FocusBand

[GolfSpy MPR]

Been weighing for a while starting a thread on this, but had an experience yesterday that compels me to post.

First, a brief introduction: the FocusBand is a fabric band (it also comes as a hat) that has sensors that measure brainwave frequency. Here's the (very broad) theory: high frequency brain activity is associated with analytic, conscious thought. Lower frequency brainwaves, by contrast, tend to be associated with the "flow state," a strong and immediate connection with the present. In golf (and sport) lingo, this brain state tends to reflect being in the "zone."

Now, some of us on a Forum like this have a hard time shutting off the analytical side of our brains while playing golf. I'm sure many of you have seen (and can, unfortunately, relate to) this unfortunate fella:

The FocusBand is designed to help people like you. Um, I mean, me. By giving immediate, measured feedback on brain activity, it enables the user to learn what it's like to get in the proper brainstate and how to get there.

I've had my eye on this product for quite a while, but it's really quite pricey. I eventually managed to snag a used one on eBay for a significant discount.

The app is—ahem—old. It's kinda clunky and in many places not at all intuitive. But it functions, and it's centerpiece, when the FocusBand is on, is a tone that sounds in correspondence to its current measured brain activity. It also has an accompanying image, showing a head with either the left brain (red/bad) or the right brain (green/good) lit. If you get deep into the green, lasers shoot out of the eyes, showing that you've entered a state the app calls "Quiet Eye."

I suppose that going in, my two basic reservations would be:

• This is all woo, and
• There's no way that this is measuring anything scientific.

I think I'm wrong about both of those. On the second, I'm pretty sure this thing isn't perfect: I can be deeply relaxed, and if I raise my eyebrows (and wrinkle my forehead), I'm suddenly "in the red" in the app. I suspect my brain activity hasn't changed all that much, but that motion disturbs the measurements.

But in the main, you can quickly tell a correspondence between your experience and what the device is telling you.

The big thing that the FocusBand rewards is setting your focus on a mental image of a target—and keeping it there. For me, this takes a considerable about of work: the paradox of trying not to try. But I haven't found it too terribly hard (the app lets you set a "baseline" against which you are judged; it can also set that automatically).

I spent a decent amount of time this winter using the FocusBand with putting practice. This, for me, is a fantastic way to begin to bridge the divide between working on putting mechanics (a big focus of mine after a putting lesson last season) and getting ready for on course play (where I don't want to be thinking about mechanics any more).

The procedure, going into a putt, is to get the hole (or line, or whatever image works best for you) in your mind. Then settle in over the putt, with that image in your mind. Take a last look at the hole while changing the image in your mind to the ball and your putter. Then look back down, re-fixing the target image in your mind, then pull the trigger.

When I do this properly, I experience something that is nearly revolutionary for me: I have no awareness of the mechanics of my stroke during or after the putt. I have never been able to grasp the "I don't have swing thoughts" approach to golf before.

[Side note: Kirke says that's how he plays. Sure enough, I put the FB on him to have him putt. He'd step into a putt, the app would go green, and he'd hit the ball. I did this without allowing him to see the feedback.]

What provoked me to post today was that yesterday, I used the FB for full swings for the first time. The Mevo+ Skills app integrates the FocusBand, which is really cool. So I was doing the "Novice" skills assessment with the FocusBand on. The test is asking you to hit specific carry distances. After the first several targets, I turned on my camera, because I needed to capture what was happening. Warning: this video is super boring, unless you care about such things:

If you watch, you can see me trying to get the image of the 150 yard target fixed in my head. The tones indicate the degree to which I'm getting there. When I'm comfortably in that mental state, I pull the trigger.

What amazed me is that, with this practice, I kept getting within the 5-point (max) area of the target in the skills progress. For anyone who wants to take a look, you can see the FlightScope data in this spreadsheet I exported: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nJd5gLpby-eTWniFWTXPWDhS88n8tVLXQXGz87EoSd4/edit?usp=sharing

Now, there are drawbacks: I am still working on some swing changes that I think are desirable. With the FocusBand on, my swing quickly reverts to whatever the current "default" is. Over time, obviously, I hope that daily swing work will continue to integrate itself more and more into the "thoughtless" swing; in the meantime, on the course, I want to have the "no thoughts," target-focused feel that I get with the FB.

FWIW: here's a comparison of a video I was doing while working on mechanics yesterday versus the target-absorbed swing:

So here's my current takeaway: if you're an over-analyzer, this might be something worth looking into. I obviously only have the FB, but there's a competing product (the Muse) that I get ads for on Facebook now. It looks like that is measuring similar things, but it's designed more for meditation than athletics, so I don't know how well it would work with the golf swing. It is less expensive, list price, though.

[GolfSpy TCB]

Wish had your swing speed MPR.... and I more resemble the swing on the right.... this is very interesting to me... I believe I fall into the "over analyzer" category.