Very good news. I for one am looking forward to reading his views.
Lag,
I have finished my re-read of Michael Murphy’s “Golf in the Kingdom”.
I did not find mention of the Golden Rectangle, Nautilus, Phi, Fibonacci Sequence, and so forth.
Perhaps they are there, at least mystically.
I will begin reading Michael Murphy’s sequel, “The Kingdom of Shivas Irons”, next.
1teebox
Well, since Mr Allen and Mr Murphy are good friends… I’ll see if I can find anything out about Shivas’ take on it all.
Maybe they are saving that for the film version… that is coming out surely in the next 100 planet cycles around the sun. 
The film could be terrific, but if Shivas trusts we can handle it rightly and wants to share a little more with us now, there will be more than enough left to create a huge film.
I finished a re-read of “The Kingdom of Shivas Irons” by Michael Murphy. As promised, I was looking for references about the golden mean, the golden rectangle topic, the golden spiral and so forth. I did not find any, but I can’t say that none were in the book; all too often I miss things that are plain as day to everyone else.
However, on page 109 of the paperback, there is a mirror image of a spiraling spherical mobius band echoing a DNA spiral and the strangeness of the tesseract. I am barely, if at all, equipped to suggest you may find this may symbolize golf and a psycho-physical mystery that may reveal itself within us if we are open to seeking it deeply and long enough.
There may be a clue to the meaning of the spiral in Michael Murphy’s dedication where he says the book was written: “For George Leonard, Comrade for the Ages”.
Here is a selected interchange during an interview by J. Akiyama of George Leonard in Aiki Web:
Aiki Web: “What makes aikido so deep?”
George Leonard: “Well, it’s deep because it’s limitless. Things that have limits are never as deep. With aikido, you can figure out that the number of techniques, variations, kaeshiwaza, and such end up at an infinite number of possibilities.
And there’s more to it than that. Aikido offers us an ideal that can never be completely brought into actuality, but it’s such a wonderful ideal – to create harmony out of conflict. What else can we ask for in aikido? That’s it.”
(The bold underlined emphasis above is mine, 1teebox.)
How often is our personal challenge in any part of our golf quest “to create harmony out of conflict”?
I heartily recommend the full interview of George Leonard at: http://www.aikiweb.com/interviews/leonard0400.html
Lagpressure,
Thanks for reminding us about Michael Murphy. I not only got to re-read both “Golf in the Kindom” and “The Kingdom of Shivas Irons”, it also led me to this interview of George Leonard. I now have a new goal of reading George Leonard’s books as well as the other books that Michael Murphy has written. It’s gonna be good!
BOM,
From what I see here, whatever amount of coffee you had appears to be exactly the right dose.
Best,
1teebox
A dentist in America wrote a piece criticising the state of dentistry. The point he made were that not many strived for excellence, and that many were focused on doing what they could “get away” with. It is rife throughout the world. Films are remakes of old classics or sequels in the main, music is largely covers by “trendy” fresh faces.
Modern equipment help people to “get away” with a lot, so there is less need to actually do the right things to compress a golf ball.
Good “Quality” ball striking is just that, there is no aesthetics to the swing involved in what was presented to the golf ball at impact. The golf ball only cares about speed, path, angle of attack, face angle in determining where it goes.
I first noticed the chambered nautilus in the golf swing way back in the 1980’s. A strobe photo appeared on a golf instruction book that I was perusing. I cannot recall the title of the book right now. If anyone out there remembers, that would be great. It wasn’t until reading Robert Prechter’s book, The Elliot Wave Theory that I came to piece together a golf theory based on this aesthetic constant.
I believe that when the mind is completely clear, absent of any thought (be it a thought in a larval state or a thought as a full blown conceptual butterfly) … free of all this … then and only then can trust persist throughout the movement … then and only then can the ball be seen in a pristine primordial state … then and only then will the nautilus appear in the swing. All physical manipulations are worthwhile only in the context of the trust in which the tinkering occurs. Pure shots can be had in the stack and tilt context. Pure shots can be had in the conventional swing context. Pure shots can be had in the Moe Norman context. Nearly any manner of configuration can be successful if there is absolute trust in the motion as it is expressed.
A while back I had an extraordinary experience playing a round (or should I say “playing around”) with the stack and tilt method. BTW I have never read The Golfing Machine , but I believe that the idea of the Stack and Tilt is derived from this material. Subsequently, I deluded my sentient self into believing that there was something to it. But here’s the thing. It was not that the method was preferable to any other. It was simply that (for some reason) I fell into a spell of trust which, in that instance, allowed a pure expression of the motion to be borne out. Application of the method itself is not the answer. Finding a sense of trust that is not dependent on method is the answer. This is a high order primary key. Method and it’s distractions is like putting your thumb somewhere on the flat plane of a ringing cymbal. The cymbal continues to vibrate outside of the place where you touch it … but everything goes dead inside of it. The tension of consciousness is just like the thumb … deadening the possibility of the pure strike. The key is to ring the cymbal without touching it … the question is how we become the ringing cymbal from the Centre to the periphery and from the periphery to the Centre … thus, facilitating a reciprocation and harmonization of interacting waves … like the seeds of a sunflower. So I believe that the golden spiral is more than just observable … it is experiential. In other words, when you know inside that you have “pured” it and the ball is sailing straight to the pin, a strobe photo of that particular swing would reveal a nautilus property.
I shudder to see what a strobe photo would look like if it were taken during the commencement of a shank or a topped shot. If the strobe picture were taken of an inexperienced golfer, twisted into knots, attempting to strike the ball, I don’t believe the nautilus strobe effect would manifest itself. I believe you would still see a spiral … but it would be truncated or distended …evidence of an impure expression.
The bottom line is that we as golfers cannot create the golden swing we can only surrender to it and trust that it will create itself … if we just allow it to happen! Therein lies the paradox of the game.
Taylor Spalding
http://www.goldengolf.com
Not sure I can explain why, but, like so many concepts illuminated here … Genius!
I remember investigating the goldengolf website a few years back at the same time I was well into my TGM journey. Something about it seemed to ring a bell but I didn’t know why. This post resurrects that feeling.
Thanks for posting that Taylor!
robbo
hello Taylor,
Your observations at goldengolf.com about the golden ratio, fibonacci sequence, phi, and such with respect to golf and more ignited my untrained attention a long time ago, but I was not capable of knowing how to think about it and what to do with it, and as it happens with porous memories and short attention spans like mine, the subject fell away underneath other concerns for a long time. It remains unsettled in my mind. Striving for attainment seems to bring what may be essentials full circle sooner or later and recently the subject and some questions about it surfaced again as this topic where I hoped others experienced at thinking about such things might weigh in.
I am glad to see your post and look forward with great interest to other posts you might contribute.
Best to you.
1teebox
Thank you,
Sometimes (I should really say always)the answer is just to hold the club so lightly, that if you held it any more lightly, it would fall from your hands … and keep it that way throughout the swing … There has to be trust that we are not so much holding the club as we are allowing the club to become glued to our hands through the nature of the waning motion … then ahhh! magic!
The struggle of method entices the hands to inject themselves. The thumb on the cymbal represents the hands in the swing. Can we dance the hands so lightly on the cymbal that the Centre does not become deadened. This kind of thought is the culmination of a long struggle for me personally in my own game. Attempting to let the hands go and really letting the hands go are two different things. One is a contemplation that still innervates the hands, the other is a sense of trust that develops as you attempt to hold the club more lightly, and more lightly, and more lightly still. Suddenly the pure view of the ball … commence movement. swish!
Now putting … that’s been a true thorn lately. But I think the same line of reasoning applies.
J.J. Moore
AKA: Taylor Spalding
Cool thoughts, Taylor(J.J.) thanks for sharing. While I do think there are good techniques and bad ones, and they tend only to be seen over a period of time, rather than in short bursts, I’m always amazed by the quality of golf that can be played by the worst of thoughts. I definitely agree that a lot of the time it’s the peace of mind and trust born out of the belief in the concept, that really frees a person up to express their inner golfer.
I wonder is the book you mentioned The Natural Golf Swing, by George Knudsen. There’s a strobe-like photo of him swinging on that cover that I think resembles your description…
Thanks for the insights, and thanks to 1teebox for the thread- fascinating stuff…
In case you can’t remember it…
If the swing is a hurricane spiral, what’s to lose but chains and rust if we hold the eye of the storm lightly then dare to trust?
Well put teebox!
… and thanks to Dan for alerting me to this thread. This subject has been a long time fascination with me. There is absolutely something to it.
I think of it as accessing a time wave … upon accessing it the mind loses perception of time. Suddenly you find yourself swept up in it. You become time itself … inseparable from the object. This is sort of what I mean when I say that the club handle glues itself to the hands. There is no time for manipulation of form through time. The form, for the fact that the time wave has been accessed, becomes self correcting. The intuition of intent becomes the only mechanic.
J.J. Moore
AKA: Taylor Spalding
bingo
If you are swinging…yes. However, I’ve chosen to learn the path to hitting the ball and use my body as an instrument to amplify that strike. Hitting fits in more with my personality and my past training in sports. While boxing it would have been a great detriment to my winning smile and handsome visage to swing. 
I’ll leave the beauty of nautilus shells to nature and Leonardo Di Vinci, whilst continuing to battle nature to strike the golf ball in my present manner.
Cheers,
Captain Chaos
I think there can be a great aesthetic beauty to hitting also, but you have to be looking at the right things. The real beauty is in the ball flight.
Me three…I really like how “battling nature” sounds as opposed ( there’s that word again ) to “hitting versus swinging” or “CF versus CP”. 
RR
Yes, I understand your point.
But when you slip into that nascent freedom which emerges from ease and trust, formless beyond intention, the pure shot expresses itself. Then you look at this tree and see a different thing. You assess the fractal beauty. In fact, it could be called an altered state. Normally when I see a tree, it’s just a tree. But in the altered state of pure hitting, I see a different thing. For example: The tree pictured above. Just a tree, on a street, in a yard. When in a zone state, I see a giant neural brain with tentacles of wooden neurons. My point: It is impossible to ignore the aesthetic because golf is embedded within it. So I don’t see it so much as battling nature. We can all agree that the game as it is set up presupposes the man vs, nature battle.
We learn from nature when we become it … when we absorb it. However, in the everyday state of mind, our consciousness causes us to analyze and come up with concepts and explanations. We come up with things like the Golf Machine and all manner of method to take us to the Holy Grail. I believe that the original intent of this thread was to explain the appearance of the golden spiral in strobe photography of pure golf swings. My contention is that when the endpoint of the sensuous sphere has a perfect reciprocal relationship with the True Centre, the spiral expresses itself.
If you peruse the website you will find that I call this final point the “final metacenter.” We cannot cause these relationships be correct. We can only allow them to be correct. The nature of the motion creates the form. We can only allow it to work through us. A pure motion will then work through a variety of methods. Nearly any method will work (at least temporarily) so long as there is trust and one can pump through a pure trustful motion.
This all ties into the dismantling of Vardon and the telephone game advice I indirectly gave to Michael Allen the week before he won at Canterbury.