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Rapidly correct persistent errors in performance | technique | habit patterns | understanding | transition training

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Habit patterns in golf

Golf coaches and players try to get it right the first time but invariably end up spending a lot of time trying to correct technique faults and bad habits that somehow develop.

Once established, habit pattern errors like technique faults are hard to correct and can make a player uncompetitive and can lead to a career-threatening performance slump.

The typical advice to practice skill drills and train hard is usually not very effective. The player may appear to improve during training but repeatedly falls back to old ways under pressure of competition.

Transfer of training from skills coaching sessions and practice drills to competition is consequently poor.

Transition training, required when the player has to change over to a new code, new equipment, new technique or new rules, presents similar adjustment difficulties. Old habits die hard.

Fortunately, a coaching science discovery called Old Way New Way® Learning offers:

•  A new perspective on the transfer of training problem in golf.

•  A fast and practical method of golf skill development.

•  A cost-effective and user-friendly method for rapid golf technique correction and habit eradication.

This page introduces the Old Way New Way® Learning routine for improving your golf swing and other parts of your golf game.

Training options

Training in Old Way New Way® Learning is available in an online course, either with or without email support, or in a training workshop for small groups of golf professionals or golfers.

Online course

The online course is designed by professional educators and follow modern instructional design principles. The Flash based course can be downloaded and is self-paced, interactive and self contained. Step by step instructions, examples and case studies teach you all about Old Way New Way® Learning and how to apply it to a wide range of performance problems in golf. The course includes two video segments that show Old Way New Way being used with a golf swing problem and a putting problem. Online courses that come with with email support cost more but are tailor made and provide step by step solutions for your own selection of specific performance problems.

Workshop

The one-day training workshop for small groups of golf professionals or golfers provides face-to-face instruction in rapid technique correction and comes with follow up support.

Golf

   Golf technique correction

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Golf swing technique improvement with a 15 minute practice routine

Golf swing technique improvement? As an old golf pro once said, “The problem is not learning the new; it’s forgetting (unlearning) the old!”

If you have ever tried to fix a persistent problem with your golf game you will know how true that is.

Like when you last tried to change your grip, correct your putting action or make a swing change, you had to concentrate hard; you made more errors; it took so much time due to mental confusion; and the experience was frustrating and unpleasant.

Thankfully, all those skills coaching sessions appear to be paying off. You practice and practice and your technique on the range shows obvious improvement.

However, as soon as you are out on the golf course and under the stress of competition, your game falls apart and you revert to those old, wrong, ways.

You wanted to change but your brain would not let you change. In the case of your ingrained golf technique problem, you were the prisoner of habit. By a process of psychological interference, your old learning has disabled your new learning.

Cognitive science tells us that whatever we have practiced and learned is protected from change. When the new golf swing you are trying to learn is different from the old swing, your brain instantly detects this conflict and generates habit pattern interference to protect and preserve the old swing.

That's why old habits die hard!

Eventually, you will succeed and make the change over to the new swing but biomechanical experts say that it can take up to 2,000 practices before the new swing consistently replaces the old one. This is called the “adaptation period” and we have all gone through that misery.

Professional golfers are not immune either. In what is known as the dreaded “performance slump”, excellent technique carefully refined through years of hard work is suddenly and inexplicably lost.

Currently available coaching methods do not adequately address the issue of habit pattern errors very well. This is because conventional golf coaching tends to emphasize exclusive practice of the correct knowledge and skill, i.e., via hours of repetition or drills.

Admittedly, practice and drills are an essential element when learning new skills, i.e., when there is no old incorrect way that might interfere with learning. However, practice is much less effective when trying to change an established technique fault because habit pattern interference gets in the way of improvement.

Clearly, we need a better way.

A different approach to learning and improving your golf game, developed in Australia and adopted by a growing number of coaches and sporting professionals at institutes of sport here and overseas, is Old Way New Way® Learning.

Old Way New Way® Learning is a special way of practicing that greatly reduces the mental interference from old habits and therefore accelerates your learning.

Instead of spending weeks or months of frustrating practice, with Old Way New Way® Learning your swing technique can show 80% or better improvement after just one or two concentrated sessions.

This improvement persists and is more or less permanent, depending on how often you practice. Importantly, the new swing will transfer more readily to competition.

Best of all, the entire process is easy to learn, blame- and stress-free and very user friendly.

Become the golfer you always wanted to be!

Quickly improve your golf swing technique and other parts of your game with Old Way New Way® Learning.

See how its done.

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