Structural balance and imbalance - Golf workout tips 3

Recently I came across a yoga tip for golf. Basically the yoga tip talked about the structural imbalance of a seasoned golfers and said that some yoga training can alleviate the imbalance. I agree with the author that yoga indeed is a good practice for promoting structural alignment and balance. However I feel that for a serious practitioner of one-sided sports (like golf, tennis of even martial art) oftentimes a price has to be paid for performance.

Having said that I do maintain that a balanced structure is required even for the most professional golfers and is actually essential for beginning golfers who are aiming high (to become good amateur players or even to become a professional one day). Am I contradicting myself? No, let me explain.

In order to deliver strong and well-managed power on the top striking point, one need to have a balanced base. In Taoist lingo, Yang (power) must be delivered at the tip, but with Yin (stable base) must be had at the base. This strong base is to be expressed in two parts. Part one is what commonly called core muscles (as publicized by Pilates), the inner abdominal muscles, and part two is the feet as a balanced base. If a well-balanced strong base can be built, then one's one-sided performance can be built with no limit. One caveat and reminder: there is always a price to be paid for top athletic performance.

Muscle tuning for golfers - Golf workout tips 2

More than other kinds of sports, playing golf requires a more subtle form of muscle control. A golfer is required to have a finely-tuned muscular system to enable him to make subtle and almost unconscious adjustment to reflect the realities of a particular stroke. What is the workout objective? In the system of zhan zhuang and tai-chi, this objective is called "muscles-as-one". The concept of which I explained in a previous post: The importance of Total-Body-Change.

In internal martial art systems such as tai-chi, a practitioner is required to train to such a condition that firstly the power of throwing a punch should be transmitted from the sole of one's foot up to the tip of the hand and beyond, and secondly a practitioner is required to be able to throw such a punch from different stance.

When applied to golf, a golfer should be trained using golf specific stance. Details please refers to my previous post: Golf chi-kung.

The next tip for golf shall be the opening of one's shoulder joints in combination with muscles-as-one.

Mental attitude for Golfer - Golf workout tips 1

This is what I read from the internet concerning mental attitude of golfers: "Like many other golfers, you probably neglect the most important facet of your game—your mental attitude. After missing a three-footer, you slap your putter, throw it against your bag, and beat yourself up for missing yet another short putt!" Another important observation is that when a golfer is in the zone, his performance becomes so effortless. It seems that golfers do need a good dosage of meditation if they are serious about their game.

Some yoga gyms run courses targeted to yoga. The pitch is through yoga a golfer can train to have a calm mind as well as a more balanced body.

My pitch to golfers is that they can do better taking up zhan zhuang and tai-chi workout. Why? For one thing zhan zhuang is standing-meditation, and thus can directly move one's mind into the zone. And being both in standing positions, zhan zhuang and golf can easily effect a good transfer of learning.

Once a golfer has learned the chi-generation in the standard stance, embracing a tree, the next step will be for him or her to practice zhan zhuang in special golf-stance, as explained in my previous post (click here).

In my next post on Golf workout tips, I shall go into the use of spiral energy as practiced in tai-chi workout.

Golf chi-kung

Golf chi-kung? Are you kidding? No, I'm not.

Recently an old friend of mine told me that he was contemplating on a second career to become a professional coach of Golf. As I always want to note down some of my thoughts on using chi-kung as part of a work-out routine for athletes, I shall use Golf as an example here. Many martial artists for centuries have been using chi-kung and related disciplines (like yoga) as foundation work-out for their practice. In a recent post, I mentioned renowned Brazilian Jujitsu master Rickson Gracie using yoga and meditation to condition himself during his regular trainings as well as using them to condition himself immediately before major fights.

In this post, I shall use zhan zhuang as an example. As per one of my previous posts on zhan zhuang, the basic stance (stand-like-a-tree, or embracing-tree) is excellent as foundation chi-kung practice as well as specifically for curing back pain. After one has proficiently practiced this stance (which would mean experiencing moderate chi in the body moving between feet [toes] and hands [fingers]), one can go on to practice some variations aiming at achieving additional objectives. One series of stance is called fighting stance. The objective is to facilitate throwing a punch (or executing a throw) from different angles. The theory behind is that executing a martial act consists of different intermediate positions. And if one can be trained to have the required flexibility, strength and control in each position, the practitioner will be more likely to do good execution when joining these positions in one quick sweep.

This is exactly what golf is all about! The picture above shows the four basic Golf stance (intermediate positions), and it is interesting to compare it with one of the fighting stance placed below: taming dragon.