harvey penick was a golf teacher of great repute. in an era where golf
instruction was getting more and more mechanical, he could still give a
golfer one thought that would unify all the movements neccesary to accomplish
the goal whether the golfer was aware of those movements or not. if a
student, for example, wanted to hit a high, soft lob shot, instead of filling
the student's head with a bunch of different sequences of moves through
positions that have to be executed at speed, he would send them to a tree
with a bucket of balls and tell them to hit the balls over the tree. the
student would quickly find out that he/she could hit the balls over a tree
with a little practice. all they had to do next, in order to hit that high,
soft lob, was to imagine the right size tree.
in teaching singing, it is easy to get caught up in 'raise your soft
palate', 'lower your jaw', 'expand your ribs', 'relax this', 'tuck in that',
'don't lower your jaw', etc. perhaps, if we follow mr. penick's lead, we,
as teachers, could find suggestions that allow the student to find out that
he/she already knows how to do what they are trying to do and that they have
just been aiming at the wrong target.
mike
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