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According to Chris Brook an International Golf Coach specialising in coaching professionals on tours including the European and US PGA.
There are three primary developmental steps that need to be completed in order for a golfer to transform their golf swing into a correct and repeatable motor task.
- Cognitive Stage
- Kinesthetic Awareness
- Automatic Stage
You must first know why… then feel how… and then do it correct over and over.
Learning the complex skill of swinging a golf club correctly is done the same way you learned to write. Can you remember when you first learned to write and how it required many hours of slow and focused practice, training your hands and brain to learn to write smoothly and with good technique? As you progressed with your writing practice and you saw and felt how to do it properly, it became easier and with less conscious effort. It finally got to a point that whenever you picked up a pen to write you didn’t think much about the method of writing, it became automatic…an acquired motor skill.
First, you must begin with an understanding of the correct movement patterns of swinging a golf club. Secondly this is followed by training the brain and body to recognize and “feel” the correct motion of the swing. And thirdly, and very importantly, one must execute this new high-speed motor skill with a high number and percentage of correct repetitions until it becomes almost automatic…like writing.
In other words, skill acquisition is a sensory awareness process and the motor response is the resultant to sensory information. Faulty sensor information creates a faulty motor activity and inconsistent movement patterns. Another important factor to remember is that high skilled activity can only be developed if the neuromuscular system is working properly.
The Process:
• Step one: The understanding or cognitive stage can be characterized by the awareness of all the movements you are trying to coordinate. Your initial performance is understandably poor and irregular. This is the preliminary organizational stage, where you are putting things together in order, so that you can perform them more steadily. At this stage you are beginning to understand how to do things, you just can’t perform them correctly or consistently.
• Step two: The important feeling or kinesthetic awareness stage is the part of the swing development where one can take the cognitive information, and with accurate and immediate feedback, allow the brain and body to “feel” the proper movement. This important information allows one to make adjustments and fine tune the necessary movements to swing correctly.
• Step Three: The over trained or automatic stage is achieved when the mind and body are able to perform the desired movement with a high level of consistency and accuracy. This is accomplished after successfully performing high numbers of correct swing movements were the desired action becomes subconscious and consistent making it almost… automatic.
Unfortunately, traditional teaching methods don’t always apply all of these important components. Proper supervision and feedback from the golf instructor to the student is critical for motor learning development yet more often than not the information is inaccurate or used improperly.
The bad news about this is that it can take 10 times as many new and correct repetitions to over ride the ingrained bad motor patterns compared to learning a skilled movement correctly for the first time. Fortunately, new technology and teaching methods are being used to address these issues and should make learning more productive, long lasting and fun. Computer aided real-time motion capture and real-time biofeedback training provides accurate and consistent feedback for the golfer and makes the instructor more effective.
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