S2:E5 - ERIKA LARKIN: A TRUE SWING - COMBINING OLD SCHOOL WITH NEW SCHOOL

You're listening to Straight Shooters, a straightforward golf podcast that'll straighten out your game. And here are your hosts, Keith Bennett and Henry Statina.

All right, welcome back to another episode of the Straight Shooters podcast. Today we have a really cool guest, somebody that Henry and I are really excited to talk to and you know, who shares really similar ideas to us on, on golf instruction and how a golf club should be swung. And we've both been following her on Instagram for a while and really have enjoyed her content that she puts out. And she has a book out there as well that we'll have her talk about and a lot of good stuff there. But Erica Larkin, welcome to the show and we're happy to have you.

Thanks, guys. Happy to be here. Love to talk golf swing with you, too.

Absolutely. So, yeah, I just wanted to kick things off for those who don't follow you, who don't know you through Instagram or any of the other outlets that you've been on, which are numerous. Just a quick intro on you, how you got started in the golf industry and then after that, kind of who your instructional influences were and what kind of led you down this career path.

Sure. Gosh. Well, I started playing golf at a fairly young age. Although my parents were not golfers. We all learned together. And a lot of trial and error and a lot of trying to filter tips from random people at the driving range. I kind of learned the hard way, I guess you could say. But I did run into a influential PGA professional in the Met section in New York when I was about 13, and he guided me to read Ernest Jones from an early age and a few other great books. But that was sort of a staple that became a foundation for what he and I talked about in the golf swing and how to approach self coaching. And certainly as I move forward and I pursued my own career in golf, I came back to those roots. And so I went to college, played golf at a Division 1 level and came out of school with a business degree and didn't honestly know at first that I was going to end up in coaching. I knew I wanted to be in golf, but I, I got into coaching on the side to make some extra money. Always enjoyed any time I was pulled into like a junior clinic or anything like that over the years, but really clicked for me at that point in time that I definitely loved helping people and improving their games, even at the beginner level. So when I finally decided that that was my in golf, I, I went full steam ahead and I went back to all my books and I started really shadowing teachers that I could in my area and got into the green grass side and did my whole PGA certification at that point. So I reached back out to my mentor, Frank Darby, years later and it's so funny how, you know, things come full circle and, and so what he, he paid, he paid to me in his mentorship. You know, I've tried to pay that forward to others as well, both juniors and certainly students alike, because I just think his passion for the game and his direction and coaching me beyond.

What.

Was in that moment more the bigger picture of what the golf swing was all about was really helpful to me. So learned a lot along the way and certainly was influenced by all the modern stuff that's out there and grew up teaching in the age of just pre track man and, and all of that that's come out since. And so trying to balance old school ideas with some of the new school stuff that I learned along the way has been a big part of what brought me to finally getting my mind around how I, how what is it that I'm really teaching to this now modern student because we're not living in 1940, we're living in a new age. And so trying to just, just you know, decide how I was going to say things and what I was really going to disclose from all the things I had learned was a conscious effort. I really went through a process to try to clean up exactly what it is that I believed in, what I thought worked the best for the majority of people that I was teaching, especially at the club level and juniors alike. And so that's kind of where I landed is I stayed true to my roots, but I've also tried to make sense of a lot of the new information that I've learned along the way. And so I wrote a book in 2017, published in 2017, that summarizes all of these ideas. But in a nutshell, that's my journey. You know, didn't intend to be a golf coach, always was a golf swing nerd because I was always sort of self taught other than then some of the mentorship that Frank helped me with. But you know, really in terms of teaching too, a lot of it was just trial and error. See what works, go back to the, go back to the drawing board, try something else, read another book and inspiration. What are the good teachers doing? And you just kind of figured out along the way. So I think it's a, it's a bit organic how I ended up where I'm at.

That's awesome. Now, was there something that resonated with you from your own experience as a golfer? When you read about kind of Ernest Jones and Manuel de la Torre, was that what sparked that connection? Cause I know it was. For me, when I. When Henry introduced me to these great instructors, I go. It was kind of like a light bulb moment where I was like, wow, that's what I've been doing. Not realizing I've been doing it, but now I can kind of put, like, almost put it together. Like, that's where my mind's at. That's that external focus on the golf club and my surroundings when I was playing well. And I could easily see where I got off track when I wasn't and kind of coming more internal. And in that sort of thing, was there something that resonated with you?

Yeah, I think that just the idea of being in touch with, like, where my tool was around me in space, like, feeling and visualizing the shape of the swing depending on what ball flight I wanted to play. To me, that's when I played my best golf. I was. I was always very in tune with that and just the rhythm of the swinging action, too. I always felt like the days I played my best, my timing, my rhythm was just on. And so I knew that that's what I was always, like, searching for. If I went out there and was going to play to shoot a score. Like, finding that swing feel and finding that tempo, that just makes everything click, makes everything feel really effortless. And. And so those are some of the core principles that Ernest certainly teaches and his disciples. But of course, there was a big part of me that just wanted to know more of the why and the how of when those good things happen. Like, what's the difference maker? Of course, okay, great. Then if I swing that way, the club gets on plane. Um, but when I don't swing that way, what's really happening? What are the mechanics and where's the club moving in space? And like, trying to make sense of those simple feels, but with understanding what's really being affected from a teacher standpoint, like, that was important to me. But then realizing that it doesn't matter to the player on the golf course, like in the. In the heat of the moment when you're just trying to make a decision on the golf course, choose a club, hit a shot. Like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what your swing path is. I mean, it matters that you can move this club around you in a way that creates good sequence and the. The way the best Easiest way of doing that is through just simply trusting in a swinging action. Like those mechanics all fall into place when you do those things well. And that's why those days when we play so well, it feels so effortless, is because that's what's really happening. So.

You'Ve used a lot of really good words. I love rhythm and tempo. Effortless. You said you mentioned a swinging action, and your book is titled A True Swing. I noticed on your website you said that that was the secret, was for a player to develop a true swing. Can you expand on what a true swing is? Maybe describe that? Because I find a lot of players who make a golf swing assume that they're making a swinging motion, but yet that might not necessarily be the case.

Yeah. So to me, it's. It's. And again, we will probably have some interesting discussion here, but it's. It's almost that the swing has to start from somewhere. We have an inanimate. Inanimate object, you know, this weighted object. And I almost like to think that the arms, to be honest, are part of the weight of the unit of the club. And so how do you get something that's essentially dead weight into motion? And. And I like the idea that we want to limit manipulation by the hands to create the swinging motion. To me, the dog wags the tail. The tail doesn't wag the dog. And so I do think a swinging action in my. My viewpoint kind of stems from the. The engine of the swing being the body. The body acts so the arms and the club can react. And so getting the club into motion has to come from someplace. And the simplest way to do that with the least amount of manipulation by the hands is to get the core engine moving. And so that encompasses a bunch of things. It encompasses theoretically. Sorry, got a little pause there. It encompasses the feet and the legs and the torso and everything to work together to swing the club back in space, which is different than lifting, and it's different than twisting, and it's certainly different than hitting at the golf ball. So I would like to say that words that resemble a swinging action, going back would be something more like a drag or a sweep than a lift. And so those are some of the imageries that I try to paint for students as we are trying to start this pendulum back. And Ernest Jones's pen knife example is the perfect one. And I use a rope a lot in my teaching to get people to hold and realize that the only to get this going back is you. You have to. You can't leverage it you have to like let the sequence play out in a natural way. And the title of the book, A True Swing comes directly from Ernest in that he says a true swinging action cannot fail to produce perfect timing. So if the body leads the way to a point, not with brute force or anything, but leads the arms into motion, leads the club in sequence, then the club and the arms are always just slightly lagging. And then therefore they are naturally swinging around the body. If we let go a little bit into that model, then the mechanics of what happens with the arms, the wrists and the club all work naturally. They all work perfectly. We set the stage with a good posture, a posture that makes sense for the club that we're swinging, the lie that we have the balance that we want, and we start, we turn that engine on and just let it flow. Those arms are truly like just swinging in the breeze along with the club. And the hands are setting the orientation of the face on the grip so that we decide what kind of which way we want the ball to go. Want the ball to bend to the right, want the ball to bend to the left. Where do you want to hit it? Orient the face, turn the body, let the arms swing, and therefore the club is swinging in space. But it's interesting because as much as that might sound like internal focus, once you get the feeling of how to energize the swing, to me, it actually switches to external focus. Because once you understand the feeling of creating swinging action, you can then therefore focus more on where the club is in the space and what, what swing shape you want to create or you know, swinging to what target, where are we going? So I think that like it's a blend between both. I don't know in my opinion if it can be like hard one or the other. Because if people have not experienced maybe a swinging action that like they need some kind of cues to get it going. And then once they feel that they can kind of let, they can relax into it, they can relax into it a little bit more and become also better externally focused.

Yeah, you know, sorry, I just want to say something there real quick, Henry, about like what you said about the feel there, Erika. I think I completely agree that it translates into a feel for the player which is unique to the player. And then once you have that overall feel almost like that, that aura, please.

Stay alert to changing road conditions and use six voice activated features while your.

Vehicle is in motion, what the club is doing during the action. So I mean, I completely agree with you where you need a holistic Feel. And then from there you can focus on something a little bit more external, which would be ideal.

Yes.

Yeah.

Awesome.

I like how you describe that because sometimes I hear players or more instructors combat the whole external focus and club focus type mentality to that the body has to swing the club. And there's no doubt it's obvious the club is an inanimate object and the body is swinging the club. But it really comes down to another layer back which is in the mind as to what the mind is doing to control the body, to control the club. And I, I love all of the different visuals that you gave with, you know, using, you know, swinging the arms and the club and how it has to be a holistic motion where there isn't any manipulation, it is free of tension, it is a consistent motion. There's rhythm and tempo to it. It's a pendulum like motion. I think there's a lot of good things out there these days with ropes so that we can start to allow a player to experience that swinging action or swinging motion because we, once a player can experience it firsthand, then they can begin to replicate it and then some of those other cues start to make more sense. So I really appreciate how you said that. Now you mentioned the pendulum and using the rope, and that's one of your ways of allowing a player to experience it. Can you a little bit about what you mean by a pendulum?

Yeah, well, pendulum in, in sort of my, my mind is weight on the end of a string or end of a, of a. What's the word I'm looking for? You guys can back me up here. What's the technical term, the physics term?

Like a point?

Yeah, point of access. The bot. Like the bob. The bob Fulcrum. Yeah, I guess so. So, you know, having, having that relationship is very much like a golf club's balance point too. We obviously have the center of mass way close down to where the clubhead is. So technically it's sort of that weight on the end of a string type of scenario. It is a tool. It's a tool that's built to be, to be swung. And so therefore, like the face of the club is built with loft. So the tool was not meant to be presented in a way where it's, it's, it's delivered in a scooping action. The face was built to launch the ball. So our job is to basically swing the club and, and return it to earth. Right. With an iron, let's say in this case. So our job is, is to, is to, is to manage our low point of the circle, and deliver that club, that tool, back to where the ball is sitting in space, whether that be on the ground or on the tee. And so a pendulum is typically swung from one kind of pivot point, one fulcrum point. But in this case, we are. It's not exactly the same in golf swing. Right. Like that pivot point is moving because we, to get the club into motion, are moving. And certainly the path to which our hands are taking is not necessarily moving around an exact fixed point. So that's where golf swings different than a pendulum model. But that doesn't mean that for certain swings, it isn't closer to that. For example, putting, and even you could argue maybe some chipping motions are much closer to a single pendulum model. And. And so therefore, I think the golf swing is a combination of somewhere between being a pendulum and a catapult, depending on what size swing you make. And that's not to say that it's a. For a forced motion. It's just that there's the stored energy. And as everything's coming through, depending on how much speed we're trying to apply, like we can up the tempo to a point, but when we're trying to impart, you know, more speed, it's an accelerated pendulum. And that's how I just did a, you know, the presentation in coach camp recently that, that you mentioned, Keith. I talked about sort of like the basic pendulum model and then like an accelerated pendulum model and how we can look at the golf swing through that lens to say, all right, it's a pendulum. It can be a double pendulum, because as the wrists start to engage and move in response to now more momentum created from larger range of motion. We have this double pendulum with not necessarily a fixed point, and we're trying to impart more speed. So it is an accelerated model here. Like, I think that's why, as much as I'm always trying to simplify it, there are quite a few moving parts. But the more we can think about it, that how many of those moving parts can be automated, the better, because then it's less work or less specific thinking for the swinger to do. It's just the stuff's happening around them. All they have to do is get the thing into motion. Get the thing into motion, and all the mechanics kind of take care of themselves.

Yeah. You know, I was never fortunate enough to take a lesson with Manual or listen to him talk in person, but I know Henry. Henry was. And something that Manual would always say would be, leave it alone. Right. Henry, he'd say leave the motion alone. And you know, kind of once you got the club in motion just to leave that club alone. And it's so hard to do. But when you actually experience it, it's like, like you kind of said it, it happens on its own. All these cool things. The wrists hinging and unhinging, the weight pressure moving amongst the feet, you know, the balanced follow through, the trail foot kind of being pulled up out of its place on the ground in response to the momentum of the forward swing. All of that sort of happens. And it's so hard for us golfers to not want to almost like, know why it's happening and just kind of trust that it's going to happen. And that when you do trust that it's going to happen, the best shots occur. It's almost like a surprise. And, and you know, like, like you said on your website, like it should be an exhilarating motion. Something exhilarating, which, which I completely agree with. And you also mentioned something that Henry and I talk about a lot, which is you said a couple times, it's our job to do something. And I think. Can you speak on, you know, we have kind of a couple roles in the golf swing, right? Like, you know, our job as the golfer is to swing the golf club and then the club's job is to provide the loft and the trajectory. But a lot of people try to get in the way there and try to do the club's job. Are there, you know, some cues or some things that you use in your lesson to help the golfer to understand the golfer's role in the whole picture?

Yeah, I do take the club away sometimes and get them to do some just body drills where their arms, I call it ragdoll, you know, their arms just dangle. They take a golf posture and we start getting that just body turned back and through and like, let the arms respond, let them feel that they can like let themselves just let their arms swing because they naturally want to do something with their arms. And so if it starts there, you have no chance when the club is in hand that they're going to not manipulate. They're not going to manipulate it. Another great little trick I do is this just a gravity drop. And so standing tall or in golf posture, probably posture makes more sense. But keeping the arms like raise them up to shoulder height and then literally just let them fall dead weight against either the body or even better yet, like let them swing and dangle down in front of the body until they come to Rest on their own. And I would say, like, nine times out of 10 for the golfer that I do this with, they make their arms stop. Like they physically make their arms come to rest. And I said, no, wait for it. You have to let your arms come to rest. And it takes patience. And they have to let go a little bit like, oh, okay, now I get it. It takes a good seven or eight seconds or more sometimes for their arms to truly just stop moving when they free, after they free fall. And so that's just that, that, that control over controlling brain kicking in, like, wanting to do the work. And so if you. If they can get that experience of just simply not getting involved to make their arms do anything, and their arms are truly followers that their job is to energize their arms into motion that, you know, they can't, don't. Don't allow yourself to do anything extra. Less is more here. And I think that the demonstration of the rope is great, but I've even done it where I've sort of like, just gently, like attached, just held the rope against where my shoulder joint is and let it dangle and made like a golf swinging motion so they can see that the rope is going to swing. Like, if I'm moving, the rope is swinging as if the rope was my arms. And so when they start to visualize it that way and realize that they don't have to do anything muscularly with their arms, that it's a big deal, so that just those sensations are good. And then from there, like, hopefully we can build some motion where they feel like a more effortless way of getting their arms to not only swing back, but, but up when you realize that you can't do it slow. It's also a big aha moment. Like, I think that playing with tempo and doing a lot of back and forth swinging, where they just feel like, wow, my arms are just floating right up to the top. It's huge because a lot of times golfers that are tense or they're manipulating with their arms and hands potentially have too slow of a backswing. So, you know, working on just getting the club back with enough pace that they actually feel the momentum in the backswing takes the pressure off them having to do anything with their hands. So I talk a lot about, where's your energy coming from to get this swing into motion? Where are you energizing it from? And speaking with that language helps them think about, oh, yeah, I think I was energizing the vaccine with my hands or, you know, my left. I Was told I should push back with my, like, left shoulder or some other body part. Like, you know, let's. Well, let's do it from a different place. Let's experiment. Can we get the club going back another way?

Yeah.

So, I mean, setting. Setting the tone for the backswing is huge, but those are some techniques that I. I like to use for that golfer that's like, really just manhandling the club.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's. Yeah, there's. There's nothing better than having a player learn to surrender to the motion. Yes, man. There's so much tension and manipulation and wanting to control things and put parts in different places. I love. I love what you said. I like something that I'd add. An object in motion will stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force. And a lot of times as a golfer, we are that force that interrupts the golf swing. But, you know, one of the things that I get a lot, and I'm curious to hear how. I'm sure you get it as well. Maybe not, but how you respond to players or coaches who say, no, that's just so simple, or that's too simple, or there must be more to it than that. That might be great for beginners and all, but I need to know what's next. What are your responses to anything along those lines?

I think you can have conversations about golf IQ and, like, when people want to know more, they want to know about, like, the why and the how and the mechanics. I mean, there's a time and a place for that to get a deeper understanding of, like, what's going on in the swing. But I think when it comes time to saying, how are you going to translate this to the golf course? You can always come back to. Less is more. Like, you're not going to take these mechanical thoughts or. Or numbers from a trackman and be thinking about that when it's time to hit your seven iron on the par three. Like, it's. It's. You can't. You can't. You can't be successful that way. So what's our game plan? Like, the ultimate thing is what is really going to translate to the golf course? And so if you know, you want to. You want to study golf swing, and you want to understand things at a deeper level. Okay. Like, we can do that, but you still have to realize that there's a time and a place for that. And then there is golf course mode, there's swinging mode. So I don't know. It's challenging. I've run into that as well with people that they ask great questions and they want to know more. But it's just finding that balance between knowing when to turn on and off that part of your brain that is staying too cognitive. I don't know if you guys have read the Steve Yellen's books and Fluid Motion Factor of you guys, are you familiar with him?

I'm a little bit familiar with Steve Yellen. My father in law is a teaching professional and he's been telling me a lot about it lately.

Yeah, he had the Fluid Motion Factor book and then he just came out not too long ago with Simplicity, which is sort of another almost edition of it, but a little bit more golf specific and a few things. I just read it recently, so it's sort of at the top of my brain. I revisited it after I years. A couple years ago read his first book. But the whole point here is that I like he said, talks about the sense of abstractness and like when you're over a ball, you have to have a sense of wholeness about your, about what you're about to do. And that the golf swing should be almost like the golf swing experience. And going through a motion of playing a shot should be kind of like making a smoothie. You can't. A smoothie is only a smoothie when you put it on the blender and hit blend, it has to be blended together to be a smoothie. So you know if the stuff's all left out on the counter and you got the bananas and the strawberries and the ice, it's not a smoothie until you hit blend. Like you have to come up with your smoothie. And so wrapping together whatever things you're working on in swing thoughts or specifically on the range about how something may feel or a position and what feel it creates. Like I think that having that wholeness of thought helps keep you in a very sort of like abstract space. So you can tap into the part of your brain that creates fluid motion, which is the cerebellum, not so much the prefrontal cortex. And so it's that like using left brain, right brain kind of idea along those same lines that how can we bypass that very cognitive front part of the brain that chops up the way we move and, and how we are maybe overly reacting to where our target is and steering the ball around and just make a swing like you. You line, you set the algorithm for your shot, you tell your brain what you want to do. You pick your target, you pick your club, you make your decision. You don't need to remind yourself like 16 more times when you're over the ball what the goal of the shot is. You've already said it, you've already visualized it once, maybe twice, line up. And then it's time to get into that abstract space in your head of like what you're trying to do. What's the task? It's to make a swinging action, like swing the weight of the club, whatever you want to call it. But it's that place where it's just a very like he calls it not thinking or moving from the surface level. It's like moving and swinging from a deeper level of a connection to your motion. And it's getting into that unconscious competence. Right. And trusting in that. And you have to have a certain level of skill for that to ultimately work. Like, you couldn't tell a beginner golfer that per se. But I think that's what we're all trying to get to. And I think it was a really effective description of what is it we're trying to do. We're trying to get to that sort of soft, abstract place where the swing is the swing and it's not overthought and it's the not over tried.

Does it seem like that's where maybe visualization or intention lie and that might be part of that trigger to initiate the overall motion?

Yeah, well, and that comes. Yes, that comes pre shot routine and then over the ball. I think that's where practicing routine comes into play is how do we. How do we take those specific instructions of what we want to do and put it over the ball in a way where we're still able to create fluid motion? That's the, that's the challenge and that's what we. What's important about like performance practice versus just, you know, mechanical practice is how do we transfer those. Those sensations to the ball.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And a couple things that you said there, like how are we going to get this to the golf course? You know, when it comes to is this maybe too simple or what's next or, you know, what's my new what's a swing thought I need or that sort of thing. And I think coming from a level of pretty competent play that you and I and Henry come from, of understanding, we've all been there, right. The three of us can all remember times when we're just locked up on the golf course because we have too many mechanical thoughts going on. And I think that's sort of maybe where we all resonate with the idea of just how simple this is. And I've never. Henry and I talk about this all the time. We've never heard a Tour professional come and talk about how his time with an instructor has been paying off because they started to make things more complicated. Right, Right. I mean, they all said, hey, we just got back to the basics. And we got back to. And we simplified it. And that's why I'm playing better. And it's just interesting how a lot of the recreational players want more and all the better players want less and how that. That kind of paradox is there. So, you know, that. That's kind of interesting. And in that. That thing where you talk about. It's almost like a connection, or when I. When I'm playing my best or when I'm really locked in, it's like I'm feeling the swing, but I'm not feeling anything specific. And there's a really soft focus on the target. Like, I don't need to remind myself where the target is. I don't need to remind myself what the club is doing in. Bob Rotella really talked about it. He said it doesn't need to be like, in a hallucinating event, like kind of Jason Day was doing a few years back, where he'd stand there and close his eyes. And that's kind of what people think station is. It's more of he. You know, he talks about. Your brain knows that you're on the golf course, and it knows that you want the ball to go to the target, and you don't need to remind a hundred times, and you just. You need to kind of react to it and. And all that sort of stuff. And. And like you said, it does require a certain level of skill to. To tap into that sort of mindset or feel or state of being on the golf course. But. But when you can get there, man, it is a fun place to play golf from. And it just feels like. Like its true flow state. And it's a really. It's. I mean, it's a great experience and one that I know we're all trying to get our students to get to, but when a. I just wanted to ask you, when a new student comes to you, kind of like, where do you. Where do you first start when someone just shows up at your lesson t and you're just trying to get a feel for them and figuring out where you want to go with that person? What do you do?

Certainly an interview process of, you know, what are their. What are their goals? Certainly what is Their background athletically. I always like to know where somebody's coming from, where their brain is, what their movement patterns might have been, strong movement patterns in the past, and then, you know, get a sense of what, what also is coming ahead. Like, do they, you know, how much time are they seeing themselves put into whatever the changes are going to be, moving forward? Because that changes what I give people. Sometimes I try to be honest. Like, I don't usually give what I would call band aid fixes, but there are those golfers that show up and they have to play in something in two days, and you have to sort of be realistic with what you're trying to change. When you can have a vision for the future and you can sell that vision to the golfer of, like, listen, this is really what I want to work on with you. But today, because you have to play golf in two days, we're going to stick with these couple simple things. Maybe it's a few setup keys that will help or some. Some adjustment that's going to at least help them, you know, keep the ball a little bit in play. Like, that's the toughest lesson is when, you know, there's not a lot of time when there's unlimited time and somebody's willing to put in the work. Like, I always go for the. Try to find at that level, once I get a baseline of, of how they're swinging with a couple different clubs in the bag, usually make them hit a few irons, usually make them hit a few drivers, like, okay, what's the root cause of what's really going on here? And try to interview them to say, to try to dig a little deeper. Why is this happening? Does it stem from the intention? Like, are they trying to do something that's creating this movement? And so I'll ask those probing questions or try to connect the dots between maybe the history they've shared with me about other sports they've played or. Or even what they do for a living. Like, just try to understand why are they moving this way? Is it how they're visualizing the tool? Is it something in their. In their setup that's causing them to be unbalanced, to weigh now to where now they're. They're moving in this way that's compromising their swing sequence or not allowing them to make a swinging action? Like, I'm always trying to, like, dig to that root cause. And in terms of looking at a swinging motion of a golfer, a baseline swing, where does the swing really stop? Like, does it. Is it ever a swing to begin with or is there a point where maybe in their transition they lose it and they grab the club or you know, where does the casting begin? Does it begin at the top of the backswing or does it begin halfway down? And why like I'm always trying to sort of work backwards to that moment where clearly something is, is manip being manipulated. And if I can nip it in the butt there, well then now the domino pattern, the domino effect is going to change from their forward and their swing. And we don't know exactly until we change that first domino how the rest of it may or may not fall into place. And so I just try to go, go back and, and find that either that root cause of their manipulation, whether it be intention or mechanical, and then, and then work from there and you figure out what, what it go. I mean for different people it's different fixes. You know, for some people maybe a drill works great and for others maybe it's a conversation or maybe it is looking at their video. So I don't know. I just, I guess with the years of teaching experience, I'm, I'm just feeling out that player and trying to make a game time decision as to what I think the best strategy is to communicate this with that person that's standing in front of me. If they're super, you know, intense and very analytical, I might choose a different strategy than if the person was more, I don't know, like laid back or artsy or something. Like I just try to like figure out personality wise what I think is going to click my communication style. Like how I choose to describe, describe what I think needs to be done differently. Like what, how that's going to be best communicated to this person standing in front of me based on their golf iq, their personality, their age, their skill level. Like there's so many factors that influence how I choose to try to communicate something. And I think that at this point it's, that's, that's the art of teaching, right? That when you get over years of doing it, you sort of feel that out a little bit more. I, I think that as a younger teacher I had good instincts, but I'm way better now than I was 15, 20 years ago at this. And I think I get to, I get to the. Not only the diagnosis is good, but then and my fixes, my plans for how I'm going to fix it is good, but like how I choose to actually deliver it is, is better now than it was years ago.

Yeah, I think that's awesome. I'm. I'm like, the image I have in my mind of where I'd like to be at with an instructor is like, just ask a few perfect questions and then have the student, like, fix themselves in front of me. That would be like the, that would be like the ultimate of. And Henry and I talk about this all the time of like, what questions are we asking? And if they're not getting it, it's not their fault. It's the instructor's fault. Right? Like, yeah, it's. It's not on them. It should never be on them. And that's something that Henry and I both learned from, from Ed lebeau, one of our mentors, who's three, Manuel de la Torre, come from that school. And. Yeah, I just think that I, you know, the more you do it, the more you realize you're just dealing with a human being. And when you can connect with that human being, it's like everything becomes easier from there. What do you think, Henry?

Yeah, I love that whole description as to how you go about giving a lesson. Honest to truth, I, I would, I would love to go take a lesson from you. I think that your whole process sounds awesome. Yeah, it sounds very welcoming to start. And it sounds as though you're really going to take your time to diagnose the best route that you feel that you could take with, with your player or with me, if it were me. So I, I really respect that and I, I really like the way you described it. And I'm actually curious to know how you go about giving online lessons if you do many of those, because I find that so much more difficult because I don't have the player in front of me and we don't communicate the same way as we do when we're in person.

Yeah, they definitely could be challenging. I do online lessons, you know, based on this Covid experience. Like, that was first a couple of months, that was all I was doing until I was back in person at work after. After a certain point in time. So, like, certainly sending videos back and forth is, is okay. You know, it's not my best case scenario on how I want to work with somebody. I do do zoom lessons, as a matter of fact, as the sun was setting on my last lesson of the day, from 4 to 5 o', clock, then I had a 5 o' clock zoom, and now I'm talking to you guys. So I just had a zoom with somebody and, and he was running out of daylight. He was in Ohio. So he ran downstairs into his facility to get on and I somebody that I actually had worked with just back and forth with video submissions before. So I was already familiar with his swing and he made a few swings on the simulator and we talked about. Because he's very familiar with. He read my book. So like now I'm. He's speaking my language. So now it's like, okay, we can talk through these terms. We talked about, you know, one particular phase of the swing that he was, was not moving well through. In my opinion, it was sort of clogging up his ability to, to send the ball straight right. He was pulling it and, and so there was sort of an over rotation of the body happening through impact. He was really muscling too much through the ball actually with his footwork and it was sort of throwing off his whole path. So it was one of those cases of less is more. And we quieted the footwork down a little bit. I gave him a couple drills, very simple stuff, and got the body language to change through impact. So he was very much aware and talking my language about trying to do the right things with his hands and arms. But his body was actually getting in the way. He was still over energizing at the wrong moment. And so once he sort of got awareness for that, we worked through it. So for him that was a great zoom lesson. That quieting that trail foot was, was important and letting, letting sort of the body naturally follow through instead of like really pushing to a finish too much, too soon, too hard. Like I think letting his, his body weight go to his left side starting rotation, but then almost letting it coast from there was more what I was trying to paint the picture of. And the mechanics did change. So in about 40 minutes on Zoom, I helped the guy out a little bit and he saw a difference and felt the difference in ball flight. Like just chipping away at it like that. It's just the best you can do. You can't go. How deep can you go in a half an hour on zoom? It's hard like, and I can't get my hands on the person to show them anything or to like, like really demonstrate the way I would want to demonstrate. But the language is still there. And you know, if he's got simple props around, around him, you know, okay, grab that, grab a golf ball, grab another club, Put it here, put it there. Try this. That's what I would do if I was there with you in person. So we're going to give it a try. And you know, are they, are they all best case scenarios? No, but it's as good as you're going to do with what you can do over zoom. So I do do it. It's not my favorite, but it's nice to be able to reach people in different places that can't get to you. So just cool to have that reach of. I mean, randomly. Like, I had Australia. Like, I had a guy call me from using the Caribbean. Like, it's awesome, like, to be able to teach people that I would have never otherwise been able to connect with. But it really helps when, you know, they're already speaking your language, as I said. So the fact that they did read my book, I'm so glad I have that because then people can get a sense of a baseline of ideas and then it's more about, okay, Erica, now that you can see me move, how does this apply to me? Because I've gotten as far as I'm going to get reading your book. Like, how does your information apply to me? And then it's easy because I'm like, oh, well, we talked about, like, you know, the section that I talk about with the pivot. Well, do this and this. Oh, okay, that makes sense. They do it, like, and it starts to click or we hope. Right? So I think, like, that's. That's important is having that almost like a. Like a pre. I don't know, pre lesson to the lesson.

I totally agree. And I think Henry and I have both had similar experiences with our Instagram page, and I'm sure you have too, where it's almost like a little portfolio of kind of what the student can expect, how you communicate. And I think the best results do come when someone seeks you out because they like how you communicate and they like how you do things. And it's almost like that whole month or whatever that maybe would be getting to know each other, that almost goes out the window. You get kind of right down to brass tacks and it seems to be a little bit easier. And then obviously, you know, you read, and you read enough of Ernest Jones, Manuel de la Torre, and how. How picky Manual was on the words he chose and the way he communicates things, it kind of like seeps into you as an instructor where I think the best communicators always win out, especially in online lessons, because, like you said, the language is still there. The picture you paint, the visual that you give them, that doesn't go away. Yeah, maybe you can't get your hands on the club or their body, but you can paint this visual for them and then they can let their Unique body almost kind of morph into that visual you've given them. So I think, I think that's really cool. But I'm with Henry. I mean, I would love to come in and watch one of your golf schools and you know, I think we mentioned maybe grabbing a beer down at the PGA show. So I'm looking forward to.

Oh, that'd be great. Yeah, well, yeah, 100% and right, right back at you guys. You know, it'd be great to, to team up one day and do something. I always thought it'd be cool to get to have some kind of like a summit of some nature with, with like minded professionals and. But you know, forward facing to the student, like there's so many coaches, coaches, summits. I just think there's, there's opportunity to do more to the end user. And so, you know, maybe we can brainstorm a little bit about that in the future.

Oh, we'd love to. Henry, you got any. Any last minute things for Erica?

Erica, I thought that was fantastic. I have a ton of respect for you. I really appreciate everything that you said. At first. I was curious to hear what you had to say about blending new school and old school. And I'm sure there's more to it than this, but your communication skills are through the roof. And I've written down a whole handful of things as to ways I've heard things in the past, but the way you've described them tonight has made it so much more accurate in my mind. And one of them was that in a swinging motion or an action as you call it, it's a continuous motion and sometimes we get locked up into positions. And one of the things you said just now is at which phase of the swing. And that just clicked for me and over energizing a various part of the body. I love the energy. You know, putting too much energy in. Into a certain place you look for where in the swing does it become manipulated and less of a swing. And those are some of the things that I think are going to be really valuable for myself as well as our listeners as players, and most importantly to me, our students and upcoming PGA professionals.

Yeah.

Awesome. Well, thank you for that feedback. I'm glad to have inspired some new language into maybe your world. That's the whole thing. When I hear something said a certain way that I like, I try to hang onto it and then eventually, hopefully it becomes a part of my vernacular, my everyday vernacular, or sometimes it just organically happens. It's like when I'm explaining something to a Student. I'm like, wow, that just really, like, came out good. I gotta remember that. Write it down or something, you know. But it's funny how our language develops and I love listening to coaches that are so good with how they describe things. And so, yeah, I keep sharing those ideas and hopefully it'll, you know, we can keep sharing those best practices of what seems to click and how we can communicate to our students. But I wanted to say, hey, Henry, congratulations on your most recent huge accomplishment. There I was following along in your journey to New York and what an amazing thing you just did. So congratulations on your marathon.

Thank you. Yeah, it was incredible. Life changing. I'd been to New York before. I wasn't a runner by any means of the imagination. And I know you're from Queens and I went through all the boroughs and it was incredible. That is the greatest city in the world. There are no more people that couldn't be. You know, the people there are so proud of their city. They're so proud of where they come from, which borough they're from. It was amazing. Unbelievable.

Yeah. Well, I'm glad you got to experience it like that. And it's a great, great event. What an amazing accomplishment. So congratulations.

Thank you so much.

Inspiring, for sure. Makes me want to go out and start running. I'm not a runner, but that's okay.

I'll see you there next year.

I'm good. Yeah, I'm good. Hey, Erica, before we let you go, where can folks find out more info about you and kind of maybe attend a golf school or any of that sort of stuff?

Sure. Well, definitely my website, ericalarkin.com Instagram. Erica Larkin Golf. And I'm involved with Golf Digest a bunch, but also in person. You know, whether you come visit me at Creighton Farms in Virginia or seek me out at a destination golf school, I'm working with a few great coaches to deliver some golf schools around the country called Golf Fanatics. And so that's another platform that I do some content with. If you're looking for more videos of weekly videos of what I like to talk about. But yeah, it's great. I mean, it's nice to get on the road and certainly love to do things like that as I move forward, but it's great to have a nice home base where people can come visit as well. So hopefully I meet more of you out there that are listening and. And Keith and Henry will meet at the PGA show, hopefully. And then and beyond.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks a million for coming on. This was an awesome talk. And, yeah, look forward to catching up with you in the near future.

Thank you. Thank you both. Have a great night.

Thanks, Erica. Have a great night.