- Perform your movement repetition,
- Guess at how well you accomplished your goal, and
- Use the feedback device to find out how you actually did.
Ideally, this would all be done within about 10 seconds, but if all you have is a camera, do the best you can.
Focus
Second, you have to be in the moment when you are practicing. If you can't totally focus on the task at hand, you might as well be doing something else.
Even 10 minutes of laser-like focus is better than an hour of distracted, half-assed repetitions. Unless you want to spend even more time practicing, get in the right frame of mind before your session.
Chunking
Third, you need to chunk your full swing into smaller, more manageable pieces.
Even though most instructors tell you to beat balls at the range, you need to know that taking a bunch of full swings at the driving range is counterproductive. There is just too much going on for the brain to properly focus on learning one specific movement.
We suggest breaking it up basically the way we've got the videos sequenced on the site: setup, weight shift, rotation, takeaway, to the top, transition, downswing, impact, and follow through.
And speaking of our videos—you MUST go through them in order because each preceding part of the swing affects the next part. The setup impacts the takeaway, which impacts the backswing, which impacts the transition, etc., etc.
Skipping ahead ignores the fact that many problems are caused by earlier issues in your swing!
Isolation
The next point, Isolation, means that you need to get rid of distractions until you can solely focus on the specific movement at hand.
That generally means that you start practicing without a ball, and even without a club. You'll be amazed at how differently you perform a movement based on whether or not you have a club in your hand.
Video: 2 Minute Lesson Demonstrating Isolation
(Note: Click anywhere on the video below to play it)
Speed
The fifth point is speed. Your brain doesn't learn best at 100mph. In part, this is because you can't monitor your movement enough to feel if you are doing it properly.
One of the most common themes we hear in our Golf Forum is "I can perform my takeaway (or backswing, transition, etc., etc.) just fine in slow motion, but as soon as I make a full swing, I go back to my old habits. What else can you tell me?"
The answer's usually very simple: Stop doing it at full speed!
You obviously aren't ready for that yet. You likely don't have it ingrained in slow motion, and you need to continue doing repetitions at a speed that allows you to monitor your movement while you do it.
Plus, there are more than just the two speeds of slow motion and full speed. You MUST start in slow motion and slowly build up to full speed, only increasing your speed by a little bit when you're ready to progress, which brings us to our next point.
Progression
You can progress—whether that means increasing your speed, adding a club, adding a ball, or moving on to the next piece of the swing—whenever you can do most of the repetitions perfectly.
Here's a student practicing with the club upside down to avoid the club head's momentum.
It is crucial that you understand that when you add a club to many of your movements, you will have to consciously fight the momentum of the club head. In fact, I often recommend turning the club upside down when you first add it to the mix because it will provide much less momentum that way.
When progressing, you need to push yourself enough that you start regularly making mistakes again. Once practice gets too easy, your learning slows.
And by the way, you need to start loving your mistakes. Seriously. Identifying and correcting mistakes are among the best learning experiences you can have.
When you can do two consecutive pieces of the swing correctly most of the time while performing them individually, it's time for point 7, Stacking.
Stacking
Put the two moves together and understand that you may have to go all the way back to the beginning here, throwing the club down and doing the two moves together in super slow motion.
Repetition
Last, there are two key numbers you need to memorize when it comes to repetitions.
The first is 100. Any time you practice, you need to get in at least 100 reps.
This is crucial because your brain doesn't even notice you are trying to learn something until you get in the range of 100 reps. You are essentially wasting your time if you do, say, 20 takeaway reps.
The second number is actually a range: 3000 to 5000. That's approximately the range of perfect repetitions you need to ingrain a new movement, like a swing change.
Those numbers are based on scientific research; so, anyone who tells you that you can make lasting changes to your swing in a couple of buckets of balls, or even a couple of days is just selling you hype.
In fact, much of the learning that takes place in your brain happens after you've finished practicing, especially while you are sleeping.
You can certainly see some improvements quickly in your swing, as many of our students do when they finally learn how to move correctly, but these changes will require conscious thoughts and be less consistently repeatable than when you've put in 3000 -5000 perfect reps to ingrain the motion.
Summary
OK. So that was a ton of info. Be sure to re-read it if you need to because the importance of this lesson cannot be overstated.
To help simplify the approach you need to take, I tell my students it's like learning to play the piano or another musical instrument. You don't just sit down and play Beethoven (or even "Mary Had a Little Lamb!"). You have to learn how to read music first, then learn where each key is, then learn chords, etc., etc.
In the end, golf's really no different.
We all start by just swinging... and are still paying for it.
Unfortunately, I don't know a single person who learned the swing this way. We all just picked up a club and started whacking at the ball, ingraining bad movements from our very first "whiff!"
Then you start scouring golf magazines, DVDs, TV shows and the internet for that one quick tip you need that will fix everything.
Unfortunately, many of you are still looking for that silver bullet that simply doesn't exist.
But now that you fully understand how to practice and how to learn, you should buy into that old cliché "Perfect practice makes perfect," even if lasting improvement may not come as quickly as you'd like it to.
The good news is that you've found golf instruction that's already built to minimize the time it takes you to ingrain the swing of your dreams.
The learning techniques covered in this article, as applicable, are already included in the "5 Minutes per Day" series of videos available with our Premium Membership:
- 5 Minutes to the Perfect Golf Swing Setup
- 5 Minutes to the Perfect Setup Plus Golf Swing Weight Shift
- 5 Minutes to Master Golf Swing Rotation
- 5 Minutes to the Perfect Golf Swing Takeaway
- 5 Minutes to the Perfect Golf Backswing
- 5 Minutes to the Perfect Golf Downswing
- 5 Minutes to the Perfect Golf Release
So, if you have a Free Membership, once you've learned the basics of "how to move" in the RST with your free videos, consider signing up for a Premium Membership to learn even faster because I've already laid out—in a step-by-step fashion—how to practice each piece of the swing.
Dan Coyle's book is a MUST read for serious golfers.
Try not to ever practice without a mirror.