Speaker 1: Golf Smarter number four hundred and forty two from June
Speaker 1: twenty fourth, twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Golf Smarter. Mulligan's your second chance to gain
Speaker 2: insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Speaker 2: Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets Old. Our
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Speaker 3: What target are into golf is about is helping a
Speaker 3: person establish that visualization of the target as they're executing
Speaker 3: their action. So is that conscious mind is occupied with
Speaker 3: the visualization of the target. That allows a non conscious
Speaker 3: mind to swing a golf club, and it will do
Speaker 3: so because you're giving it a clear statement of intention.
Speaker 3: Your conscious mind has a clear picture of what it's
Speaker 3: trying to achieve, and it allows a non conscious mind
Speaker 3: to follow through. A non conscious mind cannot carry out
Speaker 3: that action if you don't have a clear targeting mind.
Speaker 3: And that's the reason why many people struggle with this
Speaker 3: concept of target orientation. Because they look at their target
Speaker 3: threads but they don't see it. And because they don't
Speaker 3: see it when they look back at the ball, their
Speaker 3: attentional focus shifts away from target onto the ball, onto
Speaker 3: the takeaway, onto the water, onto the outer bounds, onto
Speaker 3: whatever it chooses to jump in. It comes the focus
Speaker 3: of your attention at that time, and the non conscious
Speaker 3: mind responds accordingly.
Speaker 1: Target Oriented Golf with Colin Cromac. This is Golf Smarter.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Golf Smarter podcast. Colin.
Speaker 3: Good morning, Fred. I'm delighted to be here a game.
Speaker 4: It has been a long time since the first time
Speaker 4: you and I spoke, which was episode number one hundred
Speaker 4: and thirty seven back in July of two.
Speaker 1: Thousand and eight.
Speaker 4: So in six years time, I hope that you've done
Speaker 4: a lot of changing to your method of teaching, but
Speaker 4: maybe updated, perhaps, but I've been quoting it for the
Speaker 4: six years.
Speaker 3: Well, I thank you for that, bread and you'll be placed.
Speaker 3: And you're pleased to know that my approach to golf
Speaker 3: and my methods that I've developed haven't changed. They are
Speaker 3: as consistent as today as they were six years ago.
Speaker 3: But interestingly enough, I've developed a collaboration with a gentleman
Speaker 3: in America called doctor Tony Paparo, and I would like
Speaker 3: to take the opportunity to introduce his work as well
Speaker 3: as mine Fred to give a refresher on target oriented
Speaker 3: golf and hopefully give you the opportunity to maybe talk
Speaker 3: to Dr Piparo with a follow up show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, spell his last name for me, please.
Speaker 3: Pip a R.
Speaker 4: Okay, and does he have a website as well?
Speaker 3: Yes, it's found out mine.
Speaker 4: My mind, mastery golf dot com. Okay, we will look
Speaker 4: into that absolutely. And as we're giving u ur ls,
Speaker 4: let's give yours too real quick to get get this started.
Speaker 3: Yep. My website is target oriented golf dot com.
Speaker 4: Target oriented goolf dot com. All right, Well, now people
Speaker 4: can listen and decide if they're going to go there
Speaker 4: or not. But let's let's talk about where do you
Speaker 4: want to start? Let me start, okay, because you know,
Speaker 4: again it's been a long time since we spoke. I've
Speaker 4: been talking about the four levels of competence for years,
Speaker 4: always trying to figure out every time I say it,
Speaker 4: I'm like, wait a minute, is that the order?
Speaker 1: Did I get it? Is it you start with and
Speaker 1: then to conscient and you got to move.
Speaker 4: So we're going to get into the details of that
Speaker 4: so you can really allow me to repeat it smoothly
Speaker 4: and not screw it up.
Speaker 1: But I got it.
Speaker 4: I got an email from a listener, John Pappas up
Speaker 4: in Santa Rosa, California, and he says, Hey, Fred, please
Speaker 4: bring back Colin Cromac.
Speaker 1: He is onto something.
Speaker 4: His insight, golfer a cycle between conscious competence and conscious incompetence.
Speaker 4: You're constantly dragging yourself back down to conscious incompetence. You
Speaker 4: never give yourself a chance to play golf intuitively. That
Speaker 4: was a quote from you, he says. And now what
Speaker 4: John says is this was a big light bulb moment
Speaker 4: for me. I've been playing golf for thirty years. For
Speaker 4: the first ten years, from ages to eleven to twenty two,
Speaker 4: I played intuitively unconscious competence down to a four handicap.
Speaker 1: But for the last twenty years.
Speaker 4: I've been dragging myself back down into conscious incompetence. Now
Speaker 4: I'm a fifteen handicap. What a drag, he says. Here's
Speaker 4: a list of teaching methods that I've tried, And when
Speaker 4: I say tried, I mean I committed to each method
Speaker 4: for one year at least one Ledbetter, two Stack Intilt,
Speaker 4: three Secret in the Mike May's right foot Inversion method four,
Speaker 4: Sean Clement Wrecking Ball Method five, Martin Ayers Wound right
Speaker 4: Arm six, John Erics and Bradley Hughes Advanced ball Striking,
Speaker 4: Flat Entry into Pack seven Shoemaker Fred Shoemaker Extraordinary Golf.
Speaker 4: Even when I stopped focusing on technique and started using
Speaker 4: Shoemaker's mental approach, I still approach the mental side as
Speaker 4: a technique versus just simply unconscious competence. This is, for example,
Speaker 4: Shoemaker's club throwing exercise as.
Speaker 1: An eye opener.
Speaker 4: So I started thinking about my swing as a throw,
Speaker 4: my conscious mind was still paying attention to my body actions.
Speaker 4: Shoemaker is a great coach, but he is still having
Speaker 4: students focus their conscious minds on body awareness too much.
Speaker 1: In my opinion. I know he wants us to focus
Speaker 1: on the target or the club or the ball.
Speaker 4: Something external, but students like me will still focus their
Speaker 4: conscious mind on a body technique. That's why I'm excited
Speaker 4: to learn more about in Chromac's target oriented Golf. I'm
Speaker 4: really really exhausted from cycling between conscious competence and conscious incompetence. Lastly,
Speaker 4: Collins question does the target create anxiety is a very
Speaker 4: powerful question for me. The answer for me is no,
Speaker 4: I find calm in the target versus always finding anxiety
Speaker 4: by putting my conscious mind on my body actions.
Speaker 1: Wow right, yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 3: I say that's not uncommon. I mean, at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, John's gone through a process that many
Speaker 3: other golfers have been through themselves, and it's his desire
Speaker 3: to obviously improve in your golf. But the majority of
Speaker 3: the time golfers spend their practice cycling between different methods
Speaker 3: of learning how to swing off clubs. And now there
Speaker 3: is a very different psychological skill set that's required to
Speaker 3: learn how to play Goldfread, because learning how to swim
Speaker 3: you having your attentional focus on something to do with
Speaker 3: a body part of body movement, and some coaches are
Speaker 3: trying to move the attention away from the body onto
Speaker 3: the club, but it still takes the individual's conscious mind
Speaker 3: onto a control of their motor skills. Now, we don't
Speaker 3: perform anything in our lives successfully, Fred, whilst we're consciously
Speaker 3: trying to control our physical actions. So the key thing
Speaker 3: about learning goal and any other life skill is we
Speaker 3: actually have to shift our conscious mind away from this
Speaker 3: motor skill so that the motor cortex in our brain,
Speaker 3: which ultimately has everything that we need to carry out
Speaker 3: a motor skill. Once the skills have been developed, we
Speaker 3: need to actually tap into that FRED. But we can't
Speaker 3: tap into that because we spend all of our lives
Speaker 3: being taught how to consciously try and control the motor skill.
Speaker 3: So the individual or the golfer never gets that sense
Speaker 3: of freedom in their golf game that they get in
Speaker 3: other aspects of their life, from riding a bike through
Speaker 3: to driving a car, where we free the conscious mind.
Speaker 3: So I'd like to just briefly introduce a concept to
Speaker 3: your FRED which it introduces different states of the mind.
Speaker 3: And it's important to understand this because if we don't
Speaker 3: know where in the mind we're trying to improve a skill,
Speaker 3: then it's very difficult to target what it is that
Speaker 3: we're trying to improve. So you're obviously familiar with people
Speaker 3: talking about the subconscious mind, and the subconscious mind FRED
Speaker 3: is basically whereby we develop ourself image and our belief systems.
Speaker 3: They are acquired over a lifetime through our experiences and
Speaker 3: through people talking to us and telling us things, and
Speaker 3: we start to develop a belief system about who we
Speaker 3: are in life now the subconscious mind is different to
Speaker 3: the non conscious mind. The non conscious mind is that
Speaker 3: part of the brain which is responsible for your motor skills.
Speaker 3: So when you're an infant, when you're a child, for instance,
Speaker 3: before you learn language. It's very interesting, Fred, but we
Speaker 3: learn to walk as infants without actually having learned any
Speaker 3: language at that time. So the conscious mind or the
Speaker 3: cognitive process in the prefrontal cortex hasn't developed all right,
Speaker 3: So we can't think our way through learning how to walk.
Speaker 3: We do that process by awareness, and there's often a
Speaker 3: parent opposite to where we're trying to go, and we
Speaker 3: stumble slowly towards that other parent, and through a series
Speaker 3: of repetitious movements, we develop the motor skills for walking.
Speaker 3: No conscious mind involved in this process, Fred, but we
Speaker 3: learn to walk, and that skill of walking becomes adaptive.
Speaker 3: We learn to then crawl and run and skip, and.
Speaker 4: Let's not forget Colin, that we also learned to fall,
Speaker 4: which is actually incredibly important because you can't learn resiliency
Speaker 4: if you haven't fallen over.
Speaker 3: And it's all done though, Fred, without any conscious mind involved.
Speaker 3: What's through this process and this is really important to
Speaker 3: understand in motor skills acquisition. We develop motor skills when
Speaker 3: we keep the conscious mind out of the picture, because
Speaker 3: the conscious mind, in essence, is something that we develop
Speaker 3: through language and through thinking process, whereby we start to
Speaker 3: actually give our selves a sense of direction through our
Speaker 3: thinking process. But that thinking process isn't very adapt at
Speaker 3: developing or controlling our body. It's not designed to control
Speaker 3: the body. That's what the motor cortex is there for.
Speaker 3: So what we have to do. You see, what happens
Speaker 3: is when we start to become we learn language, we
Speaker 3: start to learn a skill like riding a bike. Thread
Speaker 3: Typically what happens is we've learned language at that time
Speaker 3: and we start to sort of be very anxious when
Speaker 3: we are learning to ride a bike, because we are
Speaker 3: being taught how to control the pedals, and our focus
Speaker 3: is on trying to control the bike at that time.
Speaker 3: You see, But through a series of repetitious processes which
Speaker 3: are constrained by the instrument the bike, our attention naturally
Speaker 3: shifts to the road ahead. So what's actually happening is
Speaker 3: our conscious mind is being allowed to navigate to an
Speaker 3: external focus. And once that happens, fred the external focus
Speaker 3: allows the non conscious mind to take over the control
Speaker 3: of the vehicle. The balancing of the vehicle, and the
Speaker 3: movement of the pedals is all done non consciously, and
Speaker 3: you can take this process through any skill that you've
Speaker 3: ever developed. When you learn to drive a car, initially
Speaker 3: you're getting instruction, You're getting conscious instruction. You're trying to
Speaker 3: consciously control the steering, changing the gear, changing the clutch,
Speaker 3: and depressing the accelerator. You're really quite poor at this time,
Speaker 3: but again you're constrained by the vehicle. And once you
Speaker 3: start allowing your attentional focus to shift to the road ahead,
Speaker 3: your non conscious mind starts to take over the vehicle,
Speaker 3: the control of the vehicle. So every situation that occurs
Speaker 3: in life, we are allowed naturally to go to an
Speaker 3: external focus. Fred, Is this all good? So the external
Speaker 3: focus is the key thing. It allows us to pass
Speaker 3: over the motor skill to the non conscious mind.
Speaker 4: Is there a subtle difference between non conscious and unconscious
Speaker 4: or is it a huge difference?
Speaker 3: Well, this is the important thing forred. The unconscious mind
Speaker 3: is another thing altogether. The unconscious mind is when you're asleep,
Speaker 3: and when you're asleep, you're aware of the environment, but
Speaker 3: you're not paying attention to anything other than what's going
Speaker 3: on in the dreams. But the dream itself is not
Speaker 3: something that you're in control of. But the key thing
Speaker 3: is Fred, is that the unconscious mind is very active.
Speaker 3: It's very busy, and you're very aware of something that
Speaker 3: you know in the room. Should should it, should it occur?
Speaker 3: But typically you're not actively paying attention. It's only when
Speaker 3: you wake up that the conscious mind sort of picks
Speaker 3: into into action and you start thinking about the day ahead.
Speaker 3: And so the conscious mind gives you the direction, it
Speaker 3: gives you the intention for what you're going to spend
Speaker 3: your life doing throughout the day. So you've got the
Speaker 3: unconscious mind, which is obviously one aspect of your mind.
Speaker 3: You've got the subconscious, which is where your belief systems
Speaker 3: and your self image is developed. You've got the non conscious,
Speaker 3: which is responsible for the motor skills, and you've finally
Speaker 3: got the captain of the ship, which happens to be
Speaker 3: the conscious mind. But the conscious mind gives the direction,
Speaker 3: it doesn't carry out the action. It's not powerful enough,
Speaker 3: it's not fast enough. So the reason why I'm explaining
Speaker 3: these different states of mind, Fred, is that in research
Speaker 3: in neuroscience that these minds they don't exist. They can
Speaker 3: only research the brain, and so any mind is just
Speaker 3: kind of an epi phenomenon of brain activity. They can't
Speaker 3: describe the minds that I'm talking about. Now. There are
Speaker 3: lots of people that work with the subconscious mind. They
Speaker 3: try and help people improve golf, for instance, by using
Speaker 3: things like hypnosis and NLP, trying to change self image
Speaker 3: and belief systems, which work by you shutting down for
Speaker 3: a moment of conscious mind. You park it to one
Speaker 3: side whilst you go in and implant new memories into
Speaker 3: the area for the subconscious mind. So what you're trying
Speaker 3: to do, Fred is override what were dominant memories with
Speaker 3: new memories. You know, we are purely memories. Everything we
Speaker 3: you and I are that we experience are created from
Speaker 3: experiences we've had and stored as memories. So if you've
Speaker 3: got a bad memory that's preventing you from before meing,
Speaker 3: it is possible to go in and replace that with
Speaker 3: a much more empowering one. But it takes time, it
Speaker 3: takes effort. But the point is Fred, changing subconscious patterns
Speaker 3: doesn't change the motor skills, it doesn't change the non
Speaker 3: unconscious skills that you're trying to develop. You see, the
Speaker 3: non conscious mind in essence, Fred, once the motor skill
Speaker 3: has been developed is perfect if we keep the conscious
Speaker 3: mind away from it. Ahah.
Speaker 1: And that's the big question, right, how do you do that?
Speaker 3: You play target oriented golf? Well?
Speaker 1: Did walk into that one?
Speaker 3: Well? You know, this is the wayson why I've developed
Speaker 3: the workfread. It takes time to understand the subject matter
Speaker 3: and to go and a play in practice and in
Speaker 3: your play. But people spend twenty years trying to learn
Speaker 3: how to swing a golf club. Why don't they try
Speaker 3: and learn how to trust themselves to swing a golf
Speaker 3: club when they've developed other skills in their lives successfully
Speaker 3: by getting the conscious mind out of the picture.
Speaker 4: But you're not really serious about why do they question
Speaker 4: themselves on their mechanics because it doesn't go well every
Speaker 4: single time you swing the club, so you're always questioning yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's the problem from the very first golf
Speaker 3: lesson when the club is put into your hand and
Speaker 3: you have your attention taken to how to grip the
Speaker 3: golf club, and you try and hit a golf ball
Speaker 3: whilst your attention is internal and probably on the grip.
Speaker 3: You hit a poor golf shot, you naturally attribute that
Speaker 3: poor golf shot with something you're doing physically wrong. So
Speaker 3: you spend a lot of time focusing on trying to
Speaker 3: improve your grip whilst hitting golf balls. Once you've got
Speaker 3: your grip feeling right, but you're still hitting poor golf balls,
Speaker 3: you then switch your attention to your stance or your posture,
Speaker 3: or your takeaway or any other number of body parts.
Speaker 4: And isn't that the point that there are so many
Speaker 4: different things that can go wrong? How can you be
Speaker 4: unconscious about it when you're trying to analyze and practice
Speaker 4: awareness of where it is and what's going wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well that's the point, Freddie, is that if you
Speaker 3: spend your life trying to develop the motor skill with
Speaker 3: that conscious thought process of trying to control that skill,
Speaker 3: you'll never go to experience a trust in it. Now.
Speaker 3: The reason why I mentioned my partner, doctor Tony Baparo,
Speaker 3: was because he spent his life in research dedicated to
Speaker 3: understanding attentional focus in relation to motor skills acquisition. And
Speaker 3: what he's done is developed a golf coaching program that
Speaker 3: I believe every PGA coach and any golf coach out
Speaker 3: there should understand because what he's advocating Fred is that
Speaker 3: whilst an individual is learning how to develop the motor
Speaker 3: skills to swing a golf club, they need to be
Speaker 3: keeping the conscious mind busy and occupied whilst moving into
Speaker 3: the specific positions that the individual is trying to move into.
Speaker 3: Based on the coach is advice. So you know, you
Speaker 3: might be aware of the concept of tim gorway and
Speaker 3: in a game of golf where he advocates the concept
Speaker 3: of back hit. The idea of this thread is that
Speaker 3: by saying something whilst you're moving the body, you're keeping
Speaker 3: the conscious mind engaged so that it allows the non
Speaker 3: conscious mind to move the body. You can't be attending
Speaker 3: to the body if you're engaging the mind with that command. Now,
Speaker 3: what doctor Paparo has done has developed a very systematic
Speaker 3: way of a golfer developing a golf swing without hitting
Speaker 3: golf balls. First of all, because you need to develop
Speaker 3: the motor skills for swinging a golf club before you
Speaker 3: actually start trying to apply it to a golf ball.
Speaker 3: Because what happens is whilst you've got the golf ball there,
Speaker 3: thread and you're trying to not only develop the motor skill,
Speaker 3: you're reacting every time to where the golf ball's going.
Speaker 3: You're constantly doubting the fact that you're in the right position.
Speaker 3: So your conscious mind is constantly switching to and from
Speaker 3: different body parts and it's never there's never any control
Speaker 3: over the attention. And that's what we're trying to explain
Speaker 3: in our work, is that the attentional focus needs to
Speaker 3: be controlled, not only out on the golf course when
Speaker 3: you're trying to perform, but it needs to be controlled
Speaker 3: whilst you're developing the motor skills for a golf swing,
Speaker 3: because without being aware of your attentional focus, the mind
Speaker 3: is doing whatever it chooses to do wherever the individual
Speaker 3: chooses to think. And consequently, when it comes to playing golf,
Speaker 3: if you spend your whole time I'm consciously practicing the
Speaker 3: information that you're consciously being taught, you have no choice
Speaker 3: but to consciously play, and therefore you never get to
Speaker 3: that place where you're out there experiencing a trust in
Speaker 3: the golf swing or the putting stroke that you would
Speaker 3: do in any other life skill. Let me tell you
Speaker 3: the importance of the target thread. If you and I
Speaker 3: were to go out onto a park and we had
Speaker 3: some balls in our hands, and we were simply I
Speaker 3: was asking you to simply throw the ball at different targets.
Speaker 3: You intuitively would know how hard to throw the ball
Speaker 3: based on the target selection. Your attention would be always external,
Speaker 3: your mind would typically be quiet, and your non conscious
Speaker 3: mind would be allowed to throw the ball.
Speaker 1: All right, Can I stop you right there?
Speaker 3: Go ahead?
Speaker 4: All right, Let's take that analogy that you were bringing.
Speaker 4: Let's put it into say shooting a basketball. All right,
Speaker 4: go ahead, There's there's the basket. Throw the basket. Throw
Speaker 4: the ball up to the basket, and unconsciously I would think, okay,
Speaker 4: I just I just need to do that right, just
Speaker 4: this motion here and it'll go in.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't go in.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So, when I'm out on the driving ranger and you
Speaker 4: and I are working out, and and we're just working
Speaker 4: on practicing my swing, I'm on the range.
Speaker 1: When you're on the range, you there's nothing that can
Speaker 1: go wrong.
Speaker 4: Really, it's like there's no let's say, there's no consequences
Speaker 4: to something going wrong. But when you're about to take
Speaker 4: a golf shot during a round of golf, that's I
Speaker 4: guess when the doubt would would come in.
Speaker 1: That's when you'd have problems, because then you go, if
Speaker 1: I don't get this right, there are consequences.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you're you're you're switching to a different aspect
Speaker 3: of golf performance here, Fred, because you're starting to talk
Speaker 3: about the concept of psychological performance, whereby, if an individal
Speaker 3: jaw is having all of these thoughts that you're talking about,
Speaker 3: then they haven't got a sense of control over what
Speaker 3: it is that they're trying to achieve. And paying is
Speaker 3: that those thoughts do occur because the individual hasn't developed
Speaker 3: a very systematic way of guiding themselves through that period
Speaker 3: of time that I specialize in, which is that time
Speaker 3: between stepping in and executing the golf shot. You see
Speaker 3: many people recognize that they try and break up the
Speaker 3: golf shot into this concept of a play a think
Speaker 3: think box, and a playbox, whereby you're doing all of
Speaker 3: your strategizing and then you step behind the ball and
Speaker 3: then you stop the thinking and you just move into play. Unfortunately, Fred,
Speaker 3: you can't stop thinking. And that's the point is that
Speaker 3: when you step into play your golf shot, the individual's
Speaker 3: intentional focus if it's not being controlled, introduces all of
Speaker 3: those other erroneous thoughts that you're talking about, and it's
Speaker 3: that the fact that you're trying to stop thinking leaves
Speaker 3: you so vulnerable because you actually need to be really
Speaker 3: focusing your attention during that period of time between stepping
Speaker 3: in and executing. That's when you really need to be concentrating,
Speaker 3: not pretending that everybody's having a great time, because all
Speaker 3: you're doing is leaving yourself vulnerable to a situational event
Speaker 3: that comes in and destroys your ability to swing the
Speaker 3: golf club. So, jumping back moment to that concept of
Speaker 3: throwing a basketball. Thread when you're throwing the basketball, you
Speaker 3: miss the shot, that's okay, you're not going to make
Speaker 3: it ever a shot. But the point is that your
Speaker 3: attention is naturally external. You're not thinking about how to
Speaker 3: throw the ball. You're not thinking about how to throw
Speaker 3: the ball. Your attention needs to be on the basket,
Speaker 3: on the target. Yeah. Now, the concept in golf of
Speaker 3: targeting is very important. It's something we need to talk
Speaker 3: about because there are many theories of golf instruction that
Speaker 3: suggests that you shouldn't have to pay attention to the
Speaker 3: target once you've aligned yourself to it, Fred, because it
Speaker 3: doesn't go anywhere at the end of the day. Once
Speaker 3: you've aligned yourself to it, why do you need to
Speaker 3: think about the target? Well, based on our discussion that
Speaker 3: we've had so far, if you're not thinking about the
Speaker 3: target when you're trying to execute your action, what are
Speaker 3: you choosing to think about? You see the target? Primarily,
Speaker 3: what target are into golf is about is helping a
Speaker 3: person establish that visualization of the target thread as they're
Speaker 3: executing their action. So if their conscious mind is occupied
Speaker 3: with the visualization of the target, then it allows the
Speaker 3: non conscious mind to swing the golf club do so
Speaker 3: because you're giving it a clear statement of intention. Your
Speaker 3: conscious mind has a clear picture of what it's trying
Speaker 3: to achieve, and it allows an unconscious mind to follow through.
Speaker 3: The non conscious mind cannot carry out that action if
Speaker 3: you don't have a clear target in mind. And that's
Speaker 3: the reason why many people struggle with this concept of
Speaker 3: target orientation, because they look at their target threads but
Speaker 3: they don't see it. And because they don't see it,
Speaker 3: when they look back at the ball, their intentional focus
Speaker 3: shifts away from target onto the ball, onto the takeaway
Speaker 3: onto the water, onto the outer bounds, onto don't knuck
Speaker 3: this up. Whatever chooses to jump in becomes the focus
Speaker 3: of your attention at that time, and the non conscious
Speaker 3: mind responds accordingly.
Speaker 1: Colin, I don't understand what you mean by they don't
Speaker 1: see the target.
Speaker 3: If you and I, Fred, were standing on a tea
Speaker 3: box and I was observing you looking down the fairway,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have a clue what the focus of your
Speaker 3: attention was. All right now, if I was to then
Speaker 3: say to you, Fred, can you see that red roof
Speaker 3: in the distance. By giving you a description of that object,
Speaker 3: I've brought your attention to that object. So you are
Speaker 3: now seeing the object that I've brought your attention to
Speaker 3: now when you're looking down the fairway. Typically what's happening
Speaker 3: is that people are very aware of the water and
Speaker 3: the outer bounds and the bunkers, and oftentimes are drawing
Speaker 3: their attention to the very things that they don't want
Speaker 3: to be hitting the ball out.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 3: So, the very important thing, Fred, is that in the brain,
Speaker 3: the visual system is quite complex. There are many pathways
Speaker 3: to taking information in Through the eye, it hits the
Speaker 3: back of the brain and then it goes off in
Speaker 3: many different directions. Majority of the information that we process
Speaker 3: in our in our brain, we don't have to attend
Speaker 3: to FRED visually. And what I mean by that is
Speaker 3: we navigate through traffic in our car, processing lots of
Speaker 3: information visually, but we're not paying attention to it. It's
Speaker 3: the same when you're walking and doing anything. We're always
Speaker 3: processing visual information, but we don't attend to everything. When
Speaker 3: we want to attend to something FRED typically what there's
Speaker 3: another process that happens in the brain in which you
Speaker 3: compare the visual imagery that you're looking at with a
Speaker 3: pre existing memory of what it is you're looking at,
Speaker 3: and you use a label to bring a description to
Speaker 3: that object. So when you read, for instance, a paper
Speaker 3: or a book, do you ever hear that internal dialogue
Speaker 3: the internal voice that goes on in your head when
Speaker 3: you're reading a paragraph of information.
Speaker 1: Oh, I have four or five voices in my head
Speaker 1: when I'm reading.
Speaker 3: Look into your schizophrenia. Right. The important thing is the
Speaker 3: question I asked was why do you think, well, when
Speaker 3: you're trying to read, why do you have to use
Speaker 3: that internal dialogue? Because we're processing visual information. Where's the
Speaker 3: internal dialogue coming? From Well. The key thing is Fred,
Speaker 3: is that every single word that you're reading, you're actually
Speaker 3: comparing with a pre existing memory of that visual information
Speaker 3: and you're using it. You're using your internal dialogue to
Speaker 3: bring the words to the focus of your attention. So
Speaker 3: that's the seeing process. Difference between looking at the page
Speaker 3: and seeing the information requires your attentional focus to be involved.
Speaker 3: I'm with you now, good because it's really important. There's Fred,
Speaker 3: that same process that you use when you're reading your
Speaker 3: internal dialogue. How is that internal dialogue any different too?
Speaker 3: Your thinking process when you're out on the golf course.
Speaker 3: You know when the uroneous thoughts are coming in. It's
Speaker 3: the same internal dialogue. It's just that it's not coming
Speaker 3: off of a page. It's random information that you're pulling
Speaker 3: out from your mind. Now, my point is this thread.
Speaker 3: If you're looking down the fairway to describe your target,
Speaker 3: you've got to see your target. You've got to describe
Speaker 3: it to yourself. It's not enough just to look at it.
Speaker 3: And it's the same thing applies when you're over your
Speaker 3: golf ball. You've got yourself nice and settled over your
Speaker 3: golf ball if all you do is look back out
Speaker 3: down the fairway. It doesn't bring the target to your
Speaker 3: focus of attention unless you describe it to yourself so
Speaker 3: that when you feel like you're connected to your target,
Speaker 3: you can bring your eyes back to the ball and
Speaker 3: still feel connected to it in order to execute the
Speaker 3: swing at it. So the concept of target orientation involved
Speaker 3: looking at something but using your internal dialogue to reinforce
Speaker 3: what it is that you're looking at. Fred. The reason
Speaker 3: why this is important is that if you're using that
Speaker 3: internal dialogue to keep your attention on the target, then
Speaker 3: you cannot be thinking about your golf swing. In fact,
Speaker 3: that's the whole point of this, is that you're trying
Speaker 3: to keep your attention external in order to allow your
Speaker 3: non conscious mind to swing the golf club. If I
Speaker 3: was to ask you that I was going to put
Speaker 3: a local theater production on, and I was to ask
Speaker 3: you that I want you to be the lead in
Speaker 3: the show, the lead actor. Now, what would be the
Speaker 3: first thing that you'd ask for from me in order
Speaker 3: to perform on stage?
Speaker 1: A script?
Speaker 3: This is important. Why would you need a script?
Speaker 4: Because if I'm going to be in a play and
Speaker 4: memorizing my lines and performing my lines, I got to
Speaker 4: know the out line, and I got to know the
Speaker 4: direction that we're all headed in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Now, what would happen if you went on
Speaker 3: the stage without having learned your lines?
Speaker 1: You don't want me to add Libya.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, Fred, this is what every golfer is doing on
Speaker 3: the golf Why did you set me up? This is
Speaker 3: the point of attentional focus, Fred, is that as an actor,
Speaker 3: you go and perform because you know exactly what it
Speaker 3: is you're going to deliver. And mentally you've learned your lines,
Speaker 3: and we go out there and deliver them, and your
Speaker 3: non conscious mind just goes and does whatever it is
Speaker 3: that the conscious mind is directing it to do. Now,
Speaker 3: the purpose of my work is to help a goal
Speaker 3: for develop their own personal scripts that keep their attentional
Speaker 3: focus systematically occupied with the same tasks every time they
Speaker 3: prepare to play a golf shop. So that period of
Speaker 3: time between stepping in and executing their swing thread, which
Speaker 3: takes about twelve to fourteen seconds, is typically time where
Speaker 3: the conscious mind is allowed to run free and they
Speaker 3: are trying to go through a physical preshot routine. But
Speaker 3: under the surface, the conscious mind is very variable, and
Speaker 3: it's that variability in their conscious thought process, which creates
Speaker 3: such variability in their outcomes. But the visualization thread that
Speaker 3: need to happen at execution, which is target orientation, is
Speaker 3: denied if the individual does not prepared themselves for that
Speaker 3: moment successfully. And what I mean by that is if
Speaker 3: there's no proper state management, if there's no proper breathing,
Speaker 3: there's no proper awareness of the body before you get
Speaker 3: to target orientation, then at any single erroneous thought that
Speaker 3: comes in can elevate the person's anxiety level, the arousal level,
Speaker 3: and that adrenaline flow stops the muscles from performing as
Speaker 3: they would do if they were relaxed. And whatever it is, Fred,
Speaker 3: that is choosing to create that arousal means that the
Speaker 3: individual's attention must be on something other than target. And
Speaker 3: that's the key thing about target. You see, there are
Speaker 3: many theories that suggest the target creates anxiety in golfers. Fred,
Speaker 3: what's your opinion.
Speaker 1: On that the anxiety produced by.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to figure out, is this like we create
Speaker 4: this on ourselves, this anxiety, dude of and is this
Speaker 4: are we trying to get away from that completely?
Speaker 3: Well, the point is, Fred, the anxiety doesn't happen to you.
Speaker 1: You create that.
Speaker 3: You create it by how you choose to think at
Speaker 3: that moment. Now, if you're you're you're only having those
Speaker 3: erroneous thoughts because you haven't developed a systematic process to
Speaker 3: keep those erroneous thoughts at bay. You know, you can't
Speaker 3: have these anxious, anxiety provoking thoughts if you're busy focused
Speaker 3: on something else that's designed specifically to keep your state
Speaker 3: correct in order to get target oriented.
Speaker 1: But there's so many things to be focused on.
Speaker 3: No, it's the point, Fred, Well, let me ask you
Speaker 3: this question for can you pay attention to more than
Speaker 3: one thing at a time?
Speaker 1: Unfortunately? Yes.
Speaker 3: Give me an example.
Speaker 4: I can be in a conversation with somebody and hear
Speaker 4: a conversation going on behind me and following that as.
Speaker 3: Well, Okay, well, what's actually happening And you might not
Speaker 3: necessarily notice it, but your attention is actually switching between
Speaker 3: the two very fast. You cannot have your attention in
Speaker 3: two places at once. You're aware of one whilst you're
Speaker 3: attending to the other, but you're not really attending to
Speaker 3: them both at the same time. And it's an important
Speaker 3: distinction to understand here, because you in effect can't be
Speaker 3: attending to two sources of information simultaneously. But you can
Speaker 3: certainly be aware of sources of information simultaneously. So you
Speaker 3: can certainly hear something whilst reading. You're aware of the noise,
Speaker 3: but you're not necessarily paying attention to it. Your attention
Speaker 3: might flick to it, but then come back. Or you
Speaker 3: might be looking at something that's occupying your attention and
Speaker 3: you might hear a noise, your attention flicks to that
Speaker 3: and then comes back. It doesn't You're not in two
Speaker 3: places at the same time right now.
Speaker 4: It definitely flicks. I would, yes, I would agree with
Speaker 4: you that it flicks back and forth. But it flicks
Speaker 4: back so fast that I can pick up and gather
Speaker 4: the information from both sides simultaneous. It feels like I'm
Speaker 4: doing this simultaneously.
Speaker 1: Is that I can get it here?
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, I got that part, I'll get this part,
Speaker 4: and I've got and piecing both of them together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an illusion, Fred, but that's the nature of
Speaker 3: the brain.
Speaker 1: Most of what we most of my life, Colin, is
Speaker 1: an illusion. I just want you to know you're not alone.
Speaker 3: Now, everybody's life is the same. What we're doing within
Speaker 3: the brain is often predicting what it is that we
Speaker 3: expect to see, rather than actually seeing what is in
Speaker 3: front of us. Because the majority of the time we
Speaker 3: our brain is in a state of processing information, and
Speaker 3: therefore it's doing it at the non conscious, subconscious, unconscious level.
Speaker 3: We aren't consciously attending everything. We simply cannot. So a
Speaker 3: lot of the information that arises into consciousness has already
Speaker 3: been predicted by other aspects of your brain. And what
Speaker 3: you see is a prediction from what from from from
Speaker 3: from your from your brain, not what is actually out there.
Speaker 3: And the way I demonstrate this, fred is is to
Speaker 3: people is have you ever seen little paragraphs written in
Speaker 3: which all of the words are spelt incorrectly except for
Speaker 3: the first and last letters m H, and you're able
Speaker 3: to read it as if it's written correctly. Yeah, well,
Speaker 3: there's the predicative process happening. Fred. You're you're reading those
Speaker 3: words and you're you're visually processing it. Now, if your
Speaker 3: eyes were simply giving you the information to your brain,
Speaker 3: then what you had been saying would sound like the
Speaker 3: garbage that's actually written on the page. But it doesn't
Speaker 3: because what you're doing is you're taking the visual information
Speaker 3: comparing it to a memory. You're then using your internal
Speaker 3: dialogue to say, well, that's what it was saying, that's
Speaker 3: what it says, when it wasn't that at aol we see,
Speaker 3: so your predictive nature of the brain confused or it
Speaker 3: convinces us that we're seeing something that we're not. And
Speaker 3: that's the reason why targeting is important in golf in
Speaker 3: respect of we don't see the target unless we actually
Speaker 3: support it with that internal dialogue process. In essence, what's happening, Fred,
Speaker 3: is we might be looking down the fairway, but unless
Speaker 3: we describe the target to ourselves, we don't get a
Speaker 3: chance to see the target when we're looking at the ball.
Speaker 4: Can you give me a practical demonstration of how to
Speaker 4: focus on get to find your target, focus on your target,
Speaker 4: and only focus on your target through the completion of
Speaker 4: your swing.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, the key thing is, Fred, we've got to
Speaker 3: establish first of all, the difference between our desired, our
Speaker 3: outcome and our target, because there is a lot of
Speaker 3: people that suggest that the target creates anxiety. Now, what
Speaker 3: creates anxiety in golfers often is the fact that they
Speaker 3: are thinking about their desired outcome for the shot, which
Speaker 3: it happens to be where the ball will be finishing. Now,
Speaker 3: in golf, we cannot control that, and if you are
Speaker 3: paying attention or trying to control where the ball will finish,
Speaker 3: that happens to be a future event, which can create
Speaker 3: an anxiety response because you're not in control of that.
Speaker 1: This sounds like a contradiction to the target though.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the desired outcome is not the same as
Speaker 3: the target more often than not, Fred, And that's the
Speaker 3: reason why this discussion is important.
Speaker 1: That's what to me, that's a very thin line.
Speaker 3: Well, it might be. It might be a thin line,
Speaker 3: but let me give you an example. Take let's take
Speaker 3: chipping for example, thread where you're going to chip a
Speaker 3: ball onto the green and your hole is obviously on
Speaker 3: the other side of the green. Clear your desired outcome
Speaker 3: for that shot is to get the ball in the hole.
Speaker 3: But what would be your target?
Speaker 4: What would be my target on the chip? Yeah, is
Speaker 4: to me, the target would be like a three four
Speaker 4: foot circle around the hall. Try to get it in
Speaker 4: that area.
Speaker 3: Okay, you see what I'm advocating is that with a chip,
Speaker 3: you would typically chip the ball onto the green and
Speaker 3: you would identify a landing spot, a.
Speaker 4: Landing spot, Okay, yeah, right, so my target would be
Speaker 4: the landing spot, and then pick the landing spot and
Speaker 4: try to guesstimate how much role I'm going to get
Speaker 4: if it lands there and will it get me into
Speaker 4: that circle? So yeah, I guess the target would be
Speaker 4: the landing spot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's important for it because you've already differentiated. You
Speaker 3: know what your desired outcome is, but you separated that
Speaker 3: from your target, and ultimately your target selection to term,
Speaker 3: means what club it is you're going to use to
Speaker 3: play that shot, all right, So the target is very
Speaker 3: different to your desired outcome and when you're trying to
Speaker 3: play the shot and effectively, you are aligning yourself to
Speaker 3: the target point, not to the desired outcome.
Speaker 1: Okay, because if.
Speaker 3: You've chosen the right target and you choose the right club, Fred,
Speaker 3: you'll get the desired outcome. So psychological, can you see
Speaker 3: that there's a difference between what your target is and
Speaker 3: your desired outcome on that shot? On that shot, yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: But that same principle can be extrapolated to every single
Speaker 3: other golf shot. First of all, you've got to ask
Speaker 3: yourself when you're stepping into a golf shot, what's my
Speaker 3: desired outcome for this? But then you've got to say
Speaker 3: what's my target for this golf shot? And very rarely
Speaker 3: will they be the same. Your desired outcome and your
Speaker 3: target won't be the same place because we don't hit
Speaker 3: perfectly straight shots when we're playing golf, and so because
Speaker 3: we cannot control where the ball finishes thread we can
Speaker 3: only control where the ball starts. The idea of target
Speaker 3: orientation is to establish what on that starting line you're
Speaker 3: hitting the ball at that's going to allow you to
Speaker 3: achieve your desired outcome. So you put yourself on a
Speaker 3: T box, for instance, and you look down the fairway.
Speaker 3: You see where you want the ball to finish on
Speaker 3: the fairway, But that landing spot on the fairway isn't
Speaker 3: where your target will be your target because because there's
Speaker 3: nothing there, often that gives you a clearness of for
Speaker 3: the visualization process. So you're typically what you do is
Speaker 3: you find a line on that either on that line
Speaker 3: where you're wanting the desired outcome, or you might even
Speaker 3: move left or right of that desired outcome and establish
Speaker 3: a target that's on your target line. So it might
Speaker 3: be something that's off the golf course. It might be
Speaker 3: a roof on a house, or it might be an
Speaker 3: electricity part on it might be a tree trunk. But
Speaker 3: it's always something Fred that gives you a clear visual
Speaker 3: connection with where you're going to start that ball, Because
Speaker 3: it's that target that you're trying to commit the swing towards,
Speaker 3: knowing full well you'll get your desired outcome. You've got
Speaker 3: to let go of that outcome and just trust that
Speaker 3: the club you've chosen and a target you're selecting will
Speaker 3: help you achieve that desired outcome.
Speaker 4: When I'm standing behind the ball looking down the fairway,
Speaker 4: you know, setting my visualizing where I want the ball to,
Speaker 4: where my target is, but I also look at the
Speaker 4: end target the ball, and then a point just beyond
Speaker 4: the ball as where I want to start the line.
Speaker 1: Is that my target?
Speaker 3: No, no, it's not, Fred. You're only using that point
Speaker 3: behind the ball as your alignment. It's helping your alignment
Speaker 3: to your chosen target. But once you've aligned yourself to
Speaker 3: your chosen target, Fred, you can you forget about that
Speaker 3: spot in front of the ball because that was only
Speaker 3: used to help for alignment purposes. But the key thing
Speaker 3: is that once you've established that you're going to hit
Speaker 3: the ball towards a pre determined target that is visually
Speaker 3: attractive to you. You know, like you're always looking for
Speaker 3: something that's easy to see, because that's the whole purpose
Speaker 3: of target orientation. You're trying to give yourself. You're trying
Speaker 3: to make it easy for yourself by giving yourself a
Speaker 3: clear target. If all you do is try and establish
Speaker 3: when you want the ball to finish on the fairway,
Speaker 3: you end up with just a big load of fairway
Speaker 3: and not an awful lot of focus. You don't give
Speaker 3: yourself a clear focal point to get in your ball
Speaker 3: to wards. And again you're psychologically stepping into a place
Speaker 3: which can be creating the anxiety response because you're trying
Speaker 3: to control where the ball finishes and you simply cannot
Speaker 3: do that and therefore being a future event, you create
Speaker 3: the anxiety response due to the lack of control that
Speaker 3: you perceive over it. So you know, if I was
Speaker 3: to stand in front of you, fred hands out, you
Speaker 3: get you throw the ball to me, the target and
Speaker 3: the desired outcome would be the same my hands and
Speaker 3: as I move away from you, you still recognize that
Speaker 3: the target and the hands are the same place, but
Speaker 3: you've got absolute freedom in your actions because you've got
Speaker 3: that clear target to throw the ball at. If I
Speaker 3: put my hand just as you're about to throw the
Speaker 3: ball and I put my hands behind my back, two
Speaker 3: things typically happen. I make you think where's my target?
Speaker 3: And I stop your flower of action. Well, that's exactly
Speaker 3: what happens when you look back at the bull thread
Speaker 3: and you haven't got a clear statement of intention in
Speaker 3: your mind, because your attention then shifts to something else,
Speaker 3: and that creates the funky swings that people experience. More
Speaker 3: often than not, it's the lack of clear intension with
Speaker 3: aligned attention that creates the poor golf swing. So this
Speaker 3: concept of putting targeting is important as well in putting
Speaker 3: because unless you've got a straight put to a hole,
Speaker 3: the target and the target and your desired outcome are
Speaker 3: also different. You know, if you've got an uphill put
Speaker 3: thread to a hole that's a straight uphill part, your
Speaker 3: typical target point will move behind the hole because you're
Speaker 3: having to put more force onto the ball to allow
Speaker 3: it to go uphill. So you're putting through the hole
Speaker 3: basically to ensure that you've given the ball enough energy,
Speaker 3: and if it's a downhill put you clearly don't want
Speaker 3: to be putting out to act the hole. You put
Speaker 3: a spot in front of the hole and that becomes
Speaker 3: your focal point for your part. So you're establishing how
Speaker 3: much energy you have to impart on the golf ball
Speaker 3: based on your target selection point. And as soon as
Speaker 3: you start to introduce break left and right, your target
Speaker 3: point starts to shift left and right of the whole
Speaker 3: as well. So you've always got Fred the desired outcome
Speaker 3: of getting the ball in the hole. But if you
Speaker 3: actually attempt to part always with your attention on the
Speaker 3: whole when you step into and an align yourself to
Speaker 3: your chosen line, but then switch your attention back to
Speaker 3: the hole, what actually happens, Fredd, is you end up
Speaker 3: pushing or pulling the ball off of the target line
Speaker 3: because you're thinking about the desired outcome rather than a
Speaker 3: target point on that line that you've chosen. There's a
Speaker 3: system out there called am point which is excellent for
Speaker 3: green reading. It teaches you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've talked about it and we've had them on
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, look the idea of it, Fred is the
Speaker 3: fact that it establishes what your line is. It gives
Speaker 3: you great confidence to know that's the line that you're
Speaker 3: going to put on. Where different, where I differ from
Speaker 3: that system is that they advocate that the target or
Speaker 3: the aim point is always perpendicular effectively to the whole,
Speaker 3: So it's, you know, perpendicular to where the hole is.
Speaker 3: I don't agree with that because clearly there's many times
Speaker 3: where the ball goes nowhere near perpendicular to the whole.
Speaker 3: You only have to put it a few inches and
Speaker 3: it will roll off and break and do all sorts
Speaker 3: of things. So your target point is on that aim line,
Speaker 3: but it's not the ain point that they are advocating,
Speaker 3: because again it's a great system for green reading. But
Speaker 3: once you've got your line, the advocate is then suggesting
Speaker 3: that what you need to do and is establish how
Speaker 3: hard or how how much you need to control the putter.
Speaker 3: You know, what speed do you need to put on
Speaker 3: the putt. But that's bringing your attention back to the
Speaker 3: conscious control of the putter head, and that again destroys
Speaker 3: the putting stroke because you're consciously trying to control that
Speaker 3: stroke again thread So the idea of targeting is to
Speaker 3: keep your attention external and allows the non conscious to
Speaker 3: put the ball. And that's the reason why I love
Speaker 3: the Green reading system. I just disagree with where the
Speaker 3: individual's attention is taken when they then have to put,
Speaker 3: because again, there is nothing that we perform by consciously
Speaker 3: controlling our action, and therefore by staying external, by staying target,
Speaker 3: iron did on target instead of outcome, you start to
Speaker 3: separate the difference psychologically. But also all you're recognizing with
Speaker 3: a put thread is you can't do anything with the
Speaker 3: putter other than put the ball on a straight line.
Speaker 3: It is designed to do nothing other than hit a
Speaker 3: ball on a straight line. So you've got to establish
Speaker 3: the line that you're going to send it on and
Speaker 3: how far down that line your target point will be
Speaker 3: to allow that ball to break off towards your desired outcome,
Speaker 3: which is the whole you follow. So you don't always
Speaker 3: hit the target. Fred. The point of target orientation is
Speaker 3: not to hit the target. In fact, it's only on
Speaker 3: chipping where you actually hit you have an opportunity to
Speaker 3: hit the target that you've chosen. But every other shot
Speaker 3: with target orientation, what you're doing is giving yourself a
Speaker 3: sense of commitment to something in the distance that will
Speaker 3: allow the non conscious self to react to that target,
Speaker 3: and if you've chosen the right target, you get your
Speaker 3: desired outcome. And that applies to every golf shot. So,
Speaker 3: as I said, when the idea of this work of
Speaker 3: developed thread is the individual allows them to step into
Speaker 3: every golf shot regardless of where I'm not on a
Speaker 3: tea box or on a putting green. They can apply
Speaker 3: the same mental process to preparing to play for the shot.
Speaker 3: So you don't actually see driving, chipping, pitching, putting as
Speaker 3: different disciplines. They are all just different golf clubs, but
Speaker 3: you apply the same mental discipline to them. That simplifies
Speaker 3: the game thread because you're ultimately just following the same
Speaker 3: script every time you step in to play a golf shot.
Speaker 3: The only difference you have is identifying what your chosen
Speaker 3: target is, which will determine what club you're going to
Speaker 3: use to play that shot and the real challenges. So
Speaker 3: again what I'm saying is that target orientation is trying
Speaker 3: to help golfers be in control of events. So the
Speaker 3: target is something that you are in control of, You've
Speaker 3: chosen it yourself, and you're ultimately hitting the ball towards it.
Speaker 3: You're not trying to control wear the ball finishes. In
Speaker 3: this instance that you cannot control weather ball finishes. But
Speaker 3: the game, if you've chosen the right target and chosen
Speaker 3: the right club, then you've just got to trust the
Speaker 3: fact that based on your chosen you know your selections,
Speaker 3: that you'll get your desired outcome. But golf is not
Speaker 3: a game of perfect as we know. It's a game
Speaker 3: of identifying how do you achieve the best outcomes based
Speaker 3: on the fact that you've got the opportunity to choose
Speaker 3: what it is your targets are. It is interesting, Fred,
Speaker 3: when it comes to putting, it's a little bit more
Speaker 3: difficult because in effect, we don't really get a choice
Speaker 3: of targets. You know, if we've read the green and
Speaker 3: established the line, then we need to find that target
Speaker 3: point on that line. But if we choose a different line,
Speaker 3: then we've got to choose a different target point. It's
Speaker 3: you know, there's nothing concrete there for you to say
Speaker 3: that's definitely my target. It comes down to you being
Speaker 3: intuitive as to how much energy you have to impart
Speaker 3: on that golf ball to allow gravity to pull it
Speaker 3: towards your whole, and all of this stuff is again
Speaker 3: it's beyond your control. All you can do is assess
Speaker 3: the shot, choose your target, and hit your ball towards
Speaker 3: the chosen target. Now, to get to that place of
Speaker 3: target orientation, Fred, you've got to prepare yourself mentally as
Speaker 3: you step in in order to give yourself a chance
Speaker 3: to visualize that target that you've chosen. Otherwise than the
Speaker 3: reason why target orientation hasn't worked for probably people that
Speaker 3: have tried it is that as you step in, the
Speaker 3: erroneous thoughts that come along can elevate arousal. When you're
Speaker 3: looking down the fairway, you're seeing all of the hazards
Speaker 3: and when you look back at the ball you're thinking
Speaker 3: about swing for target is nowhere to be seen. And
Speaker 3: you know it's natural then to believe that the poor
Speaker 3: golf shark was caused by your poor swing, as if
Speaker 3: the swing itself was the problem, not the fact that
Speaker 3: it wasn't getting any clear statement of intention as to
Speaker 3: what to do. And that comes back to you can't
Speaker 3: become target oriented on the golf course, Fred, unless you
Speaker 3: practice target orientation on the range. Because this has to
Speaker 3: become predominant mentality in order for you to take it
Speaker 3: out to the golf course.
Speaker 1: And do you find that more people on the range
Speaker 1: that they're focused on just striking the ball over and
Speaker 1: over as opposed to using a target.
Speaker 3: Well, they might have a target thread, but they're not
Speaker 3: actually paying attention to you, you see, the whole purpose
Speaker 3: of my work is to help people understand how to
Speaker 3: effectively manage their state in order to get to this
Speaker 3: state of target orientation. You can't get your state right
Speaker 3: if you don't have control over your self talk, and
Speaker 3: you can't then get your attention in the right place
Speaker 3: if you're or on target if your self talk is
Speaker 3: out of control. You see, So it's an interaction, Fred,
Speaker 3: You've got to get your state right to open up
Speaker 3: your ability to focus. But you can't focus until you
Speaker 3: get your state right. So you have to have proper
Speaker 3: breathing strategies and techniques as you're preparing to execute in
Speaker 3: order to really open up your ability to get to
Speaker 3: that target orientation. The whole purpose of this work, Fred,
Speaker 3: as i said, is to get to that place where
Speaker 3: you ultimately experience your freedom in your physical actions, just
Speaker 3: as you would do hitting a baseball or using a hammer.
Speaker 3: It's just a tool that you're using to carry out
Speaker 3: a task. You're not thinking about how to use the tool.
Speaker 4: We've been into this conversation for fifty nine minutes now, Colin,
Speaker 4: and I want to I know, I know, I can't.
Speaker 4: I looked up at like you're kidding fifty nine minutes so,
Speaker 4: but what I really wanted to get into. I think
Speaker 4: we've gotten the point and the understanding of target orientation
Speaker 4: as you've been talking about. I really wanted to talk
Speaker 4: about the stage of skills if I if I've got
Speaker 4: this correct, from unconscious and competence all the way through
Speaker 4: unconscious competence, can we cover that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely, Fred. The key thing is is that these
Speaker 3: stages of learning that are often presented to people, the
Speaker 3: idea of these stages is that we move from a
Speaker 3: process of unconscious incompetence, which is where we don't really
Speaker 3: know the skills that we need to learn before we
Speaker 3: start to develop the skills. But once we underst acquiring understanding,
Speaker 3: we start to become what's called unconscious competent, whereby we
Speaker 3: sorry conscious.
Speaker 4: Aha, it's not just me, okay, all right, we started
Speaker 4: unconscious incompetence, yeah, and the next stage would be conscious incompetence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we go through a series of repetitions in
Speaker 3: which we are focusing on the skill. And this conscious
Speaker 3: incompetence is where most golfers are trying to develop their swing.
Speaker 3: And many people, through repetition start to show some skill
Speaker 3: and they develop what is conscious competence. You see, they're
Speaker 3: still thinking about the swinging of the golf clubs at
Speaker 3: this point, but they are becoming better than those people
Speaker 3: who have just started. And once you've started to develop
Speaker 3: that proficiency in normal life skills, we shift our We
Speaker 3: shift those motor skills to a state of unconscious competence,
Speaker 3: so we stop consciously trying to control the motor skill
Speaker 3: so that state of unconscious competence thread does not happen
Speaker 3: through repetition. Which is the biggest mistake people make is
Speaker 3: that they believe if they keep practicing the same way,
Speaker 3: they will get to a place of trust in that skill.
Speaker 3: The only plan you get to a place of trust
Speaker 3: in the skill is when you actually stop paying attention
Speaker 3: to it, and the way you achieve that in golf
Speaker 3: is by switching your attention away from it and onto
Speaker 3: the target. That shift thread happens naturally in most other
Speaker 3: life skills because we naturally want to be int in
Speaker 3: where we're going.
Speaker 1: But you have to have some confidence in your golf
Speaker 1: swing to get there, so you can let go of it, don't.
Speaker 3: You, Yeah, clearly, Fred, And this comes this comes back
Speaker 3: to how how you acquire the skill, And hopefully you'll
Speaker 3: have an opportunity to talk in detail with my with
Speaker 3: my partner who spent his life helping people understand that
Speaker 3: the skills acquisition process, you cannot have confidence in a
Speaker 3: skill that's not obviously been developed, but how that skill
Speaker 3: is developed, Fred, it requires you having to allow yourself
Speaker 3: to shift your attention away from that skill. You will
Speaker 3: stop yourself from ever getting to that place of trusting
Speaker 3: in it whilst you constantly only focus on it. So
Speaker 3: purpose of the work that I'm doing for is to
Speaker 3: give people an alternative way of practicing at the range
Speaker 3: called a trusting mode. So if you imagine there's a
Speaker 3: training mode and a trusting mode. Training mode is where
Speaker 3: an individual always gone to the range to work on
Speaker 3: a skill, a technical skill, when they've spent maybe half
Speaker 3: an hour doing that, and how that's being done can
Speaker 3: be significantly improved. Which but I'm not going to get
Speaker 3: involved in that discussion. That's where I'd like you to
Speaker 3: talk to my partner. But once you put aside the
Speaker 3: training mentality Fred, by switching into trust mode, what actually
Speaker 3: happens is you stop the analysis of your swing. You
Speaker 3: simply allow that swing to be what it is as
Speaker 3: it is developed. And so by developing a way of
Speaker 3: trust in that swing, by practicing breathing, state management, target orientation,
Speaker 3: you start to allow your attention and to shift external
Speaker 3: and your motor skill spread automatically start to move up
Speaker 3: into that state of unconscious competence because you're not consciously
Speaker 3: inhibiting them. It's the conscious inhibitor inhibiting of the motor
Speaker 3: skill because you're consciously always trying to control it. That
Speaker 3: stops that from happening, you know, and that comes into again.
Speaker 3: It's very important to understand that whilst you're trying to
Speaker 3: develop a motor skill, you should also be training your
Speaker 3: attention at the same time, but that isn't happening today.
Speaker 3: So by using doctor Pipero's methods, you're able to keep
Speaker 3: the conscious mind engaged with a specific command whilst you're
Speaker 3: allowing the non conscious mind to move the golf club
Speaker 3: into the appropriate positions you need for a golf swing.
Speaker 3: The idea FRED is that we don't have Well, there
Speaker 3: are systems out there that do keep people within a framework,
Speaker 3: i e. You know, when we're sitting in a car learning,
Speaker 3: we're constrained by the vehicle. When we ride a bike,
Speaker 3: we're constrained by the vehicle. When we try and swing
Speaker 3: a golf club, there's nothing constraining us, is there. And
Speaker 3: yet there are systems out there, like the caves and
Speaker 3: others that allow you to be effectively training your body
Speaker 3: by but whilst being told whether or not you're in
Speaker 3: the correct positions through verbal feedback biofeedback. But at that time, fread,
Speaker 3: the conscious mind is still being left to its own
Speaker 3: devices and it's typically involved in the swing. We need
Speaker 3: to get the conscious mind out of the swing in
Speaker 3: order for that skills to move to that place of
Speaker 3: unconscious confidence that we're trying to achieve. And so yes,
Speaker 3: it does require golf does require an element of time
Speaker 3: where you do develop the skill. But if you're trying
Speaker 3: to develop the motor skill whilst hitting golf balls, your
Speaker 3: attention is simply so disparate. It's on so many different
Speaker 3: things that you really don't have an opportunity to ever
Speaker 3: develop the single pointed concentration that I'm talking about through
Speaker 3: target orientation. So what we're trying to advocate is that
Speaker 3: when a person learns is working on their technique, taking
Speaker 3: the advice that's being given to them by their coach,
Speaker 3: it's not enough for them to be hitting golf balls
Speaker 3: and reacting to the outcome and trying to consciously change
Speaker 3: their motor skill, because you never develop a consistent motor
Speaker 3: pattern for swinging that golf club because you're always consciously
Speaker 3: trying to change it. It's like having a piece of
Speaker 3: jelly fred you never let set. You constantly shake it around,
Speaker 3: and you're ending up developing competing memory, which you never
Speaker 3: really know which ones you're going to draw on to
Speaker 3: swing that golf club. And so you're trying to ultimately
Speaker 3: allow the conscious mind to be parked for a time,
Speaker 3: to allow the non conscious self to move the body
Speaker 3: to the appropriate positions, and you start to through repetition
Speaker 3: of these exercises, you start to develop a proficient golf swing.
Speaker 3: And in fact, if there's no ball in place, you know,
Speaker 3: you ever notice how great people's practice swings are when
Speaker 3: on the golf course, and yet when they step up
Speaker 3: to the golf ball, that swing kind of disappears. Absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's what's happening. Fred. The intentional focus is very different
Speaker 3: when you're trying to hit the golf ball because you swing,
Speaker 3: you're no longer just swinging the club through to your target.
Speaker 3: You're actually trying to hit the golf ball or trying
Speaker 3: to control the swing, and that destroys the swing. So
Speaker 3: what we're advocating is that you develop a proficiency in
Speaker 3: your golf swing. Start off development the swing. Put a
Speaker 3: tea down on the ground, starting that without evaluating where
Speaker 3: the tea's going, just start feeling your golf swing is
Speaker 3: starting to be consistent. And when you start to introduce
Speaker 3: the ball, you'll notice that the individual your attention starts
Speaker 3: to go to the ball. And it's that in itself,
Speaker 3: which is is a problem because you end up trying
Speaker 3: to just hit the ball rather than swing through it
Speaker 3: to the target. So this whole process thread involves in
Speaker 3: slowly introducing these concepts so that people can transition through
Speaker 3: a skilled acquisition's phase relatively quick compared to what they're
Speaker 3: doing today. You know, years and years and years and
Speaker 3: years and years of repetition and practice doesn't manifest as
Speaker 3: trust on the golf course. Something is wrong. You would
Speaker 3: think that people could learn to trust their golf swings,
Speaker 3: but they never do well. That's because of how they
Speaker 3: are practicing, learning and playing the game. And what we're
Speaker 3: trying to do through our program is to just introduce
Speaker 3: a new set of skills that will make the most
Speaker 3: of the great PGA instruction that they're being given. But
Speaker 3: they need to learn how to shift their attention away
Speaker 3: from that in order to experience what it's like to
Speaker 3: play golf, not just swing golf clubs.
Speaker 4: Excellent, all right, Well listen, Colin, I think we need
Speaker 4: to wrap this up. We're seventy minutes into the conversation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sorry, Frank, we told total die.
Speaker 4: I'm sure obviously obviously we can, but I to well
Speaker 4: respect to the audience, and actually I'd like to ask
Speaker 4: the audience a favor.
Speaker 1: Does this resonate with you?
Speaker 4: I know we've talked about putting, We've talked about you know,
Speaker 4: aim point, We've talked about various mechanics and thing and
Speaker 4: mental game things like that, but this specifically, how does
Speaker 4: this resonate with you? Does this work for you or
Speaker 4: you get this at all, And if I would love
Speaker 4: just click on a Hey Fred button and send email
Speaker 4: tell me what you thought of this conversation with Colin.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you got to hear the entire thing.
Speaker 4: And again it give how people get in touch with
Speaker 4: you where you are and how to work with you
Speaker 4: if they want more.
Speaker 3: My website is Target Oriented Golf. That's that's Target oriented
Speaker 3: which is r I E N TED golf dot com.
Speaker 3: I provide remote services. I ultimately help golfers. They go away,
Speaker 3: they video their pre shot routines and through a series
Speaker 3: of training manuals and videos, we help change their practice
Speaker 3: and methods so that they develop a new mental pre
Speaker 3: shot procedure, not a routine. The idea of it is.
Speaker 3: A routine is something you do without thought. That's the
Speaker 3: last thing that we need in order to get our
Speaker 3: focus in the right place and the same place every time.
Speaker 3: So what I do is help them develop a mental
Speaker 3: procedure which will give them a very disciplined, stmatic approach
Speaker 3: to every golf shot and it simplifies their golf. But
Speaker 3: it takes time to practice and learn them Afraid, it's
Speaker 3: no quick fix here, Fred.
Speaker 1: No, there never is they're never is in golf, Well
Speaker 1: there is the Golf Smarter podcast is Colin.
Speaker 4: It's been like I said, it's been eight years, it's
Speaker 4: been six years. It's been a great talking to you again.
Speaker 4: I'm so glad that you're still focused on your target
Speaker 4: and that you're keeping us focused on our target.
Speaker 1: It's really been great to have you back on the show.
Speaker 3: It's been a pleasure, Fred and I can't thank you
Speaker 3: enough for giving me the opportunity