Do You Know The 5 Main Reasons For The "Dreaded Shanks"

What is a shank?

Have you ever watched Tin Cup? I know its a movie, but there is a scene when Roy 'Tin Cup' McAvoy (Kevin Costner) is at the practice range, and he is hitting shank after shank.

How did he do that?

Well Roy did the same thing that I did and every other golfer does when they shank the ball and that is when you hit the ball with the hosel of your club. The hosel is the rounded bit between the shaft of the club and the club face. This part of the club has a rounded surface, and so the ball shoots off to the right at an amazing angle (to the right for a right handed player and to the left for a left handed player). Basically you are hitting the ball too close to the heel of the club, rather than the center of the clubface. Most likely your shot will fly off as a line drive directly away from your body.

5 Common faults that will cause a shank

Reason # 1 You are transferring the weight from your heels to your toes

weight transfers to the toes at impact making you lean forward When you set up to hit the ball, you may find that you feel more pressure in your heels than in your toes. This occurs because you are basically leaning or sitting back. As a result you may be compensating for this imbalance during your swing. This will have the effect of leaning slightly forward and thereby moving the club head forward. Remember looking at the photo of a shanked shot, all it takes is inch of forward movement from transferring the weight from your heels to your toes and you will get a shank! An uneven weight distribution between the back and the front of your feet during your swing may be causing you to shank the ball.

Reason #2 You are standing too close to the ball at setup

If you are standing too close to the ball at setup, your natural tendency will be to adjust your downswing to a more comfortable and natural swing path. The effect will be that the club head will move away from you, and as we have found out, even inch will cause the dreaded shank to appear into your game. Simply standing too close could be the reason that your are shanking the ball!

Reason #3 Your natural swing aim is flawed

When you are hitting the ball, you are most probably aiming at the middle of the ball, and expecting the middle of the club face to make contact with the ball. The cause of your shanks could be as simple as a slightly incorrect aim!

Reason #4 - Your arms move away from your body

When you are making your downswing, do your arms drift away from your body? If they do, the effects can be disastrous! one of the effects is the club head moves away from the correct swing path and so the club connects the ball with the hosel, and you get a shank.

Reason #5 - You have an incomplete shoulder turn

If you are not getting a good or complete shoulder turn, then your swing will become too narrow and steep. Your left shoulder should rotate to a position above your right knee. If you are not getting to this position, the result is that you are likely to be swinging on a very narrow arc. Having a narrow swing due to an incomplete shoulder turn may be causing you to fall into your shots during your downswing, and by leaning forward by inch will cause a shank. The cause of shanking could be due to an incomplete shoulder turn.

How do you cure a shank?

The main reason I cured the shanks was because I found a solid and reliable swing that was easy to learn and easy to repeat

Visit my website to see My Review of the Simple Golf Swing

If you want to discover the simple set up routine that I used, simply go to my web site and See my review of The Simple Golf Swing Review

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Karmic Yoga-Correction Agents

Throughout the ages there have been men and women who have labored to better the world. Some of them worked through communities and institutions while some of them worked at what some people call the grass roots level, to raise a group of people wanted to help provide for the needs of the society at a deeper, more personal level, than most governments. These groups were often met with a great deal of resistance, but as more people joined them and they gained more power, they also gained enough prestige to become part of the larger system. This was both a blessing and a curse.

Today, due to the speed of communication, we can see the fruit of their success faster. As they become part of the system they get more power, but the amount of compromising necessary to remain at the table and keep that power also increases. After they have compromised too much they become the system instead of agents of correction. They begin to make a few cosmetic changes here and there and to pass out the Band-aids, but they really dont make the foundational changes needed to stop people from getting wounded.

Their success has ultimately become their failure. They have ended up selling their souls to do good and bending their values so far they dont exist anymore. Finally they end up being the oppressors and suppressors they thought they were fighting. This is an example of how ones success externally can contribute to ones demise internally. The Shaolin discuss this in their wisdom literature. They say that some people only use their energy and light of awareness to fight against darkness and evil externally. While their awareness is being applied on the outside the evil they are fighting finds a place of welcome on the inside. They are then turned into what they are fighting against.

The Shaolin say that is more important to use the light of awareness on the inside to purify and strengthen oneself so one can work to fight evil from a place of wholeness, completeness, and goodness. To create a better society it is important to know who one is and to cultivate ones sense of self, honor, and dignity. One can work from a place of strength and power then, creating new ways to bring about social change. If one is moved by anger or by fear it can seem that she is doing great work while she is destroying the very principles inside herself that she wants the world to embrace. But if she struggles from a place of certitude and love, she will bring the principles she embraces to the world and be an example for following generations.

If you want to be a social change agent as part of your Karmic Yoga, cultivate love of self and neighbor. Treat yourself kindly. Truly love yourself and your neighbor--even those who oppose you. Love combined with just action will lead you to life. This life will replace the drudgery of fighting unbeatable odds, or the tiredness from maintaining a sense of righteous anger throughout the years and transform your work to one of joy. Your work will become part of the great spiral dance that weaves together and takes apart corrupt thoughts, concepts, and social systems, and recreates them in the image of love. You will be the very essence--the creative process of life, and your legacy of justice, which is applied love, will endure forever.

Dr. John W. Gilmore is the founder and spiritual Leader of the Cyber Circle of creation spirituality, which is an online service dedicated to deep ecumenism, mystical union with the Divine, and a progressive voice for societal transformation. He is a spiritual Director, martial arts Instructor, a writer and a certified Reiki Master Teacher, Massage therapist, a Reflexologist. For more commentaries like this one explore this e-zine or our Free journal of practical spirituality at http://www.dswellness.com . You can also find a link to our cyber service, The Circle there.

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The Personal Benefits of Meditation and Yoga

There would be little point in practicing meditation if it had no benefits, but from my own limited experience, the benefits of meditation are numerous. I can only imagine what benefits will be obtained by those who have practiced meditation more regularly, and with more expertise, over a longer number of years, than I have.

Before listing some of my own personal benefits, those that have been clear to me through experience, let us just consider meditation itself. meditation is a powerful spiritual practice, and the regular act of meditation can help a great deal in ones spiritual development. Through the practice of meditation, the person meditating is able to focus on each part of his or her body, something I learnt in my first yoga lesson. Simply by doing this, a great level of relaxation can be achieved, which has the potential in providing many health benefits.

meditation has been used since ancient times, especially in Eastern cultures, which tend to be more spiritually aware than the rest of us. Holy men and mystics, psychics and occultists, spiritualists and alternative therapists, have long understood the amazing powers of meditation. Since the 1960's and the Beatles' indulgence in Transcendental meditation in India, more and more people have come to appreciate the powers that meditation can bring to our lives, whether spiritually, physically, or psychologically.

benefits of meditation I Have Experienced

My first "formal" experience of meditation was in yoga lessons, which I started at a time shortly after some major emotional upheavals in my life. It is not something you can really imagine fully without experiencing, which may be why many people dismiss meditation as some weird practice of Eastern mystics. In fact, meditation could not be more natural.

Interestingly, the yoga class I was in a few years back was sponsored by the British National health Service, and was for people with some physical limitation which prevented them from practicing full yoga exercises. Being limited to some extent by spine and hip degradation, caused by Ankylosing Spondylitis in my youth, I could not do the full range of yoga exercises. I was therefore delighted to find this class existed in my own little town. I was the only one under 50 years of age in the class, and, unsurprisingly, the healthiest looking and feeling. To most people I seemed "normal"; it was only when it came to bending my spine and at the hips that any problem would be seen.

I can still, some 7 years later, recall leaving that first lesson, after a final 30-45 minute relaxation/meditation session. I felt a totally different person, in tune with every part of my body and totally relaxed in every way. It was as if I had been transported to a different land, when in fact all I had been doing was communicating with my inner self and each part of my body, to achieve the desired state.

I felt the health benefits after every session, and ever since then I have used yoga style relaxation techniques and meditation to:

1. Bring down my blood pressure from its "high normal" level.

2. Bring more calmness into my life.

3. Increase self awareness.

4. In conjunction with setting personal objectives, help me achieve goals.

5. Help me feel in control of my own existence.

I know that meditation, even with my limited training and ability to perform it, will always be in my health and personal achievement armoury. Sometimes, too, I think back to those mostly elderly people who attended the same yoga class. Aged 60-80 plus, they were all suffering from some chronic disease. One I remember had Parkinson's Disease, and as long as she was strong enough to get to the lesson, she would be there every week, and claimed it helped her considerably.

So, my personal experience of the benefits of yoga, and what was guided meditation, go beyond my own direct experience, and into the experience of a class of chronically ill. Everyone in that class felt benefits; none attended for any social need, as there was no time for idle chat.

Finally, a few years back my son went on a 6 month trek around India, and throughout that time assured me not to worry about his blood sugar level, because of his lack of control over his diet there. He told me that, even with the imperfect diet, he had no trouble controlling his blood sugar level, as he could now do so through meditation. Even without my own direct experience that would have been enough to convince me that meditation could play an important role in health, and that it was indeed possible to use meditation to communicate with every part of the body.

This meditation and yoga article was written by Roy Thomsitt, owner and part author of the Routes To Self Improvement web site, where you will find other articles on topics such as Transcendental Meditation and yoga obstacles.

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