Trust eliminates fear and doubt. Let’s look at how you can learn to truly trust in your golf swing rather than hitting golf shots with the burden of fear and doubt in your mind. Can you sense how much fun this would be and how beneficial it would be for your golf game? Each shot on the golf course is different and requires some adaptability in your golf swing. You’ll face no two shots exactly the same. Let’s look at how you can learn to discover and trust in your innate adaptability.
Conventional golf instruction might approach learning to trust your golf swing by doing golf drills to “drill” the correct movements and swing into your muscle memory so you can repeat that swing consistently when called upon. But, can you sense how drilling in certain movements in your golf swing actually limits your golf repertoire, flexibility and adaptability? A better approach might be learning to trust in the instinctive kinesthetic intelligence of your body/mind to develop an adaptable golf swing for the variety of golf shots required for the conditions you encounter on the golf course.
Kinesthetic intelligence is the sense of bodily movement, balance and coordination that occurs while performing motor skills. It is an awareness of the union of body and mind, intention and movement. It is a form of “body knowing” developed through experience and adaptation. Kinesthetic intelligence is analogous to “feel” which is defined as “to be aware of through physical sensations.”
Improved performance is a natural by-product of awakening kinesthetic intelligence. You don’t learn about your golf swing by reading an instruction manual or listening to directions; you learn about it through tuning in to your kinesthetic senses and instinctual abilities while swinging a golf club. Awaken Your Inner Golfer provides a variety of instinct-awakening golf exercises with variations in swing, stance, grip, use of subtle senses and imagination to awaken your innate adaptability skills to achieve the intention of pure impact and a successful golf shot. The exercises help you learn how to learn – through experience, trial and error, failure and success, exploration and discovery. Research shows that learning through self-discovery has greater permanence in the body/mind than attempting to learn through instruction.
The golf exercises help you learn to trust in your instinctive kinesthetic intelligence. The variety of golf swing focuses free you to swing and hit the golf ball with the movement that works for your physiology and instinct. They encourage a “letting go” of proper golf swing mechanics, golf swing positions and the “right way” to make a proper golf swing. The conscious mind tends to try to control our motor movements. The exercises are an antidote for this habit by helping to quiet the mind and awaken the body and trust the innate ability of the subconscious body/mind responsible for motor skills.
The exercises build trust by fostering a deepening awareness of the bodily sensations involved in swinging and hitting a golf ball. You may be surprised, and even astonished, at your ability to make pure impact using non-traditional golf swing focuses. A student’s typical response after achieving pure impact and a successful golf shot using imagination or use of subtle senses is often an enthusiastic, “I’ve never felt that in my golf swing while hitting a golf ball. What does this exercise do?!” My response is always, “It awakens instinct; you are discovering how capable your innate adaptability is and you are learning to quiet your mind and trust your instinctive kinesthetic intelligence to develop the golf swing mechanics to fulfill your intention.” It is often a joyful moment of self-discovery for the student.
This trust is developed by practicing awareness of “being in your body” while working with the golf exercises. You not only learn to feel the sensations of movement that produce pure impact with the golf ball but you’ll begin to ingrain the sensations of “pure impact” deeper and deeper into your subconscious body/mind. Then, you’ll be able to recall the feel of pure impact to produce the appropriate mechanics. Once a movement is learned, the feel is stored permanently in the part of the brain responsible for motor skills – often called “muscle memory or motor memory.” This is how you develop trust and learn to play golf more from your subconscious than from your conscious thinking mind. If you can hit solid golf shots using the different focuses involved in the variety of golf exercises – and you will if you are willing to let go of your mind’s attempt to control your golf swing – you’ll develop confidence and trust in your subconscious abilities to hit any shot you encounter on the golf course
To perform a learned motor skill efficiently, we must quiet our conscious mind and establish the intention to activate muscle memory. Intention is the “fuel” that ignites the “engine” of the motor system stored in the subconscious mind. The integration of the conscious mind’s intention and the subconscious mind’s ability to carry out the movement can’t be adequately explained but can only be experienced. May you have the courage to use the non-traditional tool of instinct-awakening golf exercises in learning to truly trust in your innate adaptability and instinctive kinesthetic intelligence for a newfound freedom and joy playing golf!
Keep it Simple Golf 