Center of Balance.

Do you pay attention to your center of balance when you are Golfing? Are you even aware of your center of balance?

About a million years ago, back when I was doing college theater, I had to do some physical theater. That's the artsy way of saying I had to run and jump and prance and not break my neck in the process. Being that I was not naturally coordinated or talented in that respect, this proved to be a major challenge. The director showed me an exercise to find my center of balance.

It goes like this:
Stand with your feet about shoulder width apart, sway left to right until it feels like the weight is exactly distributed between the two feet. Imagine a sheet coming down from the sky through your head and body to the point on the ground exactly halfway between your feet, dividing your body in two vertical halves (left and right). Now sway back and forth until you feel the weight evenly distributed between your toes and heels. If you are standing perfectly straight, with reasonably good posture, your shoulders should be over your hips. Imagine that there's a sheet coming down from the sky, going through your head, shoulders and body to the point on the ground exactly halfway between your toes and heels, dividing your body in two more halves (front and back.) Your center of balance is along the line where the two sheets intersect. Finding the exact center is tricky at first, but once you've done this several times, you'll find it quickly. The trick is to rotate your torso about the intersecting line, forward (like you're going to touch your toes) and backwards and rotate it around as much as you can until you get a feel for where your exact center is. (Note: For men it's going to be at or around the navel, for women it's going to be below the navel, almost down in the hips.)

Now you've found it, build a mental picture of a glowing orb around your center of balance.

Now imagine every movement you make starts from that orb. Start with simple stuff, like reaching one arm out to point directly to  your side, then directly in front of you. Take a small jump in place, always starting from the orb. The movements should feel fluid and centered, the jump should start straight up and land softly without having to think about it. [If we were in theater, the would be a number of jumps and twists here. If you start every movement from the center of balance you will end up landing every one of them gracefully, but I'll fast forward to how this applies to Golf.]

There's a tendency, when wanting to clobber the ball a mile to sway completely off-balance in the backswing and to either faceplant or fall back on our butt in the foreswing. Needless to say that doesn't help with ball control and robs the swing of a lot of energy. The energy of the swing is completely wasted on the balance corrections and never actually translates to powerful, square-on contact.

Try doing the centering exercise before every shot. Then imagine your swing starting from your center of balance, the glowing orb, and continuing back and through all the way to finish, keeping the center of balance firmly in mind. The swing should feel fluid, centered, firm. Replicate that feeling as  you address the ball, and go for it. For drives and long irons, it's obvious how this is beneficial: you don't fall off your shot and send it about a mile. But it helps with the short game and putting too because it minimizes all extraneous movement....

Try it. Let me know what you think.

Posted via email from Kinetic Golfer

Playing Partners and Other Psychological Pains.

If you've been following this blog, you know I'm on a quest to lower my Golf scores. Primarily I am focusing on the mental aspects of the game. My mechanics are good enough, as evidenced by periodic flashes for brilliance. But as the pros have shown us over and over, even with the most brilliant "A game" in the world, the brain can get in the way.

Playing Partners can be a joy or a Pain.

Let's start from the premise that in Golf, as in all other endeavors in life, if you can't see the end-result in your mind, you're not going to be able to achieve it. Starting a round you can't see scoring well on pretty much guaranties some pretty awful Golf.

Partners can do that to you too. If you play with a regular foursome, there is a tendency to find yourself labeled as "That Player." "That Player" can be any one of "The 'D' Player", "The one who always shanks an approach shot after a decent drive", "The one who can't get out of a bunker to save his life".... you get the idea. Unfortunately if we allow ourselves, we can quickly make those labels self-fulfilling prophecies.

It's worse when we've applied those labels to ourselves. They are harder to overcome!

I conclusively proved the point on my last round: I played in a foursome of near and dear friends. In that group, I have the reputation of being the longest hitter with the least accuracy and no short game. It was only on the fourth hole that I realized what was going on. My friends were reinforcing those notions at every opportunity with the banter. Not intentionally I'm sure. Finally realizing what was going on (and being real clear on the fact that the problem was my doing and not their doing) I started focusing on what I was telling myself....

We're in do as I say, not as I do (DAISNAID) territory here because I'm still working on this.

When I paid attention and went through my whole pre-shot routine (including visualization and feel), and made sure that my internal conversation was not negative, I did well. When I paid more attention to the banter than to my game, or allowed doubt to creep in my thinking, I did horrible.

Next time you're out, pay attention to the banter - both from your partners and from your self - and analyze it's content. Is it helping or hurting?

Posted via email from Kinetic Golfer

Doing the right swing.

Look, we all know that swing mechanics are critical to the game. Unless you've never turned on the TV, never read any Golf related magazines, or never done ANY reading on Golf on the internet you already know that.

But who's swing mechanics are we concerned about here?

Every expert categorically states that [insert their preferred swing style here] is the ONLY swing style. Their grip is the only grip, their address is the only address, their... you get the picture.

High handicappers, specially high handicapper Kinetic Golfers are particularly susceptible to that kind of balderdash.

News Flash: the emperor has no clothes!!!

There is no RIGHT way to do this. Some day soon I'm going to get with my friend with the doctorate in physics and we're going to talk ballistics and angular velocit. But from what I recall from my physics 101 - 215 days: there's are several solutions to that projectile/trajectory/distance equation.

Or to put it differently: I don't care how optimum someone else thinks a swing is, if you're not comfortable with it, it's not going to work for you. Don't do it!

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein (supposedly)

Ok, so on the one hand I seem to be advocating making no changes but on the other I'm trotting out this old saw about not making changes.

So which is it?

Change for the sake of change will screw you over every time.

Calculated, rehearsed change will help you.

Finding the middle ground is Zen. :)

Posted via email from Kinetic Golfer

Don't Panic!!

A friend sent me an email the other day, concerned about the state of technology, how we can keep up with it and how we can protect our children from it. I responded to the email in my other blog in a post called "Good Shift".

It occurred to me that there were some valuable lessons for Golfers in that post:

How do we Protect and Support ourselves and our children:

1. Don't Panic!
2. Stay abreast
3. Communicate

How does it apply?

Don't Panic
"Panic kills." -- a Navy Pilot friend.

There are no life or death situations on the Golf course. (Even if your whole paycheck for the month is riding on the next shot!) Take the time to evaluate every shot in the context of the game. Ask yourself: is anybody going to die if you don't make this next shot? If the answer is no, then check your anxiety level, because nothing else is worth hyperventilating about.

Take the time to breathe, relax, evaluate all the options.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no situation in Golf that can be helped by a panic response. Adrenalin is a great motivator, but it has to be controlled!

Cool, Calm, Collected, Controlled thinking in the face of even the most daunting challenges can only have positive results.

Stay Abreast
Situational awareness is about knowing where you are in relationship to your environment. (There's another whole blog post here, maybe later...)

There are two levels to staying abreast.

Generally staying abreast of your Golf game means being aware of your strengths and your opportunities for improvement (OFIs) (you have no weaknesses in your game!) Work on your OFIs every chance you get, then work on your confidence about overcoming them. Once you get to the course, know your tools.

Staying abreast on the course is all about course management. There have been volumes written on the topic, I'm not going to add anything new here. But making it a priority to be situationally aware on the course is key to a) decent scores and b) (more importantly) your sanity.

Communicate
Here I'm going to cheat a little. In the other blog (and traditionally) communication is about dialogue with others for the purpose of sharing or acquiring new information. My cheat is that I'm asking you to communicate with yourself.

Be aware of your self-talk, be aware of the messages you are giving yourself. For instance "I need to make this next shot." doesn't help. "I want to make this next shot." is a bit better but leaves room for interpretation. "I am going to make this next shot." is correct. Start thinking analytically about how you talk to yourself during the round and you may find other opportunities for improvement.

Posted via email from Kinetic Golfer

When visualization is not enough.

Finally got to play again after a long (week and a half :) ) break.

Golf is a fun ol' game. I thought I was going to able to report a break-through and give y'all the secret to consistently getting spectacularly low golf scores. I think I actually heard the Golf gods laughing as I was going around.

I did ok. I shot a 94'ish. 94'ish because I got to play the round by myself, and the course was wide open so I was hitting practice balls as I was playing and I admit to getting confused as to which was the play ball and which were the practice balls a couple of times.... (possibly another reason for the Golf gods' hilarity.)

But I did learn a couple of things I'd like to share.

First, don't - repeat DO NOT - read a bunch of golf tips right before playing a round. And do NOT even THINK about trying them out on the course. It will mess you up! I know you've probably heard and/or read this advice before, but it bears repeating. Specially for us kinetic golfers. It really gets in the way of feeling our way around the game.

Let's be clear on something: all the tips I've read were excellent tips, and I'm sure if I practice them on the range first they would make a positive difference. But trying them out during a round is a big mistake.

But here's the other thing I learned: I'm sure you've always heard that you can't make a shot if you can't visualize it. This is true. I hope visualizing the trajectory of your shot is already part of your pre-shot routine. The discovery was that there's one more step for us kinetic golfers: we have to tie that vision to a "feel" for the shot.

For me it went like this: I picked my target, I visualized what the ball flight to hit the target would look like. Before addressing the ball, I imagined the swing that would result in that ball flight, then I practiced the swing to fit the feel. As I was addressing the ball, I rehearsed that feel again. Then I took the swing.

Try it. Try not to look surprised when the ball follows the exact trajectory  you envisioned! :)

Let me know how this works for you.

Posted via email from Kinetic Golfer

Serendipity and Imagination.

Have you ever had the experience of finding things just falling into place for you? That's Serendipity.

I got an email from my friend Griz at about the same time as I finished posting my last blog entry. He pointed me at this article: Imagine this: Study suggests power of imagination is more than just a metaphor Scientific Proof of what I've been talking about!

Look at the first definition of Serendipity from dictionary.com:

ser⋅en⋅dip⋅i⋅ty/ˌsɛrənˈdɪpɪti/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ser-uhn-dip-i-tee]

1.	an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.

I like the thought that we may have an aptitude for serendipity.

From the study:

The authors conclude that the present study confirms "an idea that has long been espoused by motivational speakers, sports psychologists, and John Lennon alike: The imagination has the extraordinary capacity to shape reality."

Think about this: In preparing for your mental game, the power of imagination is as important as your mechanical ability, if not more so. Using your imagination can lead you to those serendipitous moments on the Golf course. The ones that lead to better scores.

Let me share a true story with you. This happened on the second hole at Sherryl Park. It's a slight dog leg left, pond in front of the green 280 yards out. To my left there's a bridge across the creek feeding the pond, you cross the bridge to get to the green. For once I landed my three wood in the middle of the fairway, it rolled to about 100 yards out. As I'm contemplating the shot, and frankly figuring how I was going to screw it up -- because at the time I could not hit the broad side of a barn from 100 yards out on a good day -- I see the bridge and tell myself "wouldn't it be funny if someone rolled a ball across the bridge and unto the green?" I chortled to myself and addressed the ball. Let's just say it was an epic shank: caught it off the hosel coming inside out. The ball went skittering across the grass, bounced twice on the cart path before hitting the bridge. I think "well, that's it: another ball sacrificed to the water gods." But the stupid thing keeps rolling across the bridge. And rolling. And off the bridge. And clips the curb and bounces up toward the green. It stops about 10 yards short of the green. (I know this would have made a better story if it had actually landed on the green, but I'm only sharing truth here.)

I have never laughed so hard in my life. I looked around at my playing partners, all they could do was shake their heads.

Of course I went on to blow the chip on and three putt... but that's not the point. The point is that for some perverse reason, my imagination took over and a serendipitous moment happened!

Now then, how would it be if we practiced that imagination and got us some serendipity?

Karma, Zen, religion and Golf

That's a big ol' broad topic, ain't it?

Let me talk about some assumptions first. I'm assuming that you play Golf because you enjoy the game. I'm assuming that you spend time on the Golf course because you get something out of it. I'm assuming that, being that you are sacrificing somewhere around 4 hours a round to it, this something you get out of it is of value to you.

So you know where I'm coming from, I'm Presbyterian. My Church describes itself like this:

We are an intentional faith community - doxological, liturgical, sacramental, and missional - which welcomes questions, invites inquiry, defends mercy, advocates justice, and loves beauty ..

Golf is a good place to leave any dogma behind and connect with the spiritual. Regardless of where you stand on beliefs and belief systems, given the assumptions we started with, there's a synchronicity between your game and your spiritual health. Or more succinctly (and to paraphrase a better known saying) "There ain't no atheists on the Golf course."

I'm not putting this forth to start a debate. I am saying that if you're out there, you believe in something.

If the something that you believe in is strictly you and your game, more power to you. You are probably a scratch Golfer and are reading this as a source of amusement. For the rest of us, discovering what it that we believe in (on the Golf course specifically) and tapping into it can only help our game.

There are common traits to most religions and/or belief systems: faith, forbearance, forgiveness, redemption... [if you have doubts about this statement, I invite you to do your own research and not rely on the press for your information.]

And that's where I finally come around to Karma and Zen. Though Golf is inherently a competitive game, keep firmly in mind that "what goes around comes around."

Find your center (physically: the place your balance comes from, mentally: the place your imagination comes from, spiritually: the place your joy comes from) and you will find the source of your Game. Examine it, feel it, experiment with it.

1. Faith:
   Believe in yourself, and your Game. Believe that [pick your guiding force] believes in you and looks out for you.
   
2. Forbearance
   Don't get wrapped around the axle about things that don't matter: your partners' quirks, the slow foursome in front of you, the trash talk during the game. That's not what you're here for.
   
3. Forgiveness
   Forgive yourself if you think you've messed up. Forgive your partners if you think they got in your head. Forgive in general. Don't hang on to any bile.
   
4. Redemption
   Having forgiven, accept that Redemption will follow. Anticipate the reward of putting yourself in the right state of mind
   

My understanding of Zen is limited to what I've read, but if I've got this right, if you achieve that internal balance around your center you will be in the right place to excel in your game (and in life...)

Likewise my understanding of Karma is limited to what I've read, but this goes back to the "what goes around comes around." If you play with integrity and look out for those around you, you will be rewarded. (The converse is true, so watch the trash talk and please repair those divots!!)

Apart from the general sense of well-being you will achieve by focusing on these elements, as a Kinetic Golfer focusing on this aspect of you and your game allows your brain to get out of it's own way and improve your game.