I gave a lesson to a guy the other day who said he wanted to learn "how to play golf."

He was being sarcastic, as he's played golf for 40 years or so, has made many nice changes and improvements to his golf swing, and is playing quite well for his age. Despite this, his texts from the day before were of the panicking type.

I gave him a lesson. I wanted him to do two things. First, I wanted him to take his left shoulder down a bit more so his head didn't drift back and up during the backswing. Then, I wanted him to slide his hips forward an inch, two at most, further forward on the downswing. The former would clean up contact, the latter would bring the ball flight up.

Three balls in I'm hearing about how "ecstatic" he is. Ten balls in and I'd heard the word six or seven times. We switched to the driver. The success continued. We added the hip piece. The success continued.

Back in "the room" I drew some arrows and lines and measured some things in the video and made his before/after photos with notes. Then he said something which prompted me to  look at his first lesson about sixteen months prior.

What he saw didn't surprise me at all, but shocked him quite a bit.

He saw essentially the same arrows. The same lines. The same measurements. The same notes.

He'd been working so long on his "latest piece" (all summer, really), that he kind of forgot about his "first" priority piece. That thing that will always tend to creep up on you and nag you. That thing you always have to watch for.

That's all.

Long story short, if you're struggling, look back at your old images and notes and videos. Odds are, you may just need to remind yourself of something you thought you'd licked previously.