Switching roles

I recently went down to Florida and enjoyed great weather. One of my close friends and I always meet up to play basketball when I visit but this time I said let's go to the range! If you're visiting Florida, you have to play golf which is something I loved to do when I lived down there. New York is too difficult to find a close range for a decent price as well.

When we started off, I had to shake off the rust off my swing. It has been too long. However my physique has changed and so has my swing. My technique was poor and I would just hit the ground, or if I did hit the ball, it would curve sideways. Plus it was hot so I'll use that as an excuse as well. 

My friend Greg used to work at a golf range when he was younger and just showed off his golfing skills in front of me. He used to teach and tutor in golf as well. After seeing my swing, he started correcting me right away. 

1) Always keep eyes on the ball. Don't look up so soon to see where the ball goes 

2) Bring your swing up the same line as the line that's gonna extend forward. 

3) Don't twist your hips as much as shifting and putting weight on your back leg and transferring it to the front leg. 

4) Yikes don't swing so hard. 

Hmmm....sounds all too familiar......

So to improve, he commanded me to swing and hit the golf ball by looking at the ball the entire time even after contact was made with the ball. All of a sudden, I hear a good sound being made when I hit the ball. Felt good, felt great. He wouldn't let me look up to see how far the ball went etc, just do what he said and work on that aspect. After a few good hits was accomplished doing the first exercise, I tried to focus on winding the club up the same line of the extension of my swing. When I swung and made contact, it went straight sometimes but I hit the top of the ball or under. 

Greg looked at me and said to focus on keeping my eyes on the ball again. So I restarted and after a few good hits, I tried to add another of the corrections, but started screwing up again. So I restarted again and same result. I was kind of getting frustrated at myself. 

This is when it hit me........I'm doing the same thing I tell my students not to do. I always give them base corrections to work on. Those need to be solidified and become muscle memory before a new "base" correction is worked on. Repeat. It's quite difficult to solidify multiple aspects at the same time but it can't be helped that you want to get the results quickly. However if you do get those results quickly in one shot rather than working step by step, it will not be as solidified and will return to incorrect quickly. 

I tried to do so much at once I kept skipping over the core thing. Greg did a lot and said a lot of things that I would have told a student. It made me aware of my teaching method and reminded me why I taught that way. This is karma maybe and I became aware that I was in the "shu" stage of golfing. 

I must also say though, it was cool that I didn't need to wear golf gloves since my hands were already toughened by sword practice. Pachow.