Watch this video with Fred Shoemaker , the author of Extraordinary Golf - The Art of the Possible and see the wonderful poise and ease this golf coach exhibits while he speaks with Peter Hudson

Book Review:

Fred Shoemaker’s book Extraordinary Golf, The Art of the Possible, is not a new book. Although published in 1995, it has not lost any of its presence and actuality. In the beginning chapters it seems that Shoemaker wants to encourage golfers to simply let go and enjoy a good walk. But through his detailed observation of player and game it soon becomes obvious that he only suggests taking an initial step back from the over-involved game and over-taught attitude that most players embody. While Shoemaker wants us to connect with our instincts, he also teaches us to explore what we think about ourselves while we play and to observe and experiment with our technique. Often remembered for his club-throwing game, in which students can connect with a freer approach to the swing through releasing the club, he knows very well that this freedom of throwing the club does not automatically translate into application at the tee. After taking the reader carefully through his teaching approach the book ends with simple and well constructed exercises.

This is a beautifully written and well balanced book, using straight forward language, gentle humor, helpful photos, interspersed with stories of pivotal learning experiences for Shoemaker himself; it talks about big issues of life and self without being preachy or esoteric; it shows deep familiarity with the game, the “culture of golfers”, pitfalls of thinking and the professional experience of helping people to evolve in their game.

As an Alexander Technique teacher I am probably biased to underscore a set of thoughts most in line with my teaching, but I am pretty certain that I don’t misconstrue the author and his pedagogy.

About awareness: The real step to improvement comes from awareness.  Awareness can only begin when you stop trying to fix your swing. Your goal should not be to get rid of a slice or hook but to understand what you are doing in order to eliminate what’s in your way to a better swing.

About “letting-it-go”: When you are fixing details of your game, you are losing the feel for the whole; when you are leaving yourself alone, you can go back to sensing the whole in its original state. In Shoemaker’s words:

“When you step up to a golf ball, then, there’s nothing to remember. You simply acknowledge the target and let it go. Letting go doesn’t mean randomly slashing at the ball. It’s the letting go that is appropriate to a target. The target supplies the structure and boundaries within which is freedom.”

About Golf as Art: When you are exploring the way you are playing this game, your game becomes an art and a way of self discovery and identity. The stories about yourself and your game disappear, you can shed your acquired roles and safety rituals, you can drop your “self-interference”; you can approximate the kind of person you wish to become.

As he encourages golfers to get out of their own way, to find for example their natural timing, he also advocates an ongoing and deepening awareness for our game. I can’t think of any technique better suited to deepen self-awareness than the Alexander Technique, which is so successful in educating individuals’ sense of their body, of balance, tension, physical interplay of muscles with other tissues. In addition I believe that the Alexander Technique has through ‘Inhibition’ or ‘Stopping’ the best tool for helping players to get out of the way of their own thinking, their preconceived ideas, their beliefs and fears and to make golf an art and a way to deepened self-discovery and identity.

More than one copy of this book has a place on my shelf as I consider it required reading for Alexander Technique students who also want to improve their golf game. It fits like ball in hole.