Breaking Free from Precision Obsession: Embrace "In The Ballpark" Play in Your Game

Ready to debunk some widely held beliefs about precision in game development? We're here to challenge the notion that exactness in movement leads to better performance. Drawing on motor learning research, we argue that the human brain responds better to a more generalized approach. Excessive reliance on precise machinery for measurement can actually obstruct our ability to learn and adapt.

Whether you're a beginner trying to refine your golf swing or an experienced player tweaking your tennis serve, this discussion is for you. We bring to you a fascinating perspective on how stepping away from perfection and embracing the concept of "in the ballpark" can unlock efficient patterns of movement. We also delve into the evolutionary learning mechanisms and how they support this approach. By the end of this conversation, you'll discover a more liberating and freeing way to play your game. So, are you ready to drop the precision obsession and play "in the ballpark"?

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

In terms of developing your game from a technical perspective. There is a counterintuitive notion that has been arrived from motor learning research over the years and that is that your brain really doesn't like precise details in terms of movement. It likes what we call in the ballpark. This goes against so much of modern coaching, modern teaching, with all the ideas of very specific positions and angles and degrees that we have got lost. We've got lost in the ability of machines to measure at the expense of humans to learn. Think about that. We've got lost in the ability of machines to measure at the expense of humans being able to learn. There is not enough research being done about transferring information from machinery and gadgets into the brain to make more efficient or to change movements in some way, and the current understanding, as I have it from pretty extensive research around the motor learning literature, is that precise details are just not what the brain responds well to. You know, we can think back to when we were kids. In all sports we just really didn't get given or hopefully we didn't get given too precise information. We were just told to swing the golf club. I allowed to swing the golf club and we kind of found a pattern of movement. Most times that was pretty efficient. One of the interesting things is that if you get even a beginner and you say to them I've got three back swings here, pick which one you like and you swing the club very upright. You swing the club very flat and then you swing the club somewhere in between, pretty much every beginner will pick the middle. One Will pick the for once a better way of describing it the correct movement. We kind of instinctively know in a general sense what the correct movement is. I don't have any knowledge of hockey at all, I've never played the game but I would make a reasonable stab at a hockey motion. The same would apply to cricket tennis. Of course these movements wouldn't be perfect, but very easily we kind of get a sense of where in the ballpark should be. This doesn't just apply to beginning golfers, it applies to across the board.

Speaker 1: 3:02

And if you've got yourself caught up over the years in trying to be too precise, trying to be too perfect, cover a change of direction and go more to the concept of in the ballpark. So let's say, for instance, what you feel that your takeaway is incorrect. Well, exaggerate either side, take the club away too much on the inside deliberately. Take it too much on the outside and see if you can feel in the ballpark between those two, trap the feeling in between the two. If it's a backswing situation, you want to change anything with that.

Speaker 1: 3:44

Again, swing it to up right, swing it too flat, and see if you can sense in the middle. You know, with puts, hit it to the left, hit it to the right and your brain will work out that middle ground. It comes back to, I believe, an evolutionary mechanism that we have of learning by finding that middle way, the middle way we've discussed previously about how a baby learns to walk. A baby learns to walk not by getting it right, but by falling to the left, falling to the right, falling forward, falling back, and eventually they trap the feeling somewhere in the middle. And again, this idea of in the ballpark, a general sense, is so liberating.

Speaker 1: 4:23

If you want trying to work on your path of your swinging, instead of being absolutely hamstrung and tied up by precise numbers on launch monitors, swing the golf club too far to the right, swing the golf club too far to the left deliberately, and then see what the middle print out is, see where you are on a launch monitor when you've exaggerated either side, you've found the extremes one way to the right, to the left, and see if you can get somewhere in the ballpark.

Speaker 1: 4:55

The same would apply for the club face. Swing the golf club into the ball with the face deliberately open to the right. Swing it into the ball with the club face deliberately pointing to the left and then see if you can sense somewhere in the middle in the ballpark of those two positions. As I say, it really is counter-intuitive. It's not the way that the game is generally taught, but it is, as I understand it, brain-compatible to stop trying to be so precise, stop trying to be so perfect and just find in the ballpark and you'll find that when you do get in that ballpark it's a much more liberating and freeing way to play the game.