#50: [Inside the Mind] Jim Waldron: Super-Slow Motion Swings, Golfing Like a Buddhist, Decontaminating Swing Thoughts, and Your Yips Solution

Meet Jim Waldron, a nationally acclaimed golf teaching professional, mental game coach, author, and lecturer best known for his pioneering research on the mind/body connection approach to learning and teaching golf. 

In my own words, I’d describe him as equal parts Buddhist Monk, Golf Nerd, Zen Master, Yogi, Cool Dude. And it’s this demeanor and zen that he’s been bringing to the course for more than 35 years to help his students play better golf - and to do so fast using a variety of models of teaching and coaching not commonly found on the course. 

In today’s episode, you’ll learn:

• How to eliminate “swing thoughts” that contaminate your body’s natural movement, and learn Jim’s antidote for a pure, thought-free swing.
• How to between the objective physical world and your private mental world impacts focus, performance, and emotional resilience on the course.
• Why practicing in slow motion without a ball is essential to cementing new movement patterns in your unconscious mind, making your swing more consistent.
• Jim’s step-by-step method to overcome the yips by tackling the root cause - your emotional triggers and attention control.
• Explore the transformative power of focused attention on your golf game, and why staying in the external world boosts performance and confidence.
• How detaching from your emotions and thoughts can reduce frustration, anger, and mental fatigue during a round, keeping you present and composed.

Get your pencils ready and start listening. 

More About Jim

Jim Waldron is a nationally acclaimed golf teaching professional, mental game coach, author, and lecturer best known for his pioneering research on the mind/body connection approach to learning and teaching golf. His holistic approach to golf improvement blends swing and short game mechanics, mental focus skills, physical fitness and emotional state control into a revolutionary golf instruction paradigm. He is recognized as one of the game's best golf swing instructors and swing theorists.

This unification of Western scientific principles with Eastern psychological insights is the result of his lifelong interest in and passion for a deeper understanding of human potential - both physical and mental - and especially about how that understanding can lead to peak performance breakthroughs in the game of golf. He began playing golf in 1960 and has been a serious student of the game ever since.

Work with Jim.

Key Takeaways:

• Slow-motion training is crucial for developing proper swing mechanics.
• Swing thoughts can be toxic and disrupt performance.
• The yips are a psychosomatic disorder linked to negative emotions.
• Understanding the difference between correct and incorrect movements is key.
• Emotional resiliency is essential for consistent performance on the course.
• Practicing in slow motion allows for better muscle memory and awareness. The two worlds theory separates objective reality from subjective psychological experiences.
• Negative emotions can be confronted without identifying with them.
• Staying external during play can prevent self-sabotage.
• Acceptance of discomfort is part of the growth process.
• Engaging with the physical world can enhance mental clarity.

Key Quotes:

• "Swing thoughts are toxic."
• “The reason why you don't want to use a ball, obviously, slow motion and ball are incompatible on the face of it. But even at full speed, eventually you're going to go to the range, you're going to work on what I call dynamics, which is a different part of the brain. Learning mechanics should only be done, also called movement pattern training, is only done away from a ball in slow motion.”
• "The Yips is a serious psychosomat