The Secret to Transforming Your Game with Fred Shoemaker of Extraordinary Golf

GS#402 September 17, 2013 “You’ll become a ‘golfer’ when learning becomes more important than the outcome of your shot.” Be prepared to have your normal perceptions of improvement challenged, Fred Shoemaker of Extraordinary Golf talks about his DVD.

Please check out this article about Fred's golf and podcast journey called "A Lifetime On The Air" that was published in the NCGA Magazine (Northern California Golf Association) recently!  


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Golf Smarter number four hundred two, published on September seventeen,
twenty thirteen.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets old. Our
interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
We haven't figured out fully that being present is the
access to success, getting out of your head and the
future and past outcomes that we're in these scenarios all
the time, just being there, feeling the club sets in
your body, being with a target wherever you choose. To me,
that's the only way I've ever accessed great performance. And
yet my mind, like everybody else's mind, has concerns about

(00:49):
outcomes and how I'll look and what people will say.
And the whole story is the whole bit like every
other human being. And that's automatic. It's just going to happen. Now,
the question is can I observe it happening? Oh, my
mind just said, don't hit it right, let it alone
and come back to the task at hand. See, that's
what you chain a tournament player to be able to
let cove an irrelevant thought, observe it, let it alone,

(01:12):
and come back to the task at hand. That's called
coming back, and that's what great tournament players have to do.
Most people get lost in these I'm three over for four.
If I can call the next six, I'll shoot thirty
nine of them. That it isn't all ware. You go
this way to death, Yes, and we don't even know
that we're gone.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
The secret to transforming your game with Fred Shoemaker of
Extraordinary Golf.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
This is Golf Smarter sharing tips and insights from golfers
and golf professionals to help lower your score. It's worked
for your host, Fred Green.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Welcome back to Golf Smarter. Fred.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
Hello, Fred, it is great to.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Have you back on the show. It's been a long
time since we've spoken.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Not that long, but it's nice to be here again.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Well, in the weekly world of podcasting, it's been way
too long, because I do receive emails from Golf Smarter
community and from your community asking when you're going to
be back. So I'm really happy to.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
Have you back. Terrific. Let's have some fun today.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Okay, So in preparation to do this, I spent the
weekend because I was traveling. This weekend, I went back
to read The Extraordinary Golf The Art of the Possible,
which is not dated at all, but clearly you wrote
it a while ago, and there's ways you talk about
things that seems like it's been a while.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yes, I think the basic principles are the same, but
we've all evolved.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Absolutely. Basic principles are very clear and succinct, no question.
And I was amazed in reading it again and so
happy that I was reading it again because I would
come up to lines that I highlighted in the book
that I went I wouldn't highlight that this time. You know,
there was other things that were lead up to it

(03:00):
that how we're much more profound for me, And hopefully
it's because I've evolved somewhat, but more so that I've
evolved as a golfer and.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Have a.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Greater awareness about what is going on as I'm playing golf,
as I'm swinging my golf club, as I'm walking the
golf course, and so it is so much of what
extraordinary Golf is is awareness. And I'm just so happy
to know that after years of having the mindset from

(03:35):
the book that it truly works and it is part
of my golfing life.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Well, maybe it's the only thing that does work. Just
being present here now, whether it's with your swing or
whether you're in a communication with your friends, being on
the golf course. You know, people have said now for
forty years basically that I'm much happier when i'm present.
When I'm here and I'm in my head, it's a
very different world. So that's that you're saying that.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
I think it's great, well done, Oh thank you. But
after reading it for the weekend, I came home from
from my trip and told my wife, look, I go
to bed early. I gotta I want to see some
of the DVD.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
The new DVD called Extraordinary Golf The Secret to Transforming
Your Game, which I understand it's a it's a golf
DV golf instructional DVD. I would call it the Secret
in Transforming you.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
M Well, I'm happy you got that out of it,
but I don't think you can separate you from your
golf game if you're going to transform something. But I
did to start with yourself.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Absolutely absolutely, and I and that's what what I loved
about the DVD beyond the production value, which it's it's
really a beautifully produced video. The the quality of the
production is first rate. It's not some guy standing, you know,
setting up tripod and standing in front of it twenty
feet away and you can barely hear him. You had

(05:04):
a very very professional movie making team.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
At least it was a good Yes, it was a
terrific team.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, But watching the DVD, I got so much more
than I did from the book. Watching you work with people,
watching you know, because you do it, you work with
one person and it goes back and forth with you
working with one person and then working with a group.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
We wanted to give an honest appraisal of how learning
takes place, because most of the time, when you see things,
somebody says, well, I just changed my grip and everything
worked out fine. No it doesn't. There is not getting it.
It's part of getting it. And we wanted to take
a look at how we did that with an individual
and we did it with a group, and there's nothing there.

(05:53):
There's no editing in terms of let's try it again,
let's do a different cut, let's get a better one.
This is let's turn on the cameras and give a
real sense of how learning takes place, and that's what
we wanted to do. Well.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Not getting it is getting it is exactly what struck
me because the multiple times that we've had conversations, you
would ask me a question, I'd answer it and I'd
feel kind of stupid, like I think I get it.
I kind of understand right, And it was so nice
to see other people's faces not saying that they didn't

(06:29):
get it, but it's like, oh okay, they kind of
feel stupid saying yes they get it, but you can
see their heads spinning, like I need to process this
more before I answer you.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
Well, if I questions any good, it's going to take
a little bit of thinking and looking and experiencing to
make a difference. We're so used to the first, already
made answer to pop out, rather than let's say, let
me look at this for a while, let me run
it through my experience and come out with my own answer,
and that the answer of that or the the experience,
it makes a difference, not the teacher's answer.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Right right. It's not like the teacher, And that's what's
so beautiful about this. It's not like you ask a
question looking for a specific answer. There's no right or
wrong answer. You want honesty. You want the person to
really think about what's going on with them, and it's
going to be very different than the other person. Yes.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yes, some of the most important things in life we
don't learn in school. I mean, we don't learn about
how to be present and getting out of our head
in first grade. We don't learn about self trust in
second grade, or being able to deal with fear and doubt,
or how to honor a commitment in grammar school. These

(07:44):
are the most important things that they need to be
looked at and worked with and have a person come
out the other side with a greater capacity than when
they started with. And that's what we're looking at in
the video.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
For those in the audience who are here, your name
and you speak for the first time, can you give
a summation of I don't know if I want to
ask for the summation of Extraordinary Golf or the DVD. Well.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
I've done approximately forty two thousand individual lessons at about
one one hundred golf schools, and I haven't got of
a lot of conclusions, but I have some tentative conclusions. First,
awareness which is the simple act of being present is
maybe the only thing that cures, heals develops people. Like
I said in probably another podcast, Fred, that the difference

(08:36):
between you and I when we play is that I
experience more of where the club is when during swinging
than you do. I probably have a greater sense of
my body and what makes a difference by the experience
of solid contact. So that's the first thing. And the
second thing is that human beings are unique and in

(08:56):
many ways already whole and complete, and instead of trying
to fit them into some preconceived emotion or the swing,
d joure having people discover what they already have. See
if a golf school works really great after three days
people come out being themselves and seeing how terrific that is,
where their awareness highly heightened. Another thing about it I

(09:19):
would say about the DVD Extraordinary Golf, is how people's
actions and behavior are shaped by their point of view.
Most people, if you just a simple way of seeing
this is the balls, not the target. The target's out there,
and when your actions and behavior are related to that,
it's a very different game. Then please let me hit

(09:39):
the ball or survival. And the last thing we intend
it on the video to show an environment without evaluation
or judgment in which rapid complete learning could take place.
And my experience, that's the only environment that learning can
take place. So how can we, as bl student and

(10:01):
coach learn to let go of a judgment when it
arises and come back to the task at hand rather
than that was good, and that was bad, and that
was better, And give me another one of those to
actually begin to create a space in which a person
can be more present to the experience that's happening. And
it's the experience that teaches them, not the teacher. I mean,

(10:22):
I know we've talked about this before, but if you
had to learn to ride a bicycle, we could go
to the dictionary and study balance. That wouldn't help you.
Your buddy could talk to you about balance. That wouldn't
help you. But getting on the bike and actually the
distinction balance comes all in one moment. You just get it,
and when you get it, it's yours. And we're saying

(10:44):
that maybe golf was like that. Maybe the great distinctions
of where's the club face, swing plane, solid contact, alignment,
and letting go in freedom, maybe those can only be
discovered and can't be taught, we're creating an environment which
that could happen. So that's kind of in a nutshell.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
In the book, you had this one little analogy in there.
As a parent, I've always felt like you really cannot
teach your children from your experience, and that people seem
to I get frustrated watching people saying, well, I did
it this way, so that's how it's supposed to be done,

(11:29):
you know. And yet, as you point out in the book,
we don't teach a child how to walk. They have
to learn how to do it themselves. They have to
fall down, they have to understand balance innately before they
can start walking. But it seems like from that moment
on after they're walking, we're telling them how to do everything.

(11:49):
We don't let them experience it themselves.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Well, think of all the things we learned early in life,
you know, speech and balance and socialization skills and a
hundred other things that we learned before the age of
concepts and information began to be dominant, usually before the
age of five. Those are usually the things that were
best at in life, and after that point, understanding, concepts

(12:14):
and information come higher up in our hierarchy and the
experience goes down. And I know, I've just noticed throughout
all these years that people learn best from their experience,
and they learn best by struggling and not getting it.
In other words, it takes a while to get something.
But unless you can go through the struggle, and when

(12:36):
you do and complete it, it's yours at that point,
I mean, all development. I wouldn't necessarily call it a struggle.
I would maybe call it more than once. A lot
of people will try something in the driving range. After
two or three shots, it doesn't work, We'll go into
something else. Rather than saying can you stay until it
gets done? See, it would be like this. I've noticed

(12:57):
that very few people ever complete solid impact, solid hitting
on a go of a golf ball. And if you
don't get that, it's difficult to go on to the
next place. It would be like if I was play
tennis and hit the ball all over the middle of
the racket, and the tennis teacher would say, hey, let's
go on to court management. I would say, that's pretty

(13:18):
early to do that. I need to learn to hit
the ball first. Now, Fred, if if you knew without
a doubt you were going to hit a ball solidly,
let's say a fifty yard shot, Okay, got imagine that.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
If you knew you were going to hit it solidly,
what would you pay attention to during the swing and
before the swing you're sure you're going to hit it solidly,
what would you pay attention to? So?

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yeah, well I would avoid avoid the voices in the
head going, you know you hate a fifty yard shot.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
Okay, but you know you're gonna hit it solidly.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
But I know I'm going to, so I'm walking up
with total confidence.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah yeah, what would you pay attention?

Speaker 1 (14:00):
I would pay attention. Probably here we go again with
like feeling stupid about these answers about the target.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah, me too. And if you find that you're not
paying attention to the target having a relationship with it,
then you can be sure you never completed solid hit
and your body is saying to you, nope, I'm sorry.
You've got to get this done first before you go
out there. And there's a point in people's golf games
when they really kind of get golf that solid hit

(14:30):
becomes something that you take for granted. Another doesn't concern you.
I'm not talking about this perfectionist thing. The ball goes
about the height you want at about the distance you want,
and there's no doubt it's going to happen. Now, even
if you do hit one fat, there's no concern on
the next one. Now, when you get that, the whole
world of golf changes is it will never change again.

(14:53):
What becomes availability to create creativity, the capacity to sense
shots when you feel them in your body, the ability
to step on a tee and really play the golf
course the architect asked for, and you get a sense
you can hit shots. And one of the things we're
looking at, at least in the DVD, is how does a

(15:14):
person get to the point where they can complete this
so it gets done? I mean, imagine you're walking and
you're never sure you were going to be on balance,
or you drove a car and you're never sure what's
going to stay on the road. It would be a
scary endeavor. And I think for golf for most people
is like that. It's at a mostly at survival stage.
Please let me hit the ball and don't look silly.

(15:37):
Did you ever read any of There's something in psychology
in college though called Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and it
was a little pyramid instead of the base of human being.
There's air, of food, water, and shelter, and after that
you can get to creativity and community and all these
other things. But if you haven't got that, there's nowhere

(15:58):
else to go. And in golf, that baseline before there's
nowhere else to go is to complete solid hit. And
when you get that, all these other things are available
to you. And I think of the fundamental fundamental. I
used to think it was letting go in freedom. I
thought if people could get that, boy, golf would really

(16:18):
take off. But I've noticed in the last decade the
thing that people really ask for and concern about and
talk to each other about, and all these nice comments
about are a solid shot. So if it is such
a concern for us, and in fact almost like a need,
if you will, let's get it done. Go on to

(16:39):
the next thing that's much more interesting. So anyway, that
was a long discourse on how different I'm seeing golf
now than it was ten years ago.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, I don't worry about long. I'm doing about I'm
good with long. Why is it you know? I mean
we know that experience is the best here. And as
a solopreneur, failure is critical to my success. Because I
learn nothing, especially on the golf course. But I learn

(17:10):
nothing from doing things right, because then I'm just repeating
what I've tried to do, what I think I did right.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
If you're not failing and not stretching yourself.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
Right, and the golfer and on the golf course just
cannot handle even you know, failure could be missing a
putt from four feet, which is not failure.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
Well, I said to a friend of mine, one of
our coaches, about twenty years ago, I said, I think
you'll become a golfer when learning is more important to
you than the outcome of shot. And he took this
on and he could say honestly some years later that
that had actually transformed in him. See, we get so
hooked on outcomes at every moment that we give ourselves

(17:58):
very little space in which to learn and develop ourselves.
And it's you know, you and if you watch TV
and a golf telecast, you have, you know, two or
three hours in which that's all you hear about good shot,
bad shot, winning, losing right wrong, who's good, who's not,
what this will mean to his legacy, et cetera. It's
all about outcomes. You don't get a two hour discourse

(18:22):
on the fascination of learning, on the joy of learning,
and when when you can be over a shot, Like
if I step to the first teach, I was pretty
much like this. Okay, you know you have to do
a golf school.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
I stepped there.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
Everybody's oh, there's all what's his name? He'd watch him
hit it? Okay, so I step up, and my mind says,
almost always, if you mishit it, it'll invalidate the workshop. Okay,
thank you for sharing, because it says that forever it's
not big deal. But I can actually choose. I could say, listen,
wherever this ball goes. It may go straight, it may
not go straight, but I'm going to sure darn well

(18:57):
feel what it does. I'm going to experience what happens,
and I'm to learn from this shot. And this shot
is going to make a difference on the next one.
And I've noticed when I am that way, there's no
pressure at all, and I'm really into the shot, and
I find I just love that. Now, I love the
first d.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
And that will impact your success. And I'm sorry if
I use the word success.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
Why is it after one hundred years in this game,
we haven't figured out fully. That being present is the
access to success, getting out of your head and the
future and past outcomes that were in these scenarios all
the time. Just being there, feeling the club, sensing your body,
being with the target wherever you choose. To me, that's
the only way I've ever accessed great performance. And yet

(19:48):
my mind, like everybody else's mind, has concerns about outcomes
and how I'll look and what people will say, and
the whole story is the whole bit, like every other
human being. And that's automatic. It's just gonna happen. Now.
The question is can I observe it happening? Oh, my
mind just said, don't hit it right, let it alone,

(20:08):
and come back to the task at hand. See, that's
what you chain a tournament player to do. I was
doing that later this afternoon. The fellow is going to
be trying for tour school to be able to let
go of an irrelevant thought. You observe it, let it alone,
and come back to the task at hand. That's called
coming back, and that's what great tournament players have to do.

(20:30):
Most people get lost in these You know, I'm three
over for four, and I make it if I can
par the next six. I'll shoot thirty nine of them
that are in all way. You go this way yes, death, yes,
and we don't even know that we're gone in some
sort of in scenario story and coming back is quite
a remarkable thing. It's a talent. It's talent to be

(20:51):
nurtured and developed.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
To get rid of those sound, those voices in your head,
to get rid of that noise, to accept it, say yes,
it's there, as opposed to fighting it.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yes. I mean I don't know if anyone who ever
got rid of it. I mean I imagine that to
take anyone. I mean Martin Luther King when he was,
you know, marching into to some over that bridge. He
didn't say, oh boy, this is going to be fun.
That's not what his voice said. Had a lot of
things going on, but his commitment was bigger than that.
And that's the same thing. It's like, my voice is

(21:28):
pretty much the same thing. Since I'm a kid. It says,
you know, don't don't look bad here, and and I'd
like to be able to perform in front of people,
et cetera. So it's not going to change its scenario.
It's like the comedian with the same jokes, you know,
year after year. What I've been able to do more
of is to recognize, oh, it just said that, and

(21:51):
then to have a commitment to me, which is bigger
than that. People rise above something when they're committed to
something that's created than just this internal chatter, and that's
something that also can be coached. I don't see how
people play in tournaments very well without that, or even

(22:11):
with your friends.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
I mean, yeah, right, it could be even worse sometimes. Yes,
I need to break for a moment here for our sponsor,
but I think that it's going to lead in beautifully
to what we're talking about.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
Fred I liked it if I could talk a little
time about my passion. And that's how do people change
their actions. I've been looking at it now for about
forty years, and you know, I have you ever tried
to change people?

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Well other than my children know, but I know how
much luck I had with that.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
Yes, so it's pretty clear that people don't change because
you tell them to give them an instruction. Put the
club here, do that, you know, just get out of
your head, et cetera. They don't change because we give
them a doing instruction. So I did that for probably
a decade and people got a little better worse than
the game really didn't have that much more enjoyment, So

(23:07):
that was kind of like not a total flop, but
reasonably floppy. Then I had a chance to take a
look at and type of instruction called an awareness instruction.
This fellow Tim Galway was a great pioneer in this,
and he said, speak pay attention while you're doing this,
can you can you be pressed to what you're doing,
which was great, made a lot of difference, huge differences,

(23:28):
but in terms of actually transforming a person's relationship in
the game and really making it such that they were
almost like a new person coming out that didn't happen there.
So I like to take a look and a very
I'm going to do this quickly. Why do people change?
What really is the source of it? How do actions change?
So I'll give you the tentative look at this. At

(23:50):
this point, people's actions are always related to how the
world occurs for them. It's like this. If if you
were coming to a parking lot and there was one
space left and a kid with a red Camaro cut
you off, how would you how would he occur for you?

Speaker 1 (24:10):
How would he occur?

Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah? He cut you off and took your parking place.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
So not my reaction, I'm not I'm not sure. I
mean understand what you mean by how would he occur?

Speaker 3 (24:20):
Well, how how would this situation occur? And how would
this person seem to you who has just taking your
parking place.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
That they were being overly aggressive and unkind.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
Yes, so you would probably act to that related to
that with them, mer I would read it. That would
be a little standard stand office. Yes, but now I've
told you this person is bringing insulin to his mother
who's in the kitchen working there, and she's having a
diabetic time.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
So so there is ways of seeing the world that
empower us in ways that don't, and it's completely malleable.
In a golf school, you send a person out for
an exercise and they say they hit ten balls, and
they come back to see how was that? And I goes,
you know, they couldn't hit them, So I said, okay,
can I be you for a second. He goes sure,

(25:04):
He goes, Okay, my name is I'm Jim, and I
had ten balls and I made up a decision that
I sucked. I lost energy and went into resignation. Is
that true? He goes, yeah, can I be you again?
He goes, Okay, Hi, I'm Jim. I had ten balls,
and I could see this is the very thing I
came for. I feel if I could get through this,
I could really make a jump in my golf game.

(25:25):
And I find this incredibly challenging but worthwhile. Same ten shots,
different con.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
And different approach.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
Absolutely so I think one of the ways see what
I see people who really develop in this game, they
begin to use a way of speaking internal language, external language,
body language, written language, imageries language in such a way
that their interpretation of the events that happened.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
Empower them in life and forward the action and those
often interpretations. Unless you get this, beings will take the
most disempowering and call it reality like I suck, not
like I did the best I could. So I guess
one way if we're going to pay time today, is

(26:16):
I've got really a sense and an amazing power of
language in the language that human beings have, both internal
and externally, and how it shapes and creates the world. Literally,
speaking differently alters the chemistry and bio body and neuroscience
is proving this to be exactly true. Right now and

(26:36):
when a person can realize that the interpretation of the
world is not the only interpretation of the world, and
the certainty you have about the way the world is
may be the person that actually holds you to have
that kind of blind certainty. And there are different ways
of seeing things and different ways of looking at things,
and there are ways that you can choose to make
your life work. And that, to me was pretty much

(27:00):
a forty year process to realize that the greatest instruction
of all is to begin to examine the person ends
up with them, how the worlds them and how they
curfect find all the other come from golf awareness, solid content,
all that other stuff becomes a lot easier when the

(27:20):
person sees way.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, and that was part of my joy of watching
the DVD. And I just want to apologize the audience.
I know that the Skype connection here is a little
bit rough, but we are getting the essence of what
Fred's saying. But the thing that I was so excited
about watching the DVD that that connected for me was

(27:45):
when you were working with Michael Tucker, who I thought
that was very fun to work with somebody who we
kind of recognize, but you can see he's like the
everyman golfer.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
Yes, yes, and he allowed.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
Himself to be I guess the word to be exposed
this way, that his ego was out of the way
of This is the awareness part of when he became
aware where you know, we so often ourselves are seeing
somebody on the course who are trying to make corrections
with their swing during a round, which is even worse.

(28:21):
But if you ask them what did they experience? You know,
if they say, oh, well, I'm not coming through on
it all the way, it was like, well, what does
that feel like? What is that experience? And they can't
explain it.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
Well, they probably don't even experience it. They usually say
because the ball did something or their buddy told them right.
And when it was a real joy to watch Michael
actually experience what's going on and be able to be
more of his own coach than he ever was. That's
the high point of a coach. When somebody else can
be their own coach, that's the purpose of it.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
And that's what I think was so valuable again for
me on the DVD, and some day I would love
to participate in the school. Is that other schools that
I've seen, I've heard, I've participated, and you walk away
from the school and you want to fall. You want
to call them and follow up, how did wait a minute,
what did I do this again? You know, why isn't

(29:13):
this working anymore? But that's not the sense I get
that you walk away from extraordinary golf from no.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
The capacity to coach yourself is what most people ask
for because you're with yourself. You know, we're with you
all most of the time. And if you could be
a person when you miss hit a shot to actually
experience how you do it, it's far less, you know,
upsetting then if you miss it a shot and you
have no idea what goes on, but you make up
cats phrases like I was too quick, and I came up,

(29:42):
came over the top.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
Lifted my head always, that's my favorite.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
It covers all sins, yeah right, without a clue what's
going on exactly. And most often, but the lifting the
head is a brilliant solution, so the person doesn't bury
the club four inches in the ground. So most often,
even the things that we some times feel our solutions,
the problems that come earlier and we have to bring
our attention to earlier and earlier in the swing to

(30:07):
find out what's actually going on.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
And not to get into the mechanics because that's not
what it's about. But visually getting the opportunity to see
you know, the and you and hear your explanation of
about the base of the swing. You know that it's
a circle and the bottom point of the circle, where
does that land? That was an that.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
Was yeah, yes, is to change mechanics by awareness, right,
So if someone said it your mechanical school, absolutely, but
we don't go about the mechanics by trying to you know,
get this whole conceptual informational thing. But by experience. You
you mechanically have a good walk. You mechanically can drive
a car well, but you didn't learn it that way.
You learned it by trusting the experience and falling sometimes.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah, reading the book, watching the video, talking to you.
It is so exciting for me because of the kind
of approach that I love about golf is that I'm
walking away with it, not with the terms you know,
loosen the grip, relax the shoulders, follow through, make sure

(31:16):
that I get a full I'm not walking away with
those terms. I'm walking away with perspective, awareness, presence, experience.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yea golf after a golf lesson golf should be simpler
and less in your head than before, or lesson you're here?
Are you?

Speaker 1 (31:38):
Are? You? Did the golf industry hate you? And because
because I just can imagine all these teachers want to
teach these things that you're not teaching, and then you're
kind of making them obsolete if people follow and understand
this concept.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
No, I think everybody's doing the best they can, every teacher.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
And every parent.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
And what happens. People have certain experiences in life that
shape them and change them. And you know, when you've
seen be on the billboard at the edge of town,
you can't go back again. I really got that. Really,
this isn't conceptual but awareness. It's what really makes a
difference with people. And my job is not to put
a person in their head through golf lessons, but to

(32:18):
have them have a greater range of experiences than they've
ever had before, direct experiences in the moment they're happening.
And when that happens, of course people learn. How could
you not Well, you're very good at your job, Fred,
Well we'll see no.

Speaker 1 (32:34):
No, come on, how many how many people did you
say you've given lessons to lot. Yeah, tens of thousands,
forty three thousands, amazing and the fact that you keep
track of that, how do you? Well, this is episode
number four hundred two, so who am I to speak?
Well again, I will give all the details about the

(32:54):
DVD because we have the DVD available here at golf
smarter dot com. We also have the books available, and
I'll give more details later. But again, congratulations on a
phenomenal production, and thank you again for sharing your time
with us. I always greatly greatly appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
Well, thank you for your openness to the conversation. You know,
I really appreciate the way you let it go anywhere,
and I just really liked that sort of thing. Well, thanks,
very