Intelligence in Action
A Good Stroke
by Graeme Lynn, GCFP, CSTAT
The essence of good golf is a good stroke. And the essence of a good stroke is the coordinated use of the physical mechanism, including the use of the eyes and the head, the swing of the arms, and that unique golfer's twist, all combining together to produce one integrated motion.
When a golfer starts his stroke - or when a person applies him- or herself to any particular activity -he tends to bring to the act the same habitual use of himself that he brings to all his activities. (Imagine for a moment walking down a country road at dusk and seeing in the distance a figure coming towards you. The light is dim so that you can't distinguish the features or the clothes of the person, still you can tell it is a friend. How is it that you know? You know because your friend and, in fact, each of us has a characteristic quality of movement and coordination, what F. M. Alexander called an habitual manner of use.) Thus, if, after instruction and demonstration on how best to approximate the golf swing, an individual fails to perform, as he desires, we may conclude that his habitual use of himself, how he characteristically moves and senses himself, is unreliable. In that case, for that person to consistently effect a good golf stroke, his habitual use of the physical mechanism must be re-educated. And this re-education must take into account that the way we move, coordinate, and use ourselves in general directly produces sensations within and of ourselves. That is, our movements cause the sensations within ourselves with respect to how we are moving, which in turn guide our movements.
Typically, after instruction, which might include advice about imitation of good form, the golfer works directly for his goal of producing a good stroke by the 'trial-and-error' plan, without giving due consideration to the 'means whereby' that end is best gained. That is, the moment he begins to think of the swing he starts to work towards the end directly, generally without considering what manner of use of his mechanisms would be the best for the making of a good stroke. The result is that he makes the stroke according to his habitual use, and if this habitual use is misdirected he makes a bad stroke. This process tends to be repeated every time he tries to make a good stroke, with the result that he tries harder to perform well, repeatedly goes the old wrong way of using his mechanisms, continues to make bad strokes, and suffers accordingly, which further undermines his ability to play well. (Now, resorting to will power is generally inadequate to resolve this problem. This is because a person cannot sustain any corrections that he may willfully make since his habitual wrong use of himself tends to undermine his will to consistently adopt a new form, even if he believes he knows what is indeed the 'right' way to perform the stroke. For instance, he may want to 'keep his eye on the ball' or 'keep his hips back', but his unreliable use of himself and the stress in the effort to make a 'good stroke' overpower his 'will to do'.)
The essence of this continuing error is that the familiar use of one's bodily self, whether in daily life or in golf, feels right. It must feel right, otherwise we would not continue to do it. It's an unfortunate paradox. To change the way we use ourselves requires an unfamiliar manner of movement, which necessarily entails unfamiliar sensations, which sensations feel wrong.
The desire to feel right in what we do tends to be much stronger than our desire, in this case, to make a new and better golf stroke. This is proved by the fact that although one begins with the desire to make a good stroke, the opposing desire to repeat sensory experiences of ourselves (in movement) that 'feel right' acts as a stimulus to use the body in the habitual way that engenders these very familiar sensory experiences of ourselves, although it is this very manner of use that prevents us from satisfying the newer desire to make a good stroke. The habitual way we use ourselves tends to be the dominating influence with respect to our desire to make a good stroke, because this habitual way of using ourselves feels right and even, in some sense, identifies and defines us to ourselves.
In order to re-educate the way we use the parts of ourselves in any particular activity, it is necessary to re-educate the way we use ourselves as a whole in every activity. Thus, it is necessary to consider the physical mechanism as a working unity in which the working of any of the parts is affected by the working of the whole.
Evidence of what F. M. Alexander called the misdirection of use in human activity can be seen everywhere. The golfer's difficulty is the same as what is experienced by all who are trying, without success, to correct defects which hamper them in their various activities, or to perform a certain act satisfactorily.
Misdirection of use is to be found in the person who takes up a pen to write and proceeds at once to stiffen the fingers unduly, to make movements of the fingers which should be made by the arm, and even to make facial contortions; in the fitness trainee whose performance of certain movements with the arms or legs is associated with harmful and unnecessary compression of the trunk and tightness of the stomach; in the singer who gasps for breath at the beginning of each line; in the athlete who employs excessive tension in the muscles of the neck and back whenever he makes a special effort. In all these cases, which could be elaborated indefinitely, the use of the physical mechanism is incompetent, excessive, or inadequate to the purpose.
The first step to a satisfactory golf stroke, as to any specific activity, is to stop trying to make a satisfactory golf stroke, to inhibit the desire to gain the 'end' or goal of the action directly, because this trying will tend to immediately bring into being the habitual use of the mechanisms involved. By this primary act of prevention, the way is left clear to learn a new direction of use of the mechanisms, which would constitute the means whereby a person would in time be able to use the mechanism as an integrated unity and thus to make a good golf stroke.
This understanding is fundamental to human improvement and unique to the teaching of the Alexander Technique.
Founded in this understanding, teachers of the Alexander Technique re-educate a person's use through instruction and with their hands, which hands are uniquely trained to sense subtleties of movement and tension. The teacher's expertise is in his or her ability to best organize or coordinate, through refined and gentle manipulation, the 'pupil's' movement, coordination, and response to gravity via an ongoing address to the pupil's core dynamic with which all movement is integrated. ('Manipulation' here indicates the strategies of touch and handling and in no way implies brusqueness, force or psychological coercion.) The Alexander teacher guides the person through gentle active simple movements while finding and facilitating the easier way, which facility is rooted in the teacher's deep understanding of and feel for this core dynamic. At the same time, the teacher enlists the individual's innate capability to attend to him- or herself and to become aware of habitual patterning, and, through this gentle guidance, stimulates the person's sensory-motor self-exploration and growing capacity for freedom and self-control of the physical mechanism. The teacher works to ease out chronic action of muscles that are doing too much and coax the appropriate degree of activity from muscles that are under-used. Through thus guided simple activities such as sitting, standing, lying down, bending, reaching, and walking, the pupil learns to free him- or herself from misuse patterns and allow natural grace and balance to re-emerge. In time, the person becomes able to generalize to all actions the practices and principles learned in simple actions so that lightness, ease, effectiveness, and freedom of movement become the common experiences of everyday life.
Movement, coordination, and the response to gravity are thus effectively re-educated. The grace and effectiveness that are our natural inheritance are consciously and intelligently re-created. Through practice, one unlearns faulty habits and relearns right use of oneself in action. The 'direction of use' becomes more and more competent. A 'virtuous spiral' of self-improvement is initiated. Golf - and everything else - becomes easier and one's game naturally improves. One comes to understand and sense for oneself the nature of good movement and to know the feel in oneself of what it is to produce a good stroke.
To schedule lessons, please contact Graeme in Toronto, Ontario, at 416-964-7026, or click to email.