In this episode, we’re going to talk about intention – not from a mental game or technical perspective but from what has been understood about this phenomena in the Eastern world, particularly in the martial arts and how you can apply this wisdom to your golf and sports.
Intention contains speed, power and force which are missing from the mind with its technical checklists and menus. This is something American coach and author of Running Within Jerry Lynch talks about, using mantras such as “calm and confident” or “fast, smooth and strong” to help athletes bring mind and body together.
However, in the mainstream and particularly the mental game there is assumption that the mind can organise movement and that thinking about movement is responsible for movement and will result in the movement you want to perform – which is compounded by the age we’re living in with its frenetically paced information overload and bite size chunks of data with few people willing to step back and look at this more closely or indeed step back from life and learn to quieten the mind as did the warriors, archers and martial artists over the centuries.
So, the assumption is that the body will respond to an idea or intention but this is not always true and we need to be careful as the mind will respond to a clear and simple intention so long as it “doesn’t become the star of the show” and so long as the nerves and anxiety – in other words the biochemistry, which we looked at previously is not in the stress response.
Intention is not thinking, it is not going through a checklist or menu of positions that you try to get right.
To explain, I’ll be reading from my latest book, The Athlete’s Ascent before recounting an interesting conversation I had about intention with a Tai Chi Grandmaster, before inviting you to explore this yourself with the help of a couple of exercises.
We’ll also look at what one of my clients noticed about how his body responds when he mentally runs through the setup need for tenpin bowling before I give you an exercise to do to verify what we’re talking about for yourself. What you’ll discover is something the Tai Chi masters have known for hundreds of years and Yoga masters for thousands of years – IDEA ENERGY ACTION – the true sequence of events for effortless movement to occur but which cannot happen if you overthink or if the intention is too strong or if your biochemistry is off the charts.
Here’s one of the TRY THIS drills in my earlier book, Connected Golf. It’s all about the intention behind throwing a kung fu punch and what happens to your body as a result.
Spend some time noticing how intention works in everyday life for instance when you throw a crumpled up ball of wastepaper in the bin at your office, or you bound up the stairs two at a time or carry a tray of drinks to the table. And notice too what happens in other sports. The more you verify for yourself what the Tai Chi grandmaster and I spoke about the more you’ll be able to let go of all those unnecessary thoughts when you’re standing over the golf ball or about to make a ski run or explore from the starting blocks on the running track.
Sung is an Eastern concept which means “to relax without losing structure”; how to train this and apply it to your golf and sport.
The four fundamental actions from Connected Golf; empty the chest, draw the navel in, load the legs and find the feet.
Classic sayings from Tai Chi to consider and train so they become part of your body; “Stand like a mountain, move like a river” and “Empty the chest to find the feet”.
Here are the questions I’ll be answering on today’s show:
“Can you talk about intention. This has been my biggest question all along. How does the mind stay quiet because if you think about or visualise where you want the ball to go, your mind goes away from being quiet”. David – Florida
“When you do standing meditation do you have a steady state of flexion in your legs? I was doing everything really relaxed but find it easier to maintain my posture with that slight tension in my stance. And it seems to be exactly what I need in my swing. Just wanted to make sure it was ok to separate top and bottom of the body”. – Kate, Atlanta
“How to unite performance practice with golf practice?” LPGA tour player
Get started your Performance Practice now with this 36 page pdf Performance Practice Guide for Golf and Sport
In the next episode we’ll look at the practice to performance ratio and how you can best spend your practice time to get the returns you want in your game.
In the meantime, if you have any questions about my books or your own daily practice, please send them to me at the website www.chi-performance.com or on my social media.
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