Zen Golf: Mastering the Mental Game

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For me, it is one of the best golf books I have encountered. Let's not stop there.... Zen Golf: Mastering the Mental Game is a great business book.... well... life book. First, it is the best aide I have experienced for teaching business owners/executives on how to create and execute vision. Second, every exercise and practice offered by Dr. Parent is at its core focused on increasing awareness, setting intention and follow through, all foundational approaches, in which I believe and use. This book is a great introduction to a practice called "mindfulness" applied to golf. Mindfulness is very similar to meditation, which is a more common phrase thrown around these days. When you read Dr. Parent's book, you will begin to understand how to manage your emotions, and play your best golf. Preparation- Do you have a small, decisive target on every shot you hit? Could you tell me your pre-shot routine without thinking about it? Do you ever hit a shot even though you had the wrong club? Do you fear o.b. stakes and ponds? Do you visualize in your pre-shot routine? All of these things and more are covered in the preparation phase of the PAR approach. It was great working with to analyse his pressure plate data and explore ways to optimise his movement through the use of ground. Are you moving your upper body/arms for the rest of the body to react to? Or are you moving the body and the arms are reacting?

However, when elite golfers, or athletes in general, are in the peak performance state, there is a burst of lower frequency waves, called “Alpha” waves, which are essential for playing Zen Golf. Extensive training with the GRFi system to develop awareness needed to recruit your optimal movement patterns.Mushin is achieved when a person’s mind is free from thoughts of anger, fear, or ego during combat or everyday life. There is an absence of discursive thought and judgment, so the person is totally free to act and react towards an opponent without hesitation and without disturbance from such thoughts. At this point, a person relies not on what they think should be the next move, but what is their trained natural reaction or what is felt intuitively. It is not a state of relaxed, near-sleepfulness, however. The mind could be said to be working at a very high speed, but with no intention, plan or direction.” – Wikipedia Zen Golf, Mastering the Mental Game by Dr. Joseph Parent, contains three main sections. Getting Started: A different Perspective, The PAR Approach: Preparation, Action, Response to Results and Following Through: A Game of Honor. Getting Started: A different Perspective, starts of with either a story, puzzle, riddle, quote and relates it to golf and Buddhism. The PAR approach: P stands for Preparation and talks about how to gain confidence by practicing the 3 c’s , Clarity commitment and composure. This section includes such things as imagery, getting rid of doubt or hesitation and staying calm and focused. A stands for Action and discusses having an ideal state of mind, staying in the present and getting your body and mind synchronized. The goal of this section is to allow you to execute a shot free from interference of mental chatter or paralysis by analysis. Response to results is the last stage of the Par Approach. This section includes post shot routines, ways to recognize and undo negativity and self sabotage and techniques for changing habits. The goal of the section is to reinforce good shots with positive feelings and self encouragement, have minimum emotional distress around poor shots, maintain a sense of humour and refrain from beating yourself up. These ways of responding to results will give you the best chance of success. The last chapter is called Following Through: A Game of Honor, is based on shambala golf and its values of virtue, discipline, humor, dignity, gentle inquisitive fearlessness and Friendship. I first came across Marcus in 1996, when my wife Sue and I ran the Professional’s Shop at Newark Golf Club, near Nottingham in England. I was the Head Club Professional and we were looking for another member of the professional team. Marcus applied, and we thought there was something about the then 19-year-old. I could not have predicted then where Marcus would take his career, but I recognised that he had a special sauce that made him stand out. Our behaviour and body language can often reveal our intention with our movement, all the more reason if we make practice swings to have a clear picture of what we are trying to achieve before we start to swing.

Dr. Parent’s use of golf as a metaphor for business is full of great insights that have helped our staff grow as people and professionals.” Dr. Joseph Parent is a renowned expert in Performance Psychology and has coached the mental game in golf, business, and life for over 40 years. Dr. Parent has worked with major champions, many other top golf professionals, and amateurs at every level. He has the singular distinction of coaching both a man (Vijay Singh) and a woman (Cristie Kerr) to #1 in the World Golf Ranking. Golf Digest magazine honored Dr. Parent in their list of “Top Mental Game Experts” in the world.

Generating power and tensioning from a sub-optimal source (like any habit) is something that we can become desensitised to because when we're so used to it being that way. I have taken his exercises out on the putting green and driving range and experienced significant improvement. In addition, I have used his suggestions and offered technics on the course to manage my mental state after hitting a good shot or a bad shot. Both of these practices have improved both my score and my enjoyment of the game of golf. Another important reason to meditate is that it’s been shown to lower activity in the amygdala, which is the part of the brain used for processing negative emotions. The amygdala uses cognitive information from the brain to determine the level of stress and danger in your environment. If it’s high enough it sends signals to the body to prepare for the “fight or flight” stress response, which if you’ve experienced choking, makes it becomes harder to think clearly and control your movement. Meditation is thought to shrink the amygdala and hence lower your stress response. Losing the ego We worked on curving the ball both ways off the tee and letting Luke demonstrate his intention through his movement in his practice swings and me guessing what shape he was intending to play! Posture isn't a static feature of our movement (as we're always in motion) and as is often the case, when the body is challenged - it'll configure a movement solution most optimised to the task.