Dark Ages
- Thread starter mandrin
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Dariusz J.
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The best book is still to be written, IMO. Physical knowledge merged with biomechanical absolutes FOR NOW. The closest to this goal is still old "5 Lessons" if one knows how to interprete it correctly, IMO.
The problem is that there are no absolutes neither in physics nor in biology. Another problem is that people are not willing to learn from their own and other people's mistakes. Yet another problem is that people think that they have already found absolute truth. Lastly, people are trying to get answers from "our" 3 + 1 D reality - while true scietists already know that the answers colnd be found in next dimension(s) only. Enough said.
BTW, I think it is rather pathetic to build reputation on bashing Kelley's work, which as we all know is far from ideal, but is not THAT BAD. Same as constantly bashing post-accident Hogan while he REALLY WAS IN IS PRIME. Same as rejecting biokinetics/biomechanics. Same as stupidly arguing that all what is not above the shoulder plane is erroneously "flat". But the good thing is a constant willingness to learn, to seek the truth, albeit unattainable. Even at the cost of admitting that one was wrong before. Even at the cost of admitting that one still needs to learn a lot despite being enframed in our 3(4)-D reality.
We all have just licked a top of an iceberg.
Cheers
The problem is that there are no absolutes neither in physics nor in biology. Another problem is that people are not willing to learn from their own and other people's mistakes. Yet another problem is that people think that they have already found absolute truth. Lastly, people are trying to get answers from "our" 3 + 1 D reality - while true scietists already know that the answers colnd be found in next dimension(s) only. Enough said.
BTW, I think it is rather pathetic to build reputation on bashing Kelley's work, which as we all know is far from ideal, but is not THAT BAD. Same as constantly bashing post-accident Hogan while he REALLY WAS IN IS PRIME. Same as rejecting biokinetics/biomechanics. Same as stupidly arguing that all what is not above the shoulder plane is erroneously "flat". But the good thing is a constant willingness to learn, to seek the truth, albeit unattainable. Even at the cost of admitting that one was wrong before. Even at the cost of admitting that one still needs to learn a lot despite being enframed in our 3(4)-D reality.
We all have just licked a top of an iceberg.
Cheers
mandrin
New
bax,
There are seemingly about 10,000 golf books written and more piling up every day. I have only read a small portion of them but one I found quite intriguing to read was Golf-O-Metrics by Joe Norwood.
Golf is as complex as you want to make it. Some like it that way as it assures a stable income. Some in contrast consider it to be very simple and hope to attract customers that way.
Sports like tennis or golf are indeed not easy to master but a real teacher with a normal curious kid as student will make it appear likely to be rather easy. Golf for me is a paradox as is real life.
mandrin
New
Dariusz,
Sometimes it is really necessary to shake people and ideas a bit. This is particularly true in golf instruction. The science used is often at best shaky and used primarily to impress people and promote business. Even more so in TGM, arrogant self appointed gurus and faulty science. Notwithstanding TGM is and remains an important stepping stone when filtered a bit. But only a stepping stone. A first impressive attempt to a systematic approach and a serous effort to create and define a common vocabulary.
Morad and Norwood
I believe that Mac O'Grady was more influenced by Norwood than Kelly as far as his swing pattern is concerned. O'Grady the instructor\philospher may have adopted Kelly's arcane communication style..but O'Grady the player is Norwood. The pattern he pushes is very much from Golf-O-Metrics....O'Grady's Morad like Kelly's TGM is an attempt to scientifically codify the swing..Norwood gave him that "blueprint" in Golf-O-Metrics sans the pseudo science. We know that O'Grady spent about a year working with Norwood personally.
I believe that Mac O'Grady was more influenced by Norwood than Kelly as far as his swing pattern is concerned. O'Grady the instructor\philospher may have adopted Kelly's arcane communication style..but O'Grady the player is Norwood. The pattern he pushes is very much from Golf-O-Metrics....O'Grady's Morad like Kelly's TGM is an attempt to scientifically codify the swing..Norwood gave him that "blueprint" in Golf-O-Metrics sans the pseudo science. We know that O'Grady spent about a year working with Norwood personally.
I found an interesting post on another golf forum by BPGS1, an experienced golf instructor. Somewhere in the post is used the term medieval and it all fits in quite nicely with this thread.
"The more I read TGM swing theory, especially on internet golf forums, the more I become convinced that the book is deeply flawed. Mainly as a platform for self-directed learning or even for teaching, similar to the ideas that Two expressed. I can't tell you how much my long experience as a teacher, coaching thousands of golf students, tells me that one of THE most important issues in mastering ballstriking is what we at Balance Point call "Contamination" - or conscious mind interference in the golf swing, mainly through over-analysis and over-thinking. I am halfway through the Homer Kelley bio right now and it is clear to me that Homer himself suffered from a massive case of Contamination. He clearly had a deep unconscious emotional/mental need to analyze the golf swing to death and he did so in his book.*
My take is that Kelley suffered from a mild form of autism called Asperger's Syndrome - an overwhelming obsession with a single topic. He exhibits many of the signs. The end result is a book that resembles very much medieval theologians arguing about how many angels can fit onto the head of a pin. It might be interesting from a purely intellectual standpoint, kind of like golf swing Metaphysics, but is it really helpful to the golfer struggling to get better? Compared to other sources on the open market that could have been used instead of TGM, ie other books?*
The book should have been subtitled "How My Intellect Can View the Golf Swing in Any and Every Conceivable Way". Classic Asperger's. What matters to me as both a player and teacher - how can I best execute this golf shot, right here, right now and how can help Joe Hacker learn best how to master one or more ballstriking skills so that he can better execute. Not how many different ways can I intellectually think about the golf swing.
Ironically, the book actually attracts fellow Asperger types like a magnet. Just check out the TGM forums if you doubt me on this. The promise of absolute control is a seductive one and HK was a master marketer of that message, as the bio shows. The author actually reprints some of the flyers HK used back in the early days to promote his book, and some of the slogans he used remind me of late night Vegimatic commercials - "...it slices. it dices!". HK believed he had found the Holy Grail, the Answer and he never shied away from saying so to the golfing public, the PGA and the golf media. He was dead wrong on that one, as recent research has shown. He missed a lot of key issues, and got many of his concepts wrong. But mainly he encouraged a golfing public already deeply Contaminated by the golf media and traditional instruction to become even more Contaminated.*
There are two types of golf and two types of golfers- the game where the subconscious is left in charge of the shot execution, which is a game of letting go of control and is also based on gradual acquisition of skill over time, and the game of "hit and hope", relying on luck for the occassional good shot, and one where the golfer's ego is constantly holding onto and pursuing control, a game I call Flog - or golf on Bizzaro World. (Flog is golf spelled backwards and also has intended masochistic implications!). Homer Kelley was the High Priest of Flogging, which is why his own game never got better than a 15 handicap. Probably 90% or more of folks who play the game are Floggers. To them I say - there is indeed another way to understand and to play the game.*
Those are two very opposite ways of playing the game. Two different languages really. So if you want to see some really interesting inter-cultural conflict and linguistic confusion, try having a debate between a real golfer and a flogger. It may be entertaining - but I don't know how much it will help the casual reader improve their golf game.
You would be amazed at the almost complete lack of golfing skill that I have witnessed in the TGM fanatics and non-TGM contaminated golfers who think that the Answer lies in discovering some kind of intellectual insight that will unlock the key to better ballstriking. To a man, the students I have worked with who fit that description have poor mental focus or wandering "monkey minds", worse than the average person, for some a kind of Attention Deficit Disorder, and very poor body awareness and very weak mind/body connection. Those three things are FAR more important than ANY purely intellectual swing theory that one may have studied.*
I am only interested in playing, teaching, learning about, and practicing Golf - never Flog. The golf swing is dynamic, reactive to a Target, athletic motion governed by the subconscious mind, and works best when the conscious mind is focused on only One Thing that has proven to not cause ANY interference with the flow of information from the subconscious mind to the muscles."
Absolutely a must read.
I can't remember who said it here in some thread but, it was something to the affect that "we play golf 'swing', the pros play golf". The question is when does the shift happen.
Brian Manzella
Administrator
A mystery for the ages
Isn't that something? The game has been played or "practiced" for hundreds of years, by millions of people all over planet earth and no one has written a book that we can all consider as excellent. I was told that there are more instuction books on golf than books written by all other sports combined! Is it all for not or is it a subject that is so complex or perhaps so simple that we just can't get our hands on it? Is it possible to write such a book? During the first day of TGM class we were asked this simple question, "what is a golf swing?" Try it, you may be surprised by your ability to answer that question.
Isn't that something? The game has been played or "practiced" for hundreds of years, by millions of people all over planet earth and no one has written a book that we can all consider as excellent. I was told that there are more instuction books on golf than books written by all other sports combined! Is it all for not or is it a subject that is so complex or perhaps so simple that we just can't get our hands on it? Is it possible to write such a book? During the first day of TGM class we were asked this simple question, "what is a golf swing?" Try it, you may be surprised by your ability to answer that question.
drewitgolf
New
Regardless of which avenue you decide to persue in educationing yourself, ultimately effective learning has to be from the inside out, not the outside in; self discovery.
Brian Manzella
Administrator
It will be done.
One day, all I am going to do is write books and do videos.
And, after I write my first four or five books, I am going to write the be-all end-all golf book.
A few more years of research...
And, it will be understandable, and readable.
But first, I am working on the first one.
One day, all I am going to do is write books and do videos.
And, after I write my first four or five books, I am going to write the be-all end-all golf book.
A few more years of research...
And, it will be understandable, and readable.
But first, I am working on the first one.
Dariusz J.
New member
Mandrin,
What I wanted to point out between verses is that most knowledgeable persons or leaders in a given branch (like you are in physics) do not need to use a negative PR to be successful, so to speak. And I am the last person whom one could name as a huge TGM fan either before or now...
Cheers
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Well Zen, what now?
Very Zen'ish Drewit and rather deep thinking too!
"All conditioned things are impermanent. Work out your own salvation with diligence...."
The Buddha's last words.
Very Zen'ish Drewit and rather deep thinking too!
"All conditioned things are impermanent. Work out your own salvation with diligence...."
The Buddha's last words.
drewitgolf
New
"You can't teach a man anything, you can only help him discover it within himself."
-Gallileo
Michael Finney
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drewitgolf
New
Michael, If there is someone to use that quote it certainly would be Mike Hebron. Gallileo, however, said it long before Mike. It was also my high school year book quote back in 1980.
tongzilla
New
nah, that's not gonna happen. There's not even a be-all end-all golf lesson yet.
Steve Khatib
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