Practice, Practice, Practice
IN: Golf Psychology | by Carey Mumford | 26 Jul 2005
When that word shows up in golfers' conversations, or on the tube, or the net, we are often reminded of some old World War II humour: "What makes more noise than a B-29?" Yep, you guessed it - "Two B-29s."
So old, but the point is still relevant. As the process is applied by most golfers, from beginner to tour player, "practice" tends to come out heavy on the side of more, more, more. What we hear is a lot of emphasis on quantity and a legion of "what's" to practice, but very little on the side of quality and "how" to practice. More times than we can count the modus operandi really is "experimentation," not practice. "Practice" implies, even at worst, working on something specific. Otherwise we might even call it "searching," which is surely the main ingredient for many.
When asked about practice, most are quick to come up with formulas. "10 of these, 20 of those, 60 days of this, 21 days of that." We even have our own formula (though if you are willing to look closely, you'll see that it is based on solid research about how learning takes place, motor learning in particular).
We wonder about the difference between players like Sarge Moody or Bruce Leitzke and ViJay Singh or Ben Hogan. The former two almost never practiced. The latter two almost never stopped, or so it seems.
To begin with, none of us are privy to the way the minds of those particular individuals worked. We are only exposed to a view of some sort of end product - a lot of the doing, versus not very much. So we look and pay little attention to those who don't and a lot to those who do. Then we assume that must be the way to do it, and of course, the "doers" appear to far outnumber the "silent types." Armed with that, we calmly proceed to submit our beliefs about practice to a form of majority opinion based on the rituals of those we have selected to be our governors/leaders/examples for modelling that practice. As we all know, majority rules, right? And we suppose it should, except when it is wrong, or leaves unfinished business.
Does the practice process we choose follow any kind of verifiable order, or it is just a collection of miscellaneous, vicariously selected personal applications, chosen from almost anything that has been cited as "worked for me"? Close examination will tell you it tends toward the latter. Rarely does anyone mention any detail with regard to valid learning processes or the known parameters for retention in learning. Those are sizeable issues that just get lost in notions that often sound like "second verse same as the first, a little bit louder and a whole lot worse." (Or maybe occasionally "better," if you get lucky).
The belief systems that generate such thinking are not necessarily incorrect, but they most assuredly lean toward being both compartmentalised and incomplete. Of course, as long as players prefer taking comfort from myths and half-truths, they are not likely to hear anything beyond their own thinking. We have seen virtually no real change in the overall climate or attitude toward practice in more than fifty years.
The one exception can be found in a very few players who have embraced a practice philosophy and accompanying process built on how's, why's and what's along with a reliability index that generates a practice format with real "teeth" in its bite.
It is rare for anyone to ask, "Why do you do that 12 times? or 10 times, or 6 times?" But they surely ask us why we propose 4 times. As some of you may have heard, we (KeyGolf) use a now 20 year tested and validated process that is referred to as a 32 ball (or swing) drill. The short of it is that this represents the least number of swings one needs in order to acquire maximum learning value.
Consider, there are some basic principles to be found associated with learning.
One Thing At A Time
Humans learn best when they deal with one thing at a time, in short doses with brief rest periods in between. (Cramming for an exam, for instance is self-defeating, since it violates the principles of learning). Beating balls in golf produces the same kind of result. And make no mistake. One will never get to "muscle memory," no matter what track is taken since that simply does not exist. Conditioning is useful, but there is no grey matter in muscle tissue, period.
Repetition
Repetition is a key to learning. The question is: "What kind and how much?" Most, if not all of the advice that's been around would have us believe that repetition is all that is required, so do it a lot. Right off the bat, that advice ignores whether a player wants to build habits or merely keep honing skills. There is a distinct difference in those two procedures, but one must know how to recognise that and what to do about it. Sadly, that is one area that is more often missed than grasped.
Years ago, we found research indicating that if you do something once, you lose 50% of that immediately and 25% more within 48 hours. That equates to leaving our general operational level at about 25% of capacity. We found that the same percentages applied for doing the same thing twice or even three times. But if one repeated the same things four times, there was a 90% retention factor. Any number beyond that only provided that same value. The equation, then, is based on the minimums necessary for maximum learning value. We adopted the formula (4 4)x4=32, which equates to one unit of practice. That's four to work on the skill, thinking manually, followed by 4 to slide the developing skill toward becoming a habit (which is a memorised skill), using a clear key, and then repeating that doublet 4 times. The process opened the pathway to allow full integration into a player's "portfolio" for learning motor skills and turning those into habits. But hear this: Building takes a long as it takes. There is no "one size fits all." Everyone is different on that score. So be prepared for whatever that turns out to be for you.
There is more to know about the subject, of course. For instance, we know that the mind and the body do not work at the same speed. That's why it is unhandy to think about what you are doing while you do it. You set yourself up for a "speed mismatch." (And that will mess with your mind, your balance, and your co-ordination). We know that there is much more non conscious mental activity than there is conscious activity generating influence over learning and playing, but we take regular note that most players and those who teach them tend to ignore or disregard the non conscious area, we suppose, because it is a little disconcerting to have to reckon with something we cannot see, touch or put our hands on.
We also know that learning is best done in short doses with little rest periods in between, so standing and beating balls without leaving one's setup position tends to be self-defeating. We also found that if you wish ever to play the game on automatic, you must have habits to do that, so any practice that does not go in that direction will leave players grasping at least at a few straws. A huge gap appears in that respect for many players who use training aids to assist their learning. That must be done with great care since we cannot take those aids with us when we go to the course and if we have not transferred the learning from the aid to our own self-managed perception, we will sooner or later hit a bump in the road and be "aidless." It's fine to gather confidence with an aid, but one missed shot under "aidless" conditions can rupture that, with no "undo" button on the mental computer. The remedy is: use aids only when working on skill. When processively moving the skill to full memory (habit level) use a clear key.
The strategy we use has shown excellent results for all who applied it with commitment (which means that "half-baked"attention is thoroughly suspect). Constant monitoring for the last 20 years has produced its own research and has provided plenty of "pudding for proof." Using this method allows both the building of skills and their integration into one's memory as habit, and as we indicate that provides something to put on automatic and to utilise in play without thinking about the act while performing it. All that is done through measured, goal oriented, specifically designated practice. It is not in the least haphazard, nor left to experimental guess work.
Skills Should Not Be Underrated
Skills cannot and should not be underrated. They are very desirable, but one must keep "learning" those since they require thinking while doing, as they are not built-in. The conscious thinking about them, in fact, forces them to remain consciously managed skills and if they should reach the habit level, it takes a very long time, probably going unrecognised (which could well be why ViJay keeps putting the glove under his armpit). Skills require persistent nourishment to keep them from fading. The difference is wondrous. Skills must be kept from fading and habits never go away. Only through habits can one perform without direct conscious thought pertaining to the function, thereby achieving synchronicity in mental and physical movement. So the objective of practice is first, to learn skills and then promote those to the habit level.
Practice Like You Play
Practice, to be at its most productive level, must pattern itself by the way we play. That includes engaging in a pre-shot planning moment, just like the one you will use on the course, before you hit your "practice" shot. Again, that flows to the purposefulness and nature of the non discriminatory system. Unless you do it that way, your system will tend to "buck" you on the course as if to say, "Hey! That's not what you were doing in practice. Why have you changed on me?" In other words, that throws an unexpected curve ball at your system, which will immediately invoke an anxiety response - whether you want it or not. (And we didn't invent that. It's there, part of real life, just like breathing, and none of us can change it, short of death).
We hasten to add that using the formula we devised from research and experience is NOT the ONLY way to practice, just the most economical way to use time and energy to accomplish the goal of building skills into habits. There is no doubt that anyone who practices as much a Vijay, for instance, will come up with some sort of habits, though it is not clear what kind or whether even Vijay knows when he has finished the task.
We suspect, BTW, that Vijay is an Analyser. At least he shows all the signs. If he is not, he is playing well outside his style and needs all that extra effort to remain intact. Talented, very much so. But Analysers who lack knowledge of their personal styles tend to keep on practicing "till they get it right," which to them means "perfect," and it is doubtful that anyone is going to shoot 18 any time soon. (We have observed Analysers spend an entire playing season on the range, and they will tell you in a flash that the reason is that their games are not "ready" yet). They are typically unwilling to face possible embarrassment or imperfection in front of God and everyone on the course. So they keep on practicing. Of course, they may just enjoy "beating balls," too.
Most players that we have encountered were on a track that involved hitting large numbers of balls. Close examination has shown that what those players tend to do is 1000 different things one time each. That has only minimal (and minute) learning value. It does, however, guarantee that a non discriminatory human system will tend to become very, if not totally, confused since no real direction is generally given to the desired result. Unless a player pre-determines what s/he wants to accomplish during a practice session, and if that player merely goes about practicing in a typically experimental mode (looking for something that might work) with each swing being executed a little different way, their systems will attempt to put each and all those into memory.
The human system needs the "wheat separated from the chaff," which is germane to how the non discriminatory system functions. That's what non discriminatory means - it makes no distinction between what you want and don't want unless you tell it specifically. May sound strange to you, but it is that special, single issue that has kept the old myths about practice alive and well and prevented many a player from getting his/her own game in order, when s/he could have done that with a fair amount of ease, using a simple plan to get there.
Three Ways of Practicing
To begin with, there are three distinct kinds of practice. And we need to inform ourselves which one we are undertaking when we engage it. There is "Habilitative" practice. That's what you use when you want to learn something new. Next comes "Rehabilitative" practice. That's what you use when you need to "fix" something that got broken, rusty, or bent out of shape. The third is "Recreational." That's what you use when you just want to have a little fun "beating balls," but in any of the three, if you don't tell yourself which one you have selected, your system will try to memorise everything you do and that can be the best or the worst and you won't know the difference till you hit the course and produce your first "off" shot. Then you'll scream and still won't know what happened or why. Especially if you wish to entertain the recreational kind of practice, be sure and define that for your system, and we suspect that a large proportion of "practice fits into the "recreational" category.
We recommend that a player spend time on the course rather than "practice" recreationally. If it's fun, it should get mileage as the game it is, not as a pretence surrounding "practice." A player really only needs to practice - if s/he has applied every effort ultimately into building habits - when there is a new skill that needs to be learned (and committed to habit) or when something one already owns deteriorates. Playing is far superior to "beating balls," even if time is limited. Play two or three holes. That's a lot better than whacking a bunch of balls on the range. If you do practice, make it count. Develop your skills and turn them into habits. Then you can play on automatic, "in the zone," with every game you play.
