose Training Aids

Now let’s talk about a few drills to work on your putting:

To determine proper ball position, place the Eye Line (see above) on your mat and place a golf ball on the front edge of the Eye Line. When you look down on the Eye Line (will reflect) you should not see your left eye (for right hands – right eye for left-handers) – the ball will block the reflection of your lead eye. You will see your trail eye just behind the ball in the reflection. In other words, this is a great check to make sure the ball is under your eye line and slightly forward in your stance. Your eyes will be over the middle black line on the Eye Line Mirror.

This drill works for short, long and side saddle putting. You will stand a little more inside (further from the ball) with a belly style putter – but still, want to get as close as possible.This drill also will help determine if your putter is too long – for many, if they can’t get the golf ball in a good position – could mean the putter (length) is too long.

After you have determined the proper distance from the golf ball, lay a magazine down next to your toes. For most, an average size magazine will fit between the toes and putter (leaving enough room to stroke the putt). Ideally – find a magazine (size) that will fit exactly between your toes and heel of your putter when you set up over the ball. You can then use this check anytime you are practicing putting – to make sure you are the right distance from the ball – just lay down the magazine – put your toes against the magazine and heel on another side.

Take the 2 x 4 and place parallel to the line on the mat with just enough room to stroke the putt with the toe of the putter as close to the board as you are comfortable. As you perform this drill, the putter should go back straight and then arc slightly inside (for longer putts) in the backswing. In the through swing the putter will return to square at impact, go straight through and then arc slightly inward (towards your toes) for longer putts. Check point in this drill is the putter never touches the 2 x 4 but stays very close to it.

Finally – the line drill. You can do either with the “lined ball” or unmarked ball. I recommend both. Place the ball on the line on putt.

When you putt check four things:

You stay VERY still during the putt – minimal movement in the body.
The ball rolls down the line to the hole. Does not go right or left.
The putter head goes back (backswing) down the line (slightly inward arc for longer putts) and then returns to square at impact, rides the line in the through swing (arcs slightly in for longer putts).
If you used the marked golf ball – should roll straight into the hole – should not “wobble” on the way.

These drills work for all forms of putting – short, long, belly and side saddle. In fact, as you examine your putting and putting a stroke in the off season, it may be a great time to “experiment” with other forms. The roll of the golf ball, path of the putter, etc. doesn’t lie. And as the USGA is current changing rules of “anchored” putters – may be a good time to think about some changes…

Again – GREAT TIME of year to work on the most important part of your game for scoring.

Remember my saying about the short game: “I have never seen a good player with a bad short game, and have never seen a bad player with a good short game.”

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