Ep. 41 | Trillium Rose on Biomechanics and Skill Acquisition, Finding the Best Methods in Coaching, Why Aesthetics Are Rarely Important, and Internal vs External Coaching

Trillium Rose (@trillium_rose)  joins us on this episode.

Trillium is the Director of Instruction at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, MD. She is featured in the 50 Best Teachers in America by Golf Digest and Golf Magazine’s Top 100 Teachers in America.

In this episode, we discuss biomechanics and skill acquisition, speaking the right language to the student, finding the best methods in coaching, aesthetics in performance, internal vs external coaching, and more.

Follow us on Instagram: @urbangolfperformance
Follow Mac: @mactoddlife
Follow Leo: @leo_ugp
Website: urbangolfperformance.com

Follow us on Instagram: @urbangolfperformance
Follow Mac: @mactoddlife
Follow Leo: @leo_ugp
Website: urbangolfperformance.com

Transcript

Trillium 0:00

So it's not a new idea that you shouldn't just sit on the range and rote repetition, hit seven irons, the flag, and expect that that's going to translate. But I think as human beings, we feel like that is going to train. Cause it feels good. It feels good to kind of do it until you can get it. And then you just don't want to keep doing it feels good. And it's, and it's an illusion of competency as we know, but it's, but it's something that people aren't necessarily going to just change on their own because you don't trust the concept of hitting bad shots and think that that's gonna work.

Leo 0:45

thanks for joining us. Trilia we're going to start quickly here with a little fact box. So It's going to be a couple of questions and you can ask her quickly or, or not quickly if you want. You ready? All right. What's your full, full name?

Trillium 1:03

I am. My full name is Trillium rose.

Leo 1:07

So pretty amazing name. Just, just as a side note.

Trillium 1:10

It's cool. Well, it's, Trillium's a flower. I was born in Vermont and the flowers in bloom in may when I was born. So that is how my mom found the name. And I married a rose, which was, that was just luck.

Leo 1:26

That is, that is a great, that is a great story.

Mac 1:29

You don't have the middle.

Trillium 1:30

I took my maiden name sellers and I turned that into my middle name. Okay. My original middle name I was named after a bug. My original middle name was paddlers. And also the Steve was the book about this little, a little wooden wooden toy. A little Indian in a canoe are, I should say native American. And the little boy in Canada had left it outside and is in his backyard and the snow melted. And it got washed away in the stream behind his house. And the story is about the journey that this little, this little um, this little canoe, this little toy canoe takes all the way down from uh, from a stream to a river, to an estuary, to a golf to the ocean. And you know, it all basically is this adversity that they found along the way, kind of managed through it. And then at the end of fishermen finds it and it catches it in the net. It finds a saying, and it's like, oh, this is neat. Send it back out, out to seal fixed it up instead of back out to sea. So it turns out it was my parents' favorite book when, when they were growing up and they figured that out after they were married.

Leo 2:38

Interesting. Awesome, great backstory. What's home for you

Trillium 2:43

home. Well, I like to travel. I feel, I feel like home is really wherever my family is right now. So we are in DC. So we live in Washington, DC in the district and I'm from Vermont. So my, my parents are in Vermont still and I have a brother who's NLA, but right now it's, it's DC. I've been here for 12 years.

Leo 3:05

Awesome. What's the favorite course.

Trillium 3:10

That'd be Cypress point Cyprus credible and, you know, designed with, with it's got a female architect in its history, which is kind of cool too. I love that it's on some incredible property, but it looks as though it just sort of happened to show up there. I know, I know there's a lot of thought that was put into the routing and the different holes, but it kind of looks like it was always there. And that's very much my style of architecture. I'm not, not, not contrived, but rather looks like, wow, this just was a natural hole. Maybe it wasn't. But you know, Cypress is one of those golf courses where every single hole is, is incredible. And you've got really amazing shot making opportunity does on every hole, even 18.

Leo 4:00

Okay. All right. I haven't played this. I can't say anything.

Mac 4:06

I haven't played them a few times. He lives up there now the golf course. Yeah. I've been living there for about a year now. So we moved to the Carmel valley. Yeah. It's so pretty. So it's probably a 20 minute drive away

Trillium 4:19

at school. There's so many, I thought I love to get their calories, their cattle wild. Calloway's how cool was that?

Mac 4:27

Oh yeah. I mean, my wife has gotten really into um, into urbalism up there. So she's an Ayurvedic health practitioner. And so she's like, there's just, I mean, I'm learning so much about everything blooms up there and my allergies really take the hit, but it's so pretty. I mean, we're, we're actually building our house in the preserve. Have you ever played the preserve that's in the Carmel valley? It's Fazio top 100. And um, it's a 20,000 acre nature Conservancy with only like 250 home sites in it with a top 100 golfers. And so it's, it's so pretty, but there's just so much wildlife it's, it's, it's 80 to 90 degrees in the Carmel valley, and then you drive 15 minutes to pebble and you're 55 and in cloudy. So it's just, it's I think it's the prettier part of the peninsula because you're in the warm and warmth in the sunshine, but there's so much beautiful golf up there.

Trillium 5:19

Yeah. If people haven't been there, they really need to go. I think it's one of the gems of our country.

Leo 5:24

Yeah, definitely. Is there a person or an influence that has been kind of the biggest in your career?

Trillium 5:33

Yeah, certainly. I have a lot of influences on that. If you're asking for the biggest, I think there are probably two that hold that title. And D I could, I could really go on. You know, there's a close third, there's a close fourth and at different times in my life. Right. So I think early on Jim McClain was a huge influence. I worked for Jim and it was when I, when I just realized I wanted, I really wanted to teach full time. I loved coaching and I loved teaching and I wanted to dive into the craft of that. And I wanted to really understand how how the golf swing works. But also I wanted to, you know, I wanted some guidance on, on all the other pieces involved in that. And he just was known as the teacher's teacher. And so I, I spent, you know, a good five years just diving into the systems. Um, Now, while he weld there, I met Dr. Rob Neal and. Kneels by a mechanism. You started out as, as a professor at university of Queensland in Australia and had had really worked pretty, pretty carefully on kinematic sequencing. And he developed a 3d system. You probably familiar with AMM, but his is called golf by a dynamics and AMM and golf by dynamics are the same hardware. He wrote his own software for the, for the GBD system. So his, his perspective really came in. From from a scientific one, which is let's, let's not guess let's actually measure. So let's ask a question let's measure, and then let's just look at the empirical. Right. And as a player himself, I think he brings, he brought and he brings a tremendous understanding of what it takes to work on one skill technically, but also the, the aspects of taking, taking the knowledge of that and taking that skill and turning it into your, you know, your ability to perform in an environment that's completely different than your training. So I think for me, those two, so Dr. Neil on the, on the technical side and I, and I'm still great, great friends with, with them and still really appreciate all that he's bringing to the table. And then Jim McClain, who I also have tremendous respect for and think did a really good surface for. You know, our industry of golf professionals in, in his concept of a system, the system that you don't have to have one swing, and I really buy that. You just don't have to have one swing, but you have to make your swing work, you know, and, and to train a lot of coaches to be on the same page so that, you know, you're not saying, Hey, here's our checklist of what we need people to do like that. Even Jim, Jim McLean would say, Hey, I wrote the eight steps swing with eight steps. Swing is not about being in a position to hear here, here. It's really about being within certain corridors and ranges, you know, and if you're going to do a, you've got to do B, if you're gonna do B, you need to do a, you know, it's like, you don't need to do exactly the same way, but you have to have some kind of way that that's gonna, that's going to work. And our coaches have to be trained to understand that.

Leo 8:36

That's awesome. That's w w I think we will dig deeper cause those are interesting topics later on um, Anika or Lorena.

Trillium 8:46

In terms of what,

Leo 8:47

just your favorite or the best of all time.

Trillium 8:51

Oh, there's such tremendous players. They're, they're very different as people, you know, Lorraine has as an, as a real outgoing person and non cause, not an outgoing person. Aanuka had a uh, you know, she had a very unusual swing then she made it work. I mean, she kind of lifts up a little bit. She does. Yeah. Yeah. The Swedes do that. I think since it does that too. And you knew Lorraina does the absolute opposite, you know, she keeps her head almost took the, you know, looking behind the ball for longer than, I mean, that's, it's such an opposite move. I, I think that it's I was sad to see Lorraina retire early. I was hoping to, to get a lot more out of her, but yeah, I'm happy to have her while it lasted.

Leo 9:41

If you had to choose,

Trillium 9:43

well, you had a longer run, so I'm going to have to say on a calm. And she had a, she had a much longer run and here she is getting back with her schools and, you know, in our foundation so that that's not nothing.

Mac 9:57

And just how I'm Mexican and Leo Swedish. So we just have this debate at all times. Yeah. Yeah. I said, no, no, no golfers everyone by percentage more than Lorena.

Leo 10:08

Yeah. But then there's total wins. Right. But

Trillium 10:11

so was it the personal issue? You're looking for me to kind of tip the scale,

Mac 10:15

but at all times we have a running tally.

Leo 10:18

Yeah. We utilize the podcast, you know? No, but um, it's also pretty awesome by the way, the, you know, Aanuka and Henrik just hosted the first COVID event on the European tour with the latest European tour. It was awesome.

Trillium 10:34

I agree that I think it was so much fun to watch. And it was so many, so many, so many little moments of, you know, male, female coming together. So instead of seeing everybody separate in their own, in their own sport, we saw together that really for the first time, I hope we can do something like that on the PGA tour.

Leo 10:53

Yeah, no, I think it would be pretty fun. Of course it's in Sweden, you know, that would be the first country that would happen. Which is great. Jacko tiger

Trillium 11:03

tire

Leo 11:05

controversial,

Trillium 11:07

controversial. That's a controversial answer. I flat out tiger.

Leo 11:12

Yeah, I agree. But a lot of people just look at the major wins.

Trillium 11:18

I understand that. I think that sorry, Jack, but I think the competition is harder, harder now than it was for you. I think that you, you know, you, as in, I think Jack had obviously had an amazing game and one, you know, in really deserved all the recognition and all the recognition he does get tiger had unbelievable, unbelievable rounds that I think came out of it. Some insane places. And. And his, his mindset is sort of, I wouldn't say the opposite of Jack's, but it's not wholesome. I mean, Jack has a wholesome family life and a wholesome perspective on kids and bringing people together. And and, and Tiger's kind of isolated, isolated himself and has put himself into this tunnel where he can focus and grind and improve. And that's a big part. I think, of why he was able to overcome so much, so much adversity and, and really pull himself through some places that were uncomfortable, you know, for a number of reasons, one being, you know, making big swing changes. That's nice.

Mac 12:28

So it's not just the major record. I mean, Jack Nicholas, I think you won 18 majors, 19 second places and 30 top threes and majors. So it's. It's a lot, but like, but like you said, it, it's one of those things where it's, it's really the level of competition. I mean, you can see the tiger effect is happening now on, I think I'm on all ends on, on every tour at every level. Just the engagement in the game. No one moved the needle more than he ever did. And so it's like impact as a player and then the highest level of play versus, you know, major record or something like that. Right.

Trillium 13:07

I also liked that tigers black. And I think that there's, there's a lot to be said to be the only black player and growing up, growing up in a system that probably didn't have a lot of black kids playing. So nobody really talks about that, but I think that's has had to have been something he didn't grow up, you know, or a rich kid at a country club. So I think we've got to also add that to his stack of overcoming adversity.

Leo 13:33

Let's just tell him he comes back and when it's another three and just so that the conversation can be over um, what's the most interesting phone number you have in your phone?

Trillium 13:43

What? Oh my gosh. I don't know if I can answer that.

Leo 13:50

I'm sure there's politicians where you are in DC, right? That maybe you can't say it.

Trillium 13:57

Yeah. Yeah, of course. But I think a lot more appointed or career officials, so think diplomats justices you know, you know, senators and congressmen. Those are those, those are the elected politicians. Um, Or the, you know, president vice president. Yeah.

Leo 14:15

Do you coach a lot of those people?

Trillium 14:17

I have, I have a handful.

Leo 14:20

Yeah. So what was the most interesting number that you can say?

Trillium 14:26

So I will probably say bill Murray, that's the.

Leo 14:30

That's a good, that's a good one. That's a good one. Have you kind of

Mac 14:34

alluded to a lot of other ones?

Leo 14:38

So have you coached bill or, you know, spend time? I

Trillium 14:42

have, I've had the benefit of saying that, that I have spent a bunch of time with him. So he was a member of a club that I taught up in New York. And he, he is one of the S one of the brightest people that I know, just not even by the students, just brightest people. He is, he has got some real depth to him. To his personality and his knowledge of history and his appreciation of art and the craft of acting and comedy is second to none. I mean, he just, he really is a well and a wealth of information. I played a lot of golf with him and I've spent a lot of time with them. Um, He he's, I, I will not say that I've coached him. I, you know, we've, we've been in situations where I've given a few pointers, if you bit to perspective, but he's, he's a real athlete. He's not necessarily the one that would sit down and say, Hey, I want a lesson. Can I sign up for a lesson, walk in? Um, Although I wish you would sometimes, because I'm like that line. I know exactly what you need to do. But he's really fun to hear insanely competitive and like really competitive uh, any luck sports. So he's really fun to play with.

Leo 15:57

That's awesome. That's a good, that's a good answer. So let's jump straight into, I know it's interesting. You mentioned McLean and you know, kind of your background in biomechanics, you know, as, but also know, you know, you have a background in motor learning and skill acquisition, and we talk a lot about this and kind of the difference between the two and how, you know, you have biomechanics and then you have individuals like you, or we were good friends with Dr. you know, that are that really research how we communicate and how we deliver that technical information. Cause I think we can all agree that sometimes. Golf instruction is too technical and it confuses people. So it sounds like you have a tremendous background in both kind of both on both sides. Um, Cause you have stories by the way where, you know, you have a bio mechanistic that looks at mechanics and let's say a runner and then you actually have a, an expert in motor learning skill acquisition that communicates with athletes. So it's like analysis and application in a way. Do you look at it that way? Like uh, and that's a really good coach. You need to be able to do.

Trillium 17:07

Sure. I'm sure I think is, yeah, I think it's like a yin and yang where you have to know as a coach or as a player, what you want to be doing. But then I would say the end would be the technique and the yang would be the application of that technique. And so, so I think a good coach is going to have some mixture of both brakes. It doesn't do it. Doesn't do anyone any good? Just to know. Okay. I, I know that I want my risk to go into flection, you know, halfway down and I want to feel pressured like in my left. Okay. Fine. But yeah, it does matter where that club is moving. Yeah. If there's just a tremendous amount of, of, of, of, I think individual situations, I'm thinking all these examples, but how you, how you actually take that information and you put it in into your, you know, your nervous system and then how that's tested over time and how you can bring that from, from kind of a more explicit you know, conscious thought to a more implicit automated movement that that's a whole different ball game.

Leo 18:21

Do you feel like though that maybe we focus a lot on the, on the one side and maybe don't focus as much on the deliverance to make sure that we're speaking a language that the student can fully understand.

Trillium 18:35

I don't know what everybody's doing and less than teas, but I've certainly seen I've seen enough and worked enough with enough people and had enough feedback. From students over time and yeah, I mean, it just takes five minutes looking on the internet to see what's out there to know that the discussion is wholeheartedly on what to do. And I think there's, you know, I'm not faulting anybody for doing that. And I certainly put my fair share of tips on, you know, on checking your technique because I, you know, I met a private I'm at a private country club. And so I work with members of a club that are, that are normal people, probably, maybe extraordinary, you know, in what they do on a day to day. But average is athletes, just average athletes and they would average you know, scores look, you know, looking to shoot low eighties, high seventies that's you know, that's good, but, but you're only going to get a certain amount of time from someone who has a job and kids. Right. Two years. So I've been, I've been spending a whole lot of time of the last, you know, 15 years working with people to get, to be more efficient with how, how people can spend their time. And of course, this applies to the high level athletes or the high schoolers that want to play D one or the, you know, the guy or girl who's out already plus. And they want to, you know, and they want to win. They want to win a U S J event. And I've got my fair share that those players too, so that that's some, somewhat of a little bit of a different conversation, but I'd say the big majority of people in the us are, are the, the someone that wants to break a hundred or 90 or 80, you know, that's, that's who we're really talking about. Um, I'm talking about, right? Yeah. I don't think there's a whole lot of, it's not a whole lot of conversation about then what do you do once you know what to do? And let's say, let's say someone's got, you know, a lot of mileage swinging a certain way. Let's say you're 45 years old and you learn to swing when you're safe, 15. And you've got some patterns in there that are, that are just pretty, pretty comfortable. And you don't have to think about it. Well, that's a, that's a lot to ask somebody to then make, make a big adjustment. And I think just knowing what you need to do, isn't really going to cut it. You need to have a plan and you need to have some help getting some feedback about where, where that adjustment needs to happen. So I think to answer your question again. Yeah. I think, I think mostly the conversations on what to do, and I think there's not a whole lot of conversations about how to do it, although there's, there's a bit more I'm in a bit more, I'd say I'm, maybe you guys are hearing it, you know, taking a range game to the course and you know, spending some time, you know, I think S skill skill-based training has, has really been on the, on the table for a long time. There's there's a, a bunch of good things. Charlie king was talking about this for a long time. Time zones is talked about it for a long time. You know, even some of the old timers, like Bob Toski was talking about this for a long time. So it's not a new idea that you shouldn't just sit on the range and rote repetition, hit seven irons, the flag, and expect that that's going to translate. But I think as human beings, we feel like that is going to train. Cause it feels good. It feels good to kind of do it until you can get it. And then you just don't want to keep doing it feels good. And it's, and it's an illusion of competency as we know, but it's, but it's something that people aren't necessarily going to just change on their own because you don't trust the concept of hitting bad shots and think that that's gonna work.

Mac 22:14

So when you go to like, you're really convivial, you're educated, you're an intellectual, you have a lot of depth that you can see. You have a great smile. You have all these different skillsets that you're taking and attributes that you're taking to the lesson T and then you have a depth of understanding. We're, we're so interested in developing kind of the new generation of golf instructors with our business. And we're like, all right, how do we take these he's young coming out of college golf instructors and get them to speed up the process. And how, what would, what, what, in your experience you talked about Jim McClain and how, you know, what he's done the contributions to the game there in that regard, when he's like golf tech, what are your thoughts on developing and what's out there, there, and, and what your experiences in developing new incoming golf instructors and how, you know, is there a way to hack that process or is it something where you have to have all that depth and understanding and, and, and, and really kind of dive into the passion of the, of the whole thing. And you can tell you're a student of the game, the history of it, and everything included versus saying I'm just a specialist in golf instruction that you have a lot. I can see it right away, a lot of skills around being able to, to provide the full package.

Trillium 23:24

Are, are you asking how, how do highly,

Mac 23:29

how do we hack it? I go, yeah, I go, I w when I started this company, I, you know, I had my dad's a public health doctor. My mom's an artist. I don't have a middle name but you know, I have two first names or two last names. I have, you know, I grew up on the border in El Paso, Texas bill Ash, and Brenner was my mentor. I had my, I would go and watch my dad's public health business have dinners with McKell Gorbachev and the CDC. And I got to, I went to IMG academy as a teenager, and was there at Garrett Gilchrist and David Leadbetter and Paula creamer, Julio at their Granada. Like I had, I I'm bilingual. You know, my sister went to USC, she's in public health. So like I have. Many experiences and on a wealth of opportunity I've had in my life and multicultural. And so I think that to the lesson T and then I also play the high level. I was a really good player as a junior golfer. So I take that into the lesson, tee my confidence you know, my, my my essence comes in and it's like, it's a lot of power that I can wield. And then I'm like thinking I'm an intellect. And I'm thinking deeply about how I can get across a very simple point. And when we, when we're, I'm like, cool, that's just, that's just me now, how do I turn that into developing a company and building other people up and give the power to other people? And so, you know, we're 50 employees and growing and have all these coaches and trainers, physical therapists, club fitters, and how to, you know, my question for you is like, in your experience with Jim McClain, seeing these other companies, it's always been a big concept out there about how does one instructor go to 50 or go to a hundred? What, what are your thoughts on that? And, and is there a hack for that, or is. Are there education modules that you've seen that work? What are your thoughts on just developing, I guess, mass golf instruction.

Trillium 25:12

Can you hear me? Can you hear me exhaling on the audio?

Mac 25:17

It's a big, it's a big, I

Trillium 25:19

I've thought about this so much and I've, and I, I, I chaired the coaching and player development committee for the PGA the last two years. And two years before that I was on the committee. I was not the chair. So I spent four years on, on the committee PGA and we were, we were, you know, we were thinking and looking at this, there was also an education committee, but we worked really closely with the education we end with the PG. Just going over that, what can we give golf professionals to bolster their education and to centralize a place where, where they could have access? We can have access to we're talking about the PGA of America. So, so the largest sports organization and we're at 26,000 members of the PGA. I don't know if you guys are members of PGA or not maybe know this already.

Mac 26:09

I went through the program yet, like 28,000 members and apprentices, right?

Trillium 26:12

Yeah, that's right. And, and so there's, there's clearly a major opportunity there to, to, to have an, and this is what we're working on. We're working on on not necessarily providing all the information, but actually picking out the stuff that's already in existence and putting together or giving people access to, you know, to like a tree. Hey, if you're interested in. Yeah. In increasing your ability to understand the whole picture of someone's game, go division 54. If you're interested in developing juniors, as athletes look at TPI and so forth. And there, I mean, there's like 35 that I could think of that we came up with the list of stuff that's out there. The PGA is never going to create that on its own, but I think these small kind of pop-up certification. And so these like knowledge centers I think are really, really good. And if somebody is interested in, in learning, they should do as much of that as they can. I mean, I did a ton of all. I did all of it. I did, I did all of it. I love it. I love learning. So it's just, whatever's out there and did it all. And I think that comprehensively, you know, you, you, you. If, if you're teaching, you know, if you have your lesson books somewhat filled, you're also going to be able to reflect on what you're learning and be able to apply it. And you're going to learn about your own voice, you know, learn about how you interact. You're gonna learn about where your weaknesses are. So I think it's a combination of getting your feet wet and doing it. And it's all. And also then listening to the people that have done it before and have something to say about it, whether you think you need it or not, you should just do it, whether you think you're gonna agree with it or not, you should just do it and see what's out there until your own voice starts to develop. And you have, you can pull together your own, your own things and not to mention there's so many books. You know, and the old books are great, you know, stops and Cochran's, I mean, the search for the purpose of me, there's so many great things out there. And that was written in 1964, I think uh, 63 you know, Percy boomer. We had Ernest Jones. We had like I said, Bob Toski and just, there's a multitude of things out there. You can really learn, you pick up Tommy Armour and everybody's got their own take on it. Now, my personally, I like the scientific stuff. I mean, I was just like evidence and I like evidence in terms of numbers. Cause I love numbers, but I also like evidence Um, maybe video too. There's a lot of too great, great stuff. That's been done, done 2d, and now we've got lots of force, plate and pressure, you know, pressure information. So

Mac 28:50

in a lot of ways and a lot of ways be S be a sponge and develop the experience and go through the trenches. And there is no hack really. I mean, and, and, and I see a lot of instructors they'll spend early on in their careers. They're just teaching people the way that they interpret their own develop development of the game. And then try to imprint that on players and have a tough time. It seems like you have to have a really wealth, big wealth of knowledge and experience and perspective to, to be an effective golf instructor.

Trillium 29:17

Well, like anything. I mean, if I wanted to be a car mechanic, I would, I'd have to have some experience and have to be around it a bit and I'd have to, you don't have to know a lot. And if I just did what I, you know, kind of grew up doing, I be okay. But I think I would be better if. Intern for other people. So with any skill, I do think you've got to reach out beyond your own experiences. You know, I've seen people like that where they they're kind of on their own island and they're there. They're not talking to anybody else. And they're just like doing what they know. And then they read an article and you're like, let me pick that up or let me pick that up. And you can do it that way, but it's a slow, slow, slow road. And I do think you don't develop a lot of different skills that you may develop when you're, w in other words, when you're around other people, you may be challenged a lot more. You're challenged to, you know, and I'm thinking of Jim McClain, cause there's 35 of us and we'd have meetings every Monday. So, you know, you're asked to speak, you're asked to present and you're, and you're challenged and you're asked questions and people poke holes in it. And you've got, you know, you've got to think about how you're going to answer these things. How are you going to what your approach is going to be, you know? And then you get to listen to other people. So it's this like really concentrated environment of learning. And I've really appreciate that. And so I, when I, you know, when I left it kind of a lot of people that I worked with have remained friends. And so we, we kind of condensed together when we're at we're at seminars or we'll we pulled together and we'll do some phone calls together. You kind of keep that rapport and you keep you keep those questions going.

Mac 30:51

Yeah, there's a lot, that's like almost a, it's a boutique team, even though 35 is pretty large. When you think about a coaching. That's about, you know, we're a little, we're a little bit bigger than that and it's, and we can still have these conversations, this narrative, I think I can't help, but think about golf tech because they're the largest employer of PGA professionals in the world. And they have, I think 700 coaches, right. And they're, and the franchise, they grew really fast from the late nineties. And then, you know, 20 years later they're here. And there's, it's a very controversial company. People have a lot of ideas around it, but their answer to that one, I'm curious what your thoughts are. Especially, you know, being into the, you know, the AMM system and, and into studying how the body moves and, and and, and their answer to that as they scaled is, you know, they had the hire very fast. And they went into this whole thing of like, you know, tour ranges of, you know, of thoracic rotation and hip rotation and tilts and Benz, and then saying, here's, you know, here's the appropriate green, yellow, and red rain. That are saying you're within the proper range you're you're moderate or your, this is really, really bad relative to, you know, dust sample size of 200 PGA tour, LPGA tour and champions, tour professionals. And so I said, this is the way to swing. So you harness people in and then say, Hey, like, you know, we need to, here's a tour swing compared to your swing. And then here are the numbers compared to tour numbers. In order, you know, in order to get you better, we've got to get you closer to the green range. What are your thoughts on that system?

Trillium 32:20

I think this is a good starting point for, for some people, people being maybe some coaches, because they will have some concepts, some, some concrete concepts I'm willing to guess that most of the coaches at golf. Have said to a client, these are just ranges. You don't have to get there. We can ignore some of this stuff because you you'd have to be a halfwit to look at someone who's, let's say 55 and had hip surgery. Two, if you couldn't recognize it, they may not be able to get that full rotation. Their body just cannot substantiate what you're trying to do. I just, I just can't, I can't believe that that, that a golf coach would, would just follow those rules with, with the ranges. Now, having said that, I think the you know, how, how are you going to, how are you going to, how are you going to know if you're walking into a golf tech that you're going to get a coach, that's got the ability to see beyond what's been set up? I don't know. I'm not sure. I don't know. I mean, I like the fact that we've got more, more ways for people to learn how to swing it. You know, the, the big picture trillion likes to see the game grow. I like to see people playing and participating, and if we have more ways for them to do it then, and I think that's really, really good. So, you know, I'm, I'm more apt to support than to criticize people, you know, people and accompany that's, that's trying to help people play golf. So I don't have, you know, I don't have a lot of negatives to say about that. I may think back to like linen Pia, like, what do you like about that? What I like about that is that if someone's learning to play golf, they have a place. And I think there's what, what we all have to be careful with. And that's not just golf tech, but we often be careful with as coaches that we are, are able to see what's in front of us, see that player in front of us, and really understand where they're making issues, where sorry, where their issues are, where they're making mistakes. And that I would make very, very intentionally said that loosely, because it could be a decision mistake. It may, it may not be a movement to state mistake and then fully understand why that mistake might've come about. And then, and then figure out is that mistake worth changing? You know, is it worth unpacking this and creating a new one because it's really expensive to do it in time and it sweat equity and probably money if they're going to, if they're going to need a one on coaching for it. So I feel like there's, there's a lot to be said for, you know, being on a golf course and seeing how somebody can play and what can they actually do with that swing? I mean, I have so many, I have so many players, we've got awful swings that could, that could go out in a match and be almost anybody like you lose weight. You're like, Ooh, Yeah, but the person knows where the ball's going to go.

Leo 35:34

Yeah. Yeah. So do you feel like you can look on, on, on, on all tourists, it's the same, right? At the highest level and at the lowest level do you feel like aesthetics is not correlated with performance? Most of the time,

Trillium 35:50

I'm not a huge, I'm not a huge aesthetics person when it comes to the swing. You know, actually at all.

Mac 35:59

So you

Leo 35:59

look more at the ball

Mac 36:00

flight I started with

Leo 36:03

about five.

Trillium 36:04

Yeah. I started off like I started outside, but then I also, I really want to know about someone's back. You know, and what's going on with the body and how how they feel and how they might feel, you know, later on is this, is this sustainable? Is this going to create problems? Are you doing this in a way that you're asking some, some muscle groups that shouldn't be doing the work, do the work, is that going to catch up with them? That can I, I mean, I think you have to, you have to look at that and you're going to get a golf will shovel, or you're going to get tennis elbow, or you're going to, you know, this is going to hurt later. We're going to have to fix this. Um, You know, but then the physics of it, the physics of the swing, it does someone have a really, really, really short window or that face is going to be square. Is that window, like a nanosecond. We could, we could elongate that, that flat spot at the bottom so that even if you don't hit it in the center, at least the face is going to be square. You know, can we do some things that are going to make your misses better? More often, you know, I'm looking at stuff like that, kind of low-hanging fruit stuff that, you know, people don't have to totally rip their engine apart to, to play better.

Mac 37:16

So it sounds like it's a lot of decision trees that you're going through on every single plate. How do you, how do you start? Is that how you start with somebody or is that going, is that an ongoing process? And then do you get into some sort of an automation in coaching them on a regular basis? Like what cause it would take, it takes a lot of computational power to, to, to, to be asking yourself all those questions all the time. Do you ever get to a point where it's on autopilot when you're coaching

Trillium 37:43

now? Because it we're always. There's always a next step, but the steps are obviously going to change if somebody is really doing all the work. But yeah, I think the decision tree is always there. So it starts out if it's a brand new student to me, I'm going to say, you know, okay, nice to meet you. What's going on? Tell me about your golf. Why are you here? Like really open-ended you know, give me a sense of what's what's what's on your mind and then look, you know, let's look, let's look at you hit some balls and what we'll say, and when people do, you know, and then they'll hit a shot. Okay. One to 10, 10 being that's exactly what you wanted to do or it's perfect. And a one kind of where, so I can just gauge what's what, what their sense of you know, ball striking is like,

Leo 38:27

yeah. I'm super curious. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. So I'm civic curious because of your background. Cause not a lot of coaches have the background where both motor learning and bicycles. And I was, I was coaching this weekend one of our, one of our physical therapists and I don't coach as much as any more, but I love coaching and I'm a big fan of Gabrielle Wolf and the research that she did on attentional focus, one of my favorite books in coaching. and I think a lot about this and we talk about it a lot on the podcast, internal versus external focus. And we always, we always asked that question. It was funny. I was coaching and he was, he's always been struggling, especially with the driver, with, you know, a, a typical outside in slicing the ball. Doesn't hit it very far. And and I, I started coaching him and we, we started working more on swing direction actually, because I realized his, his path was not as bad as his swing direction and swinging direction. It was so far left. and I liked the constraints models, so I just kind of you know, put the, change the environment in order to create change so that he doesn't have to think about, oh, he's doing right. But anyway, so I, I put up this big trashcan in front of him and um, and I just left them. I, I, I said uh, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna be here for an hour. And we had already worked for maybe half an hour and I asked him, you're gonna hit it to the right of the trashcan and you're going to curve it back. And it's to, it needs to land on the left side of the midline and I'm just gonna leave you. And uh, I left him there for for an hour and I was working out and we had already worked for half an hour and, you know, we've seen some results, but I was very engaged. I was like really trying to work hard. And so when I left and I came back, it was so much better. Right. And I had just given him one objective. It's just start on that side, carve it back. I don't, I don't, I don't care how you do it. And, and it was so cool. And I realized, man, like, I'm better if I'm not there, it's better. If the coach doesn't say anything, it's better. If the coach ideal is not even there, as long as there's a, you know good instructions, I guess, for the task. But that made me think a lot about, you know, you know, how much a coach is communicating and what we're communicating, because research also shows that when you do it that way, the student actually retains the learning better. Correct. Because they're actually kind of, self-organizing, they're learning themselves. They're kind of teaching themselves. I'd love to hear your thoughts on internal versus external and that type of coaching. It's so weird, right? Like you think as a coach, I'm, I'm crucial to the success of the player, but actually, you know, when I left it got better.

Trillium 41:25

Yeah. That there's a lot there. I'm, I'm, I'm excited for you that you had that experience too. And, and you really had that firsthand really positive outcome from that. And I think I'll tell a quick story. So I did a this was a lab class is more of an experiment, just a case study on learning. So the task was the task. For course, this was a, this was in grad school for, it was a motor learning lab. And you, you could pick any, any activity you wanted, but your participant had to have never done it before. So this must be a novel. Person. So what I was of course interested in looking at was handing the golf club to someone who had never played golf and seeing if they could get better without me telling them anything. And so the person I found was a Fisher. Who's a doctoral student in physics and she from the Philippines, she had never played golf. Didn't never watch golf, not a golf fan, no friends. So she had never held a club at all. And I had a net and I had a scoring system. So if the ball went into the middle of the net, you, you get more points in the outer ring, you got fewer points. And then no points, if you don't get it in the net at all. And we had a mat and we had some foam balls. So we videotaped her doing this, I think five weeks in a row, she hit 30 balls. And at the beginning of the session, I gave her the task at hand here's the task. And here's how you're supposed to do. I read it out. So I gave her the exact same directions every time I didn't tell her how to do it. I said, this is what your objective is to get this ball there and you're supposed to use this. So I videotaped it so I could see her movement. I could track the timing of her movement and I could score it. And what do you think happened last

Leo 43:21

you, so you said five weeks. And she had just had to hit 30 balls in, in one session, basically how many times a week. Okay. Once and w well, the instructions were just kinda, there were not technical. It was just hitting the ball, basically swing the club.

Trillium 43:41

Yeah, exactly.

Leo 43:43

I would just see him that she would get better.

Trillium 43:48

She got better. She got a lot better. She got a lot better. Not curious. Her movement, her technique was horrendous, horrendous, so she was getting better, but she was doing it like this, no body rotation, every, you know, all the things that you would, you would throw up in your mouth if you saw someone doing. And, and of course, if she wanted to play golf later on, this is going to set her up for a really bad swing. So I'd say, you know, the interesting guy, like the take on it for me was, was that people, you know, we don't have to over coach someone, but what we coach them and how they do it in the golf swing. Is it a very complex movement? I think really does matter. Now, in your case, you have someone who sounded like he was pretty, you know, pretty proficient anyway, not a total beginner. And did you ever read that. There's a, there's a paper, Tim Lee into Coteau Perkins. They wrote a paper on external, external, internal, and it was a pitching task. And the, the task was like a 50 yard shot and they took two groups, novices and experts, and the novices did much better with internal feedback. The experts do much better with external. So to, to kind of put that into an example or kind of more common language, a beginner needed help figuring out how to do it with their movement. You know, you need to feel like you're, you know, you're. Whatever bed more from him. You could feel like your, your arms are stretching out. You need to feel as though, you know, your wrists needs to feel that they're not moving so much. Your elbow needs to the, whatever. Those are more internal, internal feedback cues, how movement they did better when they, when they had those things. Whereas the experts who already knew how to hit the ball, that wasn't helpful because they already knew those things. So the external cues were a lot more useful. And I think when, as a practitioner, I see a lot of the same thing, but not necessarily just blanket evenly across the board where beginners need external, no beginners also need, sorry. Beginners also need external cues sometimes, but experts also need internal cues. Sometimes I think it just depends so much on the situation at hand and what you're trying to do and what they've had in the past. And it's so tailored that it's hard for me to just subscribe to external versus internal. So I don't think of it as a versus I actually think of it as, Hey, you need both, you just need to know when to use them

Mac 46:32

when you did that experiment Trillium with that without beginner in the net. Did you take, were there more subjects or wishes, you know, was she the only subject, the

Trillium 46:39

only subject? So that's why I don't think it was him. It was just, it was just a real basic case study. I think I've been, and she was not athletic. She was not

Mac 46:51

well. And so on that note of what you just said, I have a little junior golfer and I named him savvy and I named my other son Rafa. So I'm just like already putting it on him. But uh, I uh, you know, I have three kids and it's just fascinating watching the differences between them. And what do you, are there such a thing as a natural athlete or, or, and I think what a lot of people with golf they talk about and they're like, I can't, I just, I, you know, why isn't my son or daughter, like, or why aren't they good and they need more instruction. My son, especially the first, you know, few years, he's, he's almost eight. And he's like a little scratch golfer for an eight year old for his size of golf course. He's, you know, I took him to the hay and you want to turn tournament the other day at the new pebble hay. And he shot even par, which is pretty, pretty good for, you know, seven year old, nine holes, pretty tough greens and stuff. So he's got great awareness, but it was all ex I've taught him so much, especially in the beginning, all external focus. And he just would pick things up right away and be really good. And I tried teaching my daughter and it was like, oh, like I have to, like, she looked like a, you know, a 35 year old learning golf for the first time as an eight year old, like standing weird. And he, he immediately, I got into posture, you know, I didn't have to really do much. So what are your thoughts on being a natural athlete are some, you know, the propensity for that and how much harder do some people have to work that night?

Trillium 48:10

Well, yeah, you saw that some people have aptitude if I had a gap attitude and, and some, and it's a sliding scale and that's some people just have a lot of it, you know, a lot of times you'll see, you'll see some kids can see something and then do it and emulate it. And some not so much in some really, really not so much in some kind of, and maybe there's some motivation in there too. Like maybe, you know, maybe you're, this is, you're talking about your son and your daughter.

Mac 48:40

We're just talking about in general. Yeah. But you know, I'm not allowed to compare them anyway. If my wife listens to them,

Trillium 48:47

I'm really, really conscientious of, of letting anyone feel like the golf's not for them or, or it's going to be too hard for them. So I think the answer that, that I w you know, I'm going to give here is I just try to plug into where the person is. And so this is about finding someone's challenge point and, and to quote mark Wadden Yolie and Tim Lee, they wrote a really great paper on this called the challenge point, but this was a summation of all kinds of research on, on performance and practice and transfer. And and the challenge point is just where the tipping point where someone's feeling like it's too hard or not hard enough, like where is that perfect sweet spot, where you're learning just enough, that you're really learning and that versus not learning enough, like hitting on the range to the same place. You're not probably learning a lot if it's really easily. And it feels good. Now here's the problem I find with w with, with this exact situation that we're talking about. Well, a lot of people do need to try to hit the same club to the same place because it's so fricking hard. It's like ask yourself to pull out your fairway wood off a tight lie and hit it five times on a green that's two 20 out that's. That's probably not going to happen for most players ever. So that would be worthwhile. Just try to do that because every swing is probably going to be somewhat different. Something's going to go completely wrong. It's going to be a Duff. So I think the research would say, no, it's better to change your targets. Often it's better to, it's better to put yourself in a position where you're pulling out the new, a new movement, but I'd say hold up, except if you're in golf, because it's so fricking hard anyway. I like blocked practice for most people. And we're talking about block versus random. Another one that I don't like the verses, I kind of liked them both and figure out when you need to do it. But back to the challenge point on this what's somebody's challenged point. So for somebody who has, who has uh, who struggles to, to kind of get comfortable and has it played a lot of other sports and I, and I, and I, you know, as you said, a natural athlete, like someone who, who doesn't have any kind of pattern recognition or any biases from another sport at all, they're learning from school. Well, then the bar is like really low and I'm just going to inch that bar up so that they're going to have some successes and they're going to feel comfortable and they're going to see that they can actually do and build on it that slow and steady wins. The race process actually works just great sometimes great sometimes because the person's expectations level is so low and, and when they're seeing these successes, it kind of keeps people motivated. And then not only that you have a captive audience with this person, because they're not going to try to do too much too soon and just. Oh, I want to do driver now. Like, no, we're doing 30 yard shots because you still don't know how to rotate your thoracics. You know, you don't have to put your pressure on your front, but you don't know how to finish it. You don't know how to Bama. Let's do 30 yard shots, but someone who like have like, they might have the ability to do it and they think they can do it like, oh, well I can do that. But they have no real no control and no skill involved because they've done it enough. That's where I'd like, oh, okay. I'm a little bit reticent to, to let someone go and just do that. If they're not going to have really learn the skill,

Mac 52:19

I feel like golf is no, no, no. It's it's it's this is bad-ass is actually what we want to talk about. There's so much with golf though, that it's like, it's results oriented. It's social, you're in the country club where you're at the golf course and people are like, I wish I could do what he's doing or she's doing. And like, and, and I, I always think about it whenever I go to yoga with my wife, she's a big Yogi. And I'm just like, I'm like in child's pose half the time just to like, just get through the class. I feel like the whole time, like, okay. And there's like all of the women in there doing some crazy stuff. And I'm like, no, I think about golf. I think about golf when I'm there. I'm like, man, if people could just get into child's pose on the golf course sometime, and just enjoy themselves out there because in a lot of ways, like you can't though, you're like, I got to finish this whole art and they're like, you know, bleeding it back and forth across the green. They're like, oh, I'm going to make an 11 here. Everyone's judging me. In yoga, like it's a practice kind of like golf in a way where it's all individual it's, you're on your own journey. Like you're exploring your own body, but it's results oriented and it's social and there's, you know, there's scorecards and there's like embarrassment and shame. And I think that, I think that's just a big part of the game. And that's like, what? You know, I think that's something where, you know, there, the, you know, that's why people like top golf so much, you know, you go to top golf and they can just whack it and that you can see they're having so much fun. They're getting better at top golf. Maybe, you know, they're getting wasted too, but they're, you know, they're out there and they're hitting it and they're having a great time and they're just trying and they're exploring their body. And, but when you add the golf course and you add like the trees down the line and you add water, and then you had scorecards and you add people's judgements and, or your own perceptions of people's judgments, I feel like that's the hardest part of the game for everybody.

Leo 54:01

Yeah. We're human skills required to, to, to deal with that. I want to, I want to go back. I, you know, I can tell that we kinda, this is getting a little bit deeper on that, on the technical, but I love it. So I want to go back to, because you know, this is really interesting to me because, you know, we, we have a lot of coaches in our system and we talked about this a lot and because it's, everybody has different answers to this. You know, we talked to Chris Como and, you know, in a way blocked practice and internal focus, I think they kind of go hand in hand in, in the, in the center. You might have to start somewhat there as it gets started, we golf and then you get more advanced, but there's also research that shows that external focus are great for beginners as well. I remember Gabby Wolf's first study on chipping, focusing on the club head, instead of focusing on the risks moment showed actually better from the UNL V golf team, all the way to complete beginners performed better with external focus. So there's some interesting, you know, and I always come back to the study of the, the, the basketball study when they put EMGs on the BA biceps and the triceps, and one group focused on their wrist movement, and one group focused on the hoop and the hoop group performed better. But now for the first time ever, we understood or we learned why, and it was a co contraction. So the biceps and triceps kind of contracted at the same time when there was an internal focus. So to me you know, the golf swing is like a biomechanical chaos, you know, ranger. So if you have internal focuses that disrupts and kind of you know, really takes over, right, like keeping your left arm straight. And the, and the brain is so focused on that single objective that we forget the letic free movement. Right. Can we agree that when it's time to perform internal fo because I agree with you, there's a time and place for internal external, but when it's time to perform, it seems like the research is pretty clear that we, we, and an external focus is better.

Trillium 56:11

Yeah. So when you let, so I'll go back to the. That's imposed in our, from 1950, have a concept, a model. Um, There's a few models. They have a good one, I think. And Gentiles model is even more applicable to movement. So fits opposer, word, psycho psychologist. So this was on a cognitive level. And then I'll go into Amy and Jen Teal's model in a second, but in a nutshell, when we learn something new it's, it's takes up. A lot of act, takes up a lot of real estate and a lot of energy it's in our prefrontal cortex. So, you know, now you probably, you guys probably know this, but I think maybe just for fun for your listeners, I'll just go through. Perfect. So, and this is also probably pretty intuitive, but yeah, you have to think about something and it's in your brain the first time someone's learning something. The first time they're learning something. So they're coming to Intel. I'll use golf coming to golf lesson because they're hitting the ball poorly. All right. I'm looking at contact. I'm looking at them, not hit the ground. For example, I'm looking at them, pull their arms in, for example, because they're not rotating or for whatever reason, or they didn't know, they had to, to whatever impact you want to have long arms. So, okay. Let's, let's figure out why the club's not hitting the ground. So you figured out why sent him grant. So, so maybe they see bent versus straight. Okay. Yeah, that does. So that's an answer. I have a lot of people that do like to have some answers of why. So then, so then you, do you, do you do the motion with more, with more fluidity as you do it more? You don't have to think quite as much over time. That, that activity in the frontal prefrontal cortex. And it moves into the more procedural part of your brain and the base up in the basal ganglia. And cause the brain is highly efficient. It says, we just can't take up all that. We get it, we get it. We figure out the program, let's just put it into storage. So if that process has happened, so somebody has gone through enough practice so that that motion can become more automatic and they don't have to think about it as much. Yeah. Then they've earned that kind of place in that learning, you know, developmental scale where they don't have to think about it where we're, we're bringing it back to that highly explicit cognitive place would be disruptive, very disruptive in a, in a performance setting because they have already learned it learning. It means you can do the motion in different environments without, without relative, you know, without a lot of variation, but most will, haven't learned. Pro either, you know, properly, whatever you want that properly to be living, you learned it and they haven't fully tested it in different environments. So I think here's the problem we can't have as coaches. We can't have one way, because I'd say most people in golf need to learn the skill better or they need. And whether that's, you know, having us help them figure out how to do the skill or whether it's them going out and practicing it and having, having a bunch of good plans of how to practice that skill, maybe both, whatever, whatever the case is, they haven't learned. And maybe it doesn't even involve coaching. Maybe it's just go out and play more, like go out and play more. And then you've learned any have to think about as much. So I guess so. Yeah. I, I agree with you. I just think they're like little pitfalls along the way that coach have to be really careful you know, right. Well, when

Mac 59:45

you talk about the neuroanatomy, I just think about driving cars. First time you ever drive a car to like next thing, you know, you got your knees and you're texting actually I've, I've used autopilot. So I'd do that anyway. But I got, I think about like going and actually go in and learning going into the track and, and going and driving a race car. And it's like, you're in your head, like crazy because you have the instructor and they're like, all right, this is how you, and I'm like, because I already know how to drive. Well, this is a whole nother level. And now I don't even know how to drive. It's like, you get scared to take off the line and you're like, I mean, you almost lose your ability to drive a car, to learn how to drive it better. It's like, I don't know if you've ever been on a race track and felt that before, but to go from just like, oh, I know how to drive a car can drive. I can like be doing all kinds of other things while I'm driving. Next thing you know, all I'm focusing on is driving. And I like freeze up and forget how to drive almost because the level of attention goes way up. It's like another level of driving. So I just think about that when you.

Trillium 1:00:42

Yeah, I, yeah, I'm right in there. Certain point where it, you need to kind of trust the process and trust that it's happened, but there's also a certain amount of like, I'm thinking of a student says, well, I play so much better when I don't think, I don't want to think about it. Well, I'm like, okay, but your move is so freaking bad right now that if you don't think you're just going to have that same move, it's going to, it's going to keep coming up. So I really respect this process. That thinking is disruptive. It a hundred percent is up, except if you were expecting to have a smaller swing when you're chipping, but your swing is really huge. You're making a full back swing and you're only trying to go 25 yards, you know, and you're telling me, you don't want to think about it and I'm telling you, okay, well then risks, sculling it or hitting it too. You understand? So I think, yeah, how we, how we give somebody the constraints or the environment, or, you know, how we set that task up for them to figure it out. Is up to us. And I think, you know, opt opting for the external ways is great. If if they still can't get it, you know, you may have to get in there with some more specific internal cues. That's my approach.

Mac 1:01:58

And I think that like with the beginner racers to what they do in the cars is they say it, like, I remember the first tip they gave me that was external. They were like, just make sure you're looking at the turn ahead of you. Like, don't, don't look, look in front of you. Don't, don't be you know, and keeping it really, really simple, something simple to get you out of your head because they give you a bunch of technical information and then they're saying, okay, cool. Like, make sure you're staying ahead of your something very basic like that. And then as they go along, then they're going to give you like technical. I agree with you. It's not internal versus external. It's not blocked versus random. I feel like if you're peppering in internal while keeping them external, that's almost the best way to approach it. If you really want to be evolving their game and improve it. Technically and, and um, you know, and actually practically at the same time.

Leo 1:02:44

Yeah. I think it's you know, it's, it's very interesting because it's I don't, there's not a lot of people that are extreme in this case to the other side. Right. Like there are extreme external. But I think that sure, there's a time and place for internal and now then you have to figure out how do you, like you said, and I think you said it great until it becomes a learned, right? And then you, you, you, and then it's automatic and that's where we want to be. That's where I want to get.

Trillium 1:03:13

So I just want to start it cut you off. I I've got my hardest students. I think my, my most difficult students and the ones that I don't think improve the fastest are the ones that are all external. And don't want to think about it. Anything on how there, they don't want to like, think of it. That's fine. Straight into me sometimes where I can see somebody I'm like, you're w w you're here. And you're wondering why you swing it, you know, your way across the line. And you're wondering why you swing it, you know, 12 from the inside and you're shanking or whatever they don't want to have to. Anyway, that's, that's hard for me too. So sometimes I got to work a little bit in the people skills and, and to figure out how am I going to get this person to buy in, you know, to, to the fact that if you change the, the swing direction, you're, you're gonna lose. You have less risk in that shank or

Mac 1:04:22

whatever. It's fast. It's fast when you say that though. Cause I feel like most instructors say the opposite where people are like coming in and they're like, all right, I really want to get into what's going on. They're like, what are you, what are we here doing? Like what are we trying to play golf? Or we tried to play swing. And it's so interesting to hear you say that the most difficult clients you have are the ones that struggle the most are the ones that don't want to don't want to dive into their golf swing at all. I find that I find that so contradictory to what I've heard out there. And so it's like but I identify with it strongly actually in, in my personal instruction, but I see, I see most people actually in the world of golf instruction, like expecting um, Yeah, I w I remember, I remember working with this lady and she brought her two kids. You know, they were, you know, twins like eight, nine years old. And right when I was started in the company and she, she was the club champion at a local country club here. And I think she shot 88, 88 to win. Um, But she, she brought her two sons in and she said you know, they w I want to get them into the game and stuff. And I remember we had, we had our first session with the two of them and, you know, it was just trying to get them to like, not break stuff in there. And, and to like, just like, not be like fighting each other was just a battle. But then like also getting, like, trying to develop their passion for the game and, and all and everything I was working on. And it was all thoughtful. And she calls me after the session. She was like, what was that? Like, we, I wanted you to like, work on their golf swing and uh, you know, like, and we needed to get into the technical side of it. I just paid you$200. Like, what were you doing? Like, I wanna, I want to talk about, like, you have all that technology, all that stuff. You use it. And I'm like, and I just told her, I just, I, you know, I, it was like, kind of like one, the one client that like, I'll never forget. Cause it was like our only bad Yelp review actually. And so I remember just that sensation of just like I was so pissed off. I kind of told her off a little bit, normally not my style. Normally I'm always kind of circled back around, but I'm like, I was like, look, I've been through this before. Really? The kids like just even get them to sit still. Well, it's tough, but we need to develop their love and their passion for the game. And then there's going to be times where we're going to start to integrate all kinds of technical improvement. But I see an actually like a lot of people, the opposite extreme, they're like, I'm paying for this. I expect you to give me your knowledge expertise to give me the data. I want to have this like revolutionary swing concept. That's going to change the way that I move and the way that I play something, that's going to get me on a different pathway. And so I've actually seen the opposite and then being able to bring them. Into, Hey, this is a, this is a process and we did a temporary approach.

Trillium 1:07:01

I'm, I'm sure I've had that too where people want what they want more, but I'm usually good at giving people you know, technical analysis. They want it. I try not to give, to try. I'm really cognizant of how much I'm giving somebody. You know, I have a few clients that fly in and I don't see them very often. So I'm more apt to give them a little bit more on their plate, knowing that they can unpack it over time, but, but I've established a good enough, you know, communication line so that they know, Hey, I don't expect you to be able to do all of this quickly. I'm giving you like two or three things to work on so that you have some time. But I think generally it's nice have seen people once a week or, you know, a private club is pretty awesome and I can, I can have a coaching model, but they pay, you know, they pay by the session. But my model is still a coaching model.

Leo 1:07:56

I have a question for you. So that person that, that we're, you know, the swing was bad, but they didn't really want to think too much. And they were shanking it. What if you put a water bottle. Next to the ball. So they, you, you know, eliminate the shack and you just, okay.

Trillium 1:08:13

Yeah. I put a box. I put a long cardboard box on the outside. Yeah. I actually keep it nearby. Um, Because

Leo 1:08:21

I think that's funny. The shanks,

Trillium 1:08:27

the box has got buttons. So people just understand too, that like the idea of um, of, of where their swing direction is, is real, is oftentimes not, you know, what you feel. And video is helpful because video, you can see it. Numbers are always helpful. But sometimes the guy doesn't believe the numbers on the track man

Leo 1:08:50

here. But yeah. Well, my question is, let's say you do it and they start striking it. Right? Cause they're not shanking it anymore, but the, maybe you're still not happy with their swing technique. Right. You used to. You change environment, external based coaching and the results improved, but the swing wasn't, it was still kinda wonky. Right. Are you happy or do you still want to work on that? It let's say they're flushing it.

Trillium 1:09:14

Like with this particular guy, no, I'm not happy because I know it's going to come back and I know, I know it's going to really still be bad for his driver

Leo 1:09:22

because I was just so far off,

Trillium 1:09:25

his technique is so far off and I've seen him, I've seen him play well. So I know that the difference, but let's say, let's say it's not this particular player. I mean, just, I guess, I guess it just depends on it. How much do you think this guy has, or this girl's capable of doing and what are, what are the goals? The goals just to hit it. Okay. And you're going to play then. Hey, yeah,

Leo 1:09:46

that's what Chris Cuomo said too. That was his answer. He basically said. If you, if I have a high schooler, that's so far off from playing D one college golf, then I have to dig in and it's going to be a really tough road, but I'm going to get in there with internal focus because I have to, because it's theirs. There's so it's so far off, but if you have a high schooler or any golfer that is not very far from their goal, then he, you know, you never go internal. So that was an interesting kind of perspective on it.

Mac 1:10:20

Yeah. I have kind of an off the wall question. How much, how much in your sessions do you are you fully in coach mode or, or is there, how much of, how much of your sessions are you talking about other subjects or talking about maybe their personal lives and where they're asking you questions, how much rapport building and conversation. Maybe things that they're teaching you, does that happen in your sessions or, or do you kind of control the experience and go straight into coach mode and have your coach hat on or do you kind of chameleon and go in and out?

Trillium 1:10:55

I'd say very much chameleon going in and out very much. Talking to someone about their family, their kids, their, you know, the things that they're interested in, things that they like. I mean, there are some, there's some players that I have that I have never, I've never had personal conversations with and we are just grinding it out. And, and I, and I, I have some examples in my head of those people. Um, And it's perfectly fine. I mean, I think chameleon's the right word. I think, I think I am a chameleon and I, it's always funny when people, when people shout on me, you know, I have a bunch of people, I say kids, but some of these kids will come shadow and I was like, I'll look at someone at lunch or at the end of the day, and be like, all right, do you have whiplash? So different sentiment yet? You know what I'm saying? Like sometimes, sometimes you're grinding, like, so you could go to someone and that doesn't quite like golf yet and they're doing it because they just, they just kind of want to participate with their family and they want to see, and they don't really know, and they're just want to be comfortable and kind of have a little, you know, I've never played any sports to someone who's rolling in with a, with a plus two. Who's like, okay, I'm ready to grind it out. Let's go. And it's all business. And suddenly we're talking about deep plane, you know, we were talking about like, whatever like the, the skirt she just bought versus deep.

Mac 1:12:23

How do you, how do you draw? I guess to, with our growing, it's been actually a huge topic for us in managing coaches and managing trainers and everything else in our environment. Where do you draw the boundary and how do you draw boundaries? Especially like, I'm sure you've had all kinds of situations where you're uncomfortable as a coach. And where do you draw the boundaries and how do you do that?

Leo 1:12:43

Personal versus professional? I was going to ask the social versus international

Mac 1:12:48

client advice. Where do you draw the boundary?

Trillium 1:12:52

Oh yeah. Well, I mean, there are people that I truly like as people. And there are people that I, that have become friends. I mean, people who have become family, friends, and, you know, we, you know, our, our families, we do dinner as a couple now, or they've been to my house and they know, you know, they know my daughter. And I think that that just kind of evolves. I think if there are people that, you know, you like, and then there are people that, I mean, I'm hired to help someone get better golf. And I don't forget that. And I don't forget that. That's why I'm there. So if someone coming to me, because, because they want to hang out you, why would they pay me? Why would they pay me a lot of money to hang out? I mean, it doesn't happen that often, honestly. I actually can't even think of any example of that happening. I can't even think of one example of that happening. Um,

Leo 1:13:41

Yeah. Cause we, we always, we talked about a lot just because you know, if you become friendly with a client, a lot of times when you go down that road long. Yeah. The boundary between professional and personal becomes a little fuzzy. It's a little gray. And then what is this a professional relationship or is this a friendship? And normally don't pay, you know, to see a friend and, you know, but then there's the, but then the client kind of wants to be acts like they want to be a friend, but then obviously technically they're not,

Trillium 1:14:14

I have no, well, I have no problem with that, but that's me, maybe me, because I can really, I can really compartmentalize really well.

Mac 1:14:20

Yeah. Yeah. But you have, you have, you have a process, you just it's, you're not sure exactly how, because that's what I asked. In the training and in the fitness training environment, it's prevalent everywhere where people stop then going to work out and they're like more hanging out. No, no, no, no.

Trillium 1:14:35

I'm all business. I'm business. I'm all business. I don't visit. But um, but I think people will, they're still at like, I'm usually people with people for an hour. Like I can have a conversation, but stop myself in the middle of my aunt and say you, you did it again. That was wrong. You do it again. I mean, I think people want to spend time with someone that they like and are funny and they have some funny say, but, but that first and foremost, and number one at the end of the day, absolutely hands down, no ifs, ands, or buts, I'm there to help someone play better golf. So I don't.

Mac 1:15:07

So you do control the conversation. You do draw the boundary, you say, all right, let's get back into it. Let's get back into it. All right. Let's get, let's get refocused. Let's keep going. Like, and I think that that's what will happen with a trip. I've had trainers, plenty of trainers. Um, I'm super conversationalist and I'm actually testing them. Are they going to make me work or can I control this whole session? You know? And so like, I'll go into a tree I'm crazy like that, but I'll go into a training session and just see, like, can they keep it pro and can they get, are, are they focused on what I'm here to do or do they, are they going to just let me like talk and hang out? And will they just be okay with that? And so I always felt like, as a coach myself, I, I would also talk to them. I'd hang with them, but then I'd be like, all right, like we have a very specific thing we're trying to get done here. And so it would be actually really fun. Actually. They like starting to have fun and like talk to them like, all right, now let's get back into it. That would be a good

Trillium 1:15:59

one. I have not, I don't ever, I don't ever lose the I'm I'm on the job at all. Like, so even in the conversation, I'm still on the job. I'm still at and I can cut. I can, like I said, I'll just stop. I'll stop myself. Mid-sentence if something's off. And but I am a hundred percent on the job every time I'm in the lesson,

Mac 1:16:22

being upset, being of service, like being a great waiter, I think of a great waiter and a good, a good waiter is like, they, they never, it never feels fabricated. It doesn't feel like they're like, oh yes, sir. Let me bring you the water. It feels like there. But they're like really in control of that entire dining experience and you have to be on top of it versus being like, oh, let me just tell you about my personal problems. Start telling you about my whole life. When it wasn't solicited. I feel like that's something that very common happens at waiters or anybody of service. And so that's obviously why you're a great coach to be able to understand like what your job is there to do and, and considering yourself a professional.

Trillium 1:16:58

Yeah. There are a few times there where I think someone might want to be friends for the wrong reason. Like they may want, you know, like, Hey, I want our, our, our kids too. I mean, I don't want to like name any names, but there's some not, I mean, when, I mean wrong reason, I mean um, maybe we can get some free lessons out of her or, you know, I don't think anyone said that. And I, and I, I would never want to. I don't want to wake up thinking that that's what people's intentions are, but I don't want to ever let that, I don't want to ever let it come to that where it's like, oh, well, now that we're friends, maybe we should get just like, well,

Leo 1:17:41

yeah. And it also becomes complicated. If you want to raise the price is going to be a problem in lotta hairstylists are become really close to their clients. I feel like, and they hang out and they become friends. And then suddenly, you know, what happens if you're, you know, you're, you need to raise prices. It's a problem. So that's just that baseline of, you know, okay, this is a professional relationship. So we talked about it a lot because our clients are awesome, but they're also very friendly and they want to do things and they want to go play and they want to do this. And, and it's easy to kind of get along, go, go along with it. But um, usually ends in a detrimental. Yeah.

Mac 1:18:23

Yeah.

Leo 1:18:23

Trillium super appreciative of you taking the time. I know we went a little over time here, but it could have been a lot longer conversation. Yeah.

Trillium 1:18:32

Yeah. This is fun. Um, Maybe we'll do it

Leo 1:18:34

again. Yeah. Anytime you were over in the west coast, let us know. I'd love to show you around our facilities and uh, I've never played golf on the east coast, so I want to,

Trillium 1:18:44

wow. You got really not at all.

Leo 1:18:47

No, I mean, I came here from Stockholm, so I'm actually might have to renew my passport in Washington, DC and the, at the embassy soon. So

Trillium 1:18:56

there you go. Give me a ring when you're on the east coast. It's as fun as I enjoyed the conversation. It sounds like you are. You're doing a lot of great things and you have so much built in so much. Um, So many good perspectives and systems going so well done,

Mac 1:19:14

Julian. Thank you so much. Appreciate you. Anything you need, please reach out. Thank you bye-bye take care. See ya.