Golf Tips – Generating Power with Relaxation Techniques

Let’s take a look at Golf’s moment of impact, what I like to call golf’s singularity – that is, the moment your shot preparation and swing execution come together to drive energy through the ball to send it towards its intended target.

The Chi Performance approach offers the secret to generating explosive power at impact, as it shows you how to unite your mind and body so that your technique becomes an extension of your movement, rather than the other way around – a root cause of many problems golfers have with consistency.

Traditionally, the golf swing is approached as a technique to ‘get right’, with emphasis given to segmented parts of the body (head, shoulders, wrists) and the various ‘swing positions’, which is literally ‘thinking about moving’ rather than feeling what’s happening in your swing (the key to Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus becoming golfing legends).

Conversely, Chi Performance GOLF highlights how ‘the inside of the body moves the outside’ and by extension, how the club /club-head simply respond to what the body is doing.

The secret to explosive power at impact has more to do with relaxation than it does with physical exertion, brute force and the typical ‘grip it and rip it’ attitude of the mainstream.

In Tai Chi training, explosive power is known as Fa Jing and you may have heard me using an analogy Bruce Lee made about ‘soft power’ being like an iron ball on the end of a chain, a sort of elastic, whip-like action followed by a return to stillness (one of many similarities between Tai Chi and golf!).

Fa Jing, which means to ‘issue power’, depends on two fundamentals, which are good structure coupled with a feeling of true relaxation; only then is it possible to explode through the ball, delivering the perfect body release, and maximum energy transfer.

Here’s why. The more relaxed you are at setup and right through to the top of your back-swing, the more force or stored-energy you have to drive through the ball. If you turn on the power too soon, (if you’re tense throughout the motion) you will negate much of this force and lessen your power at impact.

A good golf swing is not all about technique; it’s about learning to use your body in two distinct ways, almost like the yin and yang of the swing – yin being the soft, relaxed energy from setup to the top and yang being the hard, explosive energy from the top down.

So instead of focusing on the various positions throughout your swing, try instead to focus on two distinct yet complementary ways of using your body by staying relaxed from address through to the top where your energy and intent will naturally change from yin to yang, from soft to hard, from relaxed to explosive.

As always, focusing on your breathing quietens your mind, reduces anxiety and has a direct bearing on your muscles, which in turn relax and work better to help drive maximum energy through the ball.

Want to learn more golf tips? Listen to the free podcast interview ‘Reaching Peak Performance Through Relaxation Techniques

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This article was originally published on Chi Performance Golf.

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