Ernest Jones was a successful golf swing coach of the early and mid-20th century, famous for his whole swing approach to coaching. Criticising the tendency of swing coaches to divide the swing into numerous parts, comparing it to dissecting a cat, he described the process as producing ‘blood, guts, and bones all over the place – but no cat’.
His views were born out of an unfortunate personal experience. Shortly after becoming a professional golfer, World War I interrupted his career and while he was fighting in France, an exploding grenade removed the lower half of his right leg. He returned to England and, after four months recuperation, he tried to play a round of golf. Walking on crutches and swinging on one leg, he scored 83. Within weeks, he’d scored 72.
This episode changed Jones’s approach to swing coaching. Initially, he couldn’t understand how his swing could remain highly effective even though he was missing an important limb. He concluded that the human
brain, faced with a new physical challenge, could devise compensating strategies that continue to produce the desired outcome, using a modified technique. He believed the brain, knowing only the desired result, could develop an effective technique without any conscious input from its owner. In other words, the golfer’s only conscious task is to decide the outcome; the brain then decides subconsciously how to achieve it.
Ernest Jones adapted his coaching methods to reflect this belief. Instead of requiring his pupils to focus on body parts and positions, he asked them to focus on the clubhead. He reasoned that the golf swing’s most important element is the clubhead – and where it travels – so it’s best to focus on that. The brain will work out exactly how to make it travel accurately. He explained these principles in his book Swing the Clubhead (1937).
Jones became one of the most successful swing coaches of his era, despite a rejection from the coaching establishment because his methods were ‘too simple’ and ‘wouldn’t sell enough lessons’. Ernest Jones, without knowing it, had stumbled across implicit learning – the ability of humans (and all animals) to learn skills subconsciously.
He didn’t call it that, of course, but his reasoning amounted to the same thing. Humans learn all their physical skills implicitly; we learn skills best when we focus on what to achieve, not on how to achieve it. Implicit learning has its roots in evolution. Humans and animals have survived over millennia in a dangerous world by subconsciously learning
the many skills needed to survive. The young cat learns mouse-catching skills by focusing on the mouse; humans chased and hunted animals in the same way. In today’s safer world we learn to reach for, grasp, and drink, a cup of coffee by focusing on the cup, then the mouth. We don’t require any knowledge of technique.
Implicit learning has two remarkable qualities. First, it’s a truly subconscious process; it just happens. Second, once we’ve learnt a skill implicitly, we don’t know what we’ve learnt – we know we can do it, but we don’t know how we do it. Our bodies follow the Nike motto: they ‘just do it’. But for the golf swing, the opposite applies – we know everything about what to do, but we can’t do it.
Dynamic interactions – We can now begin to see why treating the golf swing as a purely mechanical ‘joints and levers’ problem – and trying to learn it that way – is ineffective. It’s because we’re using conscious mental processes to force our joints and levers to move in certain ways, rather than allowing subconscious processes to work it all out.
Our problem is that human brains have extremely limited conscious processing capacity, so taking a joints and levers approach to the swing
massively exceeds our mental capabilities. Unfortunately, there are simply too many joints and levers – our primitive information-processing
systems simply can’t cope. That’s why we have such powerful, subconscious, implicit systems.
In order to develop an effective golf swing, we need to take a new approach, replacing our conscious efforts to make things happen with strategies to let things happen. In doing this, we’ll allow our implicit skill-learning systems to do their work, instead of stifling them. When we allow our implicit systems to work in this way, we not only engage our motor systems (joints and levers), but we also recruit our perceptual, cognitive, respiratory and circulatory systems. We develop a dynamic interaction of all our biological control systems.
This sounds difficult, but actually, it’s easier—we no longer need to make so many things happen. We can see why we need this approach when we
consider the control processes operating during a golf swing.
To make a swing, the brain sends a stream of neurological signals – a signal package – throughout the nervous system to numerous muscle groups. The signals trigger a highly complex, coordinated package of muscle contractions—the swing. Working backwards through the system, if we want an improved golf swing downstream, we need to improve the signals sent out upstream, by our brains. We need to address the cause
of the swing, not the swing itself (the effect). So the key to a better swing is to think better thoughts.
Experts in skill development no longer analyse sports skills solely in terms of their mechanics. They adopt a dynamic systems approach, where they study mechanical movements in relation to the other biological systems that control them. Instead of seeing the human body just as a
collection of moving parts, they see it as a sophisticated, multi-system, highly adaptable organism, capable of learning and mastering the most
complex of physical skills.
The essential point with respect to our golf swings is that humans are good at learning skills, not positions. A thousand ‘correct positions’, even when achieved ‘perfectly’, won’t make a skill. But a well-learned skill can create a thousand correct positions. Unfortunately, in the golf swing, we’ve confused the two. We should now consider exactly how implicit learning works, because this holds the key to our golf swing improvement. Just how do we master a complex skill with no conscious effort? We do it through repetition.
Repetition, repetition, repetition. Cats and humans hone their
mouse-catching and coffee-drinking skills through repeated attempts to achieve the desired result. They improve their skills through practice. Improvement through practice follows a distinct pattern. When we first
attempt a new skill, we usually fail. We see the results and we try again. For this next attempt, our brains reorganise and produce an improved signal package. With each repeated attempt, our brains send out newly modified packages that generate movements more appropriate to grasping coffee cups or swinging golf clubs. We improve, and in time, we become experts; we spill no coffee, or we make an effective golf swing.
We can see this in the cat. The young cat – still at the novice mouse-catching stage – formulates a plan (catch that mouse). The plan triggers a movement (a chase and a pounce). There’s a result, which at first doesn’t match the original plan (the mouse escapes). The cat’s brain registers the discrepancy between the plan and the result (feedback) and subconsciously reorganises to produce an improved set of movements next time. Repetition progressively reduces the error between the plan and the result, so that eventually the mouse is caught. The cat’s brain works subconsciously with its other biological systems to master the skill. The cat knows nothing about mouse-catching technique. But it perfects one—implicitly.
Swing signatures Implicit learning has a further quality that’s important for our golf swings. All animals, including humans, arrive at different movement solutions to any physical problem. Not all cats chase and pounce identically. To us, their movements may look alike (because they’re all cats), but they develop different techniques. Their techniques vary because cats themselves vary, in terms of size, speed, visual acuity and many other things. So they develop different movement solutions for catching mice. The ‘perfect mouse-catching technique’ doesn’t exist.
Humans also differ, so left to our own devices we’ll also develop
different movement solutions to our problem of hitting golf balls –
we’ll develop unique swing signatures. The point is, as long as we practice our individual swing solutions – whatever they look like – implicit learning will ensure they become effective. They’ll be our own best movement solutions. So the ‘perfect golf swing’ – a single, mechanically pure sequence of movements that’s best for everyone – can’t exist. It can’t be the best solution for everyone, simply because we’re all different. All swings need to adhere to some important mechanical principles.
http://easiestswingmallorca.com/
https://easiestswing.com/
https://www.facebook.com/easiestswingmallorca/