I am an educated PGA teaching professional of 23 years. My office is covered with certification plaques that display my life long quest to help my students be better golfers, as well as myself. Both my students and I have had our day in the sun but never a long period in the sunshine.  

For over 50 years, the golf industry has been on the fast track providing us with a new “Genie in the bottle” instructor who promises us the answers we have all been looking for. As a fellow participant in this quest, I regrettably admit that traditional golf instruction has begun to resemble a Dog and Pony show featuring Smoke and Mirrors as the closing act! Don’t get me wrong; most teachers are dedicated professionals with a passion for the game and their students. However, we teach theory, personal preferences and opinions that change from year to year. Our opinions are not truth. I realized, as an industry, we had been looking for the answers in all the wrong places!  

Two years ago, I found something that is as reliable as the law of gravity. In fact, it is based on laws. There are, in fact, swing mechanic’s as reliable as the law of gravity. They can be found in the human body and how it was designed to move. That’s what lead me to my partner in crime, Alison Thietje. Alison is an anatomist, which is someone who specializes in anatomy, specifically human skeletal and muscular anatomy and how that applies to the golf swing! Her Learning System, called Mind-2-Motion is the first alternative to traditional instruction. I can now teach my students a much simpler way to improve their swing.  M2M is based on the laws of motion (the body and it interacts with Newton’s laws). The world is round not flat kind of laws.

Follow Alison and me over the next five months in a series called Myth Busters for Golf!

Think you can’t get your back to the target? Think again! Next month we will be explaining the Golf Flexibility Myth. Yes, it’s a myth. We will provide you with a golf flexibility test you can perform on yourself and give you a simple, one minute, Mind-to-Motion remedy, for getting your back to the target. Yes, I said simple and in just one minute. We can assure you, this will be the most fascinating series of golf articles you have ever read in your life. So come back next month…let us show you just how much flexibility you really need and we will teach you HOW to get your back to the target, no matter what your age!

Look for these Mind-to-Motion Fundamentals in future articles:
August: The Flexibility Myth
September: The Width of Stance Myth
October: The Balanced Set Up Myth
November: The Weight Shift Myth
December: The Forearm and Hand Myth

Tom Velarde is the Director of Golf at Black Mesa Golf Club in Espanola, New Mexico,
just northwest of Santa Fe. For more information or to reach Tom, email
tvelarde@blackmesagolfclub.com.