The fleeting “a ha” moment…

[LeftDaddy]

I’ve had a few of these “a ha” moments in the past, but they were more “lucky”…meaning I just tried a bunch of stuff and eventually something worked on the range and I tried my hardest to never let the feel go. Results varied, but for the most part they never stuck. 
 

A few weeks ago, however, I had one that I was sure was the holy grail. Then I went to the range and it was like I was mainlining the secret truths of golf. More on my results in a second, but the reason I felt good about this one is because I’ve been working diligently on my swing for about 2 years now and have achieved a lot of success with it (handicap is dropping, etc,). This “a ha” came after watching some of my videos and realizing what was causing my swing to be a bit off plane. I took a few practice swings with the new feel, looked at the video and “bingo”…back on plane. 
 

So I went to the range and played a few rounds with the new feel, and let me tell it was the most glorious thing ever for about 2 range sessions and 2 rounds. Everything was hit dead center of the face, went dead straight, and the best thing was that I was 30 yards longer with the driver and 2 clubs longer with my irons.

 

But you know where this is going…despite flushing probably 500 shots over a 2 week period, the new feel slowly started to fade and my results started to wane again. At this point, I’m better than I was 3 weeks ago, but only about say 20% of the new stuff seems to have stuck. I tried everything that was in my head the day I “found” it, but it seemingly doesn’t work anymore. All of that said, it hit me again today why I had lost it, so I’m pretty confident I’ll find it again next time out. 
 

But these “a ha” moments can be so fleeting (and frustrating)…lol!

Edited March 2, 2022 by LeftDaddy

[MonteScheinblum]

There’s a reason for this.

 

If you are not addressing the root cause of your problems, the “aha” moments are temporary fixes.

 

For example.  I have been right tilting early for 40 years.

 

I can absolutely flush it like a tour player for about 2 weeks by trying to get in front of it with my upper body first move down.  
 

 

[Ripper212]

11 minutes ago, MonteScheinblum said:

There’s a reason for this.

 

If you are not addressing the root cause of your problems, the “aha” moments are temporary fixes.

 

For example.  I have been right tilting early for 40 years.

 

I can absolutely flush it like a tour player for about 2 weeks by trying to get in front of it with my upper body first move down.  
 

 

Now I'm even more confused. Thought the upper body was supposed to stay back! One of my biggest problems is moving it forward too soon.

[MonteScheinblum]

1 hour ago, Ripper212 said:

Now I'm even more confused. Thought the upper body was supposed to stay back! One of my biggest problems is moving it forward too soon.

That’s exactly the point.  I was able to flush it for two weeks doing something terrible. 

[tthomasgolfer605]

The "ah ha" moment for me was when I stopped searching for "ah ha" moments. 

[Valtiel]

I look at ah-ha moments as potential windows into a deeper understanding of something, a tip of a biomechanical iceberg so to speak. The further you can trace that feeling back to a root fundamental of some sort, the better chance you have at said moment crystallizing into something useful. If all you have is "when I do this with my left hand it doesn't hook anymore" and you can't go any deeper than that superficial analysis then it's doomed to only ever be a moment that will fade quickly until you start chasing the next one. The further down you can dig e.g. "doing this with my left hand is actually a compensation for this, which I started doing because I still can't do X correctly" the more you're moment can actually help you long term. 

[jordan2240]

I've lost track of the number of 'aha' moments I've had.  It's a complete mystery to me why they never stick, but my theory is that doing something different usually feels a little odd initially, but then it stops feeling odd, so you don't really know if you're doing it anymore, and you tend to slip back into old habits or whatever just feels natural.  I'd probably benefit from warming up on the range prior to each round to see which of my 123 swings is working that day, then use that one, but instead, I just start cold turkey and adjust during the round, usually finding my best swing-of-the-day around hole 16.  And then I try to use that one next round and end up with another swing by the end of it.  But it does keep me from getting bored.

[glk]

I found that educating myself about the golf motion (as how the club should move)  was the best way to avoid the ah ha moments and avoid the frustrating golf swing dance (apologies to Arthur DeBolt).     This site used to be a good source of information however, to me, with all but Monte (and a few others)  abandoning the site, the lack of quality instructor contributions has diminished the value.      Tyler Ferrell's book is an excellent reference and starting point.     Joining his site (or any other site that offers quality overall instruction) is well worth the money spent - Tyler's focus is to educate golfers to become their own coach - which means they need to understand the motion and it's variabilities and how one's own motion fits into the patterns.      The other important point is to have some quality instructor feedback - even if you want to pursue the swing mostly on your own one needs to have a second, trained set of eyeballs on the swing - how often is individual.

And last learning good practice habits to make a good motion stick and not be flavor of the day so to speak.     Separating motion practice from repeatability practice or skill development.     And having spacing, variability,  challenge in one's practice.

 

What I don't recommend is jumping around tip by tip.      Rather being patient and sticking to your plan no matter what it is (and expect it to take years) - and to establish a base pattern which you can refine and maintain - 1% better every day!   And as I learned more I really have gained an appreciation for how little I understand and how much  good instructors do.

Edited March 3, 2022 by glk

[LeftDaddy]

I’ve been doing the George Gankas program for 2 years now. It has absolutely made a difference in my game. Others have mentioned this in this thread, but I now have a solid understanding of the golf swing, matchups, and what causes my faults, etc. 

 

That’s why this “aha” felt different than others from my past. I tend to get under the plane, and anyway long story short, it ultimately boils down to a fault of keeping my shoulders “back” too long in the swing, and due to a hip slide in transition. 
 

I don’t want to get into all of the swing theory and “feels”, etc. It was just funny that I went from barely being able to get a long iron airborne, to hitting towering 4 irons in a matter of a few swings. I then hit hundreds of balls with every club over the course of a few days and flushed everything. But then it started to falter.  I started to go back through the checklist. None of it worked. I found a little part of it again for a round last weekend and played decent, but it didn’t last. But to Monte’s point, I went back to root causes and feel like I know what it is again. 
 

We shall see. If I can hold on to even half of it, my handicap will plummet this year. It’s also completely transformed my short game. I’ve spent the better part of a year now with basically the worst short game a golfer could have, even though I’ve been good at it in the past. But this new feel has me hitting these buttery chips and pitches that can go high or low on command and land so softly. It’s downright fun seeing the shots I can pull off now, even flops from tight lies I would have never even attempted in the past. Anyway, wishing all of you some luck in your pursuit to “find it” also!

[tatertot]

I thought that was the point of the warm-up? Find the "a ha" moment for the day?

[nlk10010]

12 hours ago, tthomasgolfer605 said:

The "ah ha" moment for me was when I stopped searching for "ah ha" moments. 

Indeed. I think I made a similar point some time back about the "Eureka" moment and one poster actually found a "Eureka Golf" YT channel. So maybe there's an "Ah HA!" one? 🙂 

 

But the mystery remains:  Why does one's success "fade" after a period of time? My contribution (i.e. $.02) is the old saying "better is the enemy of good". You try to improve and in the course of doing that destroy whatever it is you were doing in the first place. You might try to improve by doing "more", or (this is my favorite) identify one or two things you're doing differently, search for a YT instructor who advocates that technique, then figure you can only get better by adopting ALL of the instructor's recommendations.