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Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in America AND its list of Best Golf Fitness Professionals in America. Meet your new instructor.

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Sense The Swing, Don't Describe It

Even though I am not a "mental game" coach and tend to focus more on biomechanics and the technical side of golf, I will still try to pass along a few useful lessons I have gleaned regarding motor-learning and performance, when possible. One trait that I have heard several prominent mental game coaches praise is the ability to place yourself in a feeling or "receiving" state when over the golf ball. If you tend to do the opposite and start thinking words or technical positions, you are moving into a part of the brain that is not as adept at performance, adaptability, and motor control. If you are a player who falls into this category, it may be wise to spend some time working on upping your sense of feel in practice & play. Hopefully, the results will surprise you. 

Playlists: Practice Strategies, Find Your Best Swing Quickly

Tags: Practice Strategies, Mental Game, Concept, Intermediate

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This concept video is since this wing don't describe it.

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So I'm not a mental game coach.

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I'm more of a coach on the biomechanic side or on the physical side.

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But I've played my fair share of high level sports and I like to pass on some of what

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I've experienced to my students.

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So one of the traits that I've heard mental game coaches describe and that I've experienced

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personally is that when you're in the play box or when you're over the golf ball executing

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the swing, it should be very sensory.

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If you are hearing words in your head, then you're more in the language centers of the

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brain and you're in the wrong part.

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That's not where movement happens.

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You're basically talking through a checklist instead of operating.

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And so the goal is to make it very sensory which is more of a feel based approach

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instead of a logic or cognitive based approach.

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So the example that I use quite often with my students is I'll have them run this little

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experience.

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So okay, what I want each of you to do and I'm going to give you a little pause after

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this so you can actually do it is what I want each of you to do is I want you to think

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about and describe your favorite food.

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So describe or think of your favorite food, whatever that might be, whether it's pizza or

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Chinese food or pasta or whatever, steak.

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Think of your favorite food and now describe why you like it.

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Describe, out loud, what it feels like or what you get when you eat it.

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Okay, so now what I want you to do is I'm going to make a sense of the fact that I'm

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going to do what I want you to do is close your eyes, picture the food that's your favorite

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food and imagine eating it.

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Okay, now what I want you to do is close your eyes and imagine your favorite food and

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just picture yourself eating it and imagine just sense what it would be like.

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While you're imagining yourself eating it, can you experience everything that you tried

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to describe but all it wants.

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In fact, the way I usually phrase it is if you take the description, think about how long

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it took for your brain to come up with that description and how long it took for you to

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express that description.

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That's more of a cognitive checklist but now when you're imagining that you are eating

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it, can you imagine that everything was happening all at once?

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Well, that's a much more sensory approach and you can kind of have much more nuance and

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the precision of the senses will be much better than the precision of your description and details

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and it will be much faster.

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So when you're over the golf ball, I want you to be feeling.

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So let's say I'm working on the motorcycle move.

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I don't want to think to myself in words turn the wrist down.

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I want to think to myself in flavors or in senses turn the wrist down right around here

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when I do it's kind of got this weight feel to it and when it does it's happening

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wall to lower body doing this.

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That's all one feeling.

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Got it.

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Even though I had to describe it because the medium that we're working in, I can feel

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it and sense it.

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Once I have that feeling, I can just press play.

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I don't have to necessarily think about it as far as like, okay, do the motorcycle.

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It's just a feeling of when is that going to happen how it relates to the other movement.

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So it's you're going to get bogged down and you're going to get very analytical whenever

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you're working on a new skill.

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But once you've gone through some of the early stages and kind of played around with

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that new skill, your goal is to build it into a sense that goes into this whole feeling

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that you're going to execute from the very beginning of your swing to the end of your swing.

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Basically, if you can imagine your favorite food, imagine that first bite and then imagine

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the satisfying feeling of the last bite.

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You want to be able to sense that whole thing just like you can sense your whole golf swing.

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When you do, you'll typically have more consistent and repeatable performance because

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you'll be in the right part of the brain, not the language center, but more your movement

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centers deepen your brain.

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