Friday, November 30, 2007

Destroying Possibilities


Your child has a keen interest in golf and the piano & has been begging you for lessons. Lucky for your little buddy, the time is ripe to explore these fascinating worlds around the bend.
Before we force ahead like a raging bull, carelessly planting our precious child in the hands of some unskilled instructor, we need to use our heads for something besides a hat rack.
Priceless decisions are at stake. Please be totally aware of the side effects, warning signals, & flashing red lights. We have the awesome responsibility of handing over our future star to the best teacher possible. You do love the little tyke, don't you?
You take little Johnny or Mary by the hand and enter the piano store. Behold, spread before your four eyes is a room full of a bedazzling, glorious grand pianos, uprights, spinets...etc. You're both spellbound.
Out of the corner of your eye, you sense an approaching, smiling salesperson. Which piano fits your budget? Got plastic? You make your pick, which you mistakenly think is the MOST important one, THE PIANO! However. . . . the REAL electric moment is, when, for the rest of your Child's life....too important to say it only once....At stake is this...For the rest of your Child's life is the awesome decision you are about to make that will super profoundly effect either the hope for a joyous piano future or a train wreck.
Scenario One. .Blessed with lucky stars and Angles on duty at that very Hallmark moment, You and your treasure hit the lottery and are assigned an instructor who knows precisely how to extrapolate the full potential from your prized offspring. Your child is allowed to pick their own music. Up for grabs is ragtime, jazz, blues, classical, pop... The "tuned in' instructor "Listens" to the child, watches for the smile, and sparkle in their eyes. Thanks to this heaven sent teacher, your tiny prodigy becomes a fine pianist and will experience the joy of music that will serve them well for the rest of their life....during good times and bad. Your picture will sit atop their piano long after you're gone. They will pay homage to their fabulous parent..You.
Scenario Two. also known as "Whoops." Believing that ALL instruction is the same, you barely notice when an instructor is randomly and carelessly assigned to your "baby." You're in a hurry, haven't done your homework, and have no clue how important this event in time and space will become. The poor infant you picked up at the hospital is about to be thwarted by a piano instructor who has no gift for teaching, forces the child to read music, sit up straight, play scales and make the introduction to piano pure and painful misery. The child will grow to hate practicing and will plot ways to set the piano on fire without burning down the house.
Your young Mozart or Brubeck will never know how good they could have become. The inept instructor will too very soon, squelch all chances for that glorious event to become a reality.
The other day I was giving a golf lesson at a practice facility used by a local University. Next to us a dozen students were being (coached?) by some college pr-off who played AT golf...none of the other facility staff wanted the job. The natural beautiful basic swings these unsuspecting students were born with were slowly being eradicated. In less than an hour all hope of any one of them learning and enjoying golf was forever destroyed. What that instructor was teaching these bright eyed kids was absolutely nauseating! At the end of the agonizing hour, not one of them had a prayer for pursuing our game. I asked my student what he thought. We didn't know whether to report the coach for abuse or expose him in front of his students for being a fraud.
The fork in the road leads to one of two places. One has a rainbow and pot of gold at the end. The other has a bridge out and your child will plummet off a cliff into oblivion. Certainly you have figured out by now, that the same priceless decisions apply to all of us as well?

Adding Yardage



Tuesday, November 27, 2007

NEVER HEARD OF HIM!


With an extensive background in golf, art, music, dance, home building, bodybuilding, and other endeavors too numerous to mention....I can tell you "THIS". THIS is THAT the high profile golf instructors with the straight whitened teeth, fine threads, "saloon tans" and other amenities that appeal to the plastic masses, are Nev...rrr fine golf instructors.
I have read just enough, thank God, golf instruction articles from the top 100 instructors to categorically state that their advice is a giant leap back for mankind. The human machine can NOT benefit from their idiotic approach! Yet, they are recognized not because of teaching prowess but because of marketing prowess.
There are fabulous musicians in Nashville that are prolific song writers, musicians, with incredible voices and stage presence that you will never hear of. Why, because they have no marketing agenda. On the other hand..there are those untalented soles who can't carry a tune in an ash bucket who are household names because of they understand that marketing is "where ITS at"
The best golf instructors are not found in the bogus top 100 or on the cover of a golf magazine or some golf channel. The top tournament players almost without exception make lousy instructors. Ben Hogan, the player, was one of the best who ever lived. Ben Hogan the author ruined more golfers than the San Francisco Earthquake. A high percentage of the most recognized names in golf instruction are con artists and are largely responsible for the dramatic rise in the popularity of psychiatry.
Fewer than 1/10th of 1% of golf instructors have the foggiest notion on how to improve their students games. Successful golf instruction is an art form. Yet, the man on the street assumes that ALL golf instruction is the same. AND that any country club pro, PGA pro or any instructors advice will be worth the bucks. Have you seen their swings or their students swings?
Consensus of opinion from golfers world wide validates that the very BEST golf instructor just might be some reclusive banjo player living in a log cabin in the hills of Tennessee and teaching his students via DVDs he and his wife cooked up!
Modestly,
Jim McLellan
THE "Anti-Pro"

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Instant Gratification


Zenith engineer Eugene Polley created the "Flash-matic" the first wireless TV remote in 1955. The Flash-matic operated by means of four photocells, one in each corner of the TV screen. The viewer used a directional flashlight to activate the four control functions, which turned the picture and sound on and off, and turned the channel tuner dial clockwise and counter-clockwise. However, the Flash-matic had problems working well on sunny days, when the sunlight sometimes changed channels at random. The improved "Zenith Space Command" remote control went into commercial production in 1956. Zenith engineer, Doctor Robert Adler, designed the Space Command based on ultrasonics. Ultrasonic remote controls remained the dominant design for the next twenty-five years, and as the name suggests they worked using ultrasound waves.


Today's couch potato has no idea who these men were and doesn't care. He does care about instant gratification in the form of the ability to jump from the Masters Golf Tournament to his alma mater's big Saturday championship show down with the tap of a button. Pabst's Blue Ribbon, chocolate covered pretzels, and Chip and Dip within EZ reach, he is fully loaded to snuggle in with himself for the duration of the afternoon without leaving the couch. Call it Bliss!



Is it "remotely possible" for the golfer to experience such magic? IS a major "Swing Change" POSSIBLE, in 5 minutes or less? Any interest in golf swing that is totally changed, natural, powerful, and the way a classic golf swing should look in 10 to 15 minutes? Possible? Skeptics take notice. The answer is YES!


At the end of the day would you prefer 1). A Sunday afternoon "blown" on the couch or 2). a stunning new golf swing? The choice is in your hands!



Jim McLellan,

The "Anti-Pro"

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Practice Does NOT Make Perfect


The light changes, you let out on the clutch too fast ... the old jalopy dies! You become the recipient of irate motorists suggesting your Mother sleeps in pay toilets!
Can you drive a stick shift? Where's reverse on a floor shift, on a column shift? "What in tarnation does this have to do with golf?" my good buddy asks. I smile and reply, "These two seemingly unrelated topics are both tricky motor skills that need to be performed correctly." No, this is not some test you must pass to get your drivers license. It is, however, a subject that identifies the motor skills necessary to master both stick shifts and our golf swings!
Meanwhile..It's a busy intersecting. You are patiently waiting for the light to change. You are stepping on the brake so you don't get T-boned by a 10 ton 18 wheeler. Finally, the light changes. At that split second, you release the brake...give your gas pedal just the right amount of juice. Using all the skills of a circus juggler, you let out on the clutch. Three things can happen. 1). You kill old Betsy, 2). you squeal out running into the car in front of you. OR.. 3) thanks to your plastic St. Francis on your dash board, you maneuver a slick get-a-way.
If 3, Three, or III. was your lucky number, what had to take place before the blessed event? Your day has been tough enough, so I will answer the question for you. G-Whiz, let's see....Heck I know...Sure enough....it's PRACTICE!!!
Funny thing Practice. Yes Sir, the part of the brain that etches habit into your motor skills can NOT differentiate between bad habits like smoking Lucky Strikes, OR good habits like the ability to smack a 310 yard drive with a slight draw, around the big tree and in clear view of the Washington Bent carpet with the flag merrily waving in the breeze___ at you.
Sorry, here's some bad news. Fewer than one in ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVENTY TWO golf pros know how to effectively teach the golf swing. This means that _YOU, YES YOU, will be practicing BAD habits. Quitting smoking or heroin or watching pretty girls at the beach is much easier to cease and desist than fixing a bad golf swing your friendly golf pro has ruined for you, for the rest of your frustrating life!
So chum, practice doesn't necessarily make perfect. PRACTICE MAKES PERMANENT!!! BBBeeeee very careful WHO you take golf lesson from and WHAT you practice! CUZ.. your habits may still be haunting you, when they close the lid!

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Poor Peter



Monday, November 5, 2007

Straight Jacket


Sick & Tired of fumbling around in the dark trying to find your best golf swing?
Sick & Tired of reading golf magazine tips___that never work (never will)___on how to cure your slice or get more distance?
Sick & Tired of watching the goof channel and never lowering your score one/tenth of a stroke? Sick & Tired of spending a small fortune on golf lessons and getting more confused and frustrated__how about worse?

Well, Mr & Mrs Sick & Tired, we have some good news for you today. You have gobs of company. Most golfers are in this class and will stay in this class___ Fore-ev-rrrr.

THE INSANE REASON IS SO SIMPLE____ T.HEY (You?) continue to look in all the wrong places that never worked in the first place. Get the straight jacket!

The Solution is SIMPLE... FIX what needs to be FIXED!
CHANGE what needs to be CHANGED!

Just a short post to help brighten up your day!
Mr. Reality
Jim McLellan
Your Friendly "Anti-Pro"