OPTIMUM CELLULAR WELLNESS
Posted on November 14, 2015
Life is a precious gift; and we each need to accept 100% responsibility for the care of the remarkable human systems that need optimum cellular health and wellness for a good quality of life. As Bruce Lipton offers, “Inherent in our essence is the power to create an inner environment that is not susceptible to disease and illness.” The purpose of this blog is to offer a learned prescription for optimum cellular health and wellness. At the outset, it is important to offer that I am not a medical doctor and my perspective is drawn from background, interest and experience. Read More
TWO SHANKS FROM INSANITY
Posted on October 22, 2015
As Fred Shoemaker suggests, a purpose of games is to help us learn about life and our relationship to this exceptionally wonderful gift. However, an on-going experience is that a really tough challenge is to be “awake” for the multitude of messages these games, including golf and the occasional two shanks in a row, have to offer us. The purpose of this blog is to share a recent on-the-course experience and the subsequent re-awakening.
Sunday’s round of golf was total chaos, buried irritation and unrecognized physical tension! As a diehard perfectionist-reformer and dinosaur of our American culture and the culture of golfers, it would be easy to blame the playing partners for the distractions. However, as Michael Brown eloquently reminds, Read More
PACE-OF-PLAY & CREATIVE VISUALIZATION
Posted on October 7, 2015
A frequent question wrestled with on-the-course has been what impact the use of creative visualization has on pace-of-play. A recent personal experience has been that concern with maintaining pace-of-play can be a major distraction when attempting to use imagery during the pre-shot routine. When pace-of-play is of concern, my choice has been not to take the time to either be the ball or be the golfer. My experience has been that it is much easier to forgo the visualization process; go through my normal pre-shot motions; and just hit, pitch, chip or putt the ball.
As discussed in Golfer’s Palette, slow play is the most perplexing problem in golf today. A slow player can ruin the day for all players. In the interest of all, players have an obligation to play at a reasonable pace. An added variable in the pace-of-play equation is the number one revenue producing item on the golf course: green fees. Course management has an obligation to its board to fill as many available tee times with foursomes as possible. From this perspective, pace-of-play becomes a team effort between golfers and course management. Read More
VISUALIZATION & BALL FLIGHT LAWS
Posted on September 27, 2015
As discussed in Golfer’s Palette: Preparing for Peak Performance, there are five ball flight laws that golfers dance with on every shot. These laws have been proven to be invariable under given conditions; and they are absolute in influencing the flight of a golf ball. Three of these laws influence distance: clubhead speed; centeredness of contact of club with the ball; and angle of approach. Two of these laws influence direction: path of swing and clubface position. The purpose of this blog is to share how the practice of creative visualization has enabled this golfer to move knowledge of these fundamental ball flight laws into the bank of useful experience on the golf course.
To review, the practice of visualization your author is using has evolved to be three-fold: during pre-shot routine, make an estimate of the situation; creatively visualize being the ball; and visualize being the golfer. The learning experience surrounding the five ball flight laws has occurred during practice of being the ball. This part of the pre-shot routine has involved sensually “being the ball” from where the ball is to its final resting point at the end of the shot. The six-point, mental menu, amended in this blog with some of the recently experienced ball flight laws, is as follows: Read More
GOLF-PIANO CONNECTION
Posted on September 15, 2015
Could there possibly be a golf-piano connection? In Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, John Eliot Gardiner remarks, “…the more clearly you scrutinize the music from the outside as listener, and the more deeply you get to know it from the inside as a performer, the better are your chances of uncovering the wonders it has to offer…” Read More
CREATIVE VISUALIZATION
Posted on August 21, 2015
Increased awareness, understanding and commitment to the skill of creative visualization have inspired anxiousness to move the new learning to the course. The purpose of this blog is to share some of the learning and practicing experiences with a view toward keeping you posted about results on the field of friendly strife.
What is creative visualization? Visualization, or imagery, is experiencing performance in the mind and is the equivalent of playing movies in your head. As Macy & Wilding-White suggest, this video needs to be vivid, controllable and positive; and it requires engaging the senses to really see, hear, smell, feel and taste the experience. With learning and practice, this mental rehearsal skill has the potential to increase confidence, sharpen concentration, control nerves and strengthen motivation. This technique of using the imagination to create what you want and to create a clear image, idea or feeling of something you wish to manifest can be quite inspiring. As Bubba Watson remarks, “My golf game is all about imagination turned into something real.” Read More
LOVE PUTTING & THE SHORT GAME
Posted on June 25, 2015
As offered in Golfer’s Palette: Preparing for Peak Performance, if our goal is to save strokes on-the-course, it demands that we learn to love putting and the short game: chip, sand and pitch shots. Why? Because putting and the short game account for 60-65% of the strokes we take during a conventional round of 18 holes of golf. Speaking of data, read a couple days ago that the PGA Tour average from 30 yards to the hole is 2.5 stokes. This probably puts an average golfer about 3.5 to 5.5 strokes from 30 yards to the hole; and certainly suggests that if we have limited practice time, the short game needs to be at the top of the practice list. Just yesterday, my putting and short game accounted for six lost strokes: two missed, 3’ putts; and a pitch shot and three chip shots that stopped more than 6’ from the cup. Let’s take a peek at some putting and short game practice guidelines: Read More
What change?
Posted on June 16, 2015
Having recently read Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (American Empire Project) by Andrew J. Bacevich, I believe it is essential for “We the people” to carve out a more palatable path for America. Reflecting on Bacevich’s central message that “Promising prosperity and peace, the Washington rules are propelling the United States toward insolvency and perpetual war” is disturbing. As a two year combat veteran of the Vietnam War-see Sitting in the Flames: Uncovering Fearlessness to Help Others-it is disconcerting that elected leadership re-creates and recycles national security policy and continues to plod down a rather dim path: bankrupt and unending war does not sound like peace and prosperity to this combat veteran, spouse, dad and grandpa. The past must identify our scars and lessons; and not direct us where the future needs to go. Our Founding Fathers would be unhappy with us! Read More
National security and our human condition
Posted on June 3, 2015
As a two-year, Vietnam War combat veteran, a course correction in American national security policy feels necessary. Since World War II the three pillars of American national security policy have been interventionism, global presence and power projection; and if “We the people” are to accept what media are reporting and paths Washington leaders continue to dictate, these pillars are thrusting our country down a path of bankruptcy and perpetual bouts of bloody, armed conflict. As Bacevich offers in Washington Rules, “Americans today must reckon with a contradiction of gaping proportions. Promising prosperity and peace, the Washington rules are propelling the United States toward insolvency and perpetual war. Over the horizon a shipwreck of epic proportions awaits. To acknowledge the danger we face is to make learning-and perhaps even a course change-possible. To willfully ignore the danger is to become complicit in the destruction of what most Americans profess to hold dear. We, too, must choose.” Read More
National security policy and our human condition
Posted on June 3, 2015
As a two-year, Vietnam War combat veteran, a course correction in American national security policy feels necessary. Since World War II the three pillars of American national security policy have been interventionism, global presence and power projection; and if “We the people” are to accept what media are reporting and paths Washington leaders continue to dictate, these pillars are thrusting our country down a path of bankruptcy and perpetual bouts of bloody, armed conflict. As Bacevich offers in Washington Rules, “Americans today must reckon with a contradiction of gaping proportions. Promising prosperity and peace, the Washington rules are propelling the United States toward insolvency and perpetual war. Over the horizon a shipwreck of epic proportions awaits. To acknowledge the danger we face is to make learning-and perhaps even a course change-possible. To willfully ignore the danger is to become complicit in the destruction of what most Americans profess to hold dear. We, too, must choose.” Read More