Continuing on our topic of emotional awareness; did you do the exercises from last time? Did you notice whether your mind wondered during them? If it did, which direction did it go; to the past or future? Geared to the past would be: “I haven’t made any of these putts today so I have to make this one” or Visualizing a sculled chip that you hit two rounds ago right before or while you are setting up to another chip. Thoughts/visuals/feels that are in the future would be “If this goes in it’s for a 5, if I miss it it’s another 6.” or “Where is the drop zone if I go in the water on this shot?”
Feeling present when you are playing would be hitting a putt and feeling the warmth of the spring sun on your back or hearing the sound of impact when you hit your drive; seeing the line of the putt that you want to hit as you track your eyes to the hole and back to the ball. Another example of last week would be actually feeling your grip pressure in your hands on the putter grip as you swing your putter back and through… not telling yourself “straight back straight through” or “what was I supposed to be feeling again?”
Did this match your emotional tendency on the golf course?
As I write this it reminds me of the “old” cassette tapes, the ones before CD’s… but after those 8 Track things my parents talked about. When the song is playing, it’s comparable to being present. You hear the song and enjoy the music. When you rewind the tape you can’t hear the music and you don’t know when to stop to hear a specific place in the song (think about the past too much/angry/frustrated)- similarly if you want to skip to a certain place, you can’t make out the words, and again you don’t know where you are in the song. This is like feeling fearful or anxious of what is to come (too much in the future).
If you haven’t had a chance to follow along with the last few articles about emotional awareness and your golf game, I challenge you to spend a few minutes going back through and trying these exercises out. If you’ve done them, review any notes and try going back through them again to see if you “see” it differently” now.
Please email me with any questions or comments! braidgolf@gmail.com