Drills and Learning
By Michael Hebron
Dr. Ellen Langer, Ph.D. from Harvard, points out that rehearsing and repeating new information (using drills)
has long been held as the fastest, most productive way to learn tasks. But her studies show there are some
problems with this long held approach. Following are summaries of Dr. Langer’s thoughts:
This approach (repeating and repeating) does not leave much room for rethinking information. Dr. Langer’s
studies show there are more effective ways of mastering skills. She calls it mindful learning, and points out that
learning requires more than memorization repetition and rote. This kind of conventional learning depends on
automatic behaviors, which stifles creativity and undermines self-esteem as we struggle and many times fail to
adequately learn basic techniques.
Repetition creates bored students and mediocre skills with most people not thinking beyond what information
they have been given. When we are learning like robots, rehearsing over and over, it deprives students of
maximizing their full potential.
Many believe learning should take lots of hard work or even be a painful experience that must be survived
before the rewards of learning happen. This kind of mind-set virtually guarantees a negative experience.
Learning can be fun, and probably must be if it’s going to lead to any long-term fulfillment. Using new
information to expand skills and letting the mind exercise its powers is fun. When we are having fun, it’s easier
to learn.
The human body runs on electricity, and every human body and emotional system is wired differently. Every
person is a unique individual who feels, sees experiences, and creates motion in their own best way. The
message is “Learn to Control Your Swing-No One Else Can!”
Suggestions:
• Be more aware of where the club face, club head, and shaft are at impact. Evaluating the feel of random
motions gives insights that improve your skills which repetitions don’t provide.
• By consciously trying to vary your style and by letting your body and mind experience many different feels
you improve your ability to recognize workable and unworkable motions. One’s ability to recognize mistakes,
learn from them, and move on, is very important in long-term learning.
LISTENING
It’s paradoxical that listening to an instructor may be the easiest, but at the same time the hardest skill to
master. Schools have been able to help you learn to read and think but the process of listening is almost
entirely self-taught.
Before books and printing, the primary elements in acquiring knowledge were experience and listening. The
practice of seeing (or reading), and thinking are exercised from within the person. But an outside force can
interfere with our mental powers to hear the things to which we are listening too.
Listening has the problem of a lack of “associated control.” When you learn to read, your eyes control the
speed with which you read. When you write, your hand controls the speed. In thinking, your thoughts travel at
the speed capacity of your mind. But when listening, your mind thinks four times faster than the average person
can speak. (That’s four times faster!)
To be a good listener, we have to learn to adjust the rate of our thinking to the talking rate of the speaker, and
this seems to be a hard thing to do. It is easy to misunderstand what’s being said. We tend to hear what we
think we are going to hear, and too often we believe what we think we hear is so!
When you have learned to adjust your speed of thinking, you have gained a valuable element: you have
disciplined your mind to the present. The mind performs in time, and it wants to steer your thoughts into the
pleasant, relaxing space of past time or to the freedom of spectacular dreams that the future provides. Often
the mind is not focused on what is being said now!
People with good listening skills: (1) don’t try to listen to two things at once, (2) they are not thinking of what
they are going to say next while someone is speaking, (3) they do not miss opening remarks- they are listening
from the start, and (4) they are not judging what the speaker is saying against their own beliefs but are open to
what is being said.
Good listening leads to new perceptions that are the foundations of long-term learning.
Copyright 2010, Michael Hebron, Learning Golf, Inc. All rights reserved.
