Too Many Minds

I received the below email from Ben over the weekend. I like it and highlights my thoughts on automatic learning for golf.

Too many minds:

A while back when on a plane I was watching a Tom Cruise movie called ‘The Last Samurai’, (and yes I know what you’re thinking but the truth is there wasn’t much else on).
It’s about an American soldier in the 1800’s who ends up in Japan and is captured by the Samurai. Over time of course he becomes one of them.

In the particular scene I want to discuss, our hero, Tom, is trying to learn to sword fight as a Samurai and is consistently getting bashed and beaten by the main Samurai warrior. During this you can see in his eyes the thought process taking place, how he’s analyzing the situation and evaluating his next move – all to no avail – he still keeps getting whacked.

Then another Samurai, a young one, says to him ‘too many minds’. Tom thinks about this and from that point on you can see the thoughts and clutter begin leave his mind. He stops analyzing and plotting, stops thinking about all the detail, past and future moves and simply starts doing. Of course this works and he succeeds in winning a bout. All because he let his intuitive side work and, figuratively, stopped getting in his own way.

Being creative is like that.

Too often we get so caught up in the thinking part that we get in the way of the creative flow. We tend to over analyze, over evaluate and over compensate, we try too hard when what we really need to do is purge our ‘too many minds’ and simply trust the creative process to do it’s thing.

Whether you’re participating in martial arts or golf it’s vitally important to learn to get out of your own way and trust your subconscious to do what it does best. Perform!