Please note I never taught any of my Tour Pros clients what I teach now.
I was a personal trainer when golfers didn't work out, so I had to develop golf-specific workouts based on my knowledge of body movement
and my rookie observations of the golf swing.
My name is Alison Thietje. My career began in 1996, twenty-seven years ago, when I founded
TAG-Total Approach Golf. A personal training company traveling with the PGA Tour.
I founded Motion Memory Golf- MMG in 2007 and Mind2Motion (M2M) Golf in 2011.
Between 2000-2003, I discovered and categorized the first Anatomical Absolutes for the golf swing.
Between 2007 and 2022, I discovered the TG Body Movement Laws™, the TG micro-movements™, and a brain-body training program called Brain-Body Intelligence™ (BBI).
My entry-level introduction to golf was with Total Approach Golf (TAG). I was up close and personal, literally inside the ropes of PGA tournaments
with the best golfers in the world. My eyes had never seen an amateur golfer swing.
As a personal trainer, I interpreted the swing the only way I knew how: Body Movement Laws.
I had no idea what a bad swing looked like, much less the cacophony of contradictions in golf instruction regarding the golf swing.
Using the club path and ball flight (reactions) as a way of interpreting the golf swing (the action)
would have been the proverbial looking for a needle in a haystack.
Here in lies the problem.
If I asked 20 golfers or instructors, "What is the golf swing?" I got 20 different answers. If I ask:
What is a weight shift, shoulder, or hip turn?
How do you do it?
What's a good or the correct setup, and why?
In rank, which one comes first?
I got 20 different subjective, opinion-based answers.
Golf instruction, be it from a friend or teacher, was like the Tower of Bable.
The same vocabulary was used, but everyone had/has their own dictionary.
For example, I coined as the "scapula glide" for the takeaway in the golf swing. It has been grossly misinterpreted and rarely, if ever, understood correctly.
Fact: the scapula is designed to glide. ( As described in all anatomy books)
Fact: It is NOT part of "the" golf swing unless you choose it as part of your swing.
Fact: Not everyone's scapula(s) glide in their swing. There are countless amateurs and Tour Pros
whose scapula is glued to their ribcage throughout their swing.
We lack knowledge if the facts or universal principles/laws that govern the golf swing have not been collectively and corporately defined.
Some golfers believe there is nothing more to learn about the golf swing. They believe all knowledge about the swing has been maxed out already.
If I ask, "When did this happen?" They don't know, but there is nothing new that anyone will discover from here on out.
FACT CHECK: The "study" of the golf swing is barely 70 years old.
And many believe no MORE innovation or education will be found.
Have we tapped out all our knowledge of golf swing? Can all the conflicting interpretations be correct?
Unfortunately, this is where the golf swing currently resides.
In many ways, we don't have the right knowledge, which means we need new knowledge.
This can be done if we learn how to interpret and understand the swing with objective body movement laws.
From this glorious rookie mindset, ignorance was bliss.
Indisputable, proven sciences backed my observations on the PGA Tour from 1996-2001.
They were shockingly simple, objective body movements.
They're still unchallenged today.
According to Newton's law, in ranking the order of action-reaction:
1.) Body Movement Laws dictate the
2.) Club movement laws that dictate the
3.) Ball movement dictates the score
If we start from the end goal of putting the ball in the hole and work backward, continuing to ask, " Well what moved that?"
we end up with the TG Body Movement Laws.
However, due to the abstract nature of this analysis, we need to go one step deeper beyond the fact that the body swings the club.
We must know the "origin," the cause, or the genesis of specific body movements.
Not just the fact that specific movements exist.
Besides, studying club path, clubface, and body positions at different swing points is only 1/2 the story. Besides, we've had this knowledge; for decades.
When looking at the golf swing through the lens of traditional body movement laws and the TG Body Movement Laws,
like the laws of gravity, there are things we can't change; we have no control over them.
Golfers need to learn what body parts can or can't be used to accomplish certain things in their swing.
We may not believe in gravity, but if we step off a building, were not going up.
The fact is that what we think we see or feel does not determine reality.
Traditional and the TG Body Movement Laws do.
Not only is this a logical way to interrupt the swing, but once we do, it will end the ego-centric era of the Tower of Babel with all its confusion (insanity) and kick-start a new, modern era more fitting for the mid-20th century.
Although this is still a new revelation for today, when I started teaching it around 2001-1002,
this reality-fact-based understanding of the swing was thought insane.
"Golf is not a physical game; it's a mental game," I repeatedly heard," and "It doesn't matter how far you hit the ball; this is not a game of power." When I listened to this, I thought they were insane. LOL
Thus, a 25-year gridlock for interpreting the golf swing with objective body movements.
By 2016, I had been a personal trainer for 20+ years with over 40,000 hours of experience
and a Ph.D. in what NOT to do! I opted out of golf entirely until 2020.
It became abundantly clear that our corporate understanding and interpretation of the golf swing
needed a complete overhaul. Traditional Body MOPvement laws weren't enough. Thus, the creation of the TG Body MOvement Laws.
However, I have since concluded that there is one more missing piece of the golf swing puzzle. I sense at this point, 27 years later, that this is the most important of all: the discovery of hidden ground rules
for developing the individual golfer's brain-body intelligence™ (BBI).
Developing BBI would not be possible without the TG Body Movement Laws™. (TG Laws™ for short.)
But if you're a fan of traditional instruction, you would not need to learn the body movement laws, but you would still need BBI.
The TG Laws™ silence the contradictions' cacophony while de-mystifying our understanding of the swing.
Developing the golfer's entry-level brain-body intelligence/awareness empowers them to interpret the golf swing rightly.
It IS a rational approach.
They'll never know how good of a golfer they can be until they fully develop their
brain-body intelligence/awareness skills.
The "learning" and the "training" process for developing brain-body intelligence™ (BBI)
are pre-established parameters that existed long before you were born. Those parameters/laws become your focal point. Your anchor. Your fixed center.
You will be walked through a process.
Reasoning by facts.
Rightly interpreted.
A full & correct understanding of the swing.
Becomes a reality.
For you.
These newly discovered hidden ground rules reveal how to harness our brain's ability to control
our muscular and skeletal systems.
As a skill set, this maximizes healthy spine and joint alignment,
taking longevity, balance, safety, fitness & athletic performance to new heights.
Without this skill set, even under the tutelage of world-renowned instructors and coaches,
golfers will continue to struggle, never realizing their full potential due to a faulty interpretation of the golf swing.
According to the science of learning taxonomies, a rightly understood/interpretation is foundational for
learning, comprehension, and, most importantly, memorization. If we memorize the wrong movements
while believing it is correct, a mere optimistic illusion, our unmet expectations will kill all confidence.
Golf instructors understand what they want their students to do, but they find it challenging to get them to implement it.
We need a brain-body development program to empower golfers to implement golf instruction successfully.
Verbal cueing, teacher demonstration, video analysis, online instruction, and 3D motion capture aren't getting the job done.
Golfers must develop the skill set of golf-specific, brain-body intelligence/awareness before
fully benefiting long-term from any teaching methods.
In summary, Acquiring new levels of Brain-Body intelligence (BBI), as a skill set is paramount.
Where "feel is real" and a corporate or universal vocabulary eliminate interpretive challenges
that make learning and comprehension difficult, if not impossible.