The other side of the story...

[Mike O]

What?

The Golfing Machine was a big part of my education as a golf instructor for 20 years. After that, in the late 1980’s I started studying about the nature of learning. By reducing information about the physics in the golf swing to “just in the ballpark” concepts, people have been learning faster and retaining information longer than when I was sharing detailed information.

I expand upon these ideas on my new site NLGLive.com – which, I welcome everyone to share their personal views at.

Michael Hebron

Interesting- 8 pages of posting after this post - and not one mention of this self promoting post! I'd say do the right thing- delete it off and emphasize that you can't advertise, etc on this site - otherwise you've got a problem.

 

[footwedge]

I think we have conclusively determined that it is impossible to teach yourself a homemade golfswing with any consistency. Seek help from a qualified practitioner like BManz ...!!!

Bubba says BS.

 

[spktho]

Bubba says BS.

You beat me to it. And BS is not 'back swing'.

 

[gumper]

Why the resistance?

I have taken lessons from both Brian and Mike Jacobs. Both are brilliant teachers and a pleasure to be around.

I also know a thing or two about learning. To condense my credentials, I am in my 43rd year of teaching, and I've been nominated 3 times for the Disney National Teacher of the Year competition.

A golf instructor can learn everything that there is to know about the mechanics of the golf swing. He can also have Trackman or Flightscope at his disposal. Suppose that the numbers reveal that the student swings 5 degrees outside-in with a face that is 5 degrees open. Now the instructor has to figure out a way to help the student make the necessary changes. Yes, a good instructor will *instinctively* know what most students need. A good pro will also try and try again to get through to the student. Hell, Brian has literally gotten down on his knees to force me into the correct position during a lesson.

However, why should the most important part of the teaching-learning process, the learning, rely on instinct? Why are we looking for scientific answers about the swing, but relying on instinct about the person making the swing? Is this not the same attitude that is criticized when the book literalists refuse to look at new data about the physics of the swing?

There seems to be a resistance to studying neuro-science that I just don't understand. I teach my students and have taught my own children to leave no stone unturned. To me, leaving out how the brain works is a boulder.

I strongly believe that the Manzella Academy needs to look at this. The Talent Code was not written by a scientist. However, the author did interview several scientists who have done research on how we learn. I hope that the Manzella Academy will do the same.

gumper

P.S.- I have started to watch the Ant-Summit video. I hope that an expert on learning will be on the next panel.

P.P.S.- This is not a defense of the original post. Frankly, I don't think that it was appropriate.

 

[Damon Lucas]

Gumper,

The good news about the Manzella Academy is that we aren't leaving any stone unturned. That includes learning and thed associated neuroscience.

This is an area that I feel very strongly about personally, take a great interest in, and feel pretty up to date in my understanding.

And I am grateful that the other guys are as passionate about some of the other aspects.

 

[bzstacked]

I agree GUMPER.... albeit the science is of major importance... if you do not know the real "SCIENCE" of how one learns.... what good does it do anybody? graphs and numbers mean nothing if you cannot make it useful to the everyday man .....your basically drawing on a blank piece of paper with no ink.

 

[birdie_man]

There is something inherent (nonconscious?) or intended behind every behaviour.

 

[wulsy]

Why would you go to a Golf Professional in order to learn how to learn? If you haven't learned how to learn growing up and living you need to go to a specialist to find out why. After that go to a golf pro and use the knowledge to implement his advice. Sorry, but golf pros teach golf, not how neuroscience. Neuroscientists and behavioural therapists don't teach golf either.

 

[birly-shirly]

Who's going all binary now?

You really don't think a teaching pro could get a grasp of, not the neuroscience, but certainly some practical applications that would improve the quality of learning?

 

[Lindsey Newman]

Why would you go to a Golf Professional in order to learn how to learn? If you haven't learned how to learn growing up and living you need to go to a specialist to find out why. After that go to a golf pro and use the knowledge to implement his advice. Sorry, but golf pros teach golf, not how neuroscience. Neuroscientists and behavioural therapists don't teach golf either.

Golf pros TEACH golf. In order to teach something you must understand how people learn and aquire skill. It's not about the student learning how to learn, it's about helping students assimilate the information. Otherwise, instead of teachers we would simply have liturature around subjects, schools would not be needed. People learn in many, many different ways, and without that undertsanding many students would be left out in the cold.

Look at all of the people on this forum. There is quite a bit of information here and also in books on the subject of golf swing mechanics. Yet people still go to work with instructors to help them LEARN HOW to aquire the skill.

A good example - A student goes to one instructor to learn how to make a particular adjustment to his swing. Let's say he has an overly out hand path from the top which causes his miss. The instructor 1 gives him a solution, but the student cannot make the change. The student now goes to instructor 2 looking for a cure and this new instructor gives him the same exact solution, but delivers the information to the student in a way that makes more sense. Maybe instructor number 2 uses a camera and the student can assimilate the information better visually. This happens in golf instruction all of the time.

 

[ekennedy]

Let's not discount the reality that a good teacher should ALSO be a trained sports psychologist and physical therapist. You can spend all the time you want learning about neuroscience but if you don't have a firm grasp of someone's physical and mental limitations you are just trying to jam a square shaped wooden object into an ill-fitted opening.

I can imagine that it would be a real challenge to be an expert in all of those fields at once.

 

[wulsy]

Who's going all binary now?

You really don't think a teaching pro could get a grasp of, not the neuroscience, but certainly some practical applications that would improve the quality of learning?

Didn't mean it to sound so binary.

Of course teachers must have some kind of teaching skills and this requires some kind of understanding of how people learn. But I've seen so many golf pros who get involved in the mental game and the fitness stuff and all sorts of other stuff that they don't understand, mostly because their golf teaching doesn't work and they're looking for a reason why. Mostly they just end up confusing or messing up their pupils. Content is mostly the problem, not the presentation. However that is not to say that presentation is not also of immense importantce.

The last thing I would want would be a teacher who thinks he can teach me things that he doesn't understand fully himself. I would rather go to someone who has spent many years learning to understand their chosen field of expertise inside and out eg educationalist for learning, fittness expert for fitness and golf pro for golf technique. The jack of all trades, master of none doesn't interest me at all because a little knowledge is more dangerous than none at all.

 

[birly-shirly]

I think that's fair enough. I think it would be a mistake to expect golf pros to be at the cutting edge of learning or motor skills theory - which I think is your reservation too.

My impression though is that, in general, golf lags somewhat behind other fields in terms of understanding how to learn and how to practice. In my experience, I would say that music training has a much more deeply embedded culture of taking learning issues into account. Ideas like chunking, slow practice, self-assessment and randomisation have been a pretty common part of music training and practice for years and didn't need university researchers to point the way. Golf, for the most part, seems different and some way behind.

My guess would be that many of the best teachers (including a few that post here) have evolved this sort of thing intuitively and just see it as commonsense teaching - whilst the golf world at large still seems more interested in the idea of positions and techniques rather than the process of getting there.

 

[golfdad]

i find reading this thread rather awkward.

perhaps we have developed to the stage where dissenting opinions have to be presented in such a way as if we have taken cues from the feuds between the likes of o'reilly and oberman. is this for show or are you guys really like this in real life? i must be a real sissy!

umm, this is op's first post on this site. and this poster is not nobody. at least imo we should regards others, particular those with other opinions, with more common courtesy and respect. it is counterproductive to invite the op to elaborate about his thoughts and theories and at the same time the invitation is done in ways that i think are not the most welcoming.

i know very little about golf. but i aspire to live everyday like a better human being and try to set good examples to my kids. just because you are right (which is debatable and arguable) does not mean you own the world.

200 years later, everything from everyone here will be considered wrong in the perspective of that time frame. so easy does it, people.

to me, a real master is able to turn his opponent around and come to see his ways and go along with them,,,without pressure and ridicule. it has to come from the heart. progress comes from free exchanges. since we have succeeded to shut up the op, we have therefore failed on this one.

 

[wulsy]

I agree birly. There are some developments in this area, but to be perfectly frank it is the role of the PGAs to introduce this kind stuff to the future golf pros during their training. In this way a basic understanding could then be built upon by those wishing to pursue this to the point of understanding enough to be helpful to their students.

What we unfortunately often end up though is a large pile of clicheed ostentatious gibberish spouted by those who believe that a 2 day course suffices to become an expert in sports psychology or fitness for golf. OTOH is suppose you have to start somewhere.

 

[SteveT]

Not everybody can learn, and if you assess who plays golf, you will quickly conclude that golf is the sport of last resort for the masses of non-athletic crud.

The PGA estimated that 90% of the world's 50 million 'golfers', can't break 100. That leaves only 5 million sub-100 golfers, and only a miniscule handful of them can play decent golf.

Since most 'golfers' are only seeking recreational 'fun' with no commitment to the game, it's understandable why the game is held in such low repute. Golfers don't want to go back to school to learn the golfswing because school is no fun .. plain and simple.

 

[Ringer]

To me, a good coach is someone who makes the player better under all circumstances. No excuses. Simple.

 

[JDMAC]

I think that's fair enough. I think it would be a mistake to expect golf pros to be at the cutting edge of learning or motor skills theory - which I think is your reservation too.

My impression though is that, in general, golf lags somewhat behind other fields in terms of understanding how to learn and how to practice. In my experience, I would say that music training has a much more deeply embedded culture of taking learning issues into account. Ideas like chunking, slow practice, self-assessment and randomisation have been a pretty common part of music training and practice for years and didn't need university researchers to point the way. Golf, for the most part, seems different and some way behind.

My guess would be that many of the best teachers (including a few that post here) have evolved this sort of thing intuitively and just see it as commonsense teaching - whilst the golf world at large still seems more interested in the idea of positions and techniques rather than the process of getting there.

Agreed on music training and other fields, but there are teachers in golf that have thought about learning more than others such as the vision54 gals (pia nilsson and lynn marriot) - granted some of their stuff is not useful, and who knows what they have studied, but they do teach (most likely based on teaching experience) how to bring whatever mechanical stuff you are working on to the golf course through specific ways of practicing. That said, this information is out there and no one should expect a golf coach to spoon feed everything to them. Now, if i were an instructor i would be looking at this side of the equation as well as the mechanical side and i would probably also be studying how people learn best if i wanted to maximize my worth to my students. Haven't read the Talent Code, but have read John Holt ("learning all the time" etc - education "reform"/homeschooling unschooling stuff) and there are some tidbits throughout that i would think would prove useful to a teacher in any field. At the end of the day i would say that having correct information and full understanding is incredibly important, but you also need to be able to communicate that to your students and to help them best implement it if you really want to supercharge the results of the information you have. Some teachers are able to do this without any outside study - trial and error works great, but is sped along for these teachers that have extraordinarily high interpersonal intelligence. Also, not everyone learns best the same way (auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic)... you can rely on your students to know how they best learn or if you can identify with them how they learn you can speed the learning process. Again, i think most great teachers are great students themselves of human beings and just do a lot of this stuff intuitively.

 

[wulsy]

Not everybody can learn, and if you assess who plays golf, you will quickly conclude that golf is the sport of last resort for the masses of non-athletic crud.

The PGA estimated that 90% of the world's 50 million 'golfers', can't break 100. That leaves only 5 million sub-100 golfers, and only a miniscule handful of them can play decent golf.

Since most 'golfers' are only seeking recreational 'fun' with no commitment to the game, it's understandable why the game is held in such low repute. Golfers don't want to go back to school to learn the golfswing because school is no fun .. plain and simple.

100 is quite a good score, especially if you can't play. Its only 28 over par. I once shot 92 in a professional competition. I played quite well and just had a lot of bad luck Jarmo Sandelin struggled sometimes to break 95 on the challenge tour in his early days.

I would say there's a lot out there who would struggle to break 150.

 

[softconsult]

"Agreed on music training and other fields, but there are teachers in golf that have thought about learning more than others such as the vision54 gals (pia nilsson and lynn marriot) - granted some of their stuff is not useful, and who knows what they have studied, but they do teach (most likely based on teaching experience) how to bring whatever mechanical stuff you are working on to the golf course through specific ways of practicing. That said, this information is out there and no one should expect a golf coach to spoon feed everything to them.

Now, if i were an instructor i would be looking at this side of the equation as well as the mechanical side and i would probably also be studying how people learn best if i wanted to maximize my worth to my students. Haven't read the Talent Code, but have read John Holt ("learning all the time" etc - education "reform"/homeschooling unschooling stuff) and there are some tidbits throughout that i would think would prove useful to a teacher in any field.

At the end of the day i would say that having correct information and full understanding is incredibly important, but you also need to be able to communicate that to your students and to help them best implement it if you really want to supercharge the results of the information you have. Some teachers are able to do this without any outside study - trial and error works great, but is sped along for these teachers that have extraordinarily high interpersonal intelligence.

Also, not everyone learns best the same way (auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic)... you can rely on your students to know how they best learn or if you can identify with them how they learn you can speed the learning process. Again, i think most great teachers are great students themselves of human beings and just do a lot of this stuff intuitively."

If this post had paragraphs, I might have learned something, but I couldn't read 300 and some words with paragraphs, my brain froze up.