Food For Thought...
Muscle Memory and the consequences of actually believing it exists.
The golf motion is just 1 of 100's of physical tasks you carry out in your life. When you attempt to develop a golf swing you try to build a procedural memory in your BRAIN. Neurons begin to link up and fire your muscles appropriately, the more you repeat the action, the stronger become the connections between those neurons. What happens if you do NOT repeat the same move because you haven't developed the motor pattern in the brain or continually make changes to your swing? Different neurons attempt to join forces to fire the muscles differently. What about your next swing change? The next? This traditional learning approach STOPS you from developing a repeatable, TRUSTED motor pattern in your BRAIN. You never develop a trusted memory. How you are being taught golf and then practice lies at the heart of your persistent problems.
Think about this for a moment - what happens when someone has a stroke?
Some physical functions are impaired. Neurons responsible for specific motor skills, destroyed. Physical skills that had been mastered for life can be lost. Why? Because ALL your physical movements in life are driven by procedural motor patterns stored in your BRAIN. If your brain gets damaged your physical body does not perform as it did. It doesn't matter what skills you had mastered prior, your muscles NEVER retained a memory. If they did, a stroke would not affect your physical actions. Clearly, it does. All efforts to regain mobility involve building new neural connections, IF available. Please watch this remarkable girl demonstrate the wonders of neural plasticity:
So what has this to do with developing a golf swing or putting stroke?
Firstly, you have to develop the motor pattern in the brain correctly. A critical mistake most make when starting is trying to hit golf balls too soon. At this time you created a "flawed" motor pattern in the brain by trying to carry out a very COMPLEX motor skill without the skills to do so. Your brain noticed your movements, good or bad, and the memory begins to form. It doesn't know what you are trying to do, only that you are trying to do something. If you do it enough, the memory forms. If you have developed a poor swing at this time, trying to hit balls, you then try to replace the procedural memory in the brain with another. All further attempts to change your swing requires you develop a new motor pattern in the brain to replace the old. Persistent swing modifications actually STOP golfers developing a trusted technique.
So HOW is TRUST in your swing or putting stroke experienced in golf?
When you STOP paying attention to it. Keeping your Attentional Focus occupied with where you wish to SEND your ball (the task) as you look down at the ball, allows your NON-conscious brain to perform the physical actions. You experience what if feels like to play golf FREE of swing thoughts, just like you perform every other life task successfully today. You experience what it means to PLAY golf, not swing golf clubs.
Allow me to sum up the consequences of promoting the "muscle memory" myth:
Ready for a change and to learn the significant benefits of Target Oriented Golf?
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