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Hey Geoff,

What does brain science have to say about claims (unsubstantiated as far as I know) from some instructors that performing a golf swing in super slow motion will "groove" the move in some sort of profound manner that cannot be achieved otherwise? I think Lynn Marriot of 'Vision 54' fame is big on this and legend has it that Hogan did excruciatingly slow motion swings every morning.

-Nate

Dear yusailo,

That's a great question!

I'll get back to you on that one! ( -- just teasing).

Let's start with motor learning science before going to the neuroscience.

MOTOR LEARNING AND PERFORMANCE

My friend Tom Stickney has this explanation about learning movements in the full swing with slow-motion practice:

HOW PROPER UNDERSTANDING AND EFFICIENT PRACTICE WILL ALWAYS EQUAL GOLF IMPROVEMENT It seems that everyone is on a tight schedule these days, and unfortunately, the time to practice what your teaching professional advocates has been reduced, for most people, to simply hitting a few balls before you play the next time; or even using what they learned to try and fix their swing on the course itself without ever hitting balls after a lesson- when scoring is your only thought. . .If these two symptoms remind you of yourself this is the article you’ve been waiting for! It seems that most people try to circumvent the necessary learning process that EVERYONE must go through by not following the proper motor learning steps for the consistent elimination of an old incorrect swing habit or flaw. Because of that, we as teachers see many students who don’t improve quite to the level or at the pace they would like, so what’s the problem? The reason for this breakdown, can come from two sources, but it is usually the student’s misunderstanding of the actual physics of move itself and/or the student’s improper focus during practice that allows these habits not to be corrected fast enough before frustration, quitting, and doubts occur! I hate to see this breakdown with a student- it kills me- but the student is not always to blame. The teacher can also cause this meltdown in several ways: an improper or too advanced explanation, the teacher’s own misunderstanding of how the swing works, or too many swing thoughts given to the student at one time. By failing to ask questions or not completely understanding, the learner is setting himself up for disaster. If they would only ask themselves the following two questions, then 99% of this problem could be eliminated! Do I understand the process of why is this going to make me a better player mechanically vs. where am I currently, and How am I going to get there in the most efficient manner possible. If you do not understand the important nature of these questions then you will NOT improve- period! So, let’s examine these questions and we’ll make sure you improve as rapidly as possible. 1) Do I understand why this process is going to make me a better player mechanically vs. where am I currently? In my opinion this is the most important question that any student must ask himself after a swing flaw explanation! I have seen countless players who are working on something in their swing with NO idea of why it will help or if it even makes sense with the mechanics of their own swing. Take the time to ask your teacher WHY he wants you to do this and WHY it fits in with your problems. Make sure what he has you working on is not just his opinion of what’s happening- have him prove it through physics (not just pictures of professionals- they are very subjective) and also explain it mechanically from a cause and effect standpoint if you do not understand! This is SO important for several reasons, one, with this total explanation you will always know where you are, where you’re going, and the important question of how and why you can not get there with your present swing will be shown to you immediately; and two, by asking your teacher to prove what he is saying through causes and effects will instantly let you know if they totally understand the mechanics of your swing and the total mechanical interworkings and physics of the golf swing itself. Don’t be afraid to ask why and have it proven to you through facts- it’s your swing and your money. Now proper understanding will give you a clear picture of the reason you cannot hit the ball as consistently as you would like. Finally, armed with this necessary factual information you can move on to question two and get to your goal as soon as possible. 2) HOW AM I GOING TO GET THERE IN THE MOST EFFICIENT MANNER POSSIBLE?! You have all the information, you understand the difference of where your swing is going wrong, NOW just how do you get there???? In my studies of Motor Learning concepts- the way the human brain and body integrate to learn a physical skill- I have come across several ways that will allow you to stop your slice, fat shots, shanks, ect. . .but, they take a ton of self discipline, and that’s what makes consistent learning so hard! In order to stop and correct a flawed habit you must first understand where you are currently in your level of mechanics, know the correct position you are trying to achieve and why you must be there, and finally feel the difference between the right and the wrong motion. I just told you to secret to learning- that’s it! Now you might ask, “If it is that simple then why does everyone not do it?” That’s a good question, in order to correct a swing flaw you must first understand the mechanics of cause and effect- that takes an advanced teaching professional with a lot of knowledge and experience to show you facts, physics, and mechanics of right versus wrong. Second, if you have the information and understand it thoroughly, now you must feel it in the proper way to identify the correct feel from the incorrect one. This is where most people stop trying- the learning curve comes to a screeching halt- and golfers continue to stay at the level of current playing ability even after lessons. A teaching professional can not make you practice in the most effective manner, all we can do is show you where you need to go and how you can get there. Motor Learning states that in order to learn a complex skill it first must be broken down into smaller subskills that must be mastered first before you can fix the total motion. So, by learning the swing in sections you are effectively learning to fix the total swing piece by piece. Using a mirror or your shadow to make enough correct repetitions until you can see and feel the right move from the wrong one. If you never achieve the feeling of the correct move versus the incorrect one YOU WILL NOT IMPROVE! This is why I use video, computers, Tour Pro data, auditory tones, and mirrors in my lessons to help you to see and feel the new correct way piece by piece- I want a high number of correct repetitions, not just a bunch of swinging which only gives you exercise. I tell my students after they can make the “piece” move correctly, then go to the range and hit 40 yard shots in slow motion seeing if you can still feel the good mechanical swing versus the bad ones, and see if your shot pattern is better. If you can’t hit 40 yard shots in slow motion correctly you certainly will not be able to hit full shots correctly- YOU WILL NOT IMPROVE! After you have done your mirror work and made the number of repetitions it takes to feel the difference, you can hit 40 yard good consistent shots with the best of them it is now time to move up to full swings with a short iron only. When you move to these full swings you will see a decline in correct feeling swings and your shot pattern will expand again, this is normal. It is here that you should focus intently on feeling your new move with your practice swings, and during the swing by hitting a bunch of short irons slowly until you can once again reach that new good consistent shot pattern, if you still struggle go back to the 40 yard shots again until you can make the smooth transition. When you can hit those short irons correctly move up to a mid iron ect. . . This process of learning has been proven to be the most effective way for learning, study after study, concerning any physical motor skill. The more complex the motion (like the golf swing) the slower you have to start out and the more important of your feelings become. How can you feel right versus wrong with clubs moving at 80+ MPH? How many of you have just bolted down to the range to hit 1000 drivers after your last lesson? Did it work? Could you decipher good mechanical swing from bad ones? Did the shots that went straight do so because of a better position or did you just happen to time your hands just right through impact? This piece by piece, slow motion learning is the ONLY WAY TO IMPROVE CONSISTENTLY! These are the same processes that EVERY professional athlete goes through in order to fix any flawed motion from freethrow shooting, shot putting, to the golf swing. If the best, most talented professionals with all the God-Given abilities they can handle do this---WHY DON’T YOU GIVE IT A TRY?!

This description connects slow-motion movement with the INITIAL learning, on the rationale that learning segments piece-wise is required for a good total movement and also because the initial discriminations of feel and good-versus-bad biomechanics and feel is too elusive at the beginning to work well at full speed. That's probably right.

But then if this is INITIAL motor learning -- slow motion moves advancing to full speed, with periodic dropping back to slow motion -- what about HONING skills and what about MAINTENANCE of skills? Does slow-motion practice works the same way, or is it also good for HONING and MAINTAINING skills? Sure, why not? What would be the harm?

Motor learning teaches that we explore and understand WHY movements should be one way rather than some other way, and then we advance into performance by discriminations of differences. These discriminations are "fat" to start with and then get progressively "finer", in a process of error detection. The slow-motion practice is partly installing a cognitive structure of what works and why, and partly allowing time for exploration of the somatosensory / proprioceptive "feel" of the biomechanically efficacious positions in sequence, and partly allowing finer and finer discriminations of good position sequencing and error.

NEUROSCIENCE

Basically, neuroscience uses external perceptions of the target and environment and task goal setting to define the movement outcome and then uses internal perceptions of the body state initially (at static address position) to sequence the total movement. Golf movements ALWAYS have at least two separate pieces -- back and thru. The directional change divides them. The brain most likely "reverse engineers" the thru motion first from impact dynamics associated by learning with the goal outcome. Then the brain likely goes on to reverse engineer a back motion to set up the thru motion.

For example, in tossing a dart into the small black bullseye circle in the center of the cork board 12 feet away and 5.5 feet above the floor (or whatever it is), the goal is first (dart sticking into black circle), and the brain runs the time movie backwards to dart flies backwards on its nice trajectory into the releasing position of the tossing hand. From the releasing action, the brain then reverse engineers the appropriate shoulder-upperarm, elbow-forearm, wrist-hand sequencing and positions to "perform" the "toss" release accurately. Finally, the brain reverse engineers the orientation "at address" of the head and eyes and torso and hips and legs and feet. No tossing the dart before achieving "happy feet" (and probably untwisted gut, too)!

This process is spoken of in neuroscience variously as "neuronal population vectoring" and end-position planning. The "end position" planning is sort of a blunt instrument, because the real deal is action staging and sequencing that finishes well (thru the end position, not AT a static end posture).

So, in the brain, LEARNING the end position tells the brain about where the skill action needs to go, no matter what about goofs in the earlier stages of the sequence.

The cross-over between motor learning and neuroscience come in the form of feedforward versus feedback motor control. All the work of artificial intelligence trying to use neural networks to turn machines into brains also runs the other way and has helped neuroscience learn something of the machine-like properties of brain processes. That's a good start for the brain science of motor movement processes.

Basically, FEEDFORWARD processes use the end positions to structure and guide a movement and to keep it on track and to bring it back onto track when something "perturbs" the movement (we need a law to make it illegal for scientists to use Latinate terms!) And feedforward processes are faster and simpler than FEEDBACK corrections, which somewhat depend upon attention and discipline and sensitivity at that moment and in any event are time-consuming and perhaps too late given the speed of the action itself.

The "feel" of the positions is not really the desired end of slow-motion practice. It's part of teaching the somatosensory brain the importance of this or that position. For example, tightening the middle knuckle of the right index finger (as in the "come hither" crooking of the finger) "lights up the neurons" of this knuckle in the somatosensory cortex and also in the motor cortex, so the person associates "I do this and I feel that". But the real objective is the nice sequence of positions back and thru that passes thru the end position -- good online impact and rhythm-based force control. Line and distance.

Now this is NOT to say that movements are simply automated by practice. That's out-dated junk. What is learned by practice under good cause-and-effect guidance is an efficacious action with a well-known and trusted ending position thru which the action reaches completion and which guides and corrects movements plagued by misadventure. That would be CONSISTENCY and ACCURACY balled together.

The brain separately handles starting, sequencing, and smoothing / coordinating the timing, but a skilled movement settles down into a workable combination of all three aspects. The slo-mo practicing needs to serve that, and is not in itself ("per se" as the lawyers intone) a replacement for this greater objective.

So, slow-motion practice CAN work well for initial learning and for honing and maintenance practice. It's probably not the wonder-bread of motor learning, however. One still needs to be able to transition from slo-mo to full go, and excessive focus and belief in a slow-motion movement can sometimes mess that up.

In on-course play, using the slow-motion practice swing can be moderately useful to diagnose and fix a swing flaw on occasion, as when one steps off into the rough for a little figuring out what's awry.

But should the slow-motion practice move be part of the usual routine? One would think that is dangerous.

PUTTING STROKE SLO-MO

In putting, the priority needs to be on the thru-stroke. (Do you see that period just left of this parenthetical statement?)

So, slow-motion practice probably needs to be limited to that. Putting is NOT about power, so the transition from slo-mo to full-go is not really what it is in the full swing. The thru-stroke in putting occurs most vitally from 1-2 inches BEFORE the back of the ball across the bottom of the stroke arc and thence out the front of the ball another 2-5 inches or so (your pick) to make sure that the contact of the ball and the putter face is concluded before the putter face changes orientation out of square at the target.

I call this GET SQUARE -- BE THERE and STAY SQUARE until the ball is G..O...N....E. Patience! It'll be over soon enough. Stay down in your putt, at least until the stroke is D..O...N....E.

That being the case, the MAIN positions to slo-mo learn and feel are WHERE IS THE BOTTOM of the stroke arc so you can make a back-stroke that doesn't make reaching this beginning of the thru-stroke impact zone any harder than it need be; plus the other one, which is the 2-5 inches past the front of the ball where the putter face is still square and the putter head is getting delivered rhythmically thru the impact zone.

In order to learn this second position well, it helps if the golfer uses ONLY the lead arm to keep the stroke going way way past this impact zone, to find out "just for kick" where the ultra-plu-perfect stroke would end up if in fact the human body were a machine (robot). That position is "the waiter's tray" delivery of the putter with the shaft horizontal t the surface and the face of the putter aiming level at the zenith of the heavens, so you could poise a tres-cher champagne glass on the outstretched putter as if offering it to a billionaire party guest roguishly attired in a tuxedo of questionable stylings.

The trip to this ultra-plu-perfect final position does not have a seat for the rear hand, which for right-handers is typically also the dominate hand. Sorry. left arm only.

One thing this teaches is that all limb joints move on parallel lines in the upward arcing of the stroke, all joints keeping the same distance off the plane of the front of the body. Also performed with NO joint changes in the elbow and wrist of the lead arm, the look and feel of this ultimate ending position teaches where to keep heading in the critical impact zone thru the ball.

But no one suggests actually ending up there! That's just dumb and awkward. Head there, yes; get there or call it a bad stroke? -- never.

Another useful exercise is to tie two big thick rubber bands together to make one sorta long and then tie one end onto the putter shaft 10 or so inches up from the hosel where you would balance the putter shaft horizontally on your finger tip, and anchor the other end in the ground with a tent stake or giant nail. Then stretch the putter into the follow-thru position and hold it there isometrically while you count to five. Repeat this five times. Then unhitch the rubber band and putt a ball straight 5-10 feet. A "ghost trace" in the muscles "feels" like it makes the stroke instead of you, and the action goes straight to the follow-thru position.

So the slow-motion practice is not really about giving equal emphasis to all positions: some are WAY more important in defining the movement, and then there is the sequencing with good rhythm.

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist

PuttingZone.com

geoffmangum wrote:

So, Geoff, if I understand the feedforward and feedback terminology, would it be correct to say that golfers who claim to be "feel golfers" are not feedback golfers, but feedforward golfers? Or is it the other way around?!


Also, Tom Stickney is quoted as saying:

Would you agree that this method of learning only applies to adults and not to children who want to execute the entire swing without concern for the parts? In a sense, children learn the golf swing on their own because they cannot transform instruction into movement. They are not capable of conceiving the correct movement because their brain development is not yet mature.

I've always believed that swinging slow, half speed etc during practice was a great way to groove/feel/understand your swing.
My experience of flailing with long irons years ago on the range, losing focus and instead swinging these long irons with half shots in order to bean the range cart would result in much improved full swing shots immediately after.
This of course is still a compound muscle movement swing and not quite the same as the slow motion, cerebral benefiting, swing drill if I understand you correctly.
Sticking with swinging slower/easier on the range and loosely adapting the theory of the way muscles adapt to physical exercise ... how science has proven that because the muscle can adapt to a repetitive task so quickly that it is necessary to change the type of exercise periodically to continually challenge the muscle. ( A sufficient 'change' to the exercise can simply be the speed at which the exercise is performed). It would seem to me that this may not only benefit the brain with an opportunity to better understand cause and effect as stated above but perhaps to also actually enhance task specific muscle performance in the physical muscle itself ( if the concept can be separated that way ?). It's also true that doing 'eccentric' exercise ( slow release of a contraction ) is very beneficial for ligament/tendon health and rehabilitation. Perhaps using a weighted club ( on my head if I have this all wrong ) during the slow motion drills/exercise would improve both brain feedback and supply extra resistance for the eccentric movements ?

Another thing Geoff's post reminded me of was something I read in Hogan's 'Five Lessons' ... I scanned and found it on page 62 ... Hogan was talking about how if he had not become a full time professional he felt he could have become a first rate teacher ...

"It strikes me now that my general approach to teaching was on the very right path: don't simply tell a player what he's doing wrong - that's not much help. You must explain to him what he ought to be doing, why it is correct, and the result it produces - and work like the blazes to get it across so that he really understands what you are talking about."

Later in life Hogan followed this up in his memoris with - "And I'm glad I took steroids, dag nabbit ! And I don't care who knows it !"

If you feel the need to change something in your swing then the only first step is to feel it in slow motion. Taking it in small increments and then reproducing is the fastest way to change anythigg, trying to achieve change on a fullspeed swing would be very difficult to monitor(especially withoutn the benefit of slow motion camera footage) from what I remember of my friends martial arts training - slow motion is the way they learn anything properly, and golf is a martial art is it not ?

While we're at it, it should be added that swinging hard after you have ingrained the new movement is also important. Both in the sense of knowing how to best apply firing sequence/feel (what to expect when you need to or have to go full throttle) and to know/discover your limits.
I think I read in Golf Digest where Arnold Palmer believes that those who don't practice swinging hard will never be able to after a while. Something to that effect. Use it or lose it I guess. I doubt he meant hit full throttle all the time on the range but rather that you should practice making full athletic swings often. Personally I don't think that's many golfers problem though, a few yes. But after you have developed/understand your tempo I personally think you should stretch out your swing on the range once and a while and let it rip for well rounded training.

Dear MamboMan,

I don't believe that golfers who describe themselves as "feel" golfers really mean anything more than "I don't know or care to understand what it is I do, I just keep trying to do the same thing so it feels the same." The problem really is the term itself. So to answer your question about whether "feel" golfers are feedforward or feedback, the main answer is "who cares?" But actually, all golfers are both -- it's just a question of whether you are any good at one or both. To get good at feedforward, you have to pay some attention to where you start and where you end up, and not all that much to the in-betweens.

As to kids, I agree. It's better to "just do it" with some implicit help that shepherds the kids along the beneficial perceptions and movements. Show and tell, demonstration, metaphor and analogy based upon other kid-sorts of movements, all help, but nothing especially "analytical".

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist

PuttingZone.com

Hi

I recently purchased "Slow Practice Will Get You There Faster" by Ernest Dras, what a book! amazing!
Now I understand how true it is that you do learn more effectively and faster by working on your swing in slow motion, however I still feel you need to work on one specific aspect at a time. Doing the whole swing in slow motion is great if you already have the perfect swing but for many of us I think its more effective to take it one step at a time in slow motion to ingrain the correct fundamentals!

Loved this thread by the way, some really great thoughts on brain science, keep them coming!

Cheers

Tom