Читать книгу Golf - Mental Keys for Golf Success - Volker Bernhardt - Страница 4

Flow is the secret of thoughts and movements in harmony

You might have experienced it already, this intense feeling of flow, when everything seems to work without much effort. You make the right decisions without a lot of thought, just through your inner feeling. You are able to concentrate very well on the task in hand. All actions happen without very much effort.

You are in harmony with yourself. You are so involved that you became one with whatever you are doing. You are right in it like you belong there. It is a feeling of not being present but still totally involved and melted into one with it.

A high feeling where energy flows and all senses are part of it. Everything seems to be possible, no fear, no anxiety, like gliding over reality with the deepest absorption.

These rare great moments we call being in the flow or the zone.

Many people who break their own records experience that kind of flow, the moment of the personal best. Sometimes this flow appears as a total surprise, and one did not even think about being able to perform well after a long period of rest. How often do athletes make or break their own barriers when their level of expectation is very low?

By using the given information you will also experience the flow more often for your golf game by simply changing your way of thinking and as a result your behavior patterns.

I also belong to the group of people who always like to question and analyze everything and prefer to work in a very systematic way. With this behavior I expect to minimize mistakes and avoid slipping in one way roads; the typical behavior of a person who likes to be meticulous about the task in hand.

Yes, we need the research on what is possible in golf in as many directions as possible, but when you play this game, you need a balance of analytical and intuitive behavior.

Too much analysis leads too often to paralysis!

There is a time for learning the basics of the game as well as understanding the cause and effect relationship. However it is amazing how many good movements are already within ourselves if we only let them flow out and don’t try to control each part of them.

How often have I been to the driving range and started hitting balls without even thinking of the movement and each ball took off in a very sound way. The minute I tried to analyze why it is working so well I lost the easy flow and that wonderful feeling of great coordination was gone. That same experience I also discovered with other people. The more they tried to think about what to do right, the less flow I could see and therefore unwanted shots where the result.

If children are able to play this game after a relatively short time, without having the rational thoughts behind it, then the adults could do so as well. Just by experimenting and finding out with which movement of the club the ball can be hit, you are already in the required playing mode where intuition will flow.

These flowing movements with so much simplicity and elegance we admire when watching professionals playing golf, who have left this deep analytical stage behind, if they ever have been in it? When asked how they would describe the feeling of these movements we could hear comments like: "The movement feels like oil or soft butter." - "I don't feel any resistance and it goes down like old red wine." - " It is just a soft feeling and it even feels like a different power is moving me, all is so effortless ".

I have accompanied kids along the path to playing professional golf, and even from a distance I can recognize their movement patterns which still show basics they had as kids just starting the game.

For that reason golf is a very individual game like walking, talking and other movements. We also could say that any movement is a reflection of our physical abilities, character and way of thinking.

In this book you will find recipes for how to find the flowing movements more often and in which state of mind you will behave more often with intuition.

We all know by simply changing the situation of playing in front of spectators or not, will alter the player’s behavior. We will talk about these kinds of situations, create the self-awareness and give suggestions as to how best to deal with them.

I assume that by uploading this information, you would like to improve your game! This is of course also my intention. Through lots of tests on both myself and my pupils I would like to show you some guidelines and ideas which will help you to become tuned in to the right mental attitude so that intuitive golf becomes possible and the flow of the movements will be felt more often. What you need now is a little patience and repetitive reading because the change of attitude also needs practice like the technical part of the game. Just remember: "The path is our aim".