Many of the top players are using a breathing coach. Now, I would
say it's still a little bit under the radar. Now, the modern PGA
Tour pro has like six seven coaches, swing coach, punning coach, short
game coach, a trainer. They may have someone before flexibility, sports psychologist,
nutritionist. I mean, there's a lot of coaching going on and now
there's breathing coaches as well. All right, this is Roy mcquack from than
One, Capistrano, California, and I'm a golf instructor at One Hill Golf
Club at the Golf Smarter number eight hundred eighty fix using yoga as a tool
to master golf and other parts of your life with Kevin Robovski. This is
Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf mines to help
you lower your score and raise your golf IQ. Here's your host, Fred
Green. Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast. Kevin. Aloha, Fred Aloha
from Hawaii. Aloha. Thank you so much. Love talking about Hawaii.
But actually I'm going to really enjoy this conversation because I was telling a friend
of mine just a few minutes ago that I was doing this interview with you
about golf and yoga anyway. Well, that's right in your wheelhouse. Yeah,
it really is. I've been I've been not only pushing you know,
the mental aspect of the game for as long as I've been doing this podcast,
but I've always been a firm believer in yoga and what it can do
for a golfer. So it's really great to have you on. So I'd
like to ask you a question, Fred, because I'm always curious, Um,
So, do you practice yoga regularly and what style do you practice?
I do three or four times a week. I definitely do it the days
that I that I'm gonna play. The days that I'm not doing yoga,
I'm either walking a golf course or swimming. And so what type I practice,
It's more it's not any specific practice that I do. Um. There
was a golf app called Yoga for Golfers. It wasn't Yoga for Golfers,
because that's something like that. Yeah, right, But it's a yoga program
designed for golfers and I'll remember the name in a second, and Dynamic Golfers,
and they have daily stretching programs that I've always loved to do. I
started Actually, I started doing yoga in my twenties, so I've been doing
it inconsistently, but consistently for forty years. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean the reason I ask is that yoga can mean so many things to
different people, right, um, based on what you know, their experience
or maybe what they're what their perception is. And there's so many different styles
of yoga, and it's it's good to know, you know, some of
the background and traditions of the poses that you're doing. Um. Most of
the time people are doing some kind of hatha yoga, which is basically asana
or the poses um that you know, sort of increased flexibility. But there's
so much more to yoga than that, um, you know, in terms
of the breathing element and what the breathing brings to the practice, and also
a little bit of I would suppose I would say, you know, there's
a spiritual aspect, but also you know, a the the lifestyle aspect,
you know, living sort of a kind of clean life with kindness and and
gentleness to all people and all things. UM. So yeah, it's something
that if you do practice yoga, I would say, you know, get
I would try to get beyond just the stretching aspect. Oh, I'm looking
for greater flexibility and mobility, and I feel like this is the most direct
route to get there. Yeah, yeah, I would. I would say
I would play Devil's advocate a little bit and safe. You should be doing
yoga more than just for the stretching benefit the flexibility benefit, because it really
is a lifestyle benefit in terms of once you get into it. That's why
the classes are so important. I think if you just do yoga by yourself
at home, it becomes a little bit more like stretching, where if you
go to the studio and you in your meeting people and there's a community and
you get the experience of the teacher and the energy of the group. Yeah,
it's a lot. I think it's a better experience, but more profound
and deeper experience in the in the more the true yoga practice. Mmmmmm,
well yeah, half the yoga is definitely where I got it all started.
And I was doing classes for a long time, and then of course COVID
hit no more classes, so I started doing I started doing with teachers online
and then again yeah, uh, and how you know, my wife and
I subscribe to to a program that we're able to just pull up different teachers
that we like and do that with them. And Catherine Roberts is the yoga
for golf, yes, that I was talking about. So I've I've met
Catherine years ago and been following her as well. So her and Roger Fredericks
seemed to be the two that have, you know, kind of taken the
combination of golf in yoga a little bit more to the mainstream. Yeah.
Um, but again I think a little bit too much emphasis just on the
you know, the stretching and flexibility benefits and maybe not maybe getting into the
breathing and maybe the lifestyle aspects of yoga a little bit more, I think
is the direction that you know, people probably need to explore a little bit.
Yeah. Actually, Roger Fredericks and Catherine Roberts did a thing for the
Golf Channel a while back, and I was the guinea pig. I flew
out San Diego. Yeah, I flew on to San Diego and they had
me on UM and I was like like, really, I thought I was
flexible. They're like, no, you're you're no, You're not. Well.
You had a lot of work to do. Fred, You know,
again, I mean sometimes you know, you're looking at different teachers and and
their experience, right, I always see people flexible in one area and maybe
not in another area. So I would never label someone inflexible, right because
I always see people very flexible in some aspects, in some areas and some
poses. And what I see a lot of, especially with golf professionals that
are on my age over fifty, is I see a lot of golfers,
professional golfers that are very golf flexible. And they would not be able to
get through the yoga class that I do. No way, they couldn't do
it. They'd have to take a break and rest and you know, maybe
do half the class. But in terms of golf flexibility, they're still at
the highest level. And so you know that's basically a lifetime of doing the
golf swing will make you golf flexible. And so even though you just to
look at them, you wouldn't necessarily screen, You wouldn't necess necessarily, you
know, look at or suggest that that golfer was flexible. But you can
be very golf flexible. And I've seen it vice versa where I've invited the
yoga teachers high level, the highest level yoga teachers, fourth Series Ashtanga teachers,
and not very golf flexible. So the golf swing is very specific in
its flexibility, and that's it's so complicated because it's involving all of your major
joints, your thirteen major joints, and just there's a tremendous amount of extension
and flexion and side bending and rotation, pro nation, supernation, I mean
extension. It's just so many things that are involved with moving the club back
down and through that. Yeah, you've got to have all those aspects pretty
flexible if you're going to do it well, right exactly. So of course
they didn't tell me that. You know, my interpretation was I wasn't doing
a good job there. I'm sure that's not what they said on television.
Yeah with me, but I'm curious what brought you to the mountains of Hawaii.
Was it the golf or was it the yoga? It was the golf,
you know. I started in nineteen eighty six. I'd moved from Upstate
New York, where I was from, and I really had caught the golf
bug. And I got a part time job at Wiley Country Club working for
Greg Nichols and while I had a PGA event, PGA Tour event at that
time, the Hawaiian Open now it's the Sony Open, they still hosted,
and I met Mac O'Grady there who was playing the PGA Tour nineteen eighty six,
nineteen eighty seven, nineteen eighty eight, and he sort of introduced me
to the yoga and his system. The more ad swing was really a yoga
inspired golf swing, So trying to get the alignments of the body, the
balance, the symmetry, um, even the breathing all sort of into one
sort of golf swing model. UM. And so yeah, that's that's basically
where I got my start. Excellent. Well, I want to I want
to dig deep into that, but we're going to take a time out and
we'll be back right after this. Let's get back to Mac O'Grady um and
his yoga inspired swing. Uh tell me you know, I mean you mentioned
Greg Nichols who introduced us, and I truly appreciate that. Trying to get
him on the podcast as well, but he's being he's a reluctant talker.
Um. But let me let me hear more about your inspiration from Mac O'Grady
and your lessons and what he brought to you. Well, what was interesting
about Mac was that he was really the only tour pro that would come into
the pro shop the car barn and talk to the staff and really wanted to
get to know the staff. I mean, tour pros will generally just ignore
the pro shop carbarn. They just go right to the driving range, right,
and they have a job to do. They're sort of I would say
tunnel vision a little bit. Of course, you know, they give autographs,
but other than that, you know, it's pretty much all business when
they get to the golf course. But Mac would literally talk to the staff
and get to know them, and we talked a little golf swing and you
know, I was very curious. I was young, eighteen years old,
and yeah, so he saw something in me that he liked. And so,
you know, every year we would get together, spend some time talk
about the swing, and then eventually he invited me to Palm Springs and learn
his system. Um, you know, from from A to Z. And
at that time Mac was a very prominent tour pro. He had won twice
in nineteen eighty six, in eighty seven and um, and yeah, he
was he was voted best swing on the PGA Tour. And he had the
swing completely diagrammed, so he had a checklist and an outline and basically the
the swing. He left no stone unturned. So from address to finish,
UM, he had a model and then UM. Basically, uh. This
model was somewhat inspired by how the body moves the most efficiently in balance and
in alignment. UM, and maintaining a perfect center and uh and and really
sort of I would say, maximizing the rotation speed and the circular motion of
the swing. All of these things were very interesting and really spiked my curiosity,
and a lot of it was inspired by the yoga practice. His was
yes, really so this modeling. So he did yoga in the seventies and
at that at this time, basically he would if he was going to take
you on as a student, you're going to have to do yoga practice,
because, I say, to some degree, especially at that time, he
really believed that the body needed a certain degree of flexibility baseline, you know,
to do his swing, and and so you would recommend a very basic
book. It was called I think Thirty Days to Yoga. UM. It
was a book published in the seventies and had multiple publishings, very basic introductory
half the yoga U. And but this was the book that he would he
would recommend if you were interested in learning the more Ad swing. You know,
you are, you are, you are using that book and doing the
poses you know, almost on a daily basis. Described me. I'm not
familiar with the Mourad swing, at least not the name so U. Mourad
was originally um construed by Michael Grady and Zavin man Jakian um and they basically
wanted to m create a blueprint for the swing just basically, you know,
looking at the human anatomy and the skeletal system, say, okay, based
on the way a human being is designed, you know, let's look at
what's the most efficient way to swing a golf club and so again it so
it gets the golf swing producers power, accuracy, consistency, and very little
strain on the body, very little risk of injury. And so that was
dubbed the Morad swing. Basically was man Jakian Oh Grady research and development at
first, and they they patent ug patented all these ideas. In the beginning.
Gary McCord came on board and it became McCord o Grady Research and in
Development, and for a while it was Mackelgrady Research and Development. So it
evolved over time, and but the basis was the same in terms of using
science and using or let's say, objective research on functional and animal anatomical movement,
basically applying these ideas to the golf swing and and then having a blueprint
for it. So what's the blueprint? I mean, I'm fascinated by this.
Yeah, well, I mean, so the blueprint is a it's a
checklist, and it hasn't been published. I mean, Mac has basically kept
this under his wing for you know, decades, although he has always professed
an interest in publishing this. M He's modified it, it's evolved over time,
and he hasn't gone to publication with it. But it's just basically,
you know, I've seen a lot of material and the lot and I have
some of the material. But it's basically a checklist of the various anatomical alignments
that happened in this wing from address to take away to halfway back. He
came up with the idea of identifying these sections of the swing and basically labeling
them. So he came up with the idea that P one position one is
address, P two is takeaway. P three is halfway back, P four
position four is the top of the backswing. P five is halfway down,
et cetera, et cetera. So basically labeling these sections of the swing and
having an exact anatomical position and club position for each of these positions and has
it all written down, just hasn't been published yet. That's fascinating. Why
not? I mean, will he ever? Did he ever? I mean,
obviously, So I think it's complicated. At Number one is that I
think he's his ideas continuing continue to evolve. So that's one thing I don't
think he's been quite satisfied completely with it as as a whole. Number two
is to go mainstream and to go through the traditional publication process, he'd have
to compromise a little bit and give away some of the you know, creative
and maybe even the some of the content how it's organized. So I don't
think he's compromised well. When he has had opportunities to publish through Golf Digest,
publishing, through other avenues, he's had a lot of opportunities, but
the compromises that he's had to make dealing with these different you know, business
ventures. He hasn't been able to compromise it, so you know then of
course he's explored self publishing. But yeah, to date, nothing yet has
come mainstream. I think it will eventually, either through him or if he
doesn't do it while he's alive, I mean, he is getting older,
and so it may happen posthumously. But definitely, the information is so great,
and this information has been around since the eighties. Many many of the
top teachers worldwide have gotten bits of the more AD checklist and have used this
to teach the world's best players. Sean Foley in particular has a very more
AD influenced teaching philosophy Stack and Tilt was very more AD influenced. So but
not only that, many many teachers use UM max ideas and they're teaching m
all right, secondother break, I'm more to add. We'll right back now.
You mentioned stack untild and we've talked here a lot about the loss fundamental
or Tony Manzoni swing, the single pivot swing. UM do you incorporate,
like from many different teachers what you teach, including yoga practice, but your
your golf swing techniques or where what do you consider yourself focus on in your
golf instruction. Yeah, I think i'm I'm probably most influenced by the original,
you know, sort of more ad model, which is a very centered
swing, so the upper body stays um centered throughout the swing. Lower body
shifts but very minimal and mostly it's based on rotation and keeping your arms close
to the body and then a very dynamic recocking of the risks through the ball
so you get like a whip like action into the finish. Max follow through
was so balanced and centered and very much in alignment that it was striking,
especially if you watch the videos of him on tour, very he stood out
in just the clean the cleanness of the swing in terms of minimizing or eliminating
excessive moving movement or moving parts, right, So risk trying to really create
efficiency, efficient movement, and that's the key, and that's really the uh,
the the goal of yoga practice in terms of when we're working on asana
or vinyasa flow connecting one pose to another, we want to really keep it
clean and minimize extra movement and really create efficiency. And through that, you
know sort of goal, we can improve our improve our our posing, our
postures. Mhm um, talk to me more about I want to hear about
what you said about recocking the risk in the follow through. Yeah, so
you know it's you know, risk action is a little underplayed. I mean
it has, it's had its time in golf instruction, and you know,
trends come and go, but you know, I would think pretty much it's
universal that teachers would like to have the rits, both risks to cock ninety
degrees in the backswing. So you have a ninety degree right angle at the
top of your back swing between your left arm and the shaft, and you
bring that down. We call that to position P six where the shaft is
horizontal to the ground. And then from that moment on, you know,
Max teaching was the left knee is straightening, the hips are unwinding, and
the hands are going on a circular path around the left hip and then re
cocking upwards very very quickly. So it's the hand path is going on a
circular orbit around the left hip, and we're not rolling the club face into
a closed position with our wrists. We're cocking the club upwards very very quickly,
and the shaft in the finish will end up ear to ear with your
elbows close together, and so it has a very like short arc, look
like whipping a towel, where it creates that snap right, So it's not
a long wraparound follow through where a lot of energy is getting dissipated and then
you're coming up and out of your posture because of over rotation. Max swing
was a very snappy, quick short finish that was body stops so that you
very quickly terminate the rotation and then your wrists whip the clubhead through. And
so that's why Max swing was very It was very striking in a sense that
it looks so simple, but he hits so far and that's what created a
tremendous amount of interest in him when he was playing the tour. Are you
seeing anybody on the tour today that you can look and go okay, that's
a Maco Grady influence. Justin Rose is very similar. He's using a more
ad swing almost to a t I see the influence in a lot of swings
Max Honma. I think a lot of the modern teachers, whether they know
it or not, are using a lot of the more ad ideas. Interesting
and where do you see that fitting in with Homer Kelly's The Golfing Machine.
Yeah, so Mac was a disciple of Homer Kelly. So the you know,
Max's history was as a young high school golfer, he was like a
like a prodigy and had sort of like a homemade style baseball style and ten
finger grip, very strong, hit it a mile and got immediate sponsorship at
basically as a as a late teenager, but didn't really make it to the
main tour. So Mac was famous for going to qualifying school seventeen times and
failing and then finally you know a lot of perseverance. Basically throughout the seventies
he really struggled, so he lost his game. Basically, you know,
instruction at that time in the seventies was geared to a Jack Nicholas style uprights,
reverse sea driving the legs and and Mac lost his skill, he lost
his ability, and when he met Homer Kelly in nineteen seventy nine, Homer
Kelly's ideas resurrected his game and very quickly he got he got access to the
European Tour, so he qualified for the European Tour, and then the very
next year he qualified for the PGA Tour and so he was like a three
two year old rookie UM and and then Homer Kelly passed away after his rookie
year and Mac wasn't very satisfied with Ben Doyle and so it led to Mac
doing his own research. So he was partnered with um a friend named Zavin
men Jakian who was a master's degree in biology, and the two of them
they tried to create this blueprint for the golf swing. That's how it all
comes together. Yeah, So Homer Kelly was a big part of Mac and
more at interesting. Okay that now all now we've put all these pieces together.
That's awesome. Thank you. Um. So. I was looking at
your website KMR School of Golf dot com. Yeah, and I couldn't be
more enamored with the photographs of where you are when you play, where you
teach, Tell me about where you are. So co Allowed Golf Course was
a in Hawaii. It's it's a very famous historical course for two reasons.
I think Number one is that I think golf Jai Jess rated it the number
one golf course in the state of Hawaii something like thirteen times in a row.
And this was maybe in the early nineties to the early two thousands.
So this is on the Big Island. This is on Oahu, so we're
twenty minutes from Honolulu, and so it's just just a spectacular golf course.
Japanese billionaire named mister Minami he created this and just an exorbitant amount of money
to develop this golf course in the mountains, so we're in the co Allowed
Mountain range. Yeah, it's very spectacular. And and also what is very
notable about coal Ow is for four or five years we had the highest slope
raiding in nation, so we overtook Pine Valley. So I think there's a
limit to the slope raiding, but the actual slope rating was one sixty five.
So it's a very difficult golf course. So and you know, it's
just basically at that time in particular, it was heavily bunkered, lots of
jungle, a lot of uneven lies, and a lot of force carry So
we have ravines on the golf course that you have to carry over. So
for the average player, it's a very challenging course. I mean there's a
running joke that you don't keep score at coll Ow, you just you count
how many golf balls you lose, and that's how you judge how well you
play. Oh that's painful. Yeah, I mean I hear one sixty five
slow, but I'm like, yeah, I'm no. That would just be
so frustrating for the average golfer. It's like I'm having a terrible Well,
yeah, you can't hit it sideways. If you hit it sideways, the
balls lost sou But yeah, I think the backdrop of coal out makes it
worth it regardless, so you can still enjoy your experience here. In two
thousand COVID twenty twenty, the golf management company that was running the golf course,
they asked to get out of the contract with the owner. They were
having financial difficulty, and so the course and the driving range fell into my
lap. Okay, I want to hear more about that, but I want
to take one more break, and I want to hear all about what happened
during COVID. This week is number three of nine in our Tony Manzoni series
to help you launch your new golf season. Golf Smarter Ambassador Tom Thompson wrote
this to me about what he's learned from Tony's Lost Fundamental video My Big Miss,
he says, has always been fat. Since going to the single pivot,
I have virtually eliminated fat shots. In my last few rounds, I've
hit more greens than typical. I'm using Tony's single pivot swing all the way
through, even to my putting. Swaying on all shots is my problem with
golf. You have to be careful to not take other people's medicine. This
medicine was absolutely prescribed for me. Thanks Tom, it's a great review.
Well. This week is part one of two episodes called take Your Game to
the Next Level, one club at a time. The less you emphasize putting,
the better you'll put The more you talk about it and think about it,
I think it puts a block. I think with Hogan, he hit
it so close in his later years and he felt like he should be rewarded
for that. And I think that's what happened with Hogan. He made statements
that said, punny shouldn't be so important, you should get points just for
getting it close to the whole. Well, that was his frustration coming up
because he did hit it so close, and unfortunately he did have the yips.
He couldn't pull a putterback on a short put The only time I had
the pleasure of seeing him play golf, and at the Olympic Club. He
played in the I think it was the Open, and I mean he hit
every fairway, every green, and I don't think he had more than a
twelve foot put all day. And the only plus he made were kickins.
But when he got that four or five foot or his pant leg would be
shaken. He couldn't pull a putterback. Wow, you think about that.
This is the guy that could hit a go in a motel and hit a
two arm right down the hallway and not hit either side. That's Golf Smarter
Mulligan's episode two hundred two, number three of nine, featuring our friend and
mentor Tony Manzoni. Check the show notes to learn how to get Tony's book
Lost Fundamental, One Simple Move, Better Golf Forever, and gain access to
his video of the same name. Please subscribe for free to or a sister
podcast that revisits the best of the Golf Smarter podcast called Golf Smarter Mulligans,
being released every Friday from wherever you're listening right now. Yeah. Actually,
gret Nichols, when he and I were emailing and he was recommending that I
talked to. He was saying, definitely ask him about what happened during COVID.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it lands in your lap and now
people are not able to travel to Hawaii during that time. They're very restricting
a lot of travel in and out right. How were you able to survive?
How did you do well? Luckily? You know, my golf school
has been here since two thousand and three, so I was subleasing um my
area to teach and I have an indoor office as well, um, and
so everything was fine. It's just the you know, from a golf course
operations standpoint, Um, definitely, they were hurting with a lack of tourism.
My clientele isn't tourists based. It's uh, it's local based. And
one thing that that is very good about coal all Ow is we have a
fantastic um driving range and it's all grass. So we have an area,
a practice area of three decks, and then a teaching area that has two
decks and they're all grass. And it's a it's a three decks three decks
and they're all grass. Yeah, yep, So we have that well,
I mean it's just lucky. The space that was you know, they they
did a good job with organizing a practice facility. And what runs in our
favor is that a lot of the country clubs on Oahoo, which are wili
O Wahoo Country Club in Mid Pacific Country Club, they kind of ran out
of land for their driving range, so they have very limited space. It's
Matt's only. Um. They candid drivers a lot um. So the members
are not as pleased with their practice facility. So I have a lot of
the country club people join my school because of the practice area, and of
course, you know, and the and the lessons as well. And but
yeah, so we have a really nice practice facility. Oh that's fabulous.
What's the elevation were how high are you up in the mountains? We're not
that high. I would say maybe a thousand feet in elevation. No,
but you're just surrounded by spectacular mountains. Yeah. We're at the base of
the Kola Mountains. Yeah, so on the kanyeo Hey side. So on
the other side is Honolulu. So you go through a tunnel, the poly
tunnel, and you come out the other side, and now you're on the
other side of the island. You're on the windward side. I liked it
now I'm gonna go back to where we're starting earlier and talk about breathing and
the importance of breathing and how how to make it more impactful on your golf
swing, and will incorporate yoga too. But you know, so many teachers
talk about and so many players, I mean elite players talk about the importance
of breathing. Yeah. I think it's the next sort of big breakthrough performance
enhancement in golf. And and many of the top players are using a breathing
coach now. And it's still I would say, it's still a little bit
under the radar. This goes beyond you know. So now, now the
modern pro, the modern PG eight tor pro has like six seven coaches,
swing coach, punning coach, short game coach. They have a trainer,
they may have someone for flexibility, you know, sports psychologist, nutritionist.
I mean, there's a lot of coaching going on. You better make you
better make the cuts to pay those people. Yeah, that's right, um.
And now and now there's breathing coaches as well. And so you know,
breathing is something that understress gets very impacted. Um. And this is
where we use a certain techniques that are all based from the yoga breathing which
is called prana yama, and so all these breathing coaches, the most famous
is probably whim Hoff. He's led this breathing sort of explosion in terms of
bringing it to the forefront. But it's all, you know, it's all
based on the ancient yoga breathing prani yama. And there's many, many different
styles of this breathing that you can do. But for golf performance, I
would recommend a very deep breathing to calm the nerves and to increase the focus,
and really it helps with subduing doubt and fear and you know these mental
demons that keep up that distract our mind and give us, you know,
sometimes fear and lack of confidence, and that can definitely impact the players golf
and their golf swing, their execution. So this form of deep breathing with
closed mouth and just through the nose, and there's many ways you can do
it, but it's a very elongated breath and it's very different because your belly
actually expands on the inhale, so the belly doesn't go inward, it goes
outward on the inhalation. And then you can use account. You hold at
the top and then there's a deep exhalation through the nose, and again you
can elongate the count on the exhalation, and you really try to empty the
breath at the end. So the inhalation might be on a four count,
you might hold for a five count, and then you exhale on a seven
or eight count. And so that counting also is important because it gives the
mind and the brain something to focus on and away from those doubts and fears
that golfers might have, especially like on the first tea and tournament golf in
particular, and no pro is exempt from sometimes feeling insecure or doubtful. Sometimes
their driving raine session that day didn't go so well, and so they go
to that first teeth are not really so sure how the day's gonna go.
And they all understand that if you have a strong breathing regimen, then that
kind of goes away, you know, it gives it gives you like an
equilibrium and allows you to um, you know, move away from those distracting
thoughts. Well. One of the beautiful things about podcasts is that we're in
people's heads, right. They listen mostly with earbuds or headphones or in their
car, and so it's a very um direct communication and a very intimate communication.
So we've got their attention right now. Can may I be so bold
as you tube kind of walk us through a breathing exercise? Sure, do
it together. So I would say, for um, if you're on the
first if you're on the first t in a in a very stressful competitive situation,
UM, I would I would kind of move over to the side,
and you know, I'm holding my driver right and and you know, so
you just hold hold your club comfortably and maybe just take three rounds of what's
called oogi breath, right, So I would close my eyes and I would
um, sort of exhale all breath and then close my mouth and then inhale.
And when I inhale, my belly is expanding. I'm gonna make like
an oceanic sound through my nose and I'm going to count to four, so
it'll be like this, and then we hold at the top for a count
of five one, two, three, four, five, and then exhale
through the nose, maybe on an eight count, making that oceanic sound six
seven, eight, And then I would do that three times. And when
you open your eyes. You've got about a minute left to go before you
te off, or the starter calls your name something like this, M yeah,
you feel in a little more. Um um I I would say there's
a slight euphoria to it, but not like an exciting euphoria, just a
calming euphoria. And we get the we we call this like a yoga high.
This is the euphoria you experience, you know, especially after a yoga
practice, which is continually teacher, a good yoga teacher is continuingly queuing the
breath and so you know, you're you're whether you're conscious of it or not,
you're inhaling and exhaling, you know, for an hour continuously. And
this is called oogi breath and the purpose of it is to calm the nerves,
to increase focus and distract the negative thoughts. It's awesome. And again,
what I love about podcasting is people can go back and just participate and
they can do this with us. So that was phenomenal. Thank you.
Now, for people who who are fascinated by and interested in maybe starting a
yoga practice to enhance their golf game, um, what would you suggest would
be the best way to get started? Or even a couple of different positions
to get started. Sure, so there's a lot of options. I would
say if you want to do if you wanted to do yoga to sort of
as a as a means of improving your happiness and your life, I would
say that would be first and foremost, and golf might be a part of
that, but basically that would be a good motivation, would be just to
sort of, you know, have more joy, more fulfillment, more happiness.
A yoga practice would be a great way to start. And pretty much
every every town, every city has a vocals yoga studio nearby, and that's
where I would start. And you can, you know, generally these yoga
studios, you would do a Google search and you know, near near your
home and find a studio that's convenient, and then you would take a beginner
yoga class. So entry level yoga class is something that all yoga studios offer.
And if that feels into intimidating to just jump into a beginner yoga class,
I would go to the yoga studio and get maybe a private lesson or
two, and that would be another way of sort of just incorporating a yoga
practice so that it's maybe a less intimidating to take up a private lesson,
of course, that would be a beginner lesson fabulous. Well, the app
that I use my wife and I use when doing yoga and having lots of
different instructures called Yoga Glow. I don't know if you're familiar with that one,
but that can be checked out too, But it is really it really
does make sense if you are fascinated by and are interested in starting a yoga
practice for yourself to definitely go to classes so you have a teacher who can
guide you through the positions and help you do them properly so that you can
take them home and work on them themselves again. Kmar School of goolf dot
com is where you can find more from Kevin, and definitely, if you're
you're gonna go visit Pearl Harbor, you should definitely go and check out this
golf course as well and the amazing three level driving range grass I'm fascinating,
would love to see it. Kevin, thanks so much for your time today.
Really enjoyed, really learned a lot. Thanks thank you so much.
Fred anytime mad So Usually I'm able to put together each podcast the day that
it's going to be published, but this week I'm actually on vacation. You're
like right now and doing something pretty outrageous. If you've been listening over the
years, you may remember when we went to Africa to have both mountain gorilla
and wild chimpanzee encounters. Well, now Joanna and I are in Mexico,
on the Pacific side of Baja California, on a five day adventure along the
shores of the Sangnacio Lagoon, where gray whales have migrated to for thousands of
generations. This gray whale sanctuary is where mother gray whales approach small boats and
encourage us to scratch, pet and even sing to them and their newly born
calves. Oh, it's crazy. Over the years, this has become a
regular occurrence, only it's sad Ignaciogoon. This truly unique location is the only
gray whale berthing lagoon in the world that has been left untouched by man and
has a local community striving to keep the lagoon a sacred and protected sanctuary for
these magnificent and friendly giants. Crazy. No, yes, but now you
understand why. I also encouraged you last week to check out Joanne's new podcast
in this story with Joanne Green as these are the type of adventures that have
become our way of life. I've been scheduling a flurry of conversations for upcoming
episodes. Next week, we'll meet renowned golf course architect Augustine Aggie Pisa.
Aggie and I had a really energetic conversation about golf course architecture, the future,
sustainable design, how amateur golfers can read and take advantage of the nuances
which he refers to as nuisances that are in important an element of golf course
design. And we'll hear about his incredible idea that he calls Butterfly Golf.
I promise you you won't want to miss this one. Other episodes coming up
include instructors new and old for us, including Jim Waldron, John Ericsson,
Jacob Bowden, and Devin Bonebreak, who played for Tony Manzoni at College of
the Desert. Now, for the Week of the Masters, Doctor Bob Jones,
the Fourth Bobby Jones's grandson, will return with more stories about the golf
legend. And for the week of the US Open, we'll meet Charlie Meetcham,
former Commissioner of the LPGA, and very close friend in a confidant to
both Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicholas on his new book Arnie and Jack Stories with
my long friendship with two remarkable men. I've already read it. It's great.
If you have any questions that you'd like me to ask any of these
people, please make sure to write to me at golf Smarter Podcast gmail dot
com. I want to thank Roy McQuaig of San Juan Capistrano, California.
Roy is a US Marine Corps veteran. Thank you for your service and a
golf instructor at San Juan Hills Golf Club. Roy chose to receive Tony's video
of the Lost Fundamental for free. You two can win a golf Smarter gift
and have a choice of which you'd prefer. And here's all you have to
do. Send an email to golf Smarter Podcast at gmail dot com and request
our simple instructions to leave a voicemail at our toll free golf Smarter line,
and when you do, you can choose a dozen balls with a golf Smarter
logo from Odin Golf, the golf brand that sponsors and pays everyday golfers.
These tour quality balls are a fraction of the price of what you'll usually pay,
and when you use the code golf Smarter a checkout, you'll receive an
additional twenty percent off the order. Their link is in today's show notes.
You'll also have the option to receive a new glove and love storage compartment from
Red Rooster goolf dot com, and of course, you can also get a
private online link to Tony Manzoni's video of the Lost Fundamental. So please send
an email and I'll get back to you with some instructions of what to do
and what to say. Just write to Golfsmarter Podcast at gmail dot com or
click on the Hey Fred button at golfsmarter dot com. And if you have
any questions, comments, or suggestions for more episodes, because we're here for
a while, please click on the Hay Fred button when you visit goolfsmarter dot com