During the last months, I’ve invested quite a bit of training in developing my golf swing. However, much of this training happened in the gym and not on the course. We’ve been working on the stance, stability, mobility, and a ton of specific movements. The idea is, that once they all work together the swing will be great.

The more I train, the more I learn how tricky the balance can feel.

It’s one of finding just the right effort. Not too much. Not too little.

Too much always comes along with the desire to control the movements. Too little leads to uncontrolled movements. And yet, the balance is easy to find. It is the natural one we have once we let our body do the work.

However, the body also has to learn the movement, and therein lies the whole dilemma.

In trying to make a better movement, the effort will tend toward the assumption that the body doesn’t know the movement well enough. The additional effort will come in as controlling. Once the movement starts to become controlled, a new effort is developed to avoid the existing control. It creates an effort to let go. The body started to oscillate between letting go and controlling.

The oscillation has become a distraction.

Controlling that oscillation makes no sense whatever, the brain can do it much better by itself.

And yet that is what we try to do instead of letting go of the distraction.

Letting go of the distraction is the result of training the mind to be present in the moment.

It’s a training that also seeks to help body and mind to connect.

But instead, people focus all their efforts on training the body.