Present Moment Golf
www.presentmomentgolf.com
I am always looking to find truisms in the game of golf. The question I often ask myself is, what are the most common features of all great golf swings I have seen. This contemplation has led over the years to a simplification of things down to three core tenets of a beautiful, effortless golf swing that produces great amounts of power and accuracy. I refer to them with my students as "The Three Rs".
Relaxation, Rotation and Rhythm
Relaxation
Impact between a golf club and a ball is an intense moment of truth. In these moments, the human body tends to be hard wired to react in a tense fashion. At an extreme end of things, think of the anticipation of a car crash. Similarly, you may also notice how your shoulders can end up by your ears during moments of great stress in life on and off the golf course.
Golf offers us a mirror for working with this tendency for tension, anxiety and doubt that is hard-wired into our DNA for moments of survival. The trick in golf....and life, is to truly convince our body and mind that the impact with the golf ball or the argument with our significant other are not life and death situations.
I think most of us know that we have to relax to play golf well. Most of us realize that pretty early on in our relationship with the game. However brief and fleeting those experiences of relaxation and mental clarity may have been, we all constantly come up against the reality of our need to let go of attempting to control the outcome with tension.
If we relax, our muscles become more elastic, more athletic and it becomes easier to harness the effortless power of our unique move into the golf ball. If we tense up, we have to work very hard to create any kind of power source. That also tends to be where injuries take place in the game.
Golf is a game of "know thyself". The question I encourage you to explore is, what helps you to relax into the moment of impact? I find that creating a routine that involves an emphasis on shaking out the tension in the body before the swing (referred to often as "the waggle") is a helpful habit to form in preparations for making your swing. Make it your own. What does your signature waggle look like?
Rotation
Golf is a game of contradiction. Our minds are convinced that if we move in a straight line and push towards the target that this action will surely cause the ball to go in a straight line towards the target. If you have played golf at all, you know that the above statement is the exact opposite of the truth and is the cause for much of our struggle and frustration with the game of golf. In order to hit the ball in a straight line we actually must rotate in a circle. This reality is what makes the game of golf a wonderful mystery and joy, while also causing a significant amount of mental anguish when we doubt this simple reality.
In an efficient and beautiful golf swing, we turn around the axis of our spine and the lead leg. The spiral image in the Present Moment Golf logo speaks to the natural power that is inherent in this spinning form. If it is efficient enough for the galaxies of our known universe, it is efficient enough for our golf swings.
Many golfers sway in their swings. This side-to-side movement produces a roller coaster ride where the head bobs up and back, drops down at the ball and then rises back up on the other side. It forces the golfers to produce all the speed of the swing with the weak muscles of the arms, to drop back down just the right amount and also requires a perfectly timed snap of the wrist at the bottom of the arc to get the ball going toward the target. It is inefficient, unreliable and sets up a much higher potential for injury as well. That being said, many golfers play the game with some amount of the above mentioned "roller coaster" form. The reason most golfers sway is the very strong illusion that the mind holds that says straight line equals straight line. That seems logical. However, because golf is played on an angle and we are standing to the side of the ball, all that "logic" is wrong.
Back to our first R, relaxation is the key, especially in the arms and shoulders. Those muscles must be relaxed and not tensed up to "hit" the ball if you hope to use rotation as your ally.
You know you are rotating in your swing if you end up balanced like a flamingo on the heel of your front leg and your arms and shoulders are relaxed and down in the sockets in your finish. That position ensures that you are turning and you are using the big muscles of your core to turn instead of the weak muscles of your arms to hit.
Rhythm
Check out my article on Rhythm Versus Tempo: Golf as a Dance
http://golfandlifelessons.blogspot.com/2013/05/rhythm-versus-tempo-golf-as-dance.html
Tempo (the rate of the beats in time) varies from player to player. What doesn't vary is the ability of a good player to stay in their own unique rhythm. Find your tempo and dance to your rhythm on the golf course.
Of course, it will be a lot easier to dance in rhythm if you are relaxed and turning around your center. Thus, we have the trinity of the 3 Rs of Golf.
When you lose your way on the course, simply bring yourself back to these three core principles. Primary to all of these is...."Relax". Breathe, let go, trust and dance in a circle.
To schedule a Golf Retreat with Steven Miller, M.A. please visit presentmomentgolf.com
