Sponges are indiscriminate. They soak up any manner of liquid – clean or dirty. We throw away the dirty sponges and keep the cleanest ones, because we are logical. Therefore, would it not be equally logical to inspect the informational pooling beforehand?
People act like sponges. We hear this or see that, and immediately file our new informational liquid away in our ultra-absorbent brains. We always believe the liquid is valuable… because we decided to remember it! Otherwise, we would be foolish, yes?
The difference between sponges and people is in our ability to wring out the liquid in one and not the other. We can clean sponges, too. However, once our accepted “liquid gold” is taken up, we never really expunge the slag. We just slurp up new spills to mask subscription to former spills and hope the new is clean.
Can you imagine being a sponge in a strip club or gas station men’s room!? Well, if you listen to some popular instructors, you might as well go lick the floor in one of those spots. Because, their informational juice will do you NO GOOD – #BIGLY. Furthermore, once absorbed, you own it – for better or worse, for richer or poorer… until death do you part. Get it?
Now, do you know how to inspect the fluid BEFORE you constrict your sponge for the big suck-up? Its like inspecting any other liquid you touch – you gotta’ see it and smell it to make sure its not rotten. Most golf instruction is two-month-old milk mixed with bacon fat. However, we cannot tell the difference because we can’t see or smell literary or empirical work. Words rarely come with an aroma.
I know instructors who pride themselves on being “Sponges”. They think that a little from here, and a little from there makes them better instructors. INDISCRIMINATE! If you’re only as good as your intake, and you’re a bathroom sponge at a New Orleans strip club during Mardi Gras, then you are holding onto some bad juju. Therefore, don’t be ANY-kind-of-information sponge – Be a objective-truth sponge. Oh, and one more thing….
Open your stance, and play golf.
John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy
The Open Stance Creates Great Ball-Strikers
Our Stance, Ball Position, and Adaptation Form Our Practice
The Open Stance and The Ball-Flight Tree for Me