Sunday, February 13, 2011

Repeat, Repeat, Repeat to attain perfection

I remember giving a lesson to a young lady whose father was a retired military officer.  I talked about how I typically use follow up lessons to reinforce what we have worked on previously.  He offered me the words, "Repeat, repeat, repeat to attain perfection."  
I've been giving a series of winter swing clinics and each clinic is nearly identical with some variations depending on the audience.  I like using the same format over and over because something new can be learned and new habits can be developed only through repetition.  (it takes 21 days to create a new habit - Maxwell Maltz's theory in Psycho-Cybernetics). 
Anyone whose ever played organized team sports knows that the majority of time in practice is spent in conditioning and constant repetition of "plays" over and over until they become "second nature".  When I teach the golf swing, instead of trying to teach the entire swing to someone in one lesson, I work on parts and give a student drills that they can do at home spending five to ten minutes daily.  Within a few months, three new "habits" can be developed.
I remember playing basketball and working on our plays without a ball when we were in the learning process.  In the same spirit, I prefer that students would spend time working on the "new" motions of the swing without a ball to allow the new motion to become habit.  Ideally, when the student goes to hit balls, hitting balls into a net is the ideal situation so that they focus on the swing and the feeling of solid contact.
In today's winter clinic I just taught, I made a statement to one of the students, "I can teach you the swing, but you have to learn the feel."

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