Naming Taming Your Self-Destructive Habits

[james ragonnet]

When golfers take up the serious task of learning how to learn AND learning how to motivate themselves to learn – life’s most important skills – they’ll lower their languishing handicaps. Worn, weary and wishful golfers, who out-source their thinking and learning to so-called experts, have been spoon-fed defunct methodologies that simply don’t work. Conventional  methodologies, which stress ball-striking dictated by kinesiology and biomechanics, are antithetical to teaching and learning the swing’s systemic nature.

To master the swing, golfers must name and tame the ingrained habits that are sabotaging their development. Accordingly, golfers must do two things. First, they must invoke systems thinking to solve and understand complex problems. Second, they must acquire a working knowledge of cognitive neuroscience to grasp the interface of mind and brain in order to recruit new neural pathways and efficient movement patterns.

For decades golfers have embraced an inherently flawed “divide and conquer” teaching and learning approach. By definition all complex systems – including the golf swing – are indivisible. For example, when you divide a cow – a complex milk-producing system – into separate chunks of meat, you destroy its essential properties. When you divide a golf swing – a complex power-producing system – into separate components, you destroy its essential properties. What’s most important in the swing’s complex system are the interactions among its parts, not the actions of its parts taken separately.

james ragonnet

Edited April 9, 2021 by iacas
unformatted text, please don't just copy/paste

[boogielicious]

16 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

When golfers take up the serious task of learning how to learn AND learning how to motivate themselves to learn – life’s most important skills – they’ll lower their languishing handicaps. Worn, weary and wishful golfers, who out-source their thinking and learning to so-called experts, have been spoon-fed defunct methodologies that simply don’t work. Conventional  methodologies, which stress ball-striking dictated by kinesiology and biomechanics, are antithetical to teaching and learning the swing’s systemic nature.

To master the swing, golfers must name and tame the ingrained habits that are sabotaging their development. Accordingly, golfers must do two things. First, they must invoke systems thinking to solve and understand complex problems. Second, they must acquire a working knowledge of cognitive neuroscience to grasp the interface of mind and brain in order to recruit new neural pathways and efficient movement patterns.

For decades golfers have embraced an inherently flawed “divide and conquer” teaching and learning approach. By definition all complex systems – including the golf swing – are indivisible. For example, when you divide a cow – a complex milk-producing system – into separate chunks of meat, you destroy its essential properties. When you divide a golf swing – a complex power-producing system – into separate components, you destroy its essential properties. What’s most important in the swing’s complex system are the interactions among its parts, not the actions of its parts taken separately.

james ragonnet

Welcome to The Sand Trap. Interesting subject. Learning how to practice is a common theme here. It takes practice to learn how to do drills with patience and slow things down to make permanent changes.

We look forward to a nice discussion on this topic.

[dennyjones]

Welcome to TST!

[ChetlovesMer]

17 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

When golfers take up the serious task of learning how to learn AND learning how to motivate themselves to learn – life’s most important skills – they’ll lower their languishing handicaps. Worn, weary and wishful golfers, who out-source their thinking and learning to so-called experts, have been spoon-fed defunct methodologies that simply don’t work. Conventional  methodologies, which stress ball-striking dictated by kinesiology and biomechanics, are antithetical to teaching and learning the swing’s systemic nature.

To master the swing, golfers must name and tame the ingrained habits that are sabotaging their development. Accordingly, golfers must do two things. First, they must invoke systems thinking to solve and understand complex problems. Second, they must acquire a working knowledge of cognitive neuroscience to grasp the interface of mind and brain in order to recruit new neural pathways and efficient movement patterns.

For decades golfers have embraced an inherently flawed “divide and conquer” teaching and learning approach. By definition all complex systems – including the golf swing – are indivisible. For example, when you divide a cow – a complex milk-producing system – into separate chunks of meat, you destroy its essential properties. When you divide a golf swing – a complex power-producing system – into separate components, you destroy its essential properties. What’s most important in the swing’s complex system are the interactions among its parts, not the actions of its parts taken separately.

james ragonnet

Uh, ... hmmm... that's a lot of big words. 

Welcome to the forum. 

[klineka]

18 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

Conventional  methodologies, which stress ball-striking dictated by kinesiology and biomechanics, are antithetical to teaching and learning the swing’s systemic nature.

The reigning US Open winner demonstrates otherwise.

18 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

To master the swing, golfers must name and tame the ingrained habits that are sabotaging their development. Accordingly, golfers must do two things. First, they must invoke systems thinking to solve and understand complex problems. Second, they must acquire a working knowledge of cognitive neuroscience to grasp the interface of mind and brain in order to recruit new neural pathways and efficient movement patterns.

That doesn't even make sense. Who in your opinion has mastered the golf swing? Can you prove using facts that they have a working knowledge of cognitive neuroscience?

IMO plenty of current and former PGA tour players have mastered their swings and I highly doubt that every single one of them has a working knowledge of cognitive neuroscience, even though you claim it is impossible to master the swing without that knowledge.

When it comes to the golf swing, we have to be very careful in talking in absolutes, using words like "always" and "must", because rarely do absolutes hold true across all golfers/golf swings. 

 

18 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

When you divide a golf swing – a complex power-producing system – into separate components, you destroy its essential properties. What’s most important in the swing’s complex system are the interactions among its parts, not the actions of its parts taken separately.

I couldn't disagree more. The way I have dropped my handicap by 10+ strokes since the beginning of 2018 is by doing the exact opposite of what you are suggesting above.

Through 2 different coaches, one online at first then one in person, both of them broke my swing down into separate components, and we worked on individual components of the swing that would, when done properly, improve the entire swing. There were some components that didnt need fixing, so we left those be. 

I improved the actions of individual parts which made the interactions among the parts better, quite literally the opposite of what you are suggesting. 

 

Can you give us a little more info about yourself, your background, how long you have been playing, and maybe a little more context around your claims in your initial post? What facts do you have to support your claims/opinions?

[ncates00]

This reads like an abstract to an article. That’s fine, but you’re not doing yourself, or others, any favors with such broad generalizations. 

18 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

When golfers take up the serious task of learning how to learn AND learning how to motivate themselves to learn – life’s most important skills – they’ll lower their languishing handicaps. Worn, weary and wishful golfers, who out-source their thinking and learning to so-called experts, have been spoon-fed defunct methodologies that simply don’t work. Conventional  methodologies, which stress ball-striking dictated by kinesiology and biomechanics, are antithetical to teaching and learning the swing’s systemic nature.

Fine, but how do you support your assertion? This is just a conclusory paragraph. 

 

18 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

To master the swing, golfers must name and tame the ingrained habits that are sabotaging their development.

Strong topic sentence. I agree. 

 

18 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

Accordingly, golfers must do two things. First, they must invoke systems thinking to solve and understand complex problems. Second, they must acquire a working knowledge of cognitive neuroscience to grasp the interface of mind and brain in order to recruit new neural pathways and efficient movement patterns.

Two problems here. First, this is not relevant to your topic sentence. Second, good writing defines terms and explains them in such a way that a reasonably educated person could understand. You do neither here. What is “systems thinking” and how does it help golfers? How do golfers obtain a working knowledge of “cognitive neuroscience” and how does that help? Maybe you know what you’re talking about, but you do a poor job of explaining things. You write with a tone of assuming 1) that we understand your use of the terms and 2) in a conclusively fashion void of support for your assertions. 

 

18 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

What’s most important in the swing’s complex system are the interactions among its parts, not the actions of its parts taken separately.

Perhaps, but the counter would be that a cow is not the same thing as golf. With basketball, we break down the skills before playing the game. For instance, one must learn how to dribble, then walk while dribbling, then run while dribbling, switching hands, crossover, between the legs, passing, variations of passing, footwork, shooting, dribbling drills, spin moves, layups, free throw shooting, rebounding and boxing out, pivoting, etc etc. 
 

sometimes with complicated movements, the student may need to work on chunks. However, I will agree that the student and the teacher should be cognizant that the small piece is intended to work within the larger movement. 

[Vinsk]

I think sometimes the truth gets ignored when the issue is:

‘You simply don’t have the talent to do this properly’ gets warped around ‘ you’re doing it wrong.’

[iacas]

Guys… I'm mostly on your side here with some of this stuff, but…

He left his title off his username, but if he hadn't, you'd all be replying to Dr. James Ragonnet.

Let's lay off on the inquiries as to his handicap and the commentary about "bad writing" or something. You're making yourselves look a bit silly. 🙂

And yes, I've asked James not to just quote passages from things, copy-pasting them. I've asked him to actually engage with the audience here. And he's sending me a copy of the Golf Guru book, which I look forward to checking out. I'll share my thoughts after it arrives.

[ncates00]

3 minutes ago, iacas said:

He left his title off his username, but if he hadn't, you'd all be replying to Dr. James Ragonnet.

How is that relevant?

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, ncates00 said:

How is that relevant?

Because, he's not just some golfer who is trying to convince people of some things. He's talking about his area of expertise.

And, who said I was mostly or even at all talking to you?

20 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

Worn, weary and wishful golfers, who out-source their thinking and learning to so-called experts, have been spoon-fed defunct methodologies that simply don’t work. Conventional  methodologies, which stress ball-striking dictated by kinesiology and biomechanics, are antithetical to teaching and learning the swing’s systemic nature.

I too disagree with this, James, and the thing is… you seem to be setting this up as if this is somehow different than "learning how to learn." Why?

I try to teach my students how to learn all the time. We have the Five "S" Words topic, and that scratches the surface. If my students were to name some of the things that hold them back, they'd be giving names to these:

• Inability or unwillingness to be uncomfortable for awhile (change feels weird)
• Inability or unwillingness to exaggerate as much as they should (almost the same as the first thing)
• Lack of patience in going slow enough for long enough.
• Lack of patience in letting the ball flight and whatnot come around.
• Lack of diligence in setting up their "work stations" (whether it's alignment alone or something more involved) and doing their drills properly.
• Thinking that if they "understand" something that they can make their bodies "DO" that thing.

20 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

To master the swing, golfers must name and tame the ingrained habits that are sabotaging their development.

Could you define "habits" here?

Because a lot of what I do is "name" the ingrained mechanical habits that golfers are doing and must change to improve. But I suspect you're not thinking of these as the physical things.

20 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

Accordingly, golfers must do two things. First, they must invoke systems thinking to solve and understand complex problems. Second, they must acquire a working knowledge of cognitive neuroscience to grasp the interface of mind and brain in order to recruit new neural pathways and efficient movement patterns.

I disagree there.

I doubt most PGA Tour players have a "working knowledge of cognitive neuroscience." After all, we have this topic…

20 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

For decades golfers have embraced an inherently flawed “divide and conquer” teaching and learning approach. By definition all complex systems – including the golf swing – are indivisible. For example, when you divide a cow – a complex milk-producing system – into separate chunks of meat, you destroy its essential properties.

The golf swing isn't a cow. It's not a living, breathing system that requires a bunch of different things.

Johnny Miller famously "opened his stance WAY up" (changing one piece of the whole) before he shot 63 at Oakmont in 1973. By changing someone's grip, I can change the way they hit the ball. By changing one piece of a golf swing, I don't destroy the "cow's" ability to produce "milk" - I improve it. Just as you could by changing a cow's diet.

Bad analogy, doctor.

20 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

By definition all complex systems – including the golf swing – are indivisible.

Also, not for nothing, but how is that "by definition." Of course they're "divisible." We can divide a body into organs. We can divide those organs into the different types of tissues. We can divide those tissues into cells. We can divide cells into parts of cells. We can divide those into molecules. We can divide those into atoms. We can divide those into atomic particles.

No, an electron won't live and breathe like the whole, but if a person's red blood cells aren't working properly because they lack iron, you don't always have to treat the whole person - you treat and fix that one sub-system (maybe by giving the person more iron).

So no, I don't think that's "by definition" at all. We break complex systems down all the time. That's almost the job description of someone who calls herself or himself an "engineer."

20 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

When you divide a golf swing – a complex power-producing system – into separate components, you destroy its essential properties. What’s most important in the swing’s complex system are the interactions among its parts, not the actions of its parts taken separately.

I agree with the second part, but how do you fix the whole without fixing the individual parts, thus improving how they interact with and/or contribute to the whole?

[iacas]

James asked me to remove his posts from the forum, which we do not do, by rule (and the rule is based on several good reasons).

So, @james ragonnet will apparently not be engaging, and simply wanted to promote himself without any discussion whatsoever.

Disappointing to say the least.

[woodzie264]

5 minutes ago, iacas said:

Disappointing to say the least.

But not surprising. It’s one thing to author a book, which a monologue of sorts...it’s quite another to interact and engage in a debate over the points you’re making with an informed audience. 

[Darkfrog]

I got stuck at the dividing a cow analogy.

22 hours ago, james ragonnet said:

For example, when you divide a cow – a complex milk-producing system – into separate chunks of meat, you destroy its essential properties.