Here at the frontier, the leaves fall like rain. Although my neighbors are all barbarians, and you, you are a thousand miles away, there are still two cups at my table.


Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.

~ Wu-men ~


Saturday, December 14, 2013

Find Your "Authentic Swing"

Steven Pressfield, the author of many great books, has written another terrific article at his blog. He describes a famous golfer who has an ... unusual swing that works for him, and goes on to talk about finding your "authentic swing" in your own life. 

An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.

The concept of the Authentic Swing is that each of us is endowed from birth with our own gift, our own style, our own unique talent and point of view. Our job is to find it and bring it forth.
“I believe that each of us possesses,” Bagger Vance began, “one true Authentic Swing that is ours alone. It is folly to try to teach us another, or to mold us to some ideal version of the perfect swing. Each player possesses only that one swing that he was born with, the swing that existed within him before he ever picked up a club. Like the statue of David, our Authentic Swing already exists, concealed within the stone … “
Please, take the Foolscap Method (or anything else I propose) with a major grain of salt. Tweak it. Modify it. Chuck it completely if you don’t like it.

Do what works for you.

If you’ll forgive me for quoting myself twice in a single blog post, here are the last few paragraphs from The Authentic Swing. I swear I did not fudge them to comport with Jim Furyk’s incredible round.
Are you a writer or an artist or an entrepreneur? Don’t copy me. Don’t do it my way. Work at four in the morning if that feels right. Work in the shower, work on the subway, work at the wheel of a moving taxi cab. Start at the end, play backward, write your stuff in Urdu and translate it later.

Do it your way.

Don’t swing Rory’s swing, or Bubba’s, or, for heaven’s sake, Jim Furyk’s. Listen to Bagger.

Swing your Authentic Swing.




5 comments:

Zacky Chan said...

Why is this so hard to practice sometimes!!! I'm thinking of kyudo, where there are specific changes in technique I need to make, and I want them to be told to me by a teacher so I can do what they do ... but at the same time I'm hearing that everyone's technique is completely individual ... I get it, but how do you do it?! Very interesting. Tonight I will look for my authentic swing.

Rick Matz said...

You can be taught the mechanical movements, but the "Feeling" is something that you have to discover on your own.

RunBikeThrow said...

Interesting dichotomy. My martial arts training talks about suppressing the ego. And Dr. Wayne Dyer, speaking on developing higher awareness, says we should guard against "feeling special" and that we should listen for and follow God's plan for us. Yet I also agree with the idea of developing one's own "authentic swing" although it seems to me that this is the ultimate expression of the ego.

Is there a paradox here? And is it OK to believe in both ideas simultaneously? Or am I missing something?

Rick Matz said...

In Japanese martial arts the concept is Shu, Hi, Ra.

http://cookdingskitchen.blogspot.com/2012/02/learning-process-in-japanese-martial.html?m=1

Rick Matz said...

Shu, Ha, Ri (doh!)