Hypnosis while practicing

[rylansmith]

Do you guys think if I were to listen to a hypnosis video while practicing on the range or putting green. For those of you who don't know what hypnosis is it is where basically a guy talks and you get relaxed and you can teach your sub conscious mind. Do you think it would be a good idea to do this while practicing so I can try to teach my conscience to learn the swing without me actually thinking about it?

[Beachcomber]

You could give it a try... But I don't know how successful it would be?  The keys is getting the proper swing mechanics (feels) ingrained, where they become natural and part of your unconscious mind.

[onephenom]

I think that would be a great idea. thinking is what ruins rounds. learning how to forget bad shots and to not feel pressure before a shot is huge. if this video helps do that... let me know. i wanna get one.

[MambaGolfer]

Seems like it might work, I'd give it a try. I just wish I could teach myself to not think when I'm standing over the ball, I've got about 50 swing thoughts going at once..

[Dave2512]

I use hypnosis for different things and I like it. But for me it's all about training the mind not the body. When I am practicing golf, music or whatever I want to be fully aware of what I am doing. The time to stop thinking about it is when you need to rely on what you've practiced, on the course, stage, whatever. For me relative to golf that meant using hypnosis to help simply what I think about while standing over a ball. The triggers I've become comfortable with help to stop making adjustments on the fly and trust what I've worked on. I listen to my hypnosis stuff when I am sleeping more than anything.

[PirateJim]

This is sort of a +1 to what Dave2512 said with my own experiences added.

Some years ago I was a pretty heavy smoker and my wife was always after me to quit.  Then one day she talked me into going to a sort of mass hypnosis session for smokers.  I went along as the path of least resistance and... I quit smoking!  I've not had a cigerette since, nor really wanted one.  But the real story is that my wife bought a tape (back in the dark ages of cassette tapes) that taught a form of self hypnosis meant to reinforce the session we had been to.

At the time I was involved in trap shooting (clay pigions) and I was okay, but notthing special.  That game is all about concentration and focus and has a good bit in common with golf in that you really play it all by yourself out there.  In trap shooting, a tournament round involves shooting 100 targets.  The last ten are much much harder to break than the first ten if you are ninety straight so far.  I used that tape to teach myself relaxation and focus keys that could be applied on the range and went from class B to AA.

I don't think you can use hypnosis to teach yourself to swing right.  I think you will really need to learn that first.  But I think you certainly may be able to use it to learn to relax in high pressure situations (and perhaps not so high pressure) and let your brain/body hit better shots that you are really capable of.  Being relaxed and focused are not mutually exclusive, but they don't go hand in hand either.

[stoverny]

Not technically hypnosis but Galwey's The Inner Game of Golf is basically all about using methods to quiet the mind and not think about the swing while doing it.  He recommends a method called "Back-hit".  Basically silently say the word "back" at the top of the backswing and then the word "hit" at contact.  Similar to the "bounce-hit" technique he wrote about in The Inner Game of Tennis.

At any rate it is a great read.  He talks about Self 1 and Self 2.  Self 1 is the body that already knows how to swing a club perfectly.  Self 2 is the conscious, critical mind that tries to "take over" and tell Self 1 what they are doing wrong.  The purpose of the "back-hit" exercise is to quiet Self 2 and let Self 1 swing the club without interference.