In my formative years as a golf instructor I learned many facets of teaching that influenced me in one way or another. I've kept what worked and what didn't work was tossed aside. It was a perfectly logical and pragmatic approach to learning my trade.

The most influential teacher I had met and learned from was David Leadbetter. His style of teaching was revolutionary. He introduced things like swing plane, using video, lines on the screen and more. More importantly, he presented his view of the correct positions in the golf swing, which have influenced many in the teaching profession as well.

But that's not all. He changed the way pros worked on their swing. In 1983, he began working with Nick Faldo, who had just won five European tour events along with the scoring and money title that year but wanted a better swing that would not fold under pressure. The swing changes they made would later propel him to win six majors.

However, there was one problem. The massive overhaul of Faldo's swing took two years to produce results. Surely, not many tour pros can afford to take two years off their game and suffer the long, arduous process of getting everything to mesh and come together. There had to be another way.

Nevertheless, this became the model for learning golf. Full overhauls of golf swings were in order. And this gave golf teachers everywhere the one thing they needed most... time. They could always point to Faldo and say, "It took him two years to develop that swing..." The Average Joes who took lessons were forewarned that things took time to develop and they must trust that their swing changes would soon come together (along with trusting and paying the piper). "You may even get worse before getting better," they were told.

Soon thereafter it became common knowledge that this would just not work. Time, frustration, and endless working on the swing rarely produced good golfers. So Leadbetter changed with the times. Realizing that little tweaks here and there would be easier to understand, grasp and worked into the swing. Don Hurter, top 100 golf instructor at Castle Pines Golf Club in Denver and former Leadbetter assistant, taught me the importance of getting to the root of the problem. Fix one problem and many go away. This was the trend. Not many can handle big swing changes and be able to play golf. Habits take 28 days to form whether you're trying to quit smoking or learn a new part of the golf swing.

So we go from the maximus approach to the minimus approach to golf teaching and learning. I was taught to try to find the biggest, earliest problem. Fix that and everything would get better. And it worked well. Many times it would mainly mean working on the backswing elements and sometimes the downswing. But at times it was like putting out forest fires with a five-gallon bucket of water. It was not recommended to try to do too much with anyone's swing for fear that it might make them worse before getting better. Of course, no one wants to see his or her students get worse before getting better. So the minimus approach was great. It took people on a straight line to a better golf game even if it took a little more time. At least it was a lot less frustrating.

Former Leadbetter Junior Academy director and now director of the International Junior Golf Academy Gary Gilchrist was the next most influential teacher I've had the pleasure of meeting. He believed that more could be done to work with students provided it had a trail of logical cause and effect conclusions. He also saw that swing flaws came in pairs and that you'd need to be ready to fix the complementary flaw on the downswing if you fiddled with the backswing. He also believed in periodizing their training so that they aren't just doing mechanical swing changes all the time. They cycle into doing more feel work some weeks and compete on some weeks. He's great at what he does and taught me a lot about what goes on in a golf swing. And he's the best in the world at training juniors to become great golfers.

But, in the bigger picture, I was still not satisfied. With the development of my SpeedChains, I found that the movement replicating variable resistance offered by the chains did something strange to people that use it. It increased their coordination, decreased the time it took for them to enter a new movement pattern into their swing, as well as helped with their speed! It also allowed some golfers to make radical changes in their movement/swing patterns. I fixed a 67-year-old man's slice in only minutes while he had struggled with a slice for 40 years. I was able to get him to draw the ball for the first time in his life. Wow, great discovery. I was really onto something.

But how does this fit into the old paradigm? It doesn't. The old paradigm says to learn slowly and then add speed later. We see Dean Reinmuth on the Golf Channel doing that all the time. He says, "Swing really slow and do it right." Then, "Swing a little faster." Then "A little faster." "Okay, too fast. Go slower again."

But it is quite possible and very probable that doing swing motions slow, recruits slow twitch muscles and a whole different motor unit recruitment pattern. Whereas when actually hitting the golf ball at normal speed we're recruiting more fast twitch muscles. Neurological aspects of learning are being neglected and ignored here. Timing of movements will be thrown off and out of sync. Illogical.

Enter Ben Jackson and his influence on my ideas. He believed that speed training would help with the learning process as well. His ideas and teaching path were similar to mine but with one big difference. He saw the need for everyone to be swinging faster in tempo. Even faster than was recommended in the book Tour Tempo. Ben believed that training for speed would develop technique, timing and tempo all in one neat little package and he's right.

The culmination of years of learning and experience in teaching came to a pinnacle last week (2nd week of February). I had the pleasure of working with a young 20 year-old Japan LPGA tour professional Konomi Yasuda. Besides being tremendously gifted, talented and beautiful, she was very hard working and a quick learner.

So what's the big deal? Let me first list all the flaws she had in her old swing, followed up by pictures of her old swing, then her new changed swing and remember, all this was done in one week. Actually most of the changes were done in three or four days.

Here's the list for the backswing:

1. inside takeaway
2. which caused a steep backswing plane via a lift of the arms
3. which also contributed to a long backswing
4. breakdown of the left arm
5. hands got too far behind head
6. overly shut clubface
7. caused by a "bowed" left wrist and the inside takeaway
8. overturning of the shoulders at the top of the backswing

These backswing errors were huge. The old paradigm would say to fix one or two of these this month and tackle more next month. Work on the downswing would have to be done after backswing issues were done. How long would it take for the old paradigm to fix these problems? A year? Two years?

Here's the list of downswing flaws:

1. spin out of hips
2. overturning of shoulders to start down
3. caused early release and casting of the club early in the backswing
4. right arm stuck way behind the body
5. flip of wrist to hit the ball
6. leads to poor impact position
7. lack of synchronization
8. no posting up at impact
9. follow through shows a very shut clubface after impact

Add in a slow swing speed of 92 miles per hour and I knew this was going to be a tremendous challenge. Once again, the question should be asked, after the backswing problems are fixed, the old paradigm could start to work on the downswing, how long would it take for anyone to fix these problems? Six months? Another year? How about a week?

And how soon thereafter would it take the new swing to produce measurable results? Would that be in two or three years?

Add in that I'm sure any teacher would know that they would have to put her on a "strength" program in order to increase her speed. And when would that strength program produce measurable results as well?

Well, being a little ADD (attention deficit disorder) I can't sit still and wait for things to be done in a year. I want things done now!

So here's the proof of the pudding. Here are the before and after pictures of Konomi's swing.

BEFORE

Note clubface is shut with driver and iron.

The clubface is so shut that the face is pointing to the sky. Left arm broken, left wrist "bowed" and the shoulders are over-turned.

Overly long backswing. Notice hands way behind her head. On the right, her hands are just way behind her body and out of sync.

On the left, she's lost all angles or had casted the club in order to get the clubhead to catch up with the fast moving hips. On right, the right elbow is stuck behind the right hip and causes blocks and weak fades. She's basically ready to flip her hands to hit the ball.

AFTER

Clubface is in a much better position. Shaft in a better angle as well.

Top of the backswing is much shorter and compact. The clubface is almost perfect.

Right elbow is not stuck anymore. She's firing through with her clubface not overly closed anymore.

Shorter backswing, holding the angle better on the way down instead of casting.

Way more in sync. This shot is just after impact but the left wrist is not breaking down as it once was. Better posting up at impact.

Tempo

Tempo went from 1.45 and some higher than 1.50 to a low of .98 on the first day. By the fourth day, her iron tempo went down to .83 to .85 seconds with her driver tempo hovering around .95 to 1.00 seconds. Now she's making better use of the stretch shorten cycle!

Speed

Konomi started with a high clubhead speed of 92 mph. On the fourth day we did some SpeedChain training to help increase her clubhead speed and work on some impact drills as well.

After about a half hour of SpeedChain work, we rested and had lunch at Tadashi Restaurant, which was really good. We then went to Honolulu Country Club (Thanks to Hiroshi Tashiro!) to hit some golf balls and to test her clubhead speed. Within a few drives, she was swinging at a top speed of 99 mph! Incredible! A seven-mile per hour increase in only a few minutes of work. Maybe it was the maguro/natto donburi powering her swing or maybe it was the SpeedChains, but her speed improved tremendously. Imagine, if an elite athlete like a tour pro that can improve their clubhead speed by that much in that short a period of time, certainly amateurs can improve too.

Driving Distance

Prior to any swing changes or speed work, Konomi averaged about 220 yards off the tee. Not too good if she wished to really be competitive on the JLPGA tour or, worse yet, to make it to the American LPGA tour as soon as possible.

After a week of swing changes and speed work, she averaged 250 yards off the tee. Her longest drives on the course on her last day of training were 270 yards! Some were an unbelievable gain of 40-50 yards on the very same holes at Honolulu Country Club only a few days prior.

A New Paradigm

The old paradigm is most certainly too small, too limiting and seeks to discredit things that do not fit into what has always been. The New Paradigm (NP) needs to be much larger to accommodate these previously unexplained events. First of all, the NP must be able to explain the wonders of instant speed increases. Secondly, the NP must be able to explain the phenomenon of instant movement pattern/swing changes and obvious changes to muscle/motor unit recruitment patterns. Thirdly, the NP must take into consideration the physiological aspects of the muscles and use the plyometric effect in training for speed/strength AND technique.

The NP requires that teachers and trainers of all sports understand everything from basic kinesiology, exercise physiology, muscle physiology, metabolic systems (understanding the anerobic and anaerobic systems), motor learning and skill development, biomechanics and most importantly speedology (I made that word up).

As evidence that the old paradigm doesn't work, how many of you have golfing buddies that have a beautiful Dr. Jekyll practice swing but then when he/she actually hits the ball, his/her swing turns into Mr. Hyde? He/she may be able to learn to perform the movements correctly by doing slow half-pace swings, but this has no correlation to being able to do them correctly at their normal, fast speed.

Consider the profound words of Ben Jackson of the New England Golf Academy, "You didn't learn to run fast by running slow, nor high jump 6 feet, practicing at 3 feet... We didn't learn how to drive a car with someone telling us to flex the right ankle 42 degrees on the accelerator, either."

The NP is in order. Will you argue for your limitations in learning or see the future of learning and training as it exists today? You can be better and faster NOW!

I'll get back to the tennis series next month after I return from the Pacific Life tournament at Indian Wells. Hope to see Sharapova! Janice Combs of www.tennistrainer.com has begun sales of the tennis SpeedChain and Torso Burners. See her website for more info on purchasing.