These guys are awesome and offer us some insight into the learning process (please watch the video and then seen my comments below)
A quick question:
Do you think these artists are thinking about body positions, club alignment or are they focussed on hitting the ball?
Experience tells me they are concerned 100% about whacking the ball and couldn’t give a stuff about their technique. Pretty sure they’d be useless if they concerned themselves with so many of the things that a lot of us golfers like worrying about. Their thought process would be, “how do I hit this ball with this 78 inch club” (or insert other random method). From here, through lots of practice and play, they work out how to do it to the automatic level.
I’m also sure that they would have had some sort of learning curve – there would have been highs and lows as they learn new skills and then try and perform. I would bet my bottom dollar that everyone of these trick shot artists would have had an air-swing or an embarrassing swipe with a crowd watching. These failures are all part of the process.
My point here? That they all get back on the wagon and keep playing/exploring/experimenting. They don’t let a few failures get in the way and they certainly don’t let the odd misadventure stop them from performing their art.
A cray point, but one worth mentioning: Imagine that trick shot golf was all the rage, that they performed in front of massive crowds and played for huge money – and from here a huge industry was born to help us all emulate our trick shot hero. Do you think that trick shot golf would get all serious?
I do. That there would be all sorts of specialised coaches, training aids, theories, books and dvds. From this point the game would change. We would forget that “trick shot golf” was about having fun and hitting the ball – we’d start to over think and would almost certainly disrupt our learning potential. From here we’d get more serious, have to change our coach, technique, equipment and maybe a sports psychologist employed to get our brain into gear.
Sounds stupid when put like that but this is exactly what has happened to mainstream golf. We’ve got so damn serious that we’ve forgotten how much fun it is to hit that little white ball. Many of us are so scared of doing something wrong that we don’t experiment or try something new. It’s a bit sad really.
You might not be able to hit the ball that well with one hand behind your back, standing on one leg and with your eyes closed. But do you think you can go out next time and swing with a little less seriousness? And just maybe, do you reckon you could get reckless and have a good laugh at the same time?