One week at a time.
The big picture can drive you crazy. It’s pretty crucial to break things up into swallowable chunks. Dr. Mark Guadagnoli talks about this a good bit in his Practice to Learn, Play to Win. I’ve mentioned this before, but was thinking about it a lot yesterday. First off, for anyone interested, you can download Dr. Guadagnoli’s book for free here: http://practicetowin.com/ He is a good guy and is providing his work to anyone interested in reading it, which is awesome.
What I was thinking about yesterday is the big picture. Or, rather, how I usually don’t think about the big picture. For me, the task at hand is big enough. This week, my goal is to get my body behind the ball more. For a video of my “homework” please check out http://thedanplan.com/video.php and you can see exactly what I will be working on. My goal is pretty straight forward and approachable. Just learn to adjust my body line from in front of the ball to behind the ball and in doing so adjust the swing accordingly.
If I were to think about my goals as “perfect the golf swing and make the PGA” it would be very easy to get discouraged. Instead, I work on improving one or two aspects a week. this is something that I know I can do, but at the same time is challenging enough to keep me engaged in my practice. If I went out without any specific goals I would run the risk of mindlessly swinging away; and, if I went out with the overall picture of making the PGA in mind I could be demoralized. It’s an art form to find the appropriate amount of challenge in the daily routine and I’m slowly figuring out just how far I can push myself and still maintain focus throughout a day/week.
Also, it’s fall out. Technically, we have about a week of summer left, but this morning smells sharply of fall. The heat wave of last week past and the leaves are starting to change. I’ve completely forgotten what it means to golf through a winter here in Portland, OR (or at least have blocked it from the mind) and am not ready to strap the rain gear back on quite yet. We’ve got to enjoy every second of summer we have left, even if fall is fast approaching.