Here’s an extract from Chapter Three of my forthcoming book ‘Breathe GOLF; The Missing Link to a Winning Performance’ which will be published by Panoma Press, end of March ’19
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REDUCING SELF-INTERFERENCE 
Or: “If I could only get out of my own way!”
Your brain, body and nervous-system have an innate intelligence that have formed over eons and are connected with the vast intelligence of the greater cosmos; and they can all function quite happily without you making an appearance and interfering like an annoying flatmate.
In fact, the optimal functioning of all the thinking, feeling and moving parts of your being while you’re playing golf requires only that you get out of the way. Easier said than done!
However, there is a formula which might help; it’s taken from the ground-breaking work of Hungarian psychologist and author of ‘Flow’ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and ‘Inner Game’ pioneer and author Timothy Gallwey.
The ability to play golf in a state of relaxed concentration requires just three things:
Skill plus Passion minus Mental Interference
Research shows that technical skill plateaus after about three years of learning, at which point the average person ceases to improve. What’s required after this time is not what the consensus reality of the golf industry would have you believe i.e. further development as a golfer is not dependent on learning ever-more about swing mechanics and buying the latest driver.
Counter-intuitive as it might seem, after the three year marker, the more you continue to learn and take on-board mentally about swing mechanics and so forth, the more likely you are to see your game deteriorate and your handicap increase. Even more alarmingly you could be like many lost golfers who come to me in one last desperate attempt after almost giving up the game entirely in complete frustration.
A fundamental grasp of golf swing mechanics is obviously necessary, but what I’m saying and what research shows is that after three years it becomes counter-productive and an actual hindrance to your development as a player to fill your head with ever more technical information which will only serve to interfere with your body’s ability to move with freedom and produce an effortless shot.
Moreover, if your mind is not quiet at address, then the mind and body cannot unite but will actually work against each other as your thoughts (knowledge and information) try to control and organize your swing (complex motion) instead of letting your body move naturally, which can only result in clumsy and ineffective movement.
If skill plateaus after three years, then what of passion, the second requirement in the formula for playing golf in the zone?
I like to think of Bruce Lee’s instruction on “emotional content” which is subtly different from being emotional. As in kung-fu sparring, you can never play golf well in an excited state, especially when the negative emotions like anger are aroused.
Instead it’s important that your passion for the game is kept in check on the course and that your emotions (even so-called positive emotions like excitement) are contained.
Focusing on your breathing is the only way to re-train your biochemistry towards this calm and detached emotional state and we’ll continue to explore this in more depth throughout the book.
For now, remember that there are three basic components to your personality or character that you take onto the golf course; these are your mind, your body and your emotions. Keeping a balance between these three centres and not letting any single one of them over-ride and dominate the others is crucial for maintaining internal equilibrium.
The final and most essential part of the equation – minus mental interference – means above all that this equilibrium must be activated so that you get out of your own way before taking the shot.
Analysis paralysis, the anathema to fluid motion, comes about when the attention is scattered rather than unified at address, even if part of your mental energy is focused on so-called mental game techniques.
You’ll know this first-hand if you’ve ever set-up to the ball with half a dozen or more swing thoughts in your mind, while fixating on your grip, looking to the target and trying to visualize the shot, simultaneously reframing your thinking about the last time you played this hole. Second-guessing yourself by constantly looking at the hole on the green is another example of the mind taking precedence and unbalancing the harmony between thinking, feeling and moving.
Known as ‘monkey mind’ in the East, scattered attention sabotages, interferes with and undermines your best attempts at effortless movement as it cannot stay in the present moment and assist in the unification between mind and body.
You cannot solve mental game issues with more thinking or even with different ways of thinking, especially in golf and other sports. While you may have some success in the short-term, it will not be long-lasting as the mind always goes back to the patterns it knows and is comfortable with.
This is why techniques such as drawing a red dot on your glove to help you focus or stepping over an imaginary blue line after taking your shot to help let it go, frequently and constantly need changing. These mental game constructs simply fade into the background as your mind stops seeing and reacting to them.
So what’s the solution? You guessed it, breathing awareness – the one and only thing that can establish you firmly in the present moment, again and again and again.
The legendary Tom Watson, winner of eight major tournaments which include a U.S. Open title, two Masters, and five Open Championship victories said that when he learned how to breathe he learned how to win.
Reducing self-interference (the third part of the equation) by getting out of your own way is the most important thing you can do to allow yourself to perform under pressure and win, but you can’t ultimately train this ability with more thinking, psychological techniques or mental game tips.
But you can train it with the regular practice of Meditation, which encourages the scattered and wandering monkey mind to be subdued and your attention to be unified such that you reduce the default tendency towards over-thinking technique and trying too hard to make the shot.
Having put aside the intellect and the excessive use of mental energy in an attempt to ‘get it right’ and having neutralized the emotions so that you’re calm and in balance, you allow the innate wisdom of the mind~body connection to manifest. These internal conditions create the potential for you to deliver the perfect shot.
This book is about training those internal conditions, which are imperative to have in place before movement begins. It’s simple, but not easy as it requires letting go of the things you’re perhaps most attached to i.e. all your knowledge about swing mechanics – even though the more you know the more in your own way you can get.
Knowledge of geometry, physics, angles and swing plane are all very interesting and you can spend hours on the range tweaking and tinkering but when you start your walk to the first tee you must put all these things aside, along with all the mental game tips you might have read.
Standing at address there is only one place your mind must be to ensure you drive off with the distance and accuracy you’re so capable of delivering – and that’s in the present moment.
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