Golf Mp3's: Instant Golf Swing Instruction

Is there such a thing as an “authentic golf swing?” Do you have a swing, unique to you and used only by you, where you are most deeply and intimately connected to yourself? A swing where you have not only the most power and accuracy, but also where you feel the best? Where you feel the most connected and alive?

It’s an interesting idea. An idea that I am familiar with through my self-application of awareness and movement sessions based on the work of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais. We tend to adopt a number of less-than-optimal habits in our everyday movement. Very often, in fact, most often, we move with too much effort. We habitually overuse our muscles and use too many muscles as we navigate through our environment. Moshe Feldenkrais used to refer to this as enacting “parasitic movements”:

“Efficient movement or performance of any sort is achieved by weeding out, and eliminating, parasitic superfluous exertion.” (1)

The number of potential parasitic movements is astronomical and I will not attempt to categorize them here. But as an example, consider someone who habitually grips the club too tightly. The extra strength on the grip is wasted energy as it does not help them to swing the club. Or think of someone who clenches his teeth or makes a grimace when swinging. Do those extra movements help the person to have a better swing, or are they just background “noise” that gets in the way of the perfect swing? I propose it is the latter.

But here is the problem: Telling someone to relax their grip or let go of their jaw as they swing, rarely works. Think about it. How many times have you heard someone tell a child to “stand up straight” or to “stop slouching.” Does it work? Never. It cannot work. The process of moving is not a conscious process. We can initiate movement, yes. But the act of coordinating and controlling the 100’s of muscles and bones related to a complex movement cannot be done just by thinking about the movement.

Why would a golf swing be any different? One of the keys – as I hope you will feel in my golf swing mp3’s – is to break up your habitual movement patterns by use of new sensory-motor patterns. That is, you experience key elements of your swing in radial new ways. Ways that bring awareness not only to “you” but also to those deeper parts of your nervous system and brain, those evolutionarily older structures, that help you to breathe and eat and hear and move, without the need for you to be consciously involved.

Am I making sense here? Or does it sound like a bunch of hocus pocus?

Whatever your initial feelings are, keep them. I’m not going to try to convince you of anything. I’m going to give you some free mp3 downloads so that you can try the new experiences on for yourself.

cheers for now – Ryan

(1) Learning To Learn: A manual to help you get the best results from the Awareness Through Movement lessons

Tags: Feldenkrais Golf, Golf Swing Blog, Golf Swing Instruction, Golf Swing MP3 by ryannagy
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I’m spending 2-3 hours each day editing and reviewing my golf instruction transcripts. I like to have everything specified before recording. Reading, writing and editing the transcripts is a fascinating experience.

Imagining the Golf Swing

I find that I have to imagine the movements and the golf swing dynamics as I write. This detailed imagining has effects on my posture and movement just as if I had done the sessions. I expect this type of experience when creating Feldenkrais-based sessions. However, the golf transcripts have a much greater affect than the other products that I have created.

Perhaps because many of the golf sessions are done in a standing posture? Perhaps because a golf swing is such a complex movement? Perhaps because it is winter and I am not near a course – having to imagine every detail of the golf environment?

I’m not quite sure, but I am intrigued. I have 6 session so far, each done with a golf club and each working on a different sensory motor movement patterns related to the swing. Next, I will design 6 “floor” sessions, each designed to work with swing dynamics outside of our usual vertical relationship to gravity.

More to come – Ryan

Tags: Golf Swing Blog, Golf Swing Instruction, Golf Swing MP3 by ryannagy
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This week, I have been working on updating my golf swing instruction mp3’s. I’m starting with a series of 6 transcripts, each of which is based on a crucial movement pattern related to golfing.

Improve Your Golf Swing

Not only is the golf swing a very complex movement, but many of us learned to swing under non-optimal conditions. That is, we learned it via imitating someone else, through copying or through an external “authority” telling us how to swing and critiquing what we were doing.

Golf From The “Inside”

Those type of learning techniques do have some small utility. But the best way our bodies learn is through feeling the movement from the inside out. That is, feeling, sensing and and adjusting, based on our own unique movement patterns. Learning to improve your golf swing in this way, is similar to how you learned to crawl and walk as a child – you learned it from experimenting. You didn’t read a book called, “Crawling For Dummies.” You learned it by being in a situation that required you to learn.

My golf swing instruction mp3’s have a similar focus – putting you in safe, yet challenging situations in which you and your body and mind can learn new ways of moving and coordinating your swing.

Stay tuned.

And for those of you who are practitioners of one kind or another, I will be selling not only the golf mp3’s, but also the transcripts. That way, you can more easily begin to offer your own golf workshops.

cheers! – Ryan

Tags: Golf Swing Instruction, Golf Swing MP3 by ryannagy
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