The Performance Room
A podcast that likes to dive deeper, and where performance thinking evolves
The Performance Room
"We're talking about practice"
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“We’re talking about practice.”
But perhaps not in the way golf normally talks about it.
Practice is often discussed as though the central problem is simply choosing the correct drill, finding the right practice schedule or accumulating enough repetitions.
But every practice session contains a theory of learning—whether the player or coach recognises it or not.
When we repeatedly rehearse the same movement from the same place, under the same conditions, we are making assumptions about how skill develops and how it will eventually transfer to the golf course.
When we constantly correct errors, prescribe positions or try to make movement look more consistent, we are also communicating something to the player:
That variation is a problem.
That mistakes need to be removed.
That the coach knows the solution.
And that successful practice should look controlled, orderly and predictable.
The problem is that good practice performance is not necessarily evidence of learning.
Blocked repetition can make a session look fluent because the player knows what is coming next and can reuse the same solution. Random or interleaved practice may create greater difficulty, but the evidence does not support treating “random beats blocked” as a universal law—particularly when we move from controlled laboratory tasks into complex sporting environments. The effects depend on the learner, the task, the level of complexity and what is actually measured as transfer (Czyż et al., 2024).
This is why practice cannot be judged only by how well the player performs during the session.
A player can hit twenty excellent seven-irons from a perfect lie and become better at completing that particular exercise without necessarily becoming more capable of solving the problems they will face in competition.
The more important question is:
What information is the player learning to use?
Representative Learning Design argues that practice needs to preserve the important information–movement relationships found in competition. Practice does not need to reproduce every detail of the golf course, but it must allow the player to perceive relevant information, make decisions and regulate movement in relation to the task (Pinder et al., 2011).
Without that functionality, practice may contain physical similarity without containing meaningful action fidelity.
The movement might look like golf.
The environment might look like golf.
But the player may not be solving a golfing problem.
This becomes even more important when we stop viewing the golfer as a machine made up of separate components and begin viewing them as a complex adaptive system.
From this perspective, skilled movement is not produced by one part working independently. It emerges through the continuous interaction of the performer, the task and the environment. Coordination adapts as intentions, emotions, fatigue, confidence, equipment, lies, targets and environmental conditions change (Davids, 2015).
That means we cannot assume that changing one technical component will produce a simple, predictable change in performance.
The player adapts.
The rest of the system reorganises.
And sometimes the “correction” creates consequences that were never anticipated.
This does not mean technique is unimportant.
It means technique cannot be separated from the context in which it must function.
It also means movement variability is not automatically noise to be eliminated. Skilled performers do not reproduce an identical movement on every attempt. They stabilise the outcome while continually adapting how the movement is organised.
The aim of practice, therefore, may not be to build one perfect swing that survives only under controlled conditions.
It may be to develop a player capable of finding functional solutions across changing conditions.
In this episode of The Performance Room, Terry Rowles and Stuart Morgan explore:
Why practice that looks successful may not transfer.
Why blocked and random practice have become overly simplified coaching labels.
Why the information contained within a task may matter more than the drill itself.
Why movement variability can support adaptability rather than represent technical failure.
Why players should be understood as complex adaptive systems rather than machines to be engineered.
And why the beliefs beneath our practice methods may be more influential than the methods themselves.
Because beliefs do not merely describe practice.
They organise it.
They shape what coaches notice, what they correct, what they tolerate and what they interpret as progress. They influence whether difficulty is seen as productive exploration or evidence that the session is failing.
Mindsets can orient people toward particular expectations and responses, especially under challenge and uncertainty. They are therefore not passive opinions; they can influence how experiences are interpreted and acted upon (Crum et al., 2020).
So perhaps the most valuable question is not:
“What drill should I do?”
Perhaps it is:
“What does this drill teach the player to perceive, decide and adapt to?”
And beneath that:
“What belief about learning made us design practice this way?”
We’re talking about practice.
But we are also talking about transfer, adaptability, information, beliefs and the type of player our practice environment is quietly creating.
🎙️ The Performance Room — with Terry Rowles and Stuart Morgan
References
Crum, A. J., Akinola, M., Martin, A., & Fath, S. (2020). The role of stress mindset in shaping cognitive, emotional, and physiological responses to challenging and threatening stress. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 33(4), 379–395.
Czyż, S. H., Wójcik, A. M., & colleagues. (2024). The effect of contextual interference on transfer in motor learning: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Davids, K. (2015). Athletes and sports teams as complex adaptive systems: A review of implications for learning design. Revista Internacional de Ciencias del Deporte, 11(39), 48–61.
Pinder, R. A., Davids, K., Renshaw, I., & Araújo, D. (2011). Representative learning design and functionality of research and practice in sport. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 33(1), 146–155.
Instagram: @stuartmorgangolf @Iceberggolf @terryrowles
Email: stuart@iceberg-golf.com
You know, like the famous Alan Iverson quote of like when he was there people talking about like his commitment to the game, and he's like, What, we're talking about practice? So in golf we're we're kind of that's what we're gonna look at and all we're gonna discuss. But kind of if we look at it, like what what what is it kind of like where should we start? Because there's there's a lot of different things kind of like floating around and different concepts and so on and so forth. But what where should we start with this?
SPEAKER_05Well, I think simply put, what is the purpose of practice? Like if you just define the outcome first, and then you can design the means to achieve it, I would think. So something along the lines of I mean, it depends what people's goals are, right? Because clearly there's uh there's different levels of players, and they play for different reasons, to be with a family, to strike the ball well, to win the open, you know, whatever it is. So so your goals, and then possibly the amount of time that you have to achieve your goals is a different variable. Uh, you know, determines what kind of tool or toolbox of practice that you're going to use. So that that to me is is then you know, which tool do we need and when do we need it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so that kind of comes to me, like somebody says to me, Well, a person, I get so frustrated with a person turning up on a Friday afternoon for a golf lesson and he's playing the medal or the stable foot on the Saturday morning. Well, if you're an adaptable coach, you go, Well, this player just needs a performance fix right now that's hopefully gonna stick around for long enough for when he plays that kind of competition tomorrow. He's not interested in like a practice plan that kind of goes down the road of like learning because he probably doesn't have time for that, right? So I think that's the kind of context that you're talking about, but it also means that you know, you see with like elite golfers, and as they get higher up the rankings, their time becomes precious. So it's like, well, if I had five or six hours when I'm just like an emerging pro coming onto the circuit, when I get to the top level, I'm probably looking at two if I'm if I'm lucky. So it's like, what does my practice look like to get the most out of those kind of hours that I'm that I'm kind of putting in?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and then uh, you know, making the the decision based on that question, right? There's a rational rationality to I've got two hours, what will I do with it, versus I'm gonna go and practice, which ultimately for most people just means I'm gonna hit some balls, right, without any structure. I mean, if you exaggerate, and then it and that becomes either a habit or a um trying to think of the right word. A I mean it's almost institutionalized, right? That everyone sort of does the same thing.
SPEAKER_03But that's also like we'll come on to this in a different show as well. But that's like their their behaviors have been driven by their beliefs of like what they've been told, what they've been you know, I saw something the other day where like a really elite golfer, you know, practicing in a in a way that you go, well, I could add I can add parts up to this, and it doesn't make any sense, but I don't know what he's actually thinking or what he's actually doing when he's practicing it. So I don't know like the context of it. And I think what what happens in golf, I think we talk about a lot of like what needs to be practiced, like the but then it's like this under layer of like, well, how do we do that?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and I think uh you know, if I try and bucket it right now in my head, is to say, who've we got? You know, you've got a club golfer, not a competitive, you know, club champion kind of golfer. You maybe you've got a regional, you know, club champion stroke, plays in local events, and and but has a full-time job, and then you've got you know juniors, you know, parents who want their kids to do well over the next 10 years, maybe they get a good scholarship or um you know ultimately go and play at a high level. And then you've got professionals that you know already have developed most of their skills. Uh so I guess you could look at those like slightly differently. Um you know um so so then it's a question of understanding how much time have you got and how do you make the most of your time. And this is where I think people don't appreciate like your position as an expert of practice and practice coach, is that there's actually more branches on that tree than than you realize if you really were to get ahead of it and say, okay, let's plan how to practice for the next one month, six months, one year in order to achieve you know whatever goal. And that might be, you know, I've just missed three cuts and I need to practice in a way that helps me to you know gain some control over my game this week, or you know, whatever it might be, but it's always contextual and should be you know the the decision over short, medium, or long term needs to be made every single time, I guess.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I I mean I talk to players about this all the time. I'm not going, well, if you're on week four of four, right, your Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday should look different than your week one of four, right? And then and then when you you know whether you've made a cut or missed a cut, you know, let's say you missed the cut, but you're still travelling, you're not going home, your Saturday, Sunday is looks different than obviously when you when you're playing. So it's not a linear process, it's like you're adapting like all the time. And and I and I think this there's too much gets or like I I give somebody a practice task, right? I and if you go on the internet, you go on like AI and say, give me a practice task, right? And it'll just like spit out freaking 50 of them. But you don't know, but you don't actually know if that practice task is relevant for that player and what that player is is taking from that practice practice task and when they're doing it. So that's where the complexity kind of comes in.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I know. It's um it's it's uh you know, in order to get the most out of someone's game, it's definitely a complicated task. And I think you know, it comes back to kind of cultural norms. I think um, you know, when you say to the general public, you know, go and practice, um, you know, they'll hit a few balls, bang a few drivers, may or may not aim, you know, feel good because they didn't aim. You know, yeah. If you never aim, you never miss your target.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_05Um, you know, so ultimately maybe they're practicing some kind of tempo, or you know, they feel good because they struck it well or something like this. Um but you know, clearly the demands of the game are different. You've got to hit it and not lose it. You know, make sure you're kind of hitting it in the direction you intended to, you know, about the right direction, things like this. And so the skills of the game don't always go back to the way that you know the vast majority of people practice. And then secondly, uh, you know, I think there's a there's a really big elephant in the room in regards to practice, which is um, you know, if the whole world is uh if all you got is a hammer, the whole world is nails or something like this. Yeah, probably butchered that one a little bit. But um, but the point being is if if you're not playing well, then you have to make a technical change. You know, so that's sort of the overriding concept that that people have. And you know, having spent a lot of time with you know extremely high-end players, that's not always the case, right? I think people don't really appreciate when tour players generally, like the vast majority that have been successful for a significant period of time, are at a tournament, they're preparing for the conditions, checking how far the ball is going, is it doing what we think it is? Is something wrong with my clubs? Maybe if it's not, you know, my nine-irons different to my rest of my set. You know, what what specific short game skills do I need this week? You know, the grass is different, you know, how far is it bouncing and rolling? You know, so there's a lot of kind of calibration practice that people do that, you know, when you stand back and look at it, you might think they're if you know you impose your own beliefs on top of them, you work in their swing or you know, whatever, but they're they're very engaged in in preparing for the for the task at hand that week, which is you know, how do I you know hit the ball closer to the hole and everybody else?
SPEAKER_03And that I mean that is what came out in my um in my PhD research as well, like this clear um differentiated factors between that everybody sees that, right? So somebody will walk down the driving range on a Monday or Tuesday at a tour event, and I'll see a player do it hitting like I don't know, ten wedges, right? They don't know what they're doing with those ten wedges, like whether they're trying to take spin-off, change flight, you know, add five, take five off. They just don't they don't know, but they're seeing it as okay, they see like they're hitting ten wedges, right? That's that's all they see. But but the fact of the matter is we don't know how these players practice unless we know what they do when they're at home. Yeah, because that because that's really where the the nuts and bolts happen. Like that's really where they do the the primary work, and that comes down to this the paradigm in in practice that's been around for ages. Am I learning, am I performing? So when I go to a tournament and I see a player doing hitting 10 drivers in a row, well, if they're struggling with their driver, that's what I'd recommend them to do because they need to like they need to find something that works. Yeah, exactly. You know, but if they're if they're in a process of going, ah right, I so I I need to prepare, I'm one of the best players in the world, I need to prepare for the demands of like major championship golf. So these are the shots I'm gonna need, this is the skills I'm gonna need. So my practice then needs to look like this. But I don't think that happens. I think they understand the conceptual view of like what needs the what they need to have, but how they go about it, and again, this comes through the data, it's a little bit sort of like all over the place, basically.
SPEAKER_05So that's how much did the pros talk about acceptance of what they have and then just take what they have to the tournament?
SPEAKER_03Well when they when they took when they're going to at a tournament, so we did we did Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday interviews, and we did one week before, and one week and two weeks before. So like before they kind of like went to travel. So we we kind of like charted it or like kind of tracked it, and then I asked them like questions on that. And yeah, it's you know, they miss a cut, they go into a different space, they they get to a tournament, they're looking at the task at hand, you know. That's that's kind of what it comes down to. But it but that's that's a different practice decision, right? Whereas somebody who doesn't have that kind of understanding of that or that lens will look at this and they'll start to create a paradigm of going, look at this player, he's hitting um five putts from the same position doing this, that all these elite players are doing block practice when they get to a tournament. I'm like going, you have no idea what they're doing, like absolutely no idea.
SPEAKER_05Or for what reason, you know, what are they trying to achieve, right? Um yeah, so then if you look at that as two different things, I think we reflected a bit on calibrating, uh accepting rational outcomes, I would say. I mean, that comes back to um you know the the work of uh Kahneman and Thaler. How do you make decisions in an uncertain world? Um, you know, relatively successful players do what they know they have a higher probability of doing, I would say, and they they practice in order to find out what that is. Um they're not you know taking you know random risks through things that they haven't practiced or they're not calibrated to do. But let's say I would say when you put practice out there for the general public, um I think somehow there's a sense that it always positively correlates to getting better. It's like, oh, if only I had so much time, I'd play every day and I'd get so much better, but that's not always the case, right?
SPEAKER_03So you know, but people think people want like let's say there's somebody goes into a session, right? And you do like a supervised practice session and they're literally splating all over the place and whatnot, they they might go away thinking, oh, this is a terrible, like terrible session, but actually it might have been a really good learning session for them because they understand themselves a little bit more. I can't, I don't want to do that, I don't want to do this. Yeah, whereas if they go away from it, just absolutely flushing the pants off of it, they're in a performance state, right? Where they just like oh yeah, it makes me feel good, and they're then they're two different things.
SPEAKER_05That's right. So so then you look at uh you know, like the general public, you know, as I said, they they're gonna go away and um you know grind on their swing, for example, um, trying to create some muscle memory. And and uh, you know, that comes back to you know the the paradigms out there is like you should grind, kind of do the same thing all the time as if you're uh you know scratching a groove on a record or something like this, or do we then you know go fully in the opposite direction and say, you know, no two shots are the same in golf, so you play golf like you you practice golf like you play golf. I mean, it's sort of the two extremes of practice that are out there, I suppose.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and they um the the first one is yeah, I mean it's it's a logical myth, basically. It may it makes us think that it it predates like you go back to like the 70s, and it's like going, well I need to just like wire this into myself so it doesn't become so when I when I add like pressure to it, it's like so robust that it just like fires through, right? Yeah, but but actually it's the opposite of that. So the the the nervous system will kick in and go, Oh my god, I have one solution for this, yeah. So I'm now gonna shit myself when I get an opportunity of like hitting a different shot, or like there's levels of pressure that I've never experienced, and go, well, if I don't do this, then I'm in deep trouble. And you know, it comes, it it actually gets built from um Nassim Taleb's um fragility and anti-fragility. You know, there's that goes into motor learning and motor control, you know, as well. And it's um and then it goes in like we we look at the research of that, you that goes into like Balagay and and John Kiley talking about this within like rehabilitation, you know, you can't just you can't just like make somebody like rehab and do an exactly the same movement, you know. Why did a Bosey ball come about? Yeah, right, because it because it's creating fluctuations in the ankle, right, to actually engage the nervous system to go, well, this is where my stability lies.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_03Whereas in golf, I think if we have this like linear model of going, I need to do the same stuff over and over again, it doesn't really end well.
SPEAKER_05Well, I think that's um I mean it's very similar to when we talk about the swing, right? In terms of uh Bernstein degrees of freedom, where people are in the golf swing, but also within practice or within their behavior are trying to control variability through you know certainty and predictability and linear thinking and engineering kind of thinking. And it's just you know, it doesn't really work, but it's it's kind of hard to say, you know, it's either A or B, right? It's either completely regimented and stiff, or you know, the the opposite is absolutely crazy, right? And so the reality is, and that's why you know I want to.
SPEAKER_03You don't need to be Bob or Watson, and you don't need to have Ryson de Chambeau. Like if there's no, you know, there's a there's a spectrum kind of in there somewhere.
SPEAKER_05I think I'm on it. Uh so I think that's where it comes to to you, and I you know, I wonder, you know, in terms of like my my brain always works, like what's the kind of map of the whole world, and then where does this thing fit into it? So so within your world as as a practice expert, how would you help, you know, let's say you got in a room with like 50 club golfers or something like this, like how would you set up the uh kind of the themes to say that they can start to think a little bit better for themselves in terms of how to decide what to do? Because again, it if if the whole if all you got is a hammer of the whole world is nails, you know, people listen to practice, they go to the range to work on their swing, right? Which is I don't know how achievable that is, but um maybe there's but but ultimately they work on their swing in order to score better or to strike the ball better or to have a better face-to-path, or you know, and so without setting that as an objective though, right? They don't have feedback on their face-to-path, they don't have feedback on their contact quality, and they don't really have any practice that relates anything to scoring. So so how would you throw out the paradigm?
SPEAKER_03Let's say me and you did a um did a camp, which we're kind of like, or like a retreat, which we're kind of thinking about doing, right?
SPEAKER_05We will do it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we will definitely do it. Um the big thing for me is like what are they doing, what their beliefs are around what they're doing, where are the gaps? But the big thing is, um, and uh Kali Charrot talks about this massively in her research, is like you have to experience it. So if you you have to like experience and feel something different, right, to be able to really understand it. There's no good just saying, oh, this this does this, this does this. So it's not just about information, it's the application of that information. And and this kind of like ties in as well, like when I when I reflect on like what I you know my career when I made this kind of like a shift what the the players that had the the highest level of I'm not saying success, but the highest level of movement from where they started to where our relationship just like went like moves on, and that's okay. Are the ones that I'm with them, right? And I'm experiencing this practice with them. And what we found out in recent research by um a really brilliant colleague at um or somebody I know from the University of Limerick when I'm doing my PhD, like or Phil Kearney, they've looked at research based on like um task difficulty and like like things like challenge point and whatnot. And what happens is when players of let's say golfers are left on their own, they lower their standards to meet their I feel like I'm stretching myself, but I'm gonna change the task so I don't really stretch myself. So so that kind of adds up to me is like when I'm with a player, I can Stretch them and like really kind of like challenge their practice and make some changes, but when I'm not, I'm kind of managing it a little bit more. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_05It's like yeah, I I I like it. I think uh it reminds me of a story where in the same generation you had uh Colin Montgomery and VJ Singh, you know, and I understand Colin Montgomery's practice to be you know hit two clubs, two balls with every club. So you know it's like 26 balls, maybe max. And um, you know, he was not at all a renowned practicer. And I even remember, you know, we're working for Ledbetter, he left his clubs in the workshop there and you know he didn't touch them for the whole time that he was off. And um and then the opposite, of course, is uh is Vijay Singh, right, who you know famously spent all day and some of the evening a bit like Bryson on the on the range. And you know, theoretically, you could say that they achieved the same thing when they left the range, you know, which is you know they did enough practice and they feel good about going to play now, which is kind of interesting, right? So ultimately, you've got to ask yourself the question is what is the practice for? Because you can potentially do a lot less steps and a lot less. Well, you know, I I think again, Kahneman, Thaler, Diversky, they you know, what it reminded me of when you when you talked about the challenge point was that you know golf is a tremendously uncertain game, of course. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it is exactly like that, it's unbelievably liberating.
SPEAKER_05Like it's really exactly and you know, it it's like some kind of uh um you know hidden challenge that you have to uncover every single time you go and play. If you think of it like that, I'm gonna discover it. Uh I have the tools to discover this game each time. It's a much more liberating way of playing. But I think what you're saying is when people are left on their own, they um they probably have to find it.
SPEAKER_00I have to find it. Like, yeah, let me let me make sure they try to find, you know?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's like so comfort and certainty and predictability, all of which the game doesn't really give you when you actually play it.
SPEAKER_03But there was that there was actually like some research done back in the 30s, right? Of like every movement is um is reconstructed in the moment, right? So it completely dismisses like this principle like we have something or we don't, you know, it's like it's so contextually driven. So so what we're actually trying to do is prepare players to actually make those decisions and have the tools in the moment that they play. Yeah, I love it. Right? It's just that's that's just kind of what comes down to it, and I think we're also like we spoke yesterday and we had a a you know really kind of interesting like discussion on this. And my like I I'm not an academic, right? I'm a coach, right? But I've I decided to go and do a PhD because I was curious. And what I would say from doing this PhD hasn't I think it's just made me a better thinker, right? I don't whatever comes out of it comes out of it. My journey is like it's improved me in this aspect of of thinking and understanding kind of what we're what we're trying to do, right? And and being able to kind of filter this kind of stuff. And it it kind of ties into a lot, like when you look at like research, and you look at I don't even know if they're theories, they're just sort of like the things that have been researched, academia is very comfortable of going, we're gonna challenge that, and we're gonna disprove that, and that's gonna be okay. Whereas I think sometimes when where I find the the challenges come in, I'm looking at somebody practice, and I'm looking at somebody say they've been told what to practice, and and that's a whole different um different animal. But if I challenge that, people get pissed off, you know? But but I've like I've I've studied this like 15 years, like and gone down the rabbit holes of like, and I'll have a rationale for a lot of different things, like when we come back and like talking about blocked and random practice. But it's but it's fascinating for me. Like, why why can we not look at these new things? It's the same with like technology or biomechanics and whatnot. There was always there's always going to be this shift between what we didn't know and what we what we know now, because technology improves and things like that. But why can't we have that in some of the other areas as well?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's it's very interesting. I always find uh uh well, I think that's life as well. I think you know, a lot of life is like the schoolyard still, you know, the popular kid, the big kid, you know, there's still like herd herd mentality generally, yeah. And the herd mentality you'll uh you know lean towards this is the way it was always done. You know, Jack Nicholas never looked at a track man, why should I, sort of thing, or whatever it is. Where um you know, looking at um you know things like cliches, you know, like you said, block versus random, it seems so uh, you know, you could probably have two people argue about that on Facebook.
SPEAKER_03But the argument I think there's been a lot of that.
SPEAKER_05Well, I know, right?
SPEAKER_03So the argument is actually what I see recently, somebody putting out is like a post going, oh, this is um this is random practice when they're actually an illustration of like variable variability of practice, like they're completely two different things, and it's a high-level coach coaching high-level players, and you and I start going looking at that, going, Jesus Christ, if we can't get the this stuff, if we can't get this right, like where like where are we?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and I think I think we'll get I feel like the lowest level of golf coaching, for example, has been raised through information technology sharing, let's say. Um, but as you come up through the you know, through the ranks, there's there's clearly certain camps in each in each uh field. You know, it might be swings or technology or whatever it might be. And you know, there's not that rigor, right, where you can challenge as out of respect. I think your research is worthy of being challenged.
SPEAKER_03People don't rot like that rigor.
SPEAKER_05No, they don't. So then it called sort of creates these factions where people just fight and they they stand behind the most famous teacher or the most famous piece of technology and and fight on that on that behalf, as opposed to saying, again, it's like, you know, what is an example of, you know, how does this thing work, or how does how does that theory work? What does it really mean? And you know, is there another way of rethinking that, you know, that makes more sense and is more applicable or whatever? So I think you're right. I think you know, within golf, I mean you look at some of the researchers, they have some pretty pretty big fights. They have that situation in other areas of of research that you've looked at. What? They have like hateful uh Facebook groups where they threaten to sue each other.
SPEAKER_01Oh god.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. That's human nature of them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but it's like, come on. You know, it's um it's in a lot of ways, it's kind of embarrassing, right?
SPEAKER_03But it's like um Yeah, and it and it and it's kind of like when we look at the most pro the probably the most dominant things that we that I see anyway, because I'm in this space, probably maybe a little bit more than you, is people talk about blocked and random practice, right? And I just I I think it's important because I just think it's like we need to clear this up, right? Because there's apps built on this, but somebody puts stuff in there and it gives them either a block or a random or a variable type of practice session. But but there's also one thing that's missing in there. There's a thing called a serial practice, which sits in between blocked and random. The golf is played in a serial order, it's like a real consistent order, and that's all that and and when I explain this to people, that's all the blocked serial and random is. It's just the scheduling of what goes on, right? So it's like, oh, I hit a driver. It doesn't, it doesn't mean how I hit that driver, right? You just like I hit a driver, I hit an approach shot or an iron shot. It doesn't matter what shot I hit, then I hit like a chip shot or a putt. Okay, random, you just like jumble that up. It's just the scheduling of it, right? And the fascinating thing for me, this comes a lot from um the Shearer Morgan like research back in like the 1979, I think it was, of like contextual interference. But what you have to understand with this is that this this research was done in a lab, yeah, it wasn't done in context to a sports skill.
SPEAKER_05And and such a random sport that we have, oh serially random, like serially random.
SPEAKER_03It's just incredible, you know. So all of a sudden, like I and I get it, right? We're back in like let's say 70s, 80s, you're doing this research, and there it it it it like we said, it moves research on. It's not to say this is right and this is wrong, it's like where do I start? Where can I evolve from that? Right? So Richard Schmidt, who we know was like one of the pioneers of like motor learning and motor control, he he he wrote his like he looked at his schema theory principle of like generalized motor programs, you know, and how we practice that as like we're wiring in a pattern that automatically like comes out when we when we go to do the skill.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well.
SPEAKER_03Okay, like it almost like it just fires, right? We don't have to think about it, it just it just fires. But what we don't understand about Richard Schmidt, in 2003, he wrote um a paper that completely challenged his original theory.
SPEAKER_04I love it.
SPEAKER_03And saying that schema theory is not complete enough.
SPEAKER_04I love it.
SPEAKER_03So that's one of the most the greatest scientists that we've from a motor control, motor learning kind of it's he's one of the greatest. Like, we wouldn't have skill acquisition if we didn't have Richard Schmidt, Tim Lee, Richard McGill, you know, Shea Morgan. We wouldn't have this, like, this but but as a great scientist, he doesn't he departs his ego and goes, This isn't this isn't sufficient enough. We need to try, we need to look for different ways. Contrary to that, who are doing the same thing, on the side note, you have Carl Newell. Now, Carl Newell started talking about task, environment, and the individual. So he's that's where constraints come from. He says that skills operate within this thing. So then he starts looking at going environment, this, this, that influences the movement that you make, and that involves science, and that involves how we practice. But if you're just locked in to going, okay, block practice, right? People still think block practice is like I'm gonna hit 50 fades in a row. That's not block practice, that's can that's continuous practice or mass practice, completely useless from a learning perspective, right? Block practice is what we call um a between skill. So all of a sudden I'll hit three putts, I'll hit three drivers, I'll hit three approach shots. When I say random practice, is then we jumble these all up and we kind of like it's just one ball and stuff like that. But because science moves on, there's two groups recently from 2004 to 2005. Ammar group with Wolfgang Scholholm involved in there, and there's another group, I don't even know how to pronounce their name, um, Wodjikek or something like that. They've they've basically realized that they've dug in, they've done multiple meta-analysis on all the research has come from it, but they realize that if we're looking at transfer of skill, which for me should be the ultimate metric of what we're looking for, blocked, serial, random, neither one is better than the other when it comes to a sports skill. So you've got people doing these apps that says you should do block, or you should do serial, you should do random, you should do variability of this, and you're like going, well, what's that based on?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03And it goes back to me, like reminding me of like that bar scene in like Goodwill Hunting of like going, well, you're a first-year grad student, like you're gonna be like citing this and this and this. Well, if you've grown up or you've gone to your, you know, done your graduate degree in the 80s in at UCLA, of course Richard Schmidt's gonna be involved in that.
SPEAKER_05Well, that's uh they call that Zeitgeist, right? Have you ever heard of that? I mean, you know that very well because you speak German. But Zeitgeist is the spirit of the times. And you know, this stuff came into the the golf scene, I would say, probably uh, I don't know, 15 years ago. And and it was very binary, right? You're either doing block or or random. Yeah. And but people didn't really understand what it means, they just know the title on the on the packet. And it never got beyond that. And logically, it means block means you hit 50 balls and random means you don't. And but you know, in in order to be able to give the practice properly, like how do you determine, how do you determine whether someone is doing more of a block type situation, uh more continuous or more random, what would you you know, how would you decide?
SPEAKER_03Where the evidence is right now, I wouldn't be doing any of it.
SPEAKER_05Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_03Because it's just not there. Like the the the only time I would say to somebody, maybe do five drivers, five, like if they're just looking for performance gains, like a confidence or or confidence or something, but I I wouldn't say hit 20 shots with or 50 shots with one club hitting one shot. Because the like I said, the evidence isn't there. So I so for me, I would look at it more like um like like if we looked at the like we said, the the side party going on like Carnival, right? So if I can keep the individual, the task, and the environment like coupled together in practice, but then all of a sudden, whether it's hard or whether it's it's not, that that's that's the judgment call, right? So if I want something Say that one more time. So an individual, what what the individual is doing, the task of what they're trying to do, and the environment that surrounds it, of a bottom green or or whatnot.
SPEAKER_05So so you those are all constraints. So for example, you could say, you know, we're trying to hit this shot, let's say we're on 18 at uh TPC sawgrass, you know, that the shot to the green is pretty complicated. You you've got to not go left, but you can't go too far right. So it's a so it's a pretty tight constraint, like very high skill. Or you say, you know, you you don't want to go left, but you can go a bit to the right, whatever. So you could adapt the numbers around that.
SPEAKER_03And that and that's also linked to like scenarios, like like connecting a scenario to what that player knows. And this comes into like when I look at transfer, I look at information in the task rather than the actual task itself. So I'll look at it based on um what information is the player like so if something's on a driving range, driving range are not going away, right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but if but if you say a bit better though, those greens and slow.
SPEAKER_03No, it's and it's actually brilliant, you know. But like most players will go, even elite players, right, will go step on the driving range and go like straight at the flag, right? So I'll go, how often do you got a flag? Maybe once around, twice around, maybe. So how do we just say like that flag's hanging off the left edge? That hat that's you have to like adjust, right? And you have to hit like five yards past, or whatever it might be. So that's information. That's then there's also like t-shots as out of hands down the right, water down the left, whatever it might be. Then you have the next layer is um the action part, sort of action capability, or sorry, yeah, action capability. So what am I what what can I do? But also action fidelity of keeping things whole. And what that comes back from is Maylor and Briggs research in like 1963, believe it or not, and it hasn't been disproven, that golf or golf swing or a golf action is highly complex, so it has multiple different options or different things that can happen, but it's highly organized. So you can't just isolate parts because they're all interlinked, right? Right? And they're interlinked through fascia, they're interlinked through, you know, just cross patterns of how the body actually works. Okay, so when we look at whole practice, that's action fidelity, is can we create the same dynamics or the same movement things that we're trying to do within a task? Right? And then you've got scenario, which we just talked about, so like creating situations of players and going, okay, this is your one up against this player in this in this match play, and you've got an eight up, like things like that, right? Like that elicits emotion, so emotion then influences the movement that we're that we're doing, like it tightens us up or it kind of releases us. That would that would sound like that to me is one of the harder, right? But if we but if we try to look at it as a as a whole, that's what we're trying to do, right? If it if we start to like segment all these things, we're reducing everything and thinking, oh, it's just gonna fit itself back in, and it just doesn't.
SPEAKER_05So what I like uh you know, contextually about what you've talked about previously was um you know how I agree, by the way, that we ultimately build each swing. It's like a custom swing or a custom shot for each situation on the golf course, right? And the the constraints that create that are you know decisions, right? We make decisions based on what we what can we do? Like what kind of probability do I have? You know, I spend a lot of time with some juniors, you know, they love the sense of risk, so they also understand probability but don't act on it. So they like the exciting shots, but you know, how do we play, right?
SPEAKER_03When you're a junior, just like flip, just go at it, and then we'll turn that stuff later.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's more exciting. Um unfortunately they get upset when they don't uh quite achieve it. But but so so ultimately you're making all these decisions on the course, which would be you know, you know, which club is it, what's the wind doing, you know, how do I adapt my target? Okay, finally that's my actual number. Okay, do I want to hit it there, don't want to hit it there? And then ultimately you make a swing based on all of those decisions, and you know, you you might visualize it, whatever, and you act on it. clearly you know when you talk about uh practice you know whether that be any of the variable random block uh it it uh it's not always included right and so that and in in addition another decision is how to act based on your you know the emotional component so I think you know that's why I think your job is is a future uh essential in in golf is to you know it's like me designing my own fitness program I've had great fitness training but it's a lot easier if somebody else designs it because to your point I'll probably defer to comfortable more than stretching myself in exactly the right way. That's just the way it is. And so so having uh someone like yourself uh you know set out the parameters for design then also ultimately you know design it in such a way that you stretch somebody's ability to create more custom shots actually right within many different contexts many different environments many different uh you know constraints so that's what it sounds like to me is is you know I'm sitting here looking at a picture you know it's like you're painting a new picture every time you hit a golf shot even though that you know most people go to the range and just you know they're stamping out like in a in a factory you know this thing this thing this thing where each each each uh shot is sort of a a work of art in its own right and you know if you learn the skills of uh you know blending colours and creating depth and all the different skills that you would have to to create a picture on the range then you you suddenly are able to create different pictures in the course right where you know just stamping out factory made seven irons is is not the way to and and also that comes down to also the from a coaching principle of like going if I just give somebody um a practice plan right there's a high probability they might do it for like 10 days right yeah and they'll they'll just resort back to like what they want to do.
SPEAKER_03So you have to engage the player in like what what like what's going on and then you have to challenge their beliefs around what's what's going on. So somebody that we um that we both know right from Austria that I worked with for since 2018 to like Bernder like when he came back after his wrist injury right he couldn't do what he did previously like he just couldn't do it physically right so he had a there was a motive like it was something so I was just in the right place at the right time that I was able to offer him some some different things so we we just had a had a conversation of like going okay well if we're gonna look at a philosophy of like how you practice well why don't we just say every shot you hit has to have a scenario and has to have like one more consequence to it. So very highly specific to what you're doing. You don't get another one you just have to suck it up.
SPEAKER_05Which yeah the acceptance uh after the shot is part of the game like you have to accept and still hit another good shot that's actually you know really important to practice right I like that and we did and we did like you know we built up to this but we like the task of like drive it and it wasn't just like drive in a corridor it was like drive it match your intention of what you're trying to do right and then it was like hit an approach shot match your intention you need to add five onto this so you're gonna hit like a trap draw and whatnot and then wherever that finishes you need to go and hit the path so we're looking at like combinations of this and he was getting I mean he got so frustrated with it and and whatnot but it was like dude this is what this is what the deal is you know it's like why why do we want to hide away from this like and he was like and then he he he started to understand it and he you know he still got a little bit pissed at times but there was a he he understood the the the benefit yeah of it and and if he was on his own would he do that no wouldn't no way well we kind of do whatever else does but I think that's uh it's really interesting if you look at uh you know golf is a decision making game and not only do we have to make a decision under uncertainty and commit to it I mean that that's that's all part of the process right so if you so you so if you break the shot down you you can't choose where your ball sits you have to assess it well with experience hopefully you've got a series of skills that helps you have options but you still have to commit to the option even if the outcome isn't perfect right and uh you know but that sounds like really good practice if you can practice that that loop as opposed to you know whatever it might be that people are doing.
SPEAKER_03I also I think about practice as well like if I was going to go now and like really like commit like to to my golf and I was going to join a golf club right so over here I wouldn't go and join like um a golf club which is like really really busy I'd rather join less of a golf club right but I can go out and I can hit multiple shots on on holes. So whether that facility has 36 holes or or not I don't I don't really care I just need to have the context of like hitting different shots and multiple shots.
SPEAKER_05If if I'm not playing like real golf which usually is driven by somebody else uh I I'm very happy to play three or four holes with lots of balls.
SPEAKER_03That's my favorite yeah and and it's it's one of those like amazing things that people like we we we probably I did I definitely did it as a junior right and it's like and I was lucky enough to have a be at a golf club that would allow me to do that. But I don't think people think of it that way. They think of it like oh like can I play a really good golf course or the or the alternate thing is like I've started looking into um like practice facility design yeah because when I look at skill development and I'm and in the US they do this like really well in a lot of like facilities they have the driving range the putting green and short game facility really close to one another so if I I wouldn't if I had the space and the the finances to do it I would do that all the time. And I would and I would build it complete completely contextual to what what the golf course is going to give so they can like do rotations and whatnot because that actually proves more beneficial than having the driving range there the short game facility miles over there and then the putting green up by the first T.
SPEAKER_05Yeah I like that um so I have a thought you know I mean this type of practice that we've just talked about and you know you're you're involved in researching is very you know beneficial and and and definitely people don't think of it like that generally I would say um but in regards to more like a developmental player you know I'm here at a club and sometimes you know people haven't played for very long so how do you how would you sort of organize learning to get better at golf in terms of I don't know let's say first principles can you hit the center of the face can you hit you know can you hit the ground in the right place? Yes but I but I'm swinging the right direction whatever it is so how do you constrain outcome variables that somebody can actually you know move up the skill ladder?
SPEAKER_03Yeah I mean it's like it's like again that question of like what like what do you need based on where you're going right so I would also look at that like I remember when I think you left Austria at that time but we were like we were still like really busy doing like platz rifers and whatnot and I what like one day like Stuart Clayton was my direct my um um my academy director at that time and I was like taking my Platzrifer group like first day straight on the golf course. Yeah nice and he and he went mental at me he's like well I what like what the hell are you doing? And I didn't know what I was doing. I just felt that that was like the the right thing to do so I'd like take him on the golf course doesn't it and just go just have a go at this like we're trying to hit it from there to there's a bunker there's like outer bounds down there like just have a go right and then when we came like we did like a couple of holes or whatnot all of a sudden they have like way more context for what the driver's actual meaning to them. So then we go oh remember that hole there like we're trying to do this so if we do this exercise then this is going to help you with that and all of a sudden they're like connected to it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah so to give people context who don't know what a Platz driver is a license isn't it is a license to play golf. Yeah exactly you don't have that in the state which is hilarious so so they have to don't they have to do like 60 meters or something?
SPEAKER_03I think like they have to play nine nine holes on the short course within it's like three holes right there I think no no no like it went to it went to a period of like you have to play like nine holes within I think they have to do like five shots over par or like play a hole like for the for the nine holes and and whatnot.
SPEAKER_05Which is really good for the golf coaching business right because I mean to give context you know 25 years ago golf was really growing in in central Europe and and there were so many beginners that they had to have some kind of a system right yeah and that then it was more to do with I I think it was like much more to do with um are you competent enough and do you know the etiquette and the rules like so you so not not like you you're not gonna help or you're not gonna enjoy it yourself but just so you're not I don't make it worse somebody else.
SPEAKER_03I mean like when people play the wrong kind of music really loud just don't affect anybody else you can have all the fun you want yeah yeah that's funny but but that but that's the same it's like if I even with an elite player now right and we have a project right what we're so we're like going well what does that mean? Like what and and it's not like we could intellectually understand it right and we can do the data analysis and whatnot but what is that in practice? What does that feel like what are those standards right so then so that's that to me is the absolute goal you understand where the player is with their belief systems and and whatnot um but if you want them to really un you know really embody something they have to experience it and feel it you know if you want to play top 50 in the world golf you need to understand certain principles.
SPEAKER_05Oh 100% well you know interestingly this week well last week uh you know we're at the FedEx playoffs time of the year and um you know Rory's come back after having whatever three weeks off and he's working on his swing in the tournament which is most people every single tournament is the most important thing in the world but ultimately if you don't work on your swing in the tournament you probably create a bigger gap you know massive three weeks at home on the driving range.
SPEAKER_03What's that like Tiger was famous for it yes you know working at shots and like working at what he's trying to do because it's the optimal test.
SPEAKER_05So three weeks on the range breaking your swing into pieces you know is is the famous uh yeah end of the world for a pro, right? Oh I'm just gonna take a few weeks off and work on my swing. It's like ding ding ding you know but you know but most people don't have the ability to suffer in the process right and so so for example I'll do a drill with a grip you know kind of a Goldilocks right I'll say well you know let's see what effect the grip has on the ball. So I'll say you know grip it too strong oh it goes left grip it too weak goes right grip it in the middle it goes straight but most people can't accept even one or two lefts and rights even if they're intentional like to think about you know it's the dream of every pro ever to play in the FedEx cup playoffs and then for Rory to go there and be you know sort of working on his game is a is a level of uh focus almost like you you if you can accept learning it in that context then you know I think you have the ability to go far. Right? Whereas if even in that situation you're protecting against never hitting a bad shot you'll never do something new.
SPEAKER_03He said that stuff like from a young age you know somebody said to him like you're never going to win the Irish Open without ball flight and he's like going I don't really care about winning the like the Irish amateur or whatnot but I don't care about winning that because I'm getting ready for the PJ tour so I'm gonna hit my driver as high as I probably can well he changed the paradigm right he was the first hit driver everywhere guy really like in the old days they were fairway is more important but tight uh you know but Rory came out and and really shifted the needle. But what but also what you're talking about there as well which I think is absolutely like fascinating and we so let's say we're looking at like a a golf skill that we're trying to practice right and has these components to it in our logic our as a golf coach we think I need to create reductionism in that so I need to reduce all its component parts to better minimum to manage the complexity of it but that's rubbish right we can simplify the task but still keeping it whole yes absolutely and that that to me is like well if you're working on something with your swing or or whatnot if you can create a constraint in there that the the body can self-organize but still keeping it whole that that's that's the goal. Like why we've we've created this pattern of like going well why do I want to work at reading my part when I when I decouple it from speed yeah makes no sense. You know we're we're we're we're managing the complexity by reducing the components of the part and it and it doesn't work.
SPEAKER_05Yeah I think that's you know over and over it comes back to humans wanting to create certainty and uh in uncertainty and and feel comfortable but also it's not it's that component of like well if everybody's doing that it only takes one or two to start going oh hang on a minute there's I'm I'm gonna go think differently I'm gonna look at like different types of research or different things all of a sudden then there's a there's a thing of like well I'm gonna jump ahead whereas if you're I'm gonna play I've got to run I'm gonna summarize some of the important learnings is you know we're solving individual puzzles when we play golf yeah the practice should should reward that somewhat you've got to complete you've got to keep the this not only have you got to keep the swing intact as a whole but making sure that it's relative to a context where you have to create it is is important right so it's not just don't break it into pieces is also I think it's Terry if it's difficult and you're challenged that's okay you know that's that's absolutely okay. Absolutely and then don't decouple it from the world right so you you you might be making whole swings but you're on a driving range and not even aiming you know so that's not going to track it's actually yeah right 100% I think we're onto something here.
SPEAKER_03Well you're on the I do as well I think that's where pull more out of you we're obviously going to try and like put this all together and like come up with some camps and and stuff like that and we'll and we'll start to talk about you know how beliefs relate to this side of things and not just like practice but also get over to Florida in the in the winter and we'll put together some people that are really interested in practice. But also the beliefs around like the challenges you would have with like if you're like look at mechanics and stuff like that people have like fixed opinions on these things and it's like how can we how can we stop that kind of general like path dependency of like oh this is this is right because this person told me yeah you know it's like come on they call that halo bias yeah it's incredible.
SPEAKER_05It was God himself that passed it down to me. Yeah 100% yeah but how do you know well he won the club championship last year.
SPEAKER_03Yeah yeah good alright pleasure to talk to you again all the best