When most golfers think about doing yoga, it is for the mobility and flexibility side, but I personally think the most benefit golfers can get from yoga is for the mind.
Yoga teaches you to stay in the present, to keep your focus on the mat , to allow distractions to come into the mind but not to dwell on them.
Golfers all know that one of the hardest parts of the game to master is control of the mind. How many times has our mind helped us to miss a putt, to put a ball into the water or to drive it out of bounds !
Meditation is something I always include in my yoga classes , and these days it is always part of my Golf Fitness Class as well. In yoga we tend to meditate with our eyes closed, going inside ourselves to find that point of stillness. In golf we need to be able to bring our mind to a point of stillness with our eyes open. Whilst there is great benefit to meditate with the eyes closed for golfers, I am finding that actually doing meditation practice with the eyes open and focusing on a golf ball, really helps to transfer the skill out onto the course.
When we meditate with our eyes closed, I personally find it much easier to block out outside distractions , and allow my focus to remain on my breath . I find you are aware of noises etc outside but coming back to yourself is much easier. With eyes open I find it harder to "resist" the urge to look to wear the noises are coming from or to notice my surroundings. For this reason I find the meditation to help my golf is best done with my eyes open , and I will more often than not actually use one of my marked golf balls so that my brain gets used to being able to block out the distractions around me and just focus on the white ball.
The video below is an explanation for my "White Ball Mediation". Once you understand the process you do not need to spend a long time meditating. There is research to say that just 3 minutes I enough to start to make a difference. So why dont you give this a go and let me know how you get on. At the end of the day anything we can do to enable our mind to be quieter over each golf shot is a good thing,
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