The first question I ask my students is why they are attending the school. Most are trying to become more consistent, some have back pain and others are simply frustrated and looking for an easier way.
You might be surprised but, no matter what they say, I don’t believe that I can fix their golf swings. Does that sound depress? The reason is that “fixing” their swings would infer that at one time they had it and then it somehow became broken or fell apart. Fixing their swing would mean that at one time they knew how to swing the club and they forgot how.
The fact is that the students at our schools don’t need their swings fixed. They need to build new ones. They must Re-Create their swings and re-create themselves in the process. Stay with me on this one. This could get a bit well … interesting.
Recreating Yourself
When you start to learn something and then practice for an hour, by the time you actually learn the skill you are a different person at the end. You are a different human being. You have altered your brain.
This isn’t hypothetical. Science has proven that when you practice and develop your skills, you are accessing new brain patterns that did previously did not exist. This is exactly the way children learn to walk, talk and eventually develop into adults.
This insight is extremely important. So many students never really change. Why? Because they haven’t learned HOW to rewire themselves. It’s not really that hard. If you understand the process – it will help you recreate your swing and improve. However, there is a critical factor in this process – you must TRUST it. In other words, you must believe in it.
Currently, you have a set of movements that are wired into your nervous system. While holding a club, with a ball resting on the ground, you run this process. You call this a golf swing. The Ingredients include You, The ball and the club. That’s it. The club and the ball are fixed – they can’t change. (Yes, you can always buy new clubs but YOU the user is the variable in this equation). You can change. Therefore, you must ask yourself – what about me must change to improve? This is an important question.
Moe Norman said: “I don’t know how to swing it badly”
What he was really saying is that his wiring, the neural programs in his head, only fire in the direction of a perfect golf swing. He was saying that he had wired himself this way. When I asked him how he did this he said: “You have to believe in yourself”.
At first, I thought this meant that I needed to have confidence. I have learned since that this wasn’t really what he meant. Let me explain. Heres is where I go deep.
But before I do, let me speak to you as a friend – a friend who cares about you but also as a friend who wants to kick you in the pants. You know, a little tough love. Let me tell you that, I bet you know how your oil is changed, how the car turns, the driveshaft, the combustion engine etc. I bet you know how your cell phone works and can operate your coffee maker like a champ. Yes, most of us know how our machines operate. But we don’t have a clue about how our brain works. Don’t you think it’s time you started asking yourself “How do I work and how does my brain work?” If you don’t start learning this, you will be a product of your circumstances rather than a creator of them.
Now, let’s learn a little about your brain.
You have three basic parts of your brain. These include Cerebellum, Limbic System, and the Cerebrum. These three parts of your brain have different functions. The Cerebellum is in charge of regulating muscular activity. The Limbic System is in charge of keeping you alive. It regulates memory, association, and emotion. This is the part of the brain that animals use to make sure they are safe in their environment. The Limbic system is considered the “seat of emotion” of the brain. The Cerebrum is the most highly developed part of the human brain and is responsible for thinking, perceiving, producing and understanding language. Most information processing occurs in the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex is divided into four lobes that each have a specific function.
I suggest you spend some time understanding the Cerebral cortex of your brain because this is where change starts. This is where think and live. But don’t take my word for it here. I’m no expert. I’m just a friend passing on a message. Go study your brain.
Now, back to your Cerebral Cortex. This is the place in your brain where you live. Your thoughts occur here.
From Thought.co –
The cerebrum is the most highly developed part of the human brain and is responsible for thinking, perceiving, producing and understanding language. Most information processing occurs in the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex is divided into four lobes that each have a specific function. These lobes include the frontal lobes, parietal lobes, temporal lobes, and occipital lobes.
The cerebral cortex is involved in several functions of the body including:
- Determining Intelligence
- Determining Personality
- Motor Function
- Planning and Organization
- Touch Sensation
- Processing Sensory Information
- Language Processing
The cerebral cortex contains sensory areas and motor areas. Sensory areas receive input from the thalamus and process information related to the senses.
They include the visual cortex of the occipital lobe, auditory cortex of the temporal lobe, gustatory cortex and somatosensory cortex of the parietal lobe. Within the sensory areas are association areas which give meaning to sensations and associate sensations with specific stimuli. Motor areas, including the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex, regulate voluntary movement.
My reason for teaching you about the Cerebral Cortex is simple. This is where you make changes. This is where you make things happen. Let’s start by understanding this – if thoughts occur in the Cerebral Cortex and your personality is determined in this part of your brain – then your thoughts create you. Remember what Moe said:
“You are who you think you are” – Moe Norman.
I’ve given you a lot to think about there. No pun intended. Now I’m going to take it a bit further. If you are who you think you are, and your thoughts create you – where do thoughts come from? Furthermore, if you change your thoughts about who you are will you become those thoughts?
As you ponder those questions, consider this.
If you are created (you were, by the way, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this), and we as individuals have the ability to create using our minds (cerebral cortex). Can we not recreate ourselves?
Which leads me back to Moe. You must believe in YOUR SELF to recreate yourself. That is what he meant and I will continue this discussion on my next blog.
(Contributions from Thought.co)
Posted by 
MOE NORMAN 
Very interesting! I encourage anyone who would like to learn more about our minds and how our brains actually work to read “Psycho-Cybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz. In a nutshell: man is not a machine but man does have a “machine” and that “machine” is our brain. Our brains cannot differentiate between fantasy and reality. Whatever we put into our machine is what our minds perceive as reality. The author suggests using the old cliché “fake it unit you make it”. If you tell yourself your worthwhile, you can do this, and see yourself performing that movement correctly your mind and body will respond accordingly. But if you see yourself failing or constantly tell yourself your a loser and unworthy your mind and body will respond accordingly. Hence: garbage in garbage out. Our minds are very much like soil, it will grow whatever we plant. It does not care what we plant. It will return whatever we water and nourish. We reap what we sow.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if we slow things down, see ourselves hitting our positions correctly, giving our minds and bodies time to really absorb exactly what we are trying to accomplish we can’t help but benefit from it. Todd and Tim have been pounding this into our heads for years. Slow practice will get you there faster. Unfortunately I learned this lesson the hard way.
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