Your Inner Child
Your Inner Child
Junior golf is the foundation for future golf. This is a time when we play fearless, carefree golf! The best kind. Yet something unfortunate happens as we take up the game more “seriously”. Often this inner child, this fearless go for broke spirit, gets squashed by traditional coaching methods.
There is a bias in current golf instruction towards left brained, technical teaching. That the swing is sequential series of moves that can be predicted and once understood taught to everyone. Then we’re all supposed to just find a way to make the lessons work!
This is crazy. Your body is different from mine and everyone else. The golf swing, as it’s taught, is one of the most unnatural moves a person can make! No wonder so few people actually get really good at it!
While technical based teaching clearly has its benefits, it also inhibits a great number of junior golfers. In fact, it can literally ruin the chances of many young players’ in playing top level golf.
What am I talking about? How can instruction be worse than not having any at all, you may be thinking? No instruction at all is rarely a good idea. Yet it can not be ignored that many of the best players in the game are self taught.
Lee Trevino, Raymond Floyd, Chris Dimarco, to name just a few. What you want to do, as a junior golfer or a parent of one, is identify your innate “learning style”. While there are numerous approaches to learning there are two main categories in which they all fit.
Technical and Natural.
Technical teaching is the predominant approach. There are very few Natural teachers in the game. Many of them are the older teachers. Natural learning involves more right brain, sensory based learning. Learning from “seeing” and “feeling”. These people learn best with minimal technical instructions and more imagery based language and lessons.
Natural learners simply get a feel for what they’re seeing and hearing. Do not discount this learning style as not being “serious” enough! It appears loose and lacking in direction to the technical learner. Yet this is due to their attraction to procedural, step by step, learning.
Neither style is superior. Yet it is critical that you as a junior golfer or a parent clearly identify what is most appropriate to maximize the learning. I am a natural learner and self taught. Using simple, organic methods and consistent mental game exercises I developed over the years, I dropped my handicap from 26 to a low of 3. Not bad for never taking a single lesson and playing an average of twice a week. Living in Canada with a golf season of less than 8 months, too.
The point is, there are numerous ways a natural learner can excel AND build a solid, repeatable swing. Most importantly, they will maintain their joy of playing and loving the game instead of becoming bogged down in technical details and swing thoughts, etc.. Excessive technical details will derail the natural gifts and uniqueness a young player has. Especially if they are by nature more of a natural learner.
If the natural learning approach is respected and nurtured AND combined with the occasional technical tip, your skill as a player will skyrocket! If you’re a technical player/learner I would recommend you step away from the details now and again and return to the “feel” of when you have hit solid shots and played well.
Using your mind as it is designed is a wise thing to do, wouldn’t you agree? The mental game system I have developed is for golfers of all ages and skill levels. It is written for both learning styles. Your skill development, joy and competitive toughness will definitely increase.
Keep the inner child alive and play fearless golf by mastering your learning style and using your mind to its highest capabilities!
Wade Pearse
Mental Game
