Neuro Learning for golf’s ™ Mission Statement
Neuro Learning for golf™ promotes a natural approach for improving one’s golf that is based on cognitive
research which points out that the brain is our gateway to learning anything, even golf. A Neuro Learning for
golf ™ focuses on how the brain naturally decodes, encodes, learns and remembers. By using a
researched based brain compatible information delivery system, Neuro Learning for golf™ allows
individuals to learn faster and retain information longer. The all important body, mind and emotional
connection is at the core of Neuro Learning for golf, ™.
What if there was a way for improvement to occur more quickly, retained longer, and be more intuitively
relevant.
What if there was a way for individuals not to be consumed with getting something right or wrong when they
were learning.
What if there was a way for learning environments to side step the kind of stress that fragments process.
What if there was a way for learning environments to be fail free.
What if there was a way for learning environments to be interesting before trying to be fun.
Neuro Learning for golf principals provide positive responses to these statements.
Introduction
By Michael Hebron PGA MP CI
Edited by Stephen Yazulla Ph.D
Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior
Neuro Learning for golf is fortunate to have an advisory board consisting of educators, scientists,
psychologists, neurobiologists, physicists, who provide insights into human development, biomechanics of
human movement, applications of force and emotions.
Golf has been referred to as more of a thinking game than a physical sport, with brainpower being more
useful than physical strength when playing. Neuro Learning for golf takes these insights to heart.
Neuro Learning for golf is a brain-based approach for improving one’s golf game. Why talk about the brain?
Because the brain runs the show! Neuro Learning for golf is influenced heavily by, and in harmony with
what current research from cognitive science has uncovered about meaningful learning and making
progress. For sometime now the golf industry has utilized modern science to enhance golf balls, golf clubs
and the grass upon which the game is played. Neuro Learning for Golf also uses research that enhances
one’s ability to improve their golf experience. Golf equipment and turf are not the only segment of the game
of golf using 21st century research to improve. It has been shown that Neuro Learning for golf enhances the
pleasure of the game by helping students improve faster and retain skills longer in a play-golf-to-learn golf
environment.
Neuro Learning for golf promotes improving one’s golf with an approach that sees its mission as putting a
light on the original dreams of those who first played golf over 500 years ago – which is enjoyable
recreation. Playing golf for its own sake, no matter how good one is while improving.
Neuro Learning for golf believes that every individual is capable of demonstrating the same kind of personal
potential previously enjoyed by only a small minority. This belief moves Neuro Learning for Golf beyond any
previously accepted organization of approaches to improvement that have the unspoken purposes of fixing
poor outcomes to get something right.
Neuro Learning for golf can guarantee improvement because it is founded on an insight with a track record
that is millions of years old; that our brain is the gateway to everything we do, including acts of learning and
improving.
Neuro Learning for golf is in pursuit of long-term improvement with the support of current findings into brain-
compatible learning. Because we learn content through process learning and process through content
learning, with Neuro Learning for golf there is always interplay between content learning and process
learning,.
When approaches to playing and improving golf (or anything else) are not compatible with how the brain
decodes, encodes, and remembers information, they are less meaningful than they could be, often causing
frustration and a loss of confidence.
Neuro Learning for golf should not be seen as an evaluator or as a map, but as a guide or a compass that
supports a personal journey of self-discovery while preserving the personal integrity of a golfer. Some
approaches to learning and improving create a loss of self-confidence and motivation by reaching for
perfection. Neuro Learning for golf engages the elements of natural playful learning and uses multiple-
choice learning ™ strategies to advance the pace of progress individuals experience.
Neuro Learning for Golf takes into consideration that any information delivery system (i.e.: from a giver to
receiver, or to one’s self) must be compatible with how the brain interacts with information. This is a must!
In the past, many traditional approaches to improving used by both givers and receivers of information were
not using what cognitive science now knows is the most important component for making progress:
accurate insights into how we go from not knowing to knowing.
Neuro Learning for Golf provides more than just golf swing information. It first takes the nature of brain
compatible learning into consideration before sharing any core-golf information to be learned and used.
Neuro Learning for golf recognizes and actively responds to the all important mind-body connection that is
necessary for reaching one’s personal potential.
It is important to recognize that Neuro Learning for golf brings to golf the same principles that are causing a
huge paradigm shift in how information is being shared in schools, universities, businesses and other
fields of coaching and teaching in the 21st century. It is called “Brain Based Learning”, or “Teaching with the
Brain in Mind” (the titles of two books by Eric Jensen). Neuro Learning for golf creates a positive active
environment that ensures a physical, emotional and psychologically safe place in which students can take
risks and experiment. We now know the brain encodes new learning only after physical and emotional safety
are taken into consideration first. Neuro Learning for golf actively addresses what to do without using how-to
directions from a perceived expert.
The principles of Neuro Learning for golf co-mingle with concepts that support making progress found in
Montessori schools, Waldorf schools and 21st Century Learning Inc, to name a few examples of
approaches to improving that are compatible with how the brain self-encodes and retrieves information for
long-term use. Neuro Learning for golf does not make value judgments of inputs, outcomes or
environments. I suspect the late Harvey Penick may have unknowingly used the principles that Neuro
Learning for golf are founded on, including support without judgments.
The environment Neuro Learning for golf creates is a learning-developing environment that moves beyond
traditional ‘teaching-fixing to get-it-right’ approaches to perfection that are not brain compatible for
meaningful improvement. Award winning educators and scientists no longer see ‘teaching-fixing to get-it-
right’ environments as the most meaningful approach to learning and making long-term progress.
Because of respected research into learning and improving, Neuro Learning for golf has rethought the
traditional use of drills, teaching aids, video replay and detailed descriptions of the golf swing. All of which
have been found to be at odds with research into the nature of brain based learning, and less useful than
they were once thought to be.
Neuro Learning for golf uses one focus of inquiry to generate another. Connections and relationships are
made and then seen as a whole with Neuro Learning for golf, and not as separate details. Seeing the golf
swing as a whole, with a beginning and an ending, and nothing in the middle is a brain-compatible
approach to improvement. When learning, the brain is more efficient when using “just in the ball park”
concepts rather than a long list of details and technical information.
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Neuro Learning for golf is an approach to playing and improving that does not attempt to fix poor outcomes.
Perhaps this is counterintuitive insight, but it is one that is supported by sound studies into the brain’s
natural learning process. Neuro Learning for golf does not see poor outcomes as failure, but as useful
feedback for future use. This is a very important insight. There is no failure in a Neuro Learning for golf
environment.
In the past, advice and suggestions for making progress have normally been based on attempts at
diagnosing and fixing a poor outcome, and not on the kind of positive active approach to struggling that
Neuro Learning for golf supports. It is a biological imperative to have some struggling when learning.
Neuro Learning for golf’s approach to playing and learning follows suggestions from cognitive scientists by
creating a student-centered approach to improving in what is referred to as a safe, smart environment.
Learning and improving is an emotional, biochemical processes. Some approaches to progress cause the
release of chemicals that fragment learning. On the other hand, safe-smart approaches release chemicals
that support learning.
In a Neuro Learning for golf environment, no student is seen as broken or in need of fixing. The SMART
approach to progress used by Neuro Learning for golf stands for Student Minds Are Really Talented, and
this is taken into consideration while using an approach called “out”struction, while avoiding “in”struction.
Neuro Learning for golf draws on what students already know and understand from their past experiences,
then helps that individual to invent their personal golf swings, putting strokes, short games, as well as their
thinking and deduction skills. Neuro Learning for golf takes place in a SAFE environment free of criticism
and judgment, which is a Student Always First Environment.
Neuro Learning for golf uses a Play Golf to Learn Golf approach to improvement. The term PLAY could
stand for Powerful Learning About Yourself, which is the first stage of improving anything including golf.
When acts of play are not judged or criticized, both workable and unworkable outcomes become feedback
that helps individuals reach their potential. Unworkable outcomes are then no longer seen as failures.
When outcomes are seen as feedback for future use it helps individual’s reach their personal potential.
When individuals are learning and playing, Neuro Learning for Golf suggests they use visualizations and
feels based on their past experiences while avoiding the words that self talk is based on. Cognitive science
studies on long-term learning have found that words are less powerful than personal visualizations and
feels for making progress.
Neuro Learning for golf’s mission is to first improve an individual’s learning potential which then enhances
their performance potential. Neuro Learning for golf realizes that a master of anything was first a master of
learning. Studies show it is always by improving learning potential first that performance potential then
improves. By joining the principles of brain-based learning with the information to be learned, individuals
are given the opportunity reach their personal potential.
The ultimate goal of Neuro Learning for golf is to help individuals make progress with their golf skills and to
enhance their quality of life. Neuro Learning for golf skills clearly improve problem solving, creativity, and a
mind-body connection. Neuro Learning for golf should be seen as a new vision for improving and enhancing
the traditional teaching-fixing to get-it-right approach to instruction. Neuro Learning for golf has emerged as
the leading organization when it comes to combining current research into brain compatible improvement
with golf instruction.
Neuro Learning for golf has a vision of learning and human possibilities that is a meaningful vehicle for
nourishing untapped capabilities.
Again, Neuro Learning for golf promotes improving one’s golf with an approach that see its mission as
putting a light on the original dreams of those who first played golf over 500 years ago – which is enjoyable
recreation.
Today because of what modern science is uncovering there are new answers within our reach for
enhancing acts of learning. These insights can help to develop the kinds of habits of the mind that
individuals can bring to the ever-changing environment the game of golf presents.
©Michael Hebron, Learning Golf, Inc. 2009, all rights reserved.
Neuro Learning for golf, Neurogolf-L and Neurogolf Learning are trademarks of Michael Hebron.
Multiple choice learning
Play Golf to Learn Golf, book by Michael Hebron
