Advent Thoughts

 

 

This post is doing double duty. I swear I will get to the point alluded to in the post's title. But first I need to inventory all of the mechanics I am trying to routinize when I swing a golf club:

1. Flare both feet out, right foot slightly and left foot pretty pronounced
2. Keep my back straight
3. Loose arms draped down
4. Bend my knees so my legs are relaxed
5. Weight evenly distributed between left and right leg
6. Stick my butt out 
7. Shoulders square (or slightly up if hitting driver, or parallel to ground if hitting on an up slope or down slope)
8. I need to see the right two knuckles on my left hand
9. Left thumb nestled inside my right hand grip
10. Give the grip a squeeze and then keep the hands loose
11. Hold the grip high enough to get more torque, but low enough that it doesn't feel like I'm too far away from the ball
12. Rest the club head so that the toe of the club is off the ground
13. When straddling the ball, how far up or down depends on which club I'm swinging
14. Angle of club shaft and placement of club head, relative to ball, depends on which club I'm swinging
15. Head down and still throughout most of the swing
16. Backswing has my club face going straight back, arms and club shaft straight (as if I'm rolling a 2nd ball that is behind my ball directly backwards)
17. Tuck my chin into my left shoulder to exaggerate the stillness of my head throughout the duration of my backswing
    
18. Slow and easy tempo back, slight weight transfer to back leg but not really
19. Keep my lower body relatively still, except for turning my hips so my right buttocks rotates back
20. Come through my swing faster than I went back but still slow and easy (not violent, like I'm trying to kill the ball)
21. Slot the swing a little bit inside out (too far and I blast it right, too little and I duck hook, but if just right then the ball comes out straight or with a slight right-to-left draw shape) 
22. Imagine that I'm hammering a nail downward if hitting wedges or irons, sweeping the floor if a fairway wood, and upper cutting if a driver
23. Forget about the ball and focus on turning my hips all the way through so that my upper body is facing front
24. As I'm turning my hips, I'm moving my arms through so that my left armpit is exposed and my left elbow is practically pointing backwards
25. My hands should be high so that it would be like I was going to use my club face as a back scratcher
26. Weight transfer should be fully to left leg, such that if I wanted to I could lift my right foot off the ground without losing balance
27. End with my face facing front, hopefully everything in balance rather than flailing around

So that's 27 individual aspects in a single swing! (Btw if you read anything above that is wrong, kindly let me know!) Which is obviously too many swing thoughts to have in my mind in the few seconds that each swing takes. So the goal is to repeat the motion so many times that I don't have to think about it, and maybe have a singular swing thought in my head as I go about a particular round. One day it might be to loosen my grip, another day it might be to make sure I'm keeping the tempo of my backswing and forward swing nice and easy, not too fast and not too slow. Whatever I need at a given time, it's zero or one thing to have in my head, not 27.

Which, how's that for a long and golf-related intro, is something that I think applies to Advent too. The holiday season is notorious for being hustle and bustle, whether tying up things at work, tending to extra family responsibilities, or drowning in the whirlwind that is end-of-year shopping ads. Even if we manage to keep things spiritual and virtuous, there's a lot that one could conceivably focus on that would be appropriate for the season: charity, holiness, reverence, and the list goes on and on.

But, as with golf, I think it's best to pick one thing and then do your best to clear your mind of all the noise past that one thing. For me this season, it is gratitude. Any situation, any response, any foreseen or unforeseen circumstance: gratitude can and should be my default location. For you, it may be something else. Whatever it is, I hope you have a holy holiday, whatever that means for you.