Natural Movement sequence

[Adam Young]

Originally Posted by Limpinswinger

Different people play golf for different reasons.  Some people crave competition.  Some are gambling addicts.  Some just like to drink and smoke cigars with their friends because their wives won't let them do it in the house.  Some like a long walk in the sunshine.  For me, it's the reward of being better today than I was yesterday.  I enjoy the process of developing, working on and improving upon a highly skilled activity.  I feel pride and satisfaction in working to obtain a skill level and then executing my shots on the course.  I also love competition.  Being out there playing the game, being with friends, meeting new friends, having a nice long walk, or ride, in the sunsihine, smoking the occasional cigar, enjoying the beauty of a well designed, well maintained, golf course, are all bonuses.  But, none of that is why I play.   And, it matters not how good I get.  I still want to be better today than I was yesterday.

Very nice, I agree and like what you said. It is true, that when some people come for a lesson it is always a case of giving them a little of what they want and a little of what they need. I know guys who crave information and wouldn't come to me if I didn't give it. Does it always make them a better player - no. do they enjoy the process of doing something that they believe is good for them - yes.

sometimes the 'what the want' and 'what is probably best for them' is in conflict with one another. as an example, a player comes to you slicing. They want to learn to hit a draw. You look at their swing and they have pretty sound fundamentals, path is a little bit left, face is too open at impact causing the ball to start online and then curve off right. the player has been playing this way for 20 years.

1. what they want - give them the draw shot. This requires them to now work at it and ingrain the motion. They are 50 years old, so their ability to myelinate a new neuronal network is limited. Can it be done, yes, but it requires a hell of a lot more work than in the younger years, and this guy doesn't practice.under pressure his old movement will come back. When he is tired, his old movement will come back. When he loses concentration, his old movement will come back. He also now has to adjust his entire strategy which his subconscious mind built up over 20 years to feel, see and play the fade/slice. He knows that his miss is right, which his subconscious mind will again take pride in knowing and make adjustments for. his body is not strong for the new movement (muscles work more powerfully in very specific planes of motion and have specific angles of strength - changing a movement subtly can put people into places where their muscles are not able to fire as powerfully), and certainly he has lost the flexibility required to do this and orthodox way. As a result of a new movement pattern being brought in, the player now has both misses. his old patter and the misses of the new pattern. Also, the player is now thinking heavily about the swing, so co-ordination is reduced and consistency also reduced (biological consistency overrides mechanical consistency)

2 give him what is best for him - under most circumstances, taking everything into account with this player, it would probably be best to just find a way of closing the face subtly at impact through the least disruptive way. This would turn the slice into a fade - nothing ground breaking or revolutionary but he wouldn't have to change his movement pattern and so all the symptoms above associated with this are reduced. Maybe give him a couple of subtle feels to bring the face under control if it goes out of hand on the course.

Is the player a drawer of the ball? no. is the player now better? hopefully, as long as the small change wasn't too disruptive to comfort. Can you play at the top level with a fade - certainly. Hogan spent his life working out how to do it.

[Adam Young]

Anyway, back to the thread. In terms of the sequence of movement, I often find that people have poor sequences because they are too much under or over plane with too wild a path. A poorer sequence is much more common with a player which is over plane/swinging left too much. Seeing how players develop from very beginnings, this is often a reaction to the face.

• E.g. new player takes the club with a weak grip. Makes a few decent looking swings, swinging towards the target.
• as the clubface is open at impact, the ball shoots off right.
• Player then instinctively swings left to counteract this. With their 7 iron it is relatively successful as the two faults make a right. (obviously not the same result with lower lofted clubs)
• this sequence then becomes ingrained and the subconscious refines the player's ability to swing left by reverse pivoting, negative spine lean at the top, open shoulders at address, right arm away from body in downswing,
• as the swing gets further left, the bottom of the swing arc moves further forwards, decreasing dynamic loft at impact and increasing angle of attack. Player's subconscious then tries to counteract this by moving further backwards through impact, and losing lag in order to increase dynamic loft and shallow the angle of attack.
• player then looks at their swing, maybe with a coach, and sees all the ' symptoms'  (reverse shift, reverse spine lean, over plane, right arm away from body, loss of lag, right shoulder/upper body moving in wrong sequence etc) and tries to fix them all one by one. The subconscious mind greatly resists any attempt and the player falls into a pit of mechanics and over thinking/analysis

All of this could have been eliminated / minimised if the player had a basic understanding of how clubface affects direction from the get go (not even grip).  Also, many of the symptoms can go away when the player has a full understanding of impact. I see fundamentals of beginners as teaching them concepts of impact, and then working outwards from there. This can sometimes develop some stranger styles, but movements are generally thought about less (a good thing) and more natural - to which they can be refined upon.

Someone could argue that - well of they had a good grip from the get go this wouldn't have happened - not true. I have seen plenty of beginner courses where people have been give great 'fundamentals' and have no idea how to control the ball. I have seen players with great grips and postures and stances come to me from elsewhere who have also developed awful looking swings. But I rarely see someone who fully understands ball flight who doesn't have decent control of the ball and ironically good technique, even though sometimes it was never explicitly worked on.

What I am saying really is that I prefer to develop very solid understanding of impact laws and getting people to experience variants of those before going through what many would consider fundamentals. fundamentals can be picked up later than you think, but I know how controversial that is.

[nobackswing]

Originally Posted by Adam Young

Subconscius learning can come in many forms, and on a sliding scale. An example of pure subconscious is when you give 100 kids a putter and ask them to hit it as far as they can along the ground. Come back in an hour and 70 of them will have great movements. Come back in a week and almost all of them will. hitting a putter along the ground is more likley to do this as the concept is simple. Ask a kid to hit the ball in the air and you will get a much lower percentage of good movements, because now an intention has been brought in. This is where concept/intention building comes in.

interesting, i may have to try this with some of the beginners i work with.

[Mr. Desmond]

Originally Posted by Adam Young

I never said golf was simple. but its also not as difficult as people make out. People could learn to play perfectly good golf before d-plane, impact laws, k-vests, 3dpofs, trackmans, video anlaysis etc. Some people had a ball and a stick and whacked it around a field without worrying if their shoulder plane was too steep in the exit.

I'm not against ALL of that, some of it is great (I love trackman stuff). But you seem to be suggesting that learning golf should be completely different to how baseball is learned or how stones are thrown.

your example of giving a first time a club actually goes with my idea... the whole point is that certain things, such as the kinematic sequence, are developed (natural means or unnatural means INO conscious effort) as a natural part of practice. A baby learning to walk also looks like a blob when they first try, but the subconscious develops, refines, adds strength to the movement all without conscious effort - a task that would be insurmountably difficult if done consciously. The question is - how many tasks in golf can be learned this way - have the tasks even been defined correctly to a person. Should learning golf be largely setting the correct task followed by giving the correct feedback as opposed to telling someone how to do it. Again, there is balance in here somewhere

And how many tour pros would be classified as a genius. I don't know if you have met many of them :)

You missed the point of my last sentence.

The point was about instructors, not touring pros. If you had read the sentence, it was fairly clear - instructors who can make the complex seem simple - are genius.

Whether the golf swing is simple or complex is relative to what you are comparing.

What I am saying is that golf is less intuitive than hitting a baseball or throwing a stone. In watching my sons play different sports from first picking up a ball, baseball, tennis, and then golf - golf is like rocket science in comparison. A baby can learn to walk, and as a toddler, learn to run with competence, and probably without instruction. But golf? a few ... most need instruction to become competent.

From reading the first posts in this thread, it seemed you were making the argument that golf is relatively simple or intuitive - now you seem to be saying it's relative - okay, I agree if that's what you're saying, but I don't think you are. I submit that Trackman and other scientific measuring devices are tools that actually help evolve instruction and make the game easier in the long run - it validates or invalidates what instructors are teaching, or gives them new approaches to instruction. I don't think you need Trackman on the lesson range for every shot - it becomes a distraction - but it is a tool, a training aid, that can be frequently used to make a point - like video - to give feedback.

[Adam Young]

Originally Posted by Mr. Desmond

You missed the point of my last sentence.

The point was about instructors, not touring pros. If you had read the sentence, it was fairly clear - instructors who can make the complex seem simple - are genius.

Whether the golf swing is simple or complex is relative to what you are comparing.

What I am saying is that golf is less intuitive than hitting a baseball or throwing a stone. In watching my sons play different sports from first picking up a ball, baseball, tennis, and then golf - golf is like rocket science in comparison.

From reading the first posts in this thread, it seemed you were making the argument that golf is relatively simple or intuitive - now you seem to be saying it's relative - okay, I agree. I submit that Trackman and other scientific measuring devices are tools that actually help evolve instruction and make the game easier in the long run - it validates or invalidates what instructors are teaching, or gives them new approaches to instruction. I don't think you need Trackman on the lesson range for every shot - it becomes a distraction - but it is a tool, a training aid, that can be frequently used to make a point - like video - to give feedback.

Yeah I agree with what you say here. Sorry for misconstruing what you said. Instructors who can make things simple are few and far between, and also amazing. Often those people that want all the information and are junkies for it struggle to realise how simple the answer may actually be - sometimes it is too simple for their analytical mind to comprehend and they need more, even though it may not be the best thing for them. I have seen so many people working on their weight shift for example, without even understanding that they should hit the ball on the downward part of the swing. They are trying to move forward, but they are also trying to get under the ball. Dealing with technique before concept is a much slower process.

Interestingly, I got some of my best performance work done when I got rid of video completely from my practice regime. I am by no means recommending that, and I use video daily to give information. But it was interesting for me. I posted something about it here http://thesandtrap.com/t/60003/which-swing-is-better

I try to work everyday on making this game as simple as possible so I can teach people in a way that suits them. In Austria, I teach a lot of complete beginers who have no body intelligence, no understanding of ball sports and are very very un-analytical about their swing. They don't practice and dont give a hoot how it looks on video largely, they just want that ball going towards the target.

On the other hand, in winter I go to an academy full of the next superstars - kids with 4 handicap and lower looking to play college golf/turn pro. A lot of these kids are completely natural in their approach, playing on instinct and feel. This is actually what serves them, so the aim is to make their swing as good as possible and as consistent as possible with as little mental and physical disturbance as possible, whilst giving them the ability to get it around the course when things go wrong.

The biggest thing that people have to understand, whether they are working on their swing through natural or more mechanical ways is this. Thinking mechanically about a movement or certain limb position etc has been proven over and over to hinder performance at every level of the game. People don't beleiev this as they feel that the more they try and control things, the more controlled it will be (untrue). Sure, when that things has been practiced and ingrained, thought about it is less and less and then performance goes up again. But then people start working on the next thing and the next thing. Golf is a never ending attempt to reach perfection - no one ever has or ever will. Tiger practices 6-10 hours a day for 30 years and still he can't find the fairway with his driver. At some point we should stop trying to fix our swing and play better with what we have. That is where periodisation comes in - devoting certain amounts of time to working on certain things, and then certain amounts of time to getting away from that (at lest mentally).

Problem is, once people go down the route of mechanics, it is like a drug. They believe that one day they will hit all the positions that their manual tells them and their GIR and FIR will go to 100%. It doesn't happen

[logman]

Very interesting post, and very interesting to see Moe Norman and Jack Kuykendall. Hope I'm not too far of topic here but my post goes to the learning of a new swing with all the intricasies that that involves. I've been tinkering with Kuykendalls LPG(lever power) and it's ssssooooo different it makes me think that there are 1000 ways to skin that cat. Bending the lead arm, feet wide apart, baseball grip on a club that's longer with a super,super thick grip. Hardly any body coiling, anyway lots of re learning and re thinking of the way to hit a golf ball. Most of them would make the dear departed golf coaches turn in their graves........but hell it works. Long and strangely straight. The more I fiddle with this technique the more I reckon that the learner to good golfer is learning the wrong technique.

[Adam Young]

Originally Posted by logman

Very interesting post, and very interesting to see Moe Norman and Jack Kuykendall. Hope I'm not too far of topic here but my post goes to the learning of a new swing with all the intricasies that that involves. I've been tinkering with Kuykendalls LPG(lever power) and it's ssssooooo different it makes me think that there are 1000 ways to skin that cat. Bending the lead arm, feet wide apart, baseball grip on a club that's longer with a super,super thick grip. Hardly any body coiling, anyway lots of re learning and re thinking of the way to hit a golf ball. Most of them would make the dear departed golf coaches turn in their graves........but hell it works. Long and strangely straight. The more I fiddle with this technique the more I reckon that the learner to good golfer is learning the wrong technique.

Hey logman, thanks for the post. Yes, I agree that there is more than one way to swing the club and get the ball in the hole. Although most people who say they believe that are the same people that say "you cant bend your left arm though" or "you must have a perfect grip" or "you absolutely must move forward in the swing".  Whilst these things can certainly help, the reason why a player is good or not is probably 80% (impossible to put a number on it) down to their skill level of controlling how the club hits the ball. This means SKILLS of clubface control, path control, sweet spot strike, bottom of the swing arc control and angle of attack control. This is why I can swing the club in a million different ways and still get the ball around a golf course in a good number. I can take a weak grip and hit a straight shot, a strong grip and hit a straight shot, I can loop the club over my head and hit is long and straight and can play with a cack handed grip/claw grip and get it around close to level par.

Skills are transferable no matter what technique you use. Although thinking too much hinders skill and co-ordination

[Mordan]

Originally Posted by Adam Young

Problem is, once people go down the route of mechanics, it is like a drug. They believe that one day they will hit all the positions that their manual tells them and their GIR and FIR will go to 100%. It doesn't happen

Your argument basically seems to be that "natual movements" golf teaching (when utilised properly of course) is effective, but "mechanics focused" golf teaching (when done badly) is not.

It's a straw man argument, you're arguing one method of coaching done well against another done badly. Someone could easily come along and talk about great video/mechanics based teaching up against one of those instructors we've all seen (and probably experienced) who talk in feel based generalities that have little to do with the problem that that particular student is experiencing.

In the end some students will do better mimicking others, some will learn best from words/pictures, some will do well by analysing mechanics, etc, etc. The best instructor is the one who understands the mechanics of the golf swing inside out, and then finds the right way to communicate that to each individual student. For many students there may be no mention of the mechanics involved at all in the lessons, it may be all feels, or demonstration or whatever it takes.

[Adam Young]

Originally Posted by Mordan

Your argument basically seems to be that "natual movements" golf teaching (when utilised properly of course) is effective, but "mechanics focused" golf teaching (when done badly) is not.

It's a straw man argument, you're arguing one method of coaching done well against another done badly. Someone could easily come along and talk about great video/mechanics based teaching up against one of those instructors we've all seen (and probably experienced) who talk in feel based generalities that have little to do with the problem that that particular student is experiencing.

In the end some students will do better mimicking others, some will learn best from words/pictures, some will do well by analysing mechanics, etc, etc. The best instructor is the one who understands the mechanics of the golf swing inside out, and then finds the right way to communicate that to each individual student. For many students there may be no mention of the mechanics involved at all in the lessons, it may be all feels, or demonstration or whatever it takes.

thanks for the reply. It was just an article to create discussion. If you look through my other replies, you see plenty of times that I promote balance between the two rather than one method strictly.

My argument if any is that

• lots of things can be learned without any conscious effort - they are evolutionary things
• Understanding the concept of the task can be more vital than the technique involved.
• When a technique is poor, there is often a reason for it - it can be an instinctive reaction to a poor impact intention, or it could be a compensation for something else.
• there is more to golf than the positions we hit. Things we cant see on video, such as skills, intentions and level of thinking also relate highly to performance but are largely undiscussed/hampered with.
• Often times we are trying to hit a certain position when our subconscious knows better. For example, we are trying to maintain lag like a pro, when we dont have speed like a pro. Your subconscious knows that if you actually did get into a 'pro lag' state with your 60MPH of clubhead speed the ball would barely get knee high.

All I'm really saying is that, we should look at the video but also BEYOND the video if we are to truly help a player. Also understanding physical cause an effect (mechanical) can stem from psychological sources too. Without treating those sources effectively we can be doing a disservice.

The argument was not that mechanical teaching is ineffective. Both sides of the arguments have their advantages and disadvantages. I am just looking at one side that is largely untouched. The idea of promoting what to do without promoting how to do it as strictly

[mdl]

Very interesting thread.

One counter argument I want to throw out there in relation to the baseball "natural learning" analogy that's come up a couple times.  I was a very good baseball player as a kid.  My dad was a poor athlete but loved (watching) baseball and practiced with us and encouraged us and whatnot.  I didn't take lessons through little league, totally self taught as a pitcher and hitter.  I hit .687 as a 12 year old (that's ridiculously high if you know nothing about baseball), little power but lots of gap doubles and easily the best hitter for average in the area.  Then we moved to the full sized diamond at 13 and my naturally learned mechanics couldn't adjust.  I knew that I needed to get to impact with more power, but the "natural" way I swung just didn't allow a more powerful version.  It wasn't until I went and got some lessons that involved a good amount of what you've termed "technical" teaching that I was able to make the switch and be able to hit the ball out of the infield (only exaggerating a little), though I never again regained such dominance at the plate.

My point here is just that I think it's easy to oversell the importance of focusing the vast majority of attention on subconscious learning and getting away from mechanics and all that.  On the other hand, as I think I said above, there's definitely something to letting your body figure out how to get to impact the way you want more naturally, rather than only drilling positions and just sort of expecting it to work out at full speed.  But I don't think anyone who's debating with you here is actually advocating literally never bringing in feel or more natural or subconscious aspects of learning, just that you give the impression that how you teach might underemphasize that aspect in their opinions.

[Adam Young]

Originally Posted by mdl

Very interesting thread.

One counter argument I want to throw out there in relation to the baseball "natural learning" analogy that's come up a couple times.  I was a very good baseball player as a kid.  My dad was a poor athlete but loved (watching) baseball and practiced with us and encouraged us and whatnot.  I didn't take lessons through little league, totally self taught as a pitcher and hitter.  I hit .687 as a 12 year old (that's ridiculously high if you know nothing about baseball), little power but lots of gap doubles and easily the best hitter for average in the area.  Then we moved to the full sized diamond at 13 and my naturally learned mechanics couldn't adjust.  I knew that I needed to get to impact with more power, but the "natural" way I swung just didn't allow a more powerful version.  It wasn't until I went and got some lessons that involved a good amount of what you've termed "technical" teaching that I was able to make the switch and be able to hit the ball out of the infield (only exaggerating a little), though I never again regained such dominance at the plate.

My point here is just that I think it's easy to oversell the importance of focusing the vast majority of attention on subconscious learning and getting away from mechanics and all that.  On the other hand, as I think I said above, there's definitely something to letting your body figure out how to get to impact the way you want more naturally, rather than only drilling positions and just sort of expecting it to work out at full speed.  But I don't think anyone who's debating with you here is actually advocating literally never bringing in feel or more natural or subconscious aspects of learning, just that you give the impression that how you teach might underemphasize that aspect in their opinions.

Thanks for sharing your experience. The whole point of this is that I would take an overly aggressive stance on one side (even though my actual opinions are more balanced) so that it sparks a more ferocious debate and hence better answers come from it, like your above one. But if I can chip away 5% of a person's technical nature and replace it with a more balanced perspective then I feel the thread has done its job.

I agree that sometimes you need to delve into techniques, although general it can be more of a supplement than how people use it these days. When it is done, you should get back to that instinctive playing again, this is where people sometimes go wrong. They get stuck in the analysis, stuck in the 'fixing' and cant get out at all.

We know the stages of learning to be

• cognitive - we understand it and try it but performance is poor, movements are largely unco-ordinated and need refinemenet
• associative - thinking about movement is lowered although still prevalent. movements become more comfortable, performance may improve slightly and movement becomes more refined
• Autonomous - movement requires very little thought, in fact to think about it causes more of a disturbance to performance than benefit. we could call this 'ingrained'

I know this model from learning to drive stick, learning guitar (every song I learn), Learning Piano, Learning juggling, Learning computer games and touch typing.

The problem with golf is too many people get stuck in cognitive and associative. The reason for this is that the golf swing is never fully learned - we are always going to hit bad shots no matter how good the technique. Now if you take those bad shots and go back into cog and assoc instead of just getting closer to auton - you are doing yourself a great disservice.

I suppose, in a way, (although there are many variables on this) it could be seen that, if your current game at its best is good enough, maye the answer is getting closer to doing it more often rather than changing it all the time. If it is not good enough (e.g your best shot is a high weak flop shot with a 7 iron lacking distance) then you should change the technique in order to find out how to hit it well, then work on moving up the learning model.

Most people reading this forum have probably never experienced autonomy - maybe they have had a round where they were thinking less and played amazing 'in the zone' so to speak. And then one thing goes wrong and they go straight back to assoc/cognitive - I suppose a lot of this is down to a persons expectation level of what is good enough.

Lots of people will be saying that they have never experienced autonomy because their technique is not good enough. you can be an autonomous 20 handicapper and a cognitive pro. Although one player is playing better, the other is playing to their potential. The balance is finding a way of opening up potential to greater heights through technique improvements, then playing to that potential through autonomy.

[BWChuck]

Originally Posted by Adam Young

We know the stages of learning to be

cognitive - we understand it and try it but performance is poor, movements are largely unco-ordinated and need refinemenet

associative - thinking about movement is lowered although still prevalent. movements become more comfortable, performance may improve slightly and movement becomes more refined

Autonomous - movement requires very little thought, in fact to think about it causes more of a disturbance to performance than benefit. we could call this 'ingrained'

I know this model from learning to drive stick, learning guitar (every song I learn), Learning Piano, Learning juggling, Learning computer games and touch typing.

The problem with golf is too many people get stuck in cognitive and associative.

The only problem is, they haven't put in enough time for it to become autonomous.  It's progressive.  With anything, if you take a detail (i.e. keep your head steady), and practice it, it will become autonomous.  Then you work on something else.

[Adam Young]

Originally Posted by BWChuck

The only problem is, they haven't put in enough time for it to become autonomous.  It's progressive.  With anything, if you take a detail (i.e. keep your head steady), and practice it, it will become autonomous.  Then you work on something else.

yes, your are right.

But in golf it never becomes autonomous. Because we can never hit every ball perfect, so there must be a stage where we say "thats good enough". Maybe this stage could last a month, during a tournament season, or maybe a day in a week, when we are playing.

in your example of keeping ed steady, working on it will make it maybe 80% better cognitively. Practice it and then maybe you can do it 90%, but cognitively. Now do it autonomously, without thinking and it may not be 90% better but maybe 40%.

we can be autonomously better at something (like head movement) without being autonomously perfect