They should work for you as well.


I don't think so. I am an analytical learner, and I tend to over think the golf swing. I know why balls go where they do and what I've done wrong to make them go there. In the 15 years or so that I've been playing the game, I have not been able to make a stable, repeatable golf swing despite all my knowledge, analytical ability, and countless hours on the practice range. The difference was learning Inner Game techniques/skills of allowing me to make mistakes and locating the source of tension (lower back and hip girdle for me).

The Inner Game techniques/skills would not have worked unless I had spent time with mechanical practice and analyzing what I had done wrong. The mechanical drills and knowledge are necessary for learning the game, but the Inner Game released me to execute the swing without tension and/or doing things in steps.

Despite the Inner Game, I still have to be conscious of certain mechanical things like keeping my head as still as possible and dropping my right elbow to my side early in the swing. Likewise, a pianist must keep certain mechanical things in mind every time he/she plays, like time or posture.

Yeh, it is very Inner Game and I do have Skiing, Tennis and Music not that I'm consciously borrowing - if it's right, it's right. I find the body carries out your wishes. Consciousness' job is to constantly scan for unnecessary tensions. As an example:

To place the shoulders correctly I get students to roll the shoulder forward, up and back - always one at a time a la Esther Gokhale. Always they stick their neck out and tense their chest (6 pack). Whilst doing this routine consciousness should concentrate on stilling the neck and chest - the body will carry out the shoulder movement without you attending to it.

Sorry, this is "one-size-fits-all" thinking.

Your body carries out your wishes.

These techniques work for some and fail miserably for others.

Patience?

There are two cases where Inner Game will never help improve an individual's performance in sports or music.

• Person is already performing at his/her maximum tension free level.
• Person keeps telling him/herself that it will not work, i.e., a continuous stream of negative thoughts.

In every other case, there should be some improvement . . . slight in some cases and massive in others.

So you don't buy the idea of matching the person's learning style at all?

Some people's learning style is really a teaching style. You can't teach yourself to ride a bicycle but you can learn to ride a bicycle.

Everyone learns a bit differently from the next guy. The Inner Game has nothing to do with learning how to play music, golf, tennis, or any other complex physical skill. Its focus is on improving execution by eliminating negative, self defeating talk and the tension that negativity produces. I hate to keep referring to golf on a piano forum, but it is the most concrete example that I can find from my personal experience.

As I said in an earlier post, like you I am much more of an analytical learner than I am a feel learner, but feel or kinesthetics is an important part of my learning process, especially if what I am learning involves movement of some part of the body. Perhaps a couple stories/examples will help illustrate both what I have been trying to illustrate and how I view the role of the Inner Game.

When I was much younger, I flew single seat jets on and off aircraft carriers, a demanding task which required precise hand-to-eye coordination, and I was damn good at it. That task required both extensive formal knowledge of one's aircraft, how the ship functioned, and the basic dynamics of flight, but the execution was almost an autonomic response to sensory clues. Secondarily, from the time I was introduced to ballroom dancing in grade school I have been an excellent dancer.

So what? To do well in each activity requires accurate and rhythmic movement controlled by both the large and small muscles of the body. Enter from stage left the challenging and frustrating game of golf.

Golf also requires precise rhythmic movement of the body to score well. For 15 years I tried to improve and gain some consistancy. I took many lessons, attended week long intensive golf schools, and spent hours and hours on the practice tee and practice green, all to no avail. I could not lower my handicap below 36 no matter what I tried.

I only kept playing the game because I enjoyed playing with my wife who was a better golfer than I was and because of the occasional miracle shot. Normally, I chunked, missed, duck hooked, and banana sliced golf balls all over the course and into every available hazard. I knew I had the intelligence, physical skills, and coordination to become a good golfer, but could not deliver. I had studied the game from an academic standpoint until I literally wore out some of the books I purchased. How was it that my dancing partners would compliment me on how good of a dancer I was, and my fellow aviators would commend me for my flying skills on and off the ship, but I could not hit a golf ball the same way twice in a row? Believe me, I was frustrated beyond words.

I had learned golf and learned it well, but I could not execute. Several years ago I determined that a much of the problem was tension, but I did not have any idea of how to eliminate it. Practice swings on the tee were fluid and rhythmic. All too often they were followed by a swing that propelled the ball 100 years into the dense woods on the left, the large lake on the right, or almost up to the ladies tee 20 yards ahead of me.

The Inner Game did nothing more than release me of the tension so that I could do what I already knew how to do. The Inner Game did not teach me anything about golf as such. It did allow my body to use all of the knowledge that my analytical learning machine had stored between my ears.

Does that make it any clearer what I am talking about and why I say that the Inner Game tension management skills should work for everyone?

Wow, a fighter pilot? I'm impressed!

No I was not a fighter pilot. I was an attack pilot. I flew A-4 and A-7 aircraft. Our primary mission was to attack targets on the ground. The fighter jocks said I was a member of what they called the "Gravity Group."