Athletic-Golf

This article is from New Horizons Pocket Coach volume 3- The Athletic
Golfer written and copyrighted by Ed Tischler.

Playing Athletically

As we discuss the task of playing golf athletically, consider the idea that
athletes perform actions, and they perform the actions while focusing on how
the action feels. For example, athletes throw, kick, swing, toss, swing, jump,
run, punch, tackle, and catch. All these are actions that athletes perform.
And to perform these actions they focus mainly the feel.

Every golfer has the ability to play more athletically. Each golfer simply
needs to approach their play like an athlete. Think about the way you might
play carnival games. Carnivals provide all types of games that favor
athleticism. From basketball games, to throwing baseballs, to tossing
softballs, to pitching coins, to throwing darts, all require the feel and dexterity
of athleticism.

Imagine tossing a softball into the leaning basket. Anyone who’s played that
carnival game gets to be athletic. You step up to the counter without
looking at, and aligning, your feet. You pick up a softball and feel its balance
in your hand. Then you imagine the trajectory that will land the softball softly
in the basket.

After rehearsing a few tosses, you let it loose. During the rehearsal motions
you don’t actually toss the ball, but you do imagine the flight of the ball and
you do imagine the feeling of how much of a toss is needed to get the job
done.

Rehearsing an athletic action before you actually play a shot is common in
all sports. Basketball players do so on the free throw line, batters do so at
home plate, field-goal kickers do so before calling for the snap of the
football. Sometimes the rehearsal is simply imagined as a tennis player
waiting to return a serve, or as a baseball player waiting to catch and throw a
ball.

No matter whether the rehearsal is performed as a dry run or is simply
imagined, all athletes imagine the action they are about to perform. Then
they use their internalized sense of feel to make the play precisely.

Professionals in all sports perform drills over and over to internalize the
necessary feel. The goal of regular training is to become extremely familiar
with the feelings needed to perform athletically. This is because the key to
being athletic is to play reactively, and to be reactive you must feel the
actions.

You can think about the proper actions all day long and never be able to
perform them. You can understand the theory of a sound swing and never
know how to swing properly. This is because knowing how is a matter of
feeling the actions, not simply visualizing them.

Simply being able to conceptualize the actions is not enough. Your body
does not work conceptually; it operates thru a feel system. Your body does
not understand thoughts, your body understands feel. So, being a genius is
not a requirement of being athletic. However, you need to be good at feeling
your body’s actions.

Developing the proper feel is time consuming. It involves repetition and it
involves habit formation. Although you can understand the proper concept
of what you want to do in a single lesson, you cannot internalize the proper
feel in a single session.

It takes thousands of repetitions to internalize the feelings of an action.
Whether it was learning how to eat, drink, walk, talk, or write, you performed
thousands of repetitions before you internalized each motorskill. Learning to
toss, throw, and kick balls was no different. It took thousands of repetitions
to internalize those skills.

Athletes understand this process and athletes welcome the opportunity to
train and internalize the proper feelings. Athletes know that their practice
routines are at the heart of their training. Athletes know that training
properly keeps the feelings of the actions ready-to-use. I’ve even met
professionals that say if they miss a day of training they lose their feel.
Though this may be an exaggeration, the fact is that regular training keeps
the feelings of sport alive.

Now if you cannot train every day you need to make the most out of each
practice session. You can do this by isolating the most important actions,
and practicing their feel. This is the task of being an athlete. Isolate the
athletic action, and train to acquire the feelings that let you know you’ve
performed the actions properly. Remember, athletes perform actions, and to
perform the actions you must find the feel.

So, stop focusing on the newest swing fad, stop trying to imitate the world’s
number one golfer, and learn to let go of outdated traditions. Become an
athletic golfer, focus on the proper actions, and train those actions until you
acquire the proper feelings.

When an athlete makes an error he needs to forget about it and get back
into the game. Mistakes can be assessed after the game. If an athlete
focuses too much on eliminating mistakes during the game, she freezes,
hesitates, or quits on the action. This causes greater mistakes. Athletes are
good about ignoring the negatives during play.

Athletes train hard to internalize the feelings of their game’s actions. Then
they react to the game’s situations during play. Even though the situation is
ongoing, the athlete knows the rules of the game, the parameters of the field
of play, and the strategies of the competitors.

So the athlete watches the situation and reacts to the understanding of what
is happening right in front of her. For example, when playing tennis, you
react as much to the lines of the court and the rules of the game as you do
to the motion of the ball and competitor.

You react to such rules as the ball can only bounce once, and the ball must
be played over the net. So, the ball does not need to be moving for a sport
to be reactive and athletic. There simply needs to be a set of guidelines that
establish the parameters for playing in a reactive state.