From the desert to the ocean; two days two cities

A lot has happened in the past 52 hours. So much that I am going to have to break it into a couple of blogs over the next few days.

On Wednesday I had a followup club fitting at the Titleist Oceanside facility so departed on the long and winding desert backroads between Palm Springs and Carlsbad:

It was a beautiful drive over the mountains from the desert to the Pacific with some great views at the beginning of the journey:

And the Pacific at the end of the route:

I arrived early for my fitting and was scheduled to be fit next to PGA Tour rookie Kevin Foley.

But, I don’t want to talk about that experience quite yet as I do not have the specs and would rather cover the rest of the trip then address the fitting early next week. Check back soon for that story.

Afterwords, I drove up to LA to meet with a friend who wanted to introduce me to a sports performance psychologist, Mike Gervais, on Thursday morning. I didn’t know much about Mike so wasn’t sure what to expect but pretty soon after meeting him I could tell he was solid and would have some good insight into how to enhance learning.

We talked for about an hour and much of it was about how to use imagery to accelerate skill acquisition. I’ve met a lot of people working in this, or similar, realm and always find it difficult to sum up their work and our conversation. The new plan is to start filming these conversations to post on the blog, but that won’t come to fruition until there are a handful of these in the bank. Right now, we have filmed two such videos, one with Dr. Bob Bjork and one with Dr. Dan Schacter. Soon down the road we are going to revisit with Gervais and a handful of others and once they are edited and ready to post I will launch this new series. I’m very excited about it as what they all have to say has great value to anyone interested in learning.

For now, I will try to cover the discussion as best as possible.

Mike talked about how the different athletes he works with utilize imagery in their daily routines. Whether it’s by entering a meditative state in the evening and imagining the day’s practice routine or through closing your eyes in the shower and going through an entire future competition, the basic idea is that by putting yourself in a fully aware, but closed eyed, state where you can feel, taste, hear and see what you are trying to learn you can activate the same parts of your brain that are activated when you are actually competing or practicing. It’s a powerful way to add to and enhance a practice session.

An important point was to differentiate imagery and visualization and he suggested that visualization was more of a basic state of picturing something (ball flight, putting line) whereas imagery was a deeper state utilizing all of the senses. This is where my knowledge of the subject tends to limit my ability to write about it. After an hour conversation I walked away with a general sense of what I can do to help my own journey, but not a broad enough grasp of the concepts to do it justice in a blog format, which is exactly why I want to film these interactions so the info comes directly from the source.

He gave me an example by having me relax and close my eyes and talked me through an experience of eating an apple. By the end I could see it, hold it, taste it and was actually swallowing. It was a lot like mediation, but had directed aspects focussing on one specific task. I could immediately see how this would help ingrain a new swing when the range was not available and would be a great addition to any daily routine.

This is a subject that will be revisited often down the road. For now, here is an anecdote from the book Imagery in Sports and Physical Performance:

Imagery techniques had been utilized extensively for decades in training world-class athletes in the former Eastern-block countries. But in the United States the use of imagery to enhance athletic performance had received only limited attention. Recently this has changed and reactions to this application of imagery range from total faith in its efficacy to absolute denial that it may hold promise for our athletes.

Fortunately, a considerable body of research on the relationship between imagery and athletic performance has emerged in the last decade. Although many questions have been answered, many more require further scrutiny. Both experimental and anecdotal evidence clearly demonstrate that imagery techniques can be a valuable tool in improving athletic performance; however, they must be applied with care. Research has demonstrated that they also can have deleterious effects when used inappropriately.

This is a bit on the fringe and needs some looking into. But, I think you would be hard pressed to find a top-performing athlete who does not use some form of imagery in their routine.

3 Responses to "From the desert to the ocean; two days two cities"

melissa + kenny says:

January 19, 2014 at 1:52 pm

your pictures are awesome. have you ever considered being a pro photographer??
Richard Chen says:

January 19, 2014 at 2:44 pm

Visualizing swinging “from the ball on through” is mentioned by Nelson and Nicklaus. Nicklaus wrote about picking a small spot a few feet in front of the teed up ball as a guiding point to swing the driver. On the practice ground, or during a practice round, a ruler can be placed a little in front of the teed up ball to make the visualization easier. A plastic drink straw, a Q-tip or two, or a small leaf or three can be also used to form a straight line in front of the ball as a guide line to swing the clubhead over after ball impact.

Two points define a straight line. In this visualization of hitting from the ball on through, the teed up ball forms one end of the straight line, and the far end of the ruler, drinking straw, Q-tip, or small leaf forms the other end of the straight line.

The ball forms the near end of the visualization guideline, while the far end of the line can be visualized at various distances. Nicklaus has the far end point of the guideline set a few feet in front of the ball. Nelson has the far end point of the visualized guideline place at the landing point of the ball. My book suggests the far end of the visualized guideline be set from 70 to 90 yards in front of the ball to produce 210 to 270 yard drives.

While this type of visualized guidelines promotes a straighter clubhead swing path for the clubhead, it does not ensure the squarness of the clubface at impact. The are other visualization methods for dealing with squaring the clubface by impact. Visualizing turing the back of the leading hand together with the top of the leading forearm turning to face the target during the final release phase is the standard method of visualizing the squaring of the clubface during the final release. On Youtube, there is shown punching a small hole in the closure-flap of the leading hand glove, and inserting either a tee, or a knitting needle with the larger end of the tee or knitting needle inside the flap with the smaller ends point out through the hole. The turing and pointing of the tee or knitting needle more graphically illustrate how the back of the leading hand turns to face the target during the final release to square the clubface.

With the clubhead swinging down the visualized straight line, and with the clubfrace squared, it is pretty tough to hit a shot off line, assuming the ball is hit on or near the sweet spot, other than if the hands are too late, or too early at impact. The hit is “late” when the hands have passed way in front of the ball by impact. The hit is “early” when the hands are still way behind the ball by impact (or even the hands so behind the ball, that the clubhead swings so far up when it reaches the ball so as to either topping the ball, or even whiffing the ball all together.) In the old days, waggling is used to rehearse hitting the ball on time, so as to contact the ball not too late, nor too early. Jones said to hit the back of the ball, which meant having the hands line up with the back of the ball at impact for the driver. By having the hands line up with the back of the ball, the club shaft is “vertical” at impact, so that the club shaft is neither leaning forward like for iron shots, nor leaning backwards which risks either topping the ball, or having the bottom of the clubhead hitting ground before making contact with the ball. Visualizing hitting the precise back of the ball brings focusing to a single precise visible pin point on the ball during the downswing for the hands to be over the ball at the precise moment of impact. There is no clearly visible point behind nor in front of the ball to clearly focus on for the hands to be at impact. Focusing on a pin point sized point on the ball to hit tends to help keep the head still automatically, as it is instinctive for the head to keep still when it has to look at a tiny pinpoint sized spot. Slow motion picture sequences of Jones show him tilting his head back during setup, and he keeping his head almost perfectly still in that position even without any rotation of the head throughout the backswing and throughout the downswing until after impact. This degree of stillness and lack of even rotation of the head of Jones is not seen in other slow motion picture sequences of other top players.
Richard Chen says:

January 20, 2014 at 9:53 am

An old article once mentioned that it is observed that great drivers are often not as great iron players, and great iron players are often not as great drivers. This observation may be attributed to the inherent differences between the swing for iron shots, and the swing for the driver.

For irons, the final release is performed in front of the leading leg, while for the driver, the final release is started in front of the rear leg. Slow motion pictures show that for iron shots, the wrists are fairly cocked when the hands have swung down even with the ball, while for the drive, the wrists are fairly uncocked by the time the hands have swung down even with the ball.

For iron shots, the clubhead is “pulled” into the ball, while for the drive, the clubhead is “pushed” into the ball. The imagery can be like pulling and pushing one of these toy red wagons with a longish handle in front of the wagon. Iron shots would be like standing in front of the wagon sideways to pull on the wagon. The longish handle will be at a point in front of the leading leg, so that the hands grabbing the handle will start to pull the wagon in front of the leading leg. To simulate a drive, the wagon will be turned backwards with the body standing behind the wagon sideways. The longish handle will be about in front of the rear leg instead of in front of the leading leg. The hands thus will grab the handle at a point in front of the rear leg to start to push the wagon forward.

For the pro-style iron shots, the release is delayed greatly so that the hands have past the ball before making the final release. This iron release is done with a great deal, if not full, weight shifting to the leading leg. In addition, the ball is setup more to the middle of the stance than the driver, so that the leading shoulder is fairly in front of the ball (closer to the target than the ball) at impact to produce the descending blow on the ball. The club shaft is lean forward (leaning down) as the iron swing hits the ball to allow a descending strike on the ball. To lean the club shaft forward, the release is performed around the leading leg.

For the drive, the final release is not delayed as for iron shots, so that the hands do not pass the ball before impact. Thus, the weight shifting to the leading leg for the drive is not as great as for iron shots to ensure staying behind the ball for the drive. The club shaft is not allowed to lean forward to any extend, if at all, at impact. The hands do not swing past the ball before impact. If the hands swing past the ball to any extend with the driver, not only the clubface will tend to open up, but the long driver shaft can be deflected and bend back from the force of impact to twist the clubface open even more. The start of the final release for the driver begins around in front of the rear leg rather than around in front of the leading leg as for iron shots. Weight shifting is not as pronounced as for irons to keep the body behind the ball. some like Jones tilt the head back nearer the rear shoulder at setup, which prevents swaying to the leading side, besides promoting a good inside-to-out swing path, and staying behind the ball for driving.

The differences between the iron swing, and the driver swing, as described above, is significant enough that the swings can be treated a different swings. Although Nicklaus advocates using a single swing for all shots like having the ball setup up front relatively at the same distance from the leading foot for all shots, it cannot be taken literally in all regards. For example, a wedge shot is hit down to take a divot, and even a fairly large divot, while the driver shot do not take any divots, as the drivers is not swung fairly down like a wedge, if at all. If the hands get as much in front of the ball at impact as for wedges and other irons, the drive will most likely be pushed way offline.

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