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• Classic-Fiction

Sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint how your setup or swing could be changed to improve your game. This is especially true for low handicappers, because everything is so grooved. Frequently the clue to your corrections is reflected in language, especially the verbs, adverbs, and adjectives that are used to describe a swing problem.

Once while I was working with a golfer on the practice tee, she said to me, “My swing doesn’t feel harmonious.” This statement suggested that there were both kinesthetic (feel) and auditory (harmonious) components to her swing analysis.

Then I asked her, “Which muscles specifically don’t feel right and what kind of sound would you like to go along with your swing?”

After swinging her club a few times she replied, “Oh, now I know what it is. I don’t feel the flexibility in my wrists and the ever-so-slight pause at the top of my backswing that I normally feel when I swing with rhythm. I’m not humming the phrase of a song in my mind as I usually do. Let me hum my tune and hit it again. ”

After hitting a few shots she said, “Now it feels the way I want it to.”

My work with her was finished. I had just pointed her in the direction of her own knowledge. Metaskills techniques do exactly that.

The Backup Process

There’s another way to uncover unknown elements of your game in need of refinement. It’s called the Backup Process. Essentially, it consists of mentally rehearsing your anticipated performance for a forthcoming tournament. During your mental review, defects in your performance will be revealed in the form of unclear images, garbled and discordant sounds, and uncomfortable feelings. These distorted sensory data are forms of communication from your unconscious mind about aspects of your game that need attention.

As a result of doing the Backup Process you’ll uncover information about the specific parts of your game in need of strengthening. You may notice blurred images during pitch shots or long putts. They are signals that it may be important to spend more time on the practice green honing your pitching and putting skills. If you feel uncomfortable while playing certain holes, it could indicate the need to play those holes repeatedly to familiarize yourself with the hazards and the contour of the land. If your pictures are fuzzy as you address the ball, it could mean that your setup is defective.

THE BACKUP PROCESS

Go forward to a tournament or competitive round on a course with which you’re familiar and play a mental round. Fantasize, in full sensory detail, the conditions you believe will be present.

See, hear, and feel all that you would expect to see, hear, and feel as you mentally play each hole. If any of these representations are incomplete, discordant, unclear, or uncomfortable during your fantasy, it’s a signal from your unconscious mind about elements of your game in need of improvement.

After you have identified what needs to be worked on, take a step backward. Fantasize how you would prepare for that competition, knowing the weakness your mind has discovered.

Scoot to the practice range and work on what needs improvement.

Repeat the Backup Process periodically to identify other potential outcomes. When the mental rehearsal for the future is devoid of defective sensory data, you can feel reasonably confident that you’re fully prepared for a future tournament.

Principle of Ecology

Everything with which human beings interact has a definite impact upon their well-being. There is an interdependence between our beliefs, behaviors, expectations, nutrition, health, personal relationships, and the environment. Change any one of these elements and it could have a powerful effect on each of the others.

One woman improved her golf game so much that her husband, who didn’t play as well as she did, felt threatened and they became temporarily estranged. One young man discovered, in the process of refining his golf game, that he really didn’t want to reach his goal of becoming a tour golfer. He