Topic: Golfertube.com Discussion / How to develop a golfer.

Somehow it didn’t get downloaded on your site so I’ve used your big brother.

View it on this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9sC1_qgLOc&eurl…

catch you soon

Sandy

Topic: Golfertube.com Discussion / Golferstube Hall of Fame?

Me me me and I’m…

six something

Topic: Golfertube.com Discussion / How to develop a golfer.

OK I have sent it in. Be kind.

Topic: Golfertube.com Discussion / How to develop a golfer.

Hello again Pohldaddy,

I took a look at your swing in the hall of fame.

I could get your muscle memory moving a lot faster.

I must send my swing in at some stage.

Too modest you see.

Can’t believe the voting though with Leela getting just a 5 point something.

All the best

Sandy

P.S. If I can change the swing name for Leela’s swing I’ll send mine in.

Topic: Golfertube.com Discussion / How to develop a golfer.

It’s easier to improve your muscle memory if you switch off your conscious involvement in the golf swing mechanics.

Conscious awareness of what your body is doing during the swing is what is missing.

If you can’t feel it then you can’t improve it.

Leela has reached handicap 7 with no knowledge of swing mechanics.

She can however improve her muscle memory at will using advanced awareness and concentration skills.

I have only touched the tip of the iceberg with her and expect even more improvement next season.

Don’t forget she is only 12.

Topic: Golfertube.com Discussion / How to develop a golfer.

Yes, I have already read about his fitness regime. Quite impressive.

I am addressing the more important side of developing a golfer and that is bringing out inborn reflexive motor skills. Without them Tiger, muscles and all, probably couldn’t hit the ball any further than my grandmother.

I do however agree that with his talent, his particular fitness program only enhances his ability.

Topic: Golfertube.com Discussion / How to develop a golfer.

What’s the best way to develop a golfer? As this is my favorite subject, I am going to thoroughly enjoy expanding on it. The process has three important factors:

1) Mentally. Be capable of controlling the interference that comes from the conscious mind. 2) Physically. Although most sports require fairly uniform physical attributes, I can quite positively say for golf there are no ideals. 3) Gross motor skills. This is certainly the most important factor to develop a golfer, which is without doubt what moves them to a totally different level.

As I will be discussing the first two factors periodically on other posts, I am going to devote all my efforts on this post to gross motor skills development. Be warned, you’ve now got me started on my passion and I hope this spills over to you, the reader.

When ‘Leela’, (my daughter), started learning golf four years ago, my understanding of how to use these developed skills were transported to an entirely new level. From the day she was born, long before she could talk, Leela and all other babies, are busy developing these skills.

By the age of two, they have more or less learned the mechanics of walking, jumping, climbing, throwing, pushing, pulling and many more. From this age until their sixth year they smooth out these skills and the speed of development has long since reached its peak. A child learns these skills by example and imitates his peers.

It is very important to consider the importance of this learning curve and its significance to develop a golfer. Leela started at eight, at a perfect age where the natural learning process is still achieved through example. If you compare this to an adult’s learning process which is unfortunately hampered through an array of oral instruction and endless questions and answers.

I always feel quite frustrated when an adult comes to me and hits the ball pretty good with his natural feel for the swing and when adjusted to the ‘model swing’ cannot hit it any more. I see it time and time again. They ask me, “What am I doing wrong?” Quite simply, nothing is wrong other than the fact that they are trying to control their motor skills with verbal commands.

Now take Leela, who I’ll use as a substitute for all young children, rarely feels as if she is doing anything wrong. Why? Easy, because she is still young enough to learn by example and has the patience to make mistakes. Just like when she started to walk but spent more time picking herself up. Did she get frustrated to the point of asking what she was doing wrong? Or does every fall lead to an improvement in her motor skills. Here lies the secret of how to best develop a golfer.

Thanks for listening.

All the best,

Sandy MacDuff

Topic: Golfertube.com Discussion / Whats everyones low score this year?

I broke eighty last month (79).

Read about it on my dad’s website.

Click here

Bye for now,

Leela

Topic: Golfertube.com Discussion / An extraordinary golf lesson

I would like to introduce you to a wonderful coaching technique.

Extraordinary Golf

“The future of coaching.” (Fred Shoemaker)

Let me start by explaining that there are two main methods being used to teach golf, the ‘outside-in’ and the ‘inside-out’ methods , one of which, is at best ordinary and the other outstanding.

The ordinary coaching method is widespread and it entails endless instruction with slow levels of improvement. Timothy Gallwey captures this well when he states in his book, (The Inner Game of Golf),

“Golf teaching professionals certainly know a lot about the swing but very little about how to teach it.”

On the other hand, the extraordinary golf method is easier to understand and, once learned, cannot be forgotten.

It would probably be appropriate of me to explain why I have described the present golf teaching method as being ordinary.

The word ‘ordinary’ is not the description I want to use but as I have many colleagues who use this method, I am going to have to tread carefully. (I would prefer to use the word ‘poor’ if I was being more honest). Allow me to continue.

Man has only recently developed the sport of Golf and a golf coach is a by-product of this and, like the game, he started out rather uncomplicated.

In the beginning, the game was straightforward and had 13 rules written on one sheet of paper. It was played with a few golf sticks and balls, on a large field with little flagged holes as targets to aim at.

The participants of the sport, for want of playing a better game, then turned to the expert players who were using a more extraordinary golf method. They asked them to demonstrate how they managed to hit the ball so far and accurately.

These experts then became the first coaches of golf but it puzzles me that their knowledgeable advice changed from:

Simply saying, “Swing like this!”, to a high tech…

“On the downswing, you have to return the club to the ball on the correct inside plane. You are coming from the outside of this when you swing because you start the downswing with your upper body instead of initiating it with the lower body.”

And all of this to a sweet old lady who attempted, rather unsuccessfully, to do it correctly after watching her attempts several times on a video screen.

(The modern teacher knows a lot about the swing but very little about how to teach it)

I have rarely walked away from such a lesson with anything better than a feeling of hopelessness and an awkward and jerky swing.

It puzzles me that somewhere along the way golf teachers decided to ignore the ancient method of coaching by example (extraordinary golf method) and have instead adopted a complicated, frame by frame, diagnosis of the entire swing.

There just isn’t another sport that comes close in this complicated biomechanical analysing.

The extraordinary golf method is dedicated to making natural reflexive movement the basis of your swing. This can only be achieved when the conscious mind is not involved in trying to control body movement. Reflex is something you do, not something you have to learn to do.

Experts claim our ancestors, the apes, first adopted an upright posture in the act of throwing missiles and wielding a stick. They adopted this posture because it improved the dynamics of the swing and thus gave them an advantage over otherwise faster and stronger opponents.

All human beings possess this amazing and highly developed learning system, which is the product of millions of years of evolution. It’s how you learn to walk, run, jump, climb, drive a car, ride a bicycle and all other motor skills.

The less we use the conscious mind for these tasks the more they seem to flow.

To be coached by someone who is not using this system is quite easy to spot. He will be filling you with instructions on how to swing. These will help you, at best, for a short time and then you will have to go back to him again and again to be filled with the same or similar info.

It’s like taking your car to the petrol station and filling it up, you just know it’s going to run empty again and again.

A coach who is using the extraordinary golf method would however start with an empty tank and fill it using his pupil’s highly developed learning capabilities.

Consider the following example:

Not so long ago, world aid organizations were mainly concerned with supplying food parcels to starving people.

They have since come to realise that these people were being put into a state of total dependency on the re-supply of similar parcels and the hunger problem wasn’t being addressed.

By supplying these same people with a way of growing their own crops, a better solution was realised and they were able to lead a more fulfilling life.

In a nutshell, ‘Extraordinary Golf’ involves itself with improving the learning technique and ignores the supply of quick fixes that do no more than leave the golfer in a needy state. The truth about a quick fix.

To summarise:

Teach a child to talk and he can talk forever, teach a farmer to grow crops and he will make them flourish, teach a golfer using the extraordinary golf method and he will enjoy this wonderful game beyond all of his expectations.