I was taking my final golf lesson last Friday and I was reflecting on how little I knew about how to swing a golf club when I started the lessons about six weeks ago. I have been playing golf for years and I thought I was doing some things right. Apparently not.
These are the things that I was doing wrong when I arrived for my first lesson according to Ms. Smartypants, my teaching professional.
(1) My grip was wrong
(2) My posture was not good.
(3) My tempo was too fast.
(4) My right leg moved when I took my back swing.
(6) My follow through was wrong.
(7) My body swayed front to back on my swing.
(8) My left arm was floppy on the swing.
(9) I didn't turn my hips through the shot.
(10) My arms didn't stay together on the swing.
(11) Some other stuff.
I asked the pro if I did anything right and she said, and this is the truth, "Your shoes are on the right feet." I checked to be sure.
I was thinking about this in gardening training yesterday. A bunch of stuff that I thought I knew turned out to be wrong. I was even digging holes wrong. I was talking to my friend Arturo on the way home, comparing the things that we thought we knew that turned out to be wrong. It's a lot of things.
Oftentimes when I do something right is is purely accidental. This is a picture of a blue potato bush on the side of our house. I posted a couple of weeks ago that I had cut it down because Larry the Bug Guy was bitching about it. It had become so big that it blocked the walkway. It turns out chopping it to the ground was the correct way to save the plant.
For years we have been pruning this bush with hedge shears, which turned it into a leafy box that was hollow in the middle. The leaves on grow on new shoots, so when you use hedge trimmers on it the leaves grow exclusively on the tips of the branches. The plant just keeps getting bigger and you cant trim it back because you will have to cut off all the leaves to do it.
One thing I learned yesterday is the correct way to trim the bush. Hedge trimmers are only supposed to be used to trim hedges. That seems so obvious, doesn't it? Using them to trim bushes is a disaster in the making. I learned that there is a correct way to trim bushes that you want to keep looking like bushes, but before I can get to that for this bush, it had to be cut to the ground so that it could start anew.
I suppose that is true of life in general. Sometimes you have to cut out the crap you are doing, in order to be able to get a fresh start. Is that fricking insightful or what?
Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky
3 comments:
Insightful and true! I'm glad the potato bush bounced back. As for thinking you know things, that's a mistake we all make -- when we think we know, we close off to what may really be true!
That IS insightful. It has totally been true in my life, except for the fresh start part.
I bet you were holding the proper end of your golf club. And using a golf club instead of a baseball bat. And wearing clothes that allowed movement. And actually hitting the ball on many of your swings. And aiming toward the proper hole. And using the proper number of balls (1) for each swing. And keeping your eyes open. And swinging from a standing position rather than sitting or lying down. And swinging away from the ball first, and then toward it instead of the other way around. And using both hands. And a whole bunch of other stuff you and your instructing professional are just taking for granted.
Post a Comment