Golf Training Begins With More On Comfort
This is a training post that comes out of some Awareness posts I did on “comfort and discomfort”. To read these posts from the start, click Here.
Before starting on any golf swing movement training I want you to do these awareness tests to help you find and understand your comfort in moving with control.
I am not present to guide you as I am in live lessons. With some students I used this during lessons to help prepare them for more difficult movements in posture. But, I was there to guide them IF needed.
Therefore, I am providing all that I can think of at this time for you to use when you think you need to know these sensations.
Golf Training – Comfort In Movement
Step 1: Stand up (right now) as you normally stand
- Do you feel comfortable while standing?
- Do you have any work happening in your body in order to stand?
- Do you feel in balance?
This is your “square #1″ starting point to come back to throughout your golfing years. Injury, age, stronger muscles, etc. might have you starting over again.
Step 2: Stand at attention (feet together) as those in an army
- Do you feel comfortable in this condition of standing?
- Do you feel in balance?
- Do you feel any level of work stress somewhere in your body?
- What sensations do you feel to be snug or firm to be “at attention”?
- Do you feel ready to move quickly?
This step introduces you to being snug and in control of your posture.
Step 3: Repeat Step 2 (feet shoulder width apart)
This step brings your feet to a ready position needed for golf. Consider the questions of step 2 with more attention to your sensations from your feet up to your hips.
Step 4: Stand at attention with feet shoulder width apart AND firm like a wooden soldier.
- Do you feel comfortable?
- Do you feel in balance?
- Do you have work stress to stand rigid for 5 seconds?
- Do you feel ready to move abruptly or explosively with NO flailing body parts?
This step helps you become aware of an upper limit of being in maximum control of your body while still being able to do some movement in this strict and tight control. You will need to be aware of this for some golf swing decisions when playing.
Step 5: Try to stand like a floppy rag doll
- Do you feel comfortable?
- Do you feel in balance?
- How floppy or loose can you make yourself without collapsing to the floor?
- Do you fall over onto the edge of your coffee table knocking your coffee onto the carpet? hee hee
- Can you move effectively and with purpose from this sloppy and floppy posture?
This step prepares you for knowing what to do with someone’s future golf tip or instruction to “relax” or “be loose”. I have seen too many beginners to golf respond into some level of being sloppy when told to relax. Their efforts are not athletic from being in this frame of mind.
Step 6: Stand “loose” or “relaxed” (somewhat in between of what you learned in Steps 4 & 5)
- Do you feel comfortable?
- Do you feel in balance?
- Do you have work stress to be “relaxed” for 5 seconds?
- What parts of your body are doing something to allow you to be “relaxed” without falling?
- Do you feel parts of your body being snug or firm to allow you to feel “relaxed”?
Keep in mind that this is your idea of “being loose”. Try this step at various levels of being relaxed.
This last step introduces you to the idea of using your sense of control to enable you to mentally feel so much comfort in what you are about to do that you will think you are “relaxed”.
After testing yourself with these different ways of standing, ask yourself:
- Which Step enables you to better dance on a dance floor?
- Which Step prepares you to lift a heavy box and move it somewhere?
- Which Step prepares you to stand in a line and receive a box from someone and then pass that box to the person on your other side?
Maybe these seem silly at this time; but, you want these concepts to happen, without thinking, in a time frame that is less than a second. Remember – this is methodical training you are doing at home focusing on a basic concept as it relates to golf swing movements.
In a future post I will describe a training process that I label “Floppy Arm Swing”. I used this to show how proper and strict control can guide you in playing great golf shots. It never failed to give me an awesome hit when I demonstrated it. But, I do not use it while golfing because of the risk of injury to the “floppy” part of it.
Click here to go to Standing Turn Training