This is part of the many ideas that I’ve wanted to address with the Youth hockey team that I coach but either just simply ran out of time or there were bigger issues to address.

post is still in progress

When I was about 18, I was impressed upon by my dad to learn how to hit a golf ball. I didn’t love Golf like he does, but I liked the driving range from time to time.

The teacher was a semi-Pro, his wife had a huge flower store near downtown Montreal and amongst the flower pots in the basement, this guy had the most ridiculous indoor golf setup I had ever seen. His teaching seemed so basic at the beginning that I wanted to just get out of there. He knew it from my body language and he said “Just trust me, I know it’s boring”. I think the first 10 lessons didn’t even involve any hitting much less a ball. We took hours each lesson on the exact grip strength at the various stages, feel of the club, swing tempo, swing angle, arm angle, arm tension, club angle, approaching the ball.

By the time we actually got to hit, I think his simulator read a high loft 150 yards dead straight with the 7 iron. His first comment was “Okay, now we can add some swing speed”, and his last comment at the last lesson was “Okay that one in particular went further than I can hit now”. Unfortunately I am still lukewarm on golf and I’ve only played a handful of games since (by the way, I am still not amazing by any account).

The couple of things he said to me that helped me the most that I still hold onto is “You are just a platform that swings, the golf ball just happens to be in the way” and “It’s not a baseball swing, straighten out your right arm and at a neutral angle when you contact”.

About 10 years later, my wife and I signed up to a Co-ed softball team. She played competitive when she was young and I had played house league baseball. I was never a strong kid growing up, so my coach at the time had me hit for contact to get the ball into play. Half a season in, my wife told me something like “You have so much swing speed in you, I think you could try to hit it for distance”, those words completely changed how I hit over that season and I got distance that I had only dreamed about. All because I took a moment and thought about the grip strength, approach and swing tempo, and similarities and differences between a softball swing and a golf swing. And remembering that I am just a platform that swings a bat, the softball just happens to be in the way.

So a few lessons here

  • You can’t force someone to fall in love with a sport
  • Trust the coach’s process and have a beginner’s mindset
  • Cross training unlocks when the athlete understands the application
  • Sometimes you need a 3rd party to observe your game from the outside