Swing-thought Addiction & Recovery

Swing-thought Addiction & Recovery
                  by Brandon Richardson, PGA

Swing-thoughts began I am sure shortly after golf was first invented. People who had experience whacking a ball with a specially designed stick in a field would share their thoughts on how and why they were able to send the ball skyward and you sent yours dribbling a few feet from where you stood...Let the snow ball start rolling down the mountain that triggers the full force avalanche that is today's Swing-thought addiction epidemic...

So let's start with what a Swing-thought is. Generally it is some sort of tip that the golfer thinks of before swinging and sometimes during a portion of the golf swing the tip is suppose to "fix". The Swing-thought may "work" for a little while but soon (usually in a week or two at the most) that Swing-thought has been replaced by a half-a-dozen others... I still haven't met a golfer who has continued to use the same Swing-thought beyond a few weeks before abandoning it for the next one and still the validity of Swing-thoughts remains unquestioned. We just continue to keep trading one for the next, with wishful thinking that this Swing-thought is some how better than the one before it.

Learning an action naturally does not occur this way. When a child begins to learn how to walk, talk, throw a ball, ride a bike etc. these complex actions are learned without the interference of mechanical Swing-thought like thinking. For example, if you were reading this sentence out loud would you be thinking about the tongue positions required to pronounce the words that form this sentence?  Or when was the last time you thought before descending down a flight of stairs, "Okay, nice and smooth, bend your knees and lean enough forward without losing your balance to move forward,"? Probably never. So how did we learn how to do that stuff without the presence of mechanical Swing-thought like thinking? And is ALL thinking interfering? Let's take a deeper look...

In my experience in order to learn any action it only requires your intention to do it and your attention of what you are doing while you are doing it. The intention provides the structure for the upcoming action and is a form of thinking but it is creative, generative, and inspires the body to move with a sense of awareness & freedom. This kind of thinking is very productive and I would encourage you to engage in this creative thinking before every shot. Swing-thoughts however, are not creative or generative and are actually a great barrier in the development of your awareness.  They distract you from being present, and if you are not present, you can't feel what you are doing with clarity, and if you can't feel what you are doing with clarity, you can't make the distinctions necessary to develop in any lasting or meaningful way.

To recover from Swing-thought addiction you must first realize you are addicted to Swing-thoughts. There are a lot of publications and telecasts that enable this behavior, keeping you in your head, promising to fix you because you are some how lacking...The Internet magnified the level of Swing-thought addicts to epidemic proportions because the information was now able to spread like wildfire on a global scale (That's probably why and how you stumbled across this blog which by now you have probably guessed won't be enabling your Swing-thought addiction). If after indulging in this media onslaught of swing-thought propaganda the voice in your head says, "Hey, you have that same problem they are talking about and if you think of this you might finally fix that slice you have been trying to fix for 25 years." If that sounds familar then that is a good indication you are a Swing-thought addict on your way to your next fix that unfortunately keeps you chasing your tail and the awareness needed to once and for all know how you slice continues to elude you.

If you begin to recognize Swing-thoughts as interference during the act of swinging a golf club (or any action really) the compulsion to continue searching for the next great Swing-thought will wane. You will become the source of your own learning and development, and you will go from addicted to Swing-thoughts to addicted to real and meaningful learning that energizes you and your game where the possibilities really seem limitless...














Brandon Richardson, PGA
Golf with Freedom Lesson Center
www.GolfwithFreedom.Net
www.facebook.com/GolfwithFreedomLessonCenter
www.Twitter.com/GolfwithFreedom