Podcast Transcript
**Josh Nichols**
Jayne Storey, what’s the ultimate purpose of golf?
**Jayne Storey**
I think it depends on the golfer. I mean, talk about throwing me in the deep end with that question, Josh. The ultimate purpose of golf, what from, it does depend on the golfer. I would say that it can be a vehicle for people to attain a very high quality of self-expression and self-realization. I mean, but if you took it to the nth degree, perhaps it’s an opportunity for the divine to be expressed through the human body. which is not what I’ve written or spoken about before, but it’s certainly the direction that my work is most likely to go in over the next few years. It’s certainly something I’m interested in and I would like to write something about it. But yeah, it’s… It’s an area of infinite possibility and I don’t think we’ve really scratched the surface of it yet.
**Josh Nichols**
When you say the divine, I think you said the divine expressing through the body. Give me more on that. What do mean?
**Jayne Storey**
There was a great mystic poet and philosopher called Sri Aurobindo who I think he passed away in 1950. There’s still an ashram that’s devoted and dedicated to him in Pondicherry which is French India. And he was a master who tried to bring together the spirit and the body. So he said there are two ends of existence, the spirit and there’s matter. And normally in all the religions of the world and the spiritual teachings, the idea that’s been posited by the teachers, the avatars, has been to escape from the material world and get back to the spirit, get back to God. And Sri Aurobindo says, well, if that’s the case, then God’s made a mistake, you know. So if God hasn’t made a mistake, then the idea really is that spirit should be expressed through matter. So his practice, which is called the integral yoga, is all about… awakening the physical body, awakening it, because the body for the most part is an inert matter. We tend to live in our heads, know, drag the body around with us. And I say that even for great athletes, even great athletes in their head, not necessarily connected to the body. So they’re, I mean, this is not going to happen now. It’s not going to happen in my lifetime. It might not happen for 300 years, it might not happen for a thousand years, but the divinization of the body, not in a religious way.
**Jayne Storey**
But I really think, I mean, I wrote an article recently on Scottish Scheffler. on my blog, you can read it, it’s called Reflections on Scheffler. And it’s about this very subject and… the expression of something beyond, I know this is the mental golf show, but we’ve immediately gone into something that’s beyond the mental game. So once we take the mental lid off things, you know, and say, actually we don’t know what the flow state is, that maybe the flow state is our introduction to this possibility
**Josh Nichols**
Mm.
**Jayne Storey**
of the divine being expressed through the human body. Because every golfer, every athlete I’ve ever spoken to when they talk about being in flow. It’s always with these qualities of serenity, inner calm, something transcendent, something spiritual, and always be on the mind. So that is a really heavy introduction to a podcast conversation.
**Josh Nichols**
That’s what I was going for. I love it. I appreciate you diving in behind me. So, the idea of Well, how many ways I want to take this, but we’ll, we’ll, we’ll go to Scotty Scheffler just to try to anchor ourselves to, want to say anchor ourselves to reality, but maybe anchor ourselves to something we can all see and, and feel and pay attention to the current event wise. Scotty Scheffler is he, why would you write an article on Scotty Scheffler? I imagine you didn’t write a very similar article on.
**Jayne Storey**
Zander Schaafle or whoever else. Why Scotty? It was because of his comments before the open. I don’t remember where it was, but there was a press conference which he gave recently and he gave a five minute kind of soliloquy on the dissatisfaction he feels in golf, the emptiness that he feels in victory, the transient nature of the joy in winning a golf tournament. and so on and so on. I mean, he talked for quite a while about it. I think it was quite shocking for a lot of people and it reverberated all around the Gulf community with various people commenting on it. And I think you could either see his comments as the comments of a deeply religious man. who finds joy elsewhere because we know that he’s a committed Christian. Or you could see it as, you know, he’s dissing the kind of success that most people talk about, you know. And I wanted to bring in this, I’ve been reading Sri Aurobindo now for almost three years, and I wanted to bring in some of the things that I’ve been learning and been practicing in my own sport. to try to bridge that gap. Because the performance practices that I teach, which are based on formal traditional meditation and elements of the martial arts, they are known to be transformative. They transform the body, they change the body. Meditation, we know, quietens the mind. We also know formal meditation helps people to feel
**Jayne Storey**
more at ease with themselves, more comfortable, more peaceful, more joyful. So this whole dichotomy, a religious man dissatisfied with golf, what about, how can we bridge that gap? How can we bring spirituality, not we bring, how does spirituality manifest through sport? And how do the performance practices help people not to feel dissatisfied? You know, so yes, a long article. took me three days to write.
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah. And the press conference you’re referring to, it was indeed, was the Tuesday or Wednesday before the open. and it was, yeah, it was, it was deeper than most golfers go and Scotty and you’ve probably noticed that Scotty has talked like that for, you know, several years now where he would say, don’t find my identity in golf. find my identity in my faith, and, and my relationship with my family and stuff. he, he, always deflects how important golf is to him, but he also has that tension of he wishes golf wasn’t as important as it is. He, talks about how badly he wants to win. but he wishes he didn’t want to win so badly. So he’s, he’s at this conflict with himself.
**Jayne Storey**
Yeah, I was reading this morning Sri Aurobindo’s writings, his essays on the Bhagavad Gita, which is like the Indian Bible. Bhagavad Gita means the song of God. And have you read it? Do know?
**Josh Nichols**
I do know about it, but I haven’t read it.
**Jayne Storey**
So as part of the Upanishads or the Vedas, which are these writings in Sanskrit, which are about 5,000 years old, and it’s right in the midst of a battle. There are two opposing armies and Krishna, the supreme personality of Godhead in the Vedic faith tradition, is the charioteer of the warrior Arjuna. And these are quite familiar terms if you’ve read Bhagavans. Bhagavan is the name of the supreme being. Arjun is Arjuna, who’s the warrior. Anyway, I probably need to cut a very long story short. But the upshot of the Bhagavad Gita is that the warrior must fight. He must fight. But there can be a sense of renunciation in fighting. So Scheffler can win a tournament but not claim the victory for himself, but he could be playing golf as an offering to Christ.
**Josh Nichols**
Right. The divine expressing itself.
**Jayne Storey**
Exactly. Exactly. Rather, and I think my work has been going in that direction for a long time, but I, and I’ve read different religious books, I’ve read pretty much everything on religion and esoterica since I was 11 years old. But until I read Sri Aurobindo, these, the dichotomy haven’t really been solved. But I’ve always felt, and I know that the people that I’ve worked with have recounted their experiences to me that… Or let’s take an example. You and I were just talking about our guitars earlier. Yeah. So when I play guitar, if it sounds beautiful, everything’s flowing, it’s all very nice. I know that I’m involved, but I’m not responsible for it. There is something else happening. I’m involved, but when we hear great musicians like Joni Mitchell or Paul Simon.
**Jayne Storey**
When we hear these great artists, we know that music’s coming through them. And they’ve actually said this, Paul Simon, Simon the Garfunkel, obviously, he said on the documentaries that his songs like The Sound of Silence or Bridger for Troubled Waters, they kind of manifest fully formed. It’s like there’s the song, it’s on the guitar and now it’s out and everybody in the world knows it. And people who’ve been in the flow state or the zone, and I do think they’re slightly different, but I’m not sure how to explain what I mean exactly. So we’ll use it as the same thing. But an athlete, a musician, a dancer, an artist, anybody who’s been in that flow state knows that they’re involved, but they’re not responsible. They’re part of the picture. But something else is happening. Something else is happening. They’re divinely inspired, maybe, is the term.
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah, something like that. People become aware of, they’re like looking at themselves, they can see themselves or they’re aware of the club head as it moves through time and space. They have the outer body experiences, something just extraordinary. And what’s so amazing about this, which is why I love Shri Aurobindo’s work, is that it affects the way the body moves.
**Jayne Storey**
Peace.
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah.
**Jayne Storey**
It affects the way the body moves. So in my work, I’ve been trying to help people get into those, conditions. that allow flow to manifest. And those conditions from my work, my background are an inner quietude and a sense of relaxed readiness. So the body is relaxed, but it’s prepared for something. Yeah, so.
**Josh Nichols**
Right. And I’ve recently read the book, The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin, and he’s talked a lot about Tai Chi Chuan and how he’s, and it’s mental, spiritual, emotional, physical, how powerful it is. that something that you’ve, is that the practice that you’ve been doing? that, am I getting those two lined up?
**Jayne Storey**
Yeah, I like the way you gave it its full title as well, Tai Chi Chuan. Yeah, I practiced Tai Chi since 1987. So guess you probably weren’t even born then, you? Okay. So I practiced for a long time. But I had enough of martial arts after practicing them for about 35 years. And now I like to do yoga.
**Josh Nichols**
I was not.
**Jayne Storey**
and I like to swim and do sort of body weight exercises. But again, this is something that I haven’t, I’ve spent a little bit of time pondering on it, but I haven’t written anything about it. But I believe there’s a level to go beyond the martial arts. So in Tai Chi, in Chi Gong, in Tai Chi, and in karate, we have the concepts of the ki. energy or the chi energy and we train certain postures and a mind-body connection in sports. Biomechanics probably say joint stacking movement begins in the feet, comes through the waist, is expressed in the hands, but this is all to do with the energy that’s in the body, the chi energy, the electromagnetic energy that flows through the body. But I think there’s another level. think this is, it’s kind of where we are now, but there’s more and there’s more and there’s more. Sri Aurobindo again said that man is a transitional being. So we haven’t got to where we are going. We’re on the way there. So we’ve used the Qi, used the breath, we’ve used the mind. But there’s more, there’s more because what is it what is behind all of this? What’s at the back of the mind? What exactly?
**Josh Nichols**
spirit
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah. Is, would you say that, Scotty is quote unquote doing it right while other people are not doing it right? Doing what, right? the way he, his relationship with the game, the way he plays the game, the way he lets his body move more freely than other people is, do you see that?
**Jayne Storey**
For sure. think if we’re just talking just about golf and playing golf, then we can talk about it like that. But I’m not sure that his dissatisfaction or whatever, that’s a whole other conversation, isn’t it? But in golf, yeah, I was just talking to one of my students online. He’s in Wisconsin, I think he was. We were talking about Scheffler and how he doesn’t manipulate the swing. So a lot of golfers, even pro golfers, especially the more nervous they get or the closer to possibly winning they get, they can start to manipulate the golf swing. And also they manipulate the set up position. They try to get into a certain position.
**Jayne Storey**
and get into positions throughout the swing. And from what I saw, I just watched the open over the weekend, Scheffler doesn’t seem to do that. He is a very relaxed, very natural, very easy set up position. And he allows the club head to sort of move the weight of the club head to move and take over the swing. He’s not in the way at all. And it’s very interesting because to me, it looks as if he sort of withdraws into himself in a very similar way to Tiger Woods used to. And they’re both men. And I’m just assuming, I don’t know these guys, but it’s just my observation based on my background. But Tiger Woods in the day would withdraw into himself in a meditative state, meditative way, the breathing, the dantien, center of the body. And when we’re out, when the ego is put to one side, the movement can flow easily through the body without being manipulated or interrupted. And maybe Scheffler does something similar. Maybe he withdraws in a more prayerful way. Maybe, I don’t know. But he’s not in his own way as many of the other guys are.
**Josh Nichols**
Is there, is this a, to get out of your own way? And that’s a, that’s a overused phrase in the mental game space, but, it has much deeper, you know, spiritual implications to, to, get out of, get out of your own way and let the movement happen. Is this a, is this a thing that needs to be.
**Josh Nichols**
practiced or is it a if you just simply believe this not philosophy but if you simply have this belief system it will naturally happen it could it could happen on the next golf swing you make and from then on it happens forever is it is it like that
**Jayne Storey**
Well, I think it happens quite spontaneously and almost by accident for most golfers. And then the trouble starts when they set about trying to recreate it using either mental game strategies, thinking, talking positively to themselves or going over their technique, trying that bit harder to recreate that perfect shot that they just experienced by magic. But I’ve always encouraged golfers to to really almost recreate those conditions that allowed that shot to manifest. So rather than looking at the swing, I said, well, how were you? What was going on in you in those moments before you hit that beautiful drive? And they’ll say, well, I felt quite the confident, I had a sense of knowing rather than thinking, had a clarity of intent.
**Jayne Storey**
And it just becomes a much more interesting game if it’s about the golfer rather than about manipulating the golf club. It becomes much more interesting.
**Josh Nichols**
Is the, you know, my first question, what is the ultimate purpose of golf is, is our ultimate aim to be completely free and in this out of our own way, egoless state. Is that our, is that the quote unquote goal that we are striving for? And I know I’m using, you know,
**Jayne Storey**
I would say so, you have to be so careful in how we talk about it. How can we strive to get out of our own way? It’s a paradox, isn’t it?
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah, you’re putting, you’re injecting yourself into the process. Yeah.
**Jayne Storey**
Yes, exactly. So again, Sri Aurobindo had this wonderful phrase. He talks about a vigilant passivity. Isn’t it beautiful? It’s beautiful, isn’t it? And I try that when I’m doing my seated meditation practice in the morning. I mean, for years, decades, maybe you try focusing on my breathing.
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah.
**Jayne Storey**
trying to quiet my mind, these things. know, eventually you’re like, God, just sit there, just sit there. But you have to have an intent. can’t sit there and zone out. So this is a mistake people make. can’t just zone out. You have to sit there with the intention of being there, but in a very passive, very quiet way. And then things start to change. And there are qualities in that practice that you can bring to the golf game and to any sport in fact. You know, I mean, people go on about neuroscience and all the stats and everything, but the practice, you know, the proof is in the is in the practice. The practice is what changes the brain waves. The practice is what helps you to revisit your breathing, stay in the Dantien when you’re nervous. You know, we can all be aware of our breathing when we’re driving down the motorway or washing up or cooking. Yeah, well, there’s no stress. How do you become aware of your breathing and stay with it when you’re nervous? And that’s why you need the practice.
**Josh Nichols**
Is nerves or anxiety, is that a product of, and again, I’m using kind of common language, is that a product of being bad at this? And I know most people in your positions would say, we need to eliminate that word bad, first of all, but is it, know, should we never be nervous? Like is nervous an ego, a result of the ego or something?
**Jayne Storey**
I think so, yeah. I think rather than wanting to be bad, it’s wanting to be good, or not wanting to look stupid, or wanting other people to think that we’re great, you know, or better than we are. There is definitely a relationship between the ego and tension in the body. And when you start your performance practices, which mostly consists of seated meditation and standing practice from the martial arts. You have this time to observe yourself and to see what is the relationship between your own mind and your body. Is there a relationship between your mind and your body? How can you get into your body? And when we make a connection to the body, then there’s sort of ego stuff. does it can dissipate. But I think both things are needed. not trying to get rid of the ego. We’re trying to have it, I think, infused by something else. It’s an expression, the individual personalities are all an expression of the One Divine.
**Jayne Storey**
And I think the sport is the perfect vehicle because it manifests mostly through movement.
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah. And golf is, it’s, it’s, golf feels like the, and without disparaging other sports, I don’t, haven’t played that many different sports, but golf seems to be the most spiritual of them all because you’re out in nature. It’s different every time you play the same golf shot with the same yardage can, can look and feel and smell and taste different from within the same round of golf. just, feels like this flowing experience that doesn’t happen in maybe basketball or something, you know?
**Jayne Storey**
And there’s such a small margin for error as well in golf. You know, it shows up, doesn’t it? Much more in golf. The mind-body disconnect, the ego pushing itself forward, the tension and what that does to the swing, the irritability, the anger, all the negative emotions. And of course people get so much joy from golf because they’re out there on their own. So the glory, the success, the feeling of the winning is theirs alone. It’s not shared with the team. But every sport has its flow state. Every sport. I swim a lot these days and I’ve definitely experienced it in the swimming pool.
**Jayne Storey**
Yeah, it’s there, it’s there all the time. I think it’s like another level that exists and mostly, I was talking with a friend once and we had this picture that, know, like humanity is like on this planet, like, okay, going through space. But we’ve built this huge shopping mall and we’re all busy shopping, we’re all online and, you know, everybody’s looking, nobody’s looking out.
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah, and of course it makes me think of all the people’s suffering as well and the complete… It’s really lopsided the world. know, half the world is consuming and throwing away and why do we need AI? Why do we need all that stuff? Why do I need a machine to read a document in 30 seconds? Because I haven’t got five minutes to read it. You know, and all these people dying and starving and all these wars. doesn’t make any sense to me.
**Josh Nichols**
Of course. Yeah, there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of, hypocrisy that we all live out on a daily basis. So of course, and in what I like the parallel to your kind of, humanity on the earth, looking inward and, you know, striving and doing this and that and staying busy and doing all these things. The parallel between that and the golf course is we
**Jayne Storey**
We’ll show this.
**Josh Nichols**
Right. We are focused on technique and doing this right and focusing and trying hard and how do we look and how do other people think we look and that’s our kind of like looking inward as opposed to step back and look outward.
**Jayne Storey**
Yeah, very nice. Very good, yeah, that’s exactly right. That’s exactly right, yeah. And extraordinary things happen when we get over that state. Extraordinary things. I mean, when people are in flow, they hit shots that they wouldn’t even dream, you know, were possible for them to hit. So something really amazing.
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah.
**Jayne Storey**
when we’re in that, you know, in a quiet, relaxed readiness, we’re primed and we allow something to move through us.
**Josh Nichols**
Is you know, I asked you about nervousness earlier it is Like where does nervousness fall, you know tiger always talked about You know, we get this we have this assumption that he’s never nervous. He’s a you know steel Ice-cold veins, but he said not every first tee shot. I was always nervous He he talked about how he would get nervous just like everyone else. I’m human just like everyone else but Where does nervousness relate to the relaxed readiness state? they synonymous as just another term for it? You think?
**Jayne Storey**
No, I don’t think so, Josh. I nervousness can get in the way of the expression of movement. I know where you’re going with that, though. I do understand what you’re driving at. I mean, Jack Nicholas would say that if you didn’t have those feelings on the last Sunday of a major, then you weren’t in contention and that you would want to have those feelings. I think that’s more of a gut thing. The nerves are always in the stomach, aren’t they? In the gut. But relaxed readiness is the body like Bruce Lee. No, he’s relaxed, he’s ready and bang, he’s going to punch. Or like a cat, watch a cat. I used have this beautiful cat called Rupert, it’s long gone now. But he would wait, there was a rabbit hole like Warren in that garden. he would be like that.
**Josh Nichols**
Hmm.
**Jayne Storey**
like all day, like poised waiting for this rabbit to come out of its burrow. You know, I could cycle to the gym, could go shopping, could give lessons, I’d come back hours later. And my Rupert would still be there. So that’s relaxed readiness. It’s the body is primed for action. And the Tai Chi masters have a great phrase for it. They call it sung.
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah.
**Jayne Storey**
S-U-N-G, it means to relax without losing structure. So it’s like a cat about to pounce, relax readiness, which is different from this excitability and nervousness.
**Josh Nichols**
Mm.
**Josh Nichols**
I just played a golf tournament as we’re recording this. This is it’s Monday and I played Saturday, Sunday and I, I took note of how much I was inserting myself into this. was not relaxed or ready. was tense and trying and manipulating and I need my swing to do this in order to hit a good golf shot. So I was assuming I was bad every single golf shot. I’m assuming I’m broken. need to do something to make myself better or fix myself. So I, I play these, I play these 36 holes under the assumption that if I, if I’m just myself, I’m not good enough. Do you, do you see that a lot in golfers or do you think that’s a common thing that other golfers? Please tell me that I’m not the only one that does that.
**Jayne Storey**
Definitely not the only one, but what’s fantastic about that experience is that you saw it.
**Josh Nichols**
Mmm.
**Jayne Storey**
many, many thousands, tens of thousands of golfers have that experience and they’re still like that when they get in the car and drive home later and they never, they never. have that ability, you stepped back and you could see what was happening. But did that, did not stepping back give you a little bit of distance from that?
**Josh Nichols**
I mean, I would like to say that I realized how controlling I was being and slipped back into more of a relaxed, allowing state, but I didn’t. I didn’t trust enough that I’m capable. I fought that trust.
**Jayne Storey**
Yeah, people are like that. A lot of people are like that. There’s a lovely quote that I put in one of my books. I think it’s in Connected Golf, where a Westerner goes to Japan, he wants to learn archery, and he’s trying and, you know, over trying, trying too hard, thinking too much. And his archery teacher says, you know, no, no, you have too much willful will. You think that what you don’t do doesn’t get done.
**Josh Nichols**
Whoa.
**Jayne Storey**
Yeah. Whereas the Japanese, the archers, they set up from what they call a horror center. So again, I you know, I wish that I could win the lottery. So what I could do was write because I’ve got so many things and touched on in my own experiences and with my students that I’d love to write about. And this is one of them. So intention is something that I think has been hijacked by the mental game guys. But in the martial arts, intention is nothing to do with thinking. It is like a clarity of intent. And I believe that it actually is in the body. And I think it’s something to do with the Dantien or the horror center. point.
**Jayne Storey**
So the Japanese talk about the horror is basically the lower abdomen, the navel area. And the Zen masters will have their students keep some strength in that area, breathe from there. In Tai Chi, we try to move from that area. So too much willful will. Do you think what you don’t do doesn’t get done? The Western is trying, his thinking is trying to work it out all the time. breathing into the chest, shoulders are up, know, everything’s too tight. Whereas the archer, the Japanese archer sets up from the inside, from the horror, you know? So there’s like a self-gathering. So instead of being, my emotions are fluctuating, I’m thinking this, I’m thinking that, blah, blah. There’s like a pulling back of everything into the center and a keeping of it there. and then setting up. It’s so interesting, isn’t it?
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah. And so, so you would say, by the way, I absolutely love the phrase. You think what you don’t do doesn’t get done. That’s, that is the pure state I was in during this golf tournament. I, if I don’t try, I, I will not swing well, right? I’m, I’m, I was a classic Westerner and all day, all this entire weekend. But the idea of, um, get done.
**Jayne Storey**
Mmm.
**Josh Nichols**
know, maybe like a lower center of gravity or, or bringing our energy, focusing our energy into this place rather than kind of our external, whatever that, that makes me think of, kind of the, the phrase like trust the process rather than, try to manipulate the results or try to think result first and come back to process. you’re You’re more saying, okay, I know what state I need to be in. know what environment I like, I like to feel. know who I want to be, how I want to be, which will naturally result in good golf shots. Is that like look away from the result in order to get the result? Is that how you think about it?
**Jayne Storey**
Yeah, I, again, I love the way that you’re, that you’re trying to express this. But
**Josh Nichols**
poorly.
**Jayne Storey**
No, no, no, not at all. No, no, not at all. It’s the paradox inherent in what you’re saying, isn’t it? Like we said before, how can I try to get out of my way? This is where the spirit comes in. This is where what’s behind manifestation, what’s behind all of us comes in. How can I get out of my way? But if I go for Sri Aurobindo’s
**Jayne Storey**
Vigilant passivity. then I can try for something, but what I experience or retain is beyond my trying.
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah. The, the best I have, or maybe I’ll say the closest I’ve ever felt to this, was probably eight years ago or something. I remember 2017 summer of 2017. I, I had this experience on the golf course where it was a par five. Second shot was all carry over water, a pond in front of the green and Before I hit the second shot, was going for the green and two before I hit the second shot, I had this just overwhelming piece of it truly doesn’t matter where this ball goes. This, this could be the best shot I’ve ever hit or the worst shot I’ve ever hit. just, it purely doesn’t matter. And I hit the shot and as I saw it, I knew I didn’t, I knew I didn’t hit it very well. And had a hunch it was going to go in the water. And then it did. And the entire, and the entire experience of the golf shot, I, I don’t, maybe this is the wrong way to put it, but I feel like I, I felt nothing during, during the golf shot. was the word that comes to mind is equanimity. It was, I was just like a still pond or something. Is that, was that the kind of experience where we’re trying to go for?
**Jayne Storey**
For sure. Equanimity is a really good word. It’s a really good word.
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah, that’s when I learned back then. Yeah.
**Jayne Storey**
Yeah, I like the added, that’s very meditative, but I love the added the warrior approach together because we’re because we’re into sport. So your equanimity is a perfect word for in a quietude. But the body can also be trained.
**Josh Nichols**
The body actually must be trained to house that equanimity. And it needs to be trained in a certain way to be athletic, but also totally relaxed so that the movement can flow through you. But for sure, that’s beautiful. Sorry, I can’t say beautiful without thinking of you know who these days.
**Josh Nichols**
Sure. Do you think that, you know, because by everyone’s golf standards, that was a bad golf shot, right? I probably hit it 30 yards short of the hole, went in the water. I probably made a bogey or a double bogey or something. And so by all accounts, it was a bad golf shot. But
**Josh Nichols**
I don’t even know what question I would ask here. Is that how I should think about it? It was valuable, but it wasn’t it. I’m still thinking about it today.
**Jayne Storey**
Yeah. So if you, if you could go back there, could you say what kind of state that you were in, not a mental state mindset, I hate that phrase, but inside what was happening? How were you breathing? How were you standing? How was your body? How was your mind? What in the moment sort of led up to it? What, what was, what, where were you? or where was your attention, where was your awareness in the moments before this lovely peace and equanimity manifests in itself? Can you say?
**Josh Nichols**
It would, the words that come to mind are relaxed as a word we’ve used, but soft. it was, I was completely and totally there. I, I wasn’t, I was nowhere else. was, I was totally there. Yeah. My, focus was soft. My, my muscles felt, better able to move more relaxed, more fluid and And I, you know, now that I think about it, and maybe this is some revisionist history, but I didn’t feel like all my breath was up here in my shoulders and my chest. was, I was grounded, right? was, So I felt kind of anchored in the present physically, emotionally, spiritually.
**Jayne Storey**
lovely. That’s absolutely, that’s lovely. And I think when you, even if we have these terrible rounds of golf or other sports where we can’t get out of our own way, we don’t trust, we’re not good enough, this, that and the other, if we have a strong aspiration to overcome that, I think we’re gifted these experiences such as you had. and you’ve described it absolutely perfectly. And those conditions or the qualities that you describe can also be the end result of a meditation session, a performance practice session where you do your standing practice. And I think you’ve hit on something that is so important that is not available in the mental game.
**Josh Nichols**
for sure.
**Jayne Storey**
I’m sorry, I know your show is called Mental Golf and we’ve talked about everything but. I love your questions. love your, I just love the way that you’re, that we’re talking here. you said, you said something about you’re anchored in the present through the body. you
**Josh Nichols**
Fantastic.
**Jayne Storey**
Fantastic. Now we need a practice for that because most of the time we’re in our head, not even where we are in the head, but onto the next thing, onto the next thing, onto the next thing, or doing 20 things at once.
**Josh Nichols**
Exactly. But to be anchored in the present in the body, it is really the only way to be in the present. And, you know, I’ve even heard great, I mean, top 10 golfers talk about thinking about the present moment, which is, I mean, what do you think about that? It’s pretty nonsense.
**Jayne Storey**
Trying your injecting yourself into I need to do this. Yeah.
**Josh Nichols**
Yes, exactly. And we can’t think about the mind cannot be in the present, it’s either in the past or the future. It can be quiet or the awareness in the body. Which the things that you’ve said, they’re just fantastic. So if you wanted to have more of those experiences, And maybe there was a slight hesitation, which is why you didn’t hit it exactly as you wanted to. Maybe you didn’t trust it completely. I love softness. So next time you set up to the ball soft, relaxed, anchored to the body, grounded, breathing quite deeply. Right. you say or did you say that you had a sense of knowing what was going to happen or something?
**Josh Nichols**
It was a, actually a total release of what would happen. It was, it was, it was like the closest I’ve ever been to, or I was, I was fully, I could stop playing golf in this moment or I could keep playing golf in this moment and I will be okay with either. can, I fully let go of the, of the game in this moment. But I still want to do it right back to the warrior. The vigilant passivity. was that vigilant passivity is exactly what describes how I was. Because I was you know, I know the yardage. I’ve got I’m choosing the club. I’m not literally just stepping up and just hitting it and having no clue what I’m doing. I’ve trained for this. I know what I want to do. But I. Maybe for the for the. the one golf shot ever, I truly just let myself make a motion. And now, now you said, you know, I didn’t hit it like I wanted to. Maybe I didn’t fully trust it. Is it, is the quote unquote correct state to be in? And I know I’m using a mental game language maybe, but the, the, if we’re in that ideal state, does that automatically mean we will hit a good golf shot or a good golf shot meant that we were in that state.
**Jayne Storey**
The state comes first, good golf shot follows. The good golf shot doesn’t have to follow, but it’s more than likely that it will follow.
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah, you’ve made it as likely as possible, I guess you could say.
**Jayne Storey**
Because it’s always the inner condition of the athlete that comes first and then movement is a manifestation of the quality of movement is a manifestation of that inner condition. Yeah, always from the inside out. Yeah, always from the inside out with your practice, with your approach to sport. like the archer.
**Jayne Storey**
Because otherwise, you know, the paradigm at the moment is, you know, I’m a golf coach, I come along, I look at you, Josh, you know, let’s have a look at your swing today. And then I deconstruct your swing. your hands weren’t right here, your wrists did this, you kept, you know, you weren’t balanced, you did this with your head. So I deconstruct the movement after the event. That’s how it works, isn’t it? But We’re not doing that. We’re not talking about that. We’re looking at what were the qualities, your inequalities, equanimity, inner quietude, relaxed readiness, anchoring into the present through the body. Yeah, if you’re there, then you’ve got every chance of a beautiful shot, beautiful swing. mean, that’s what Jack Nicklaus said. I mean, not in such deep terms, but if you set up to the ball well, you can have a good swing even if you’re technically not that good. But if you rush your setup, you can know everything about the perfect angle and all the mechanics of the golf swing, but you might not have such a good shot. as always from the inside, always. I’m telling myself this as much as you because I still do my practice and I’m still learning about this. And I think it’s really important to have these conversations, not to say that we’ve got it all wrapped up. And if it was all to do with the mind, any athlete who thought they were great or visualized a penalty would get the penalty, wouldn’t they? You’re saying that because the lionesses won the Euros last night.
**Jayne Storey**
way. You know, there’s more, there’s more and more.
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah, just because you think it doesn’t mean it will happen, but we can put ourselves into this state that can finally allow it to happen.
**Jayne Storey**
Yeah, exactly. You’ll give it every chance to have.
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah, kind of let go of control to gain control.
**Jayne Storey**
Yeah, we have to have some kind of control, not being in control, but in the West in sports and in everything it’s either or. You’re either relaxed or you’re focused. But actually the flow state, like the meditative state, is a relaxed concentration. So it’s two things. And with the body we’re either we’re just so relaxed, or we’re really tight. But there’s a relaxed athleticism. These are very Eastern concepts and require the Eastern way of training, because we can’t train them in the gym. We can’t really train them in biomechanics.
**Josh Nichols**
Hmm. Yeah. Should Scotty Shuffler be more satisfied? Is the is his satisfaction, his lack of satisfaction? it is that revealing of how he’s not this way?
**Jayne Storey**
don’t know him. mean, he could be… Some people are quite melancholic, aren’t they? They’re never happy. Like my late father would say, some people aren’t happy unless they’re miserable. Some people are happy and they’ve got nothing. Other people are zillionaires and they’re, you know, they’re always worried about money. I really don’t… I don’t know. What you think?
**Josh Nichols**
That’s so good.
**Jayne Storey**
Hmm.
**Josh Nichols**
I think that, I think when I hear him say that, I… I remember that shot that I hit with the equanimity and the soft grounded, relaxed readiness. So, you know, I, if I had hit a good shot there, it wouldn’t have been satisfaction in the golf shot. It would have been satisfaction in this contentment or something. Can maybe.
**Jayne Storey**
Contentment is a word that also comes to mind for this sort of for that sort of experience. So So it’s almost like he’s let go of the result completely, you know, the result could be great It could be it could be bad. Whatever I could win I could lose I could have 19 majors I could stop it for whatever and either way I’m you know, I have my family. I have my faith. I’m the same guy no matter what so he doesn’t get satisfaction from the result, but I guarantee you he gets satisfaction from family, faith, maybe the process of improving.
**Jayne Storey**
maybe he hasn’t had that such a deep experience as you, you know, and your experience really leads us back to you were involved, but you weren’t responsible, were you? You were there, but there was something else present there.
**Josh Nichols**
sure.
**Josh Nichols**
Hmm.
**Josh Nichols**
Right.
**Jayne Storey**
I mean, maybe Scheffler is naturally a great golfer, but maybe, and a religious, but that doesn’t mean that you have spiritual experiences, does it?
**Josh Nichols**
Right.
**Jayne Storey**
In fact, a lot of religious people shy away from it. wouldn’t necessarily want to go there. But again, that’s speculation. But what we do know is that you’ve absolutely nailed what a lot of people, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of athletes have experienced. But the only way until now, performance practices they have a different option. But the only recourse people have is when they have such a wonderful experience is to on the next shot think how did they do, how did I do that and try a bit harder.
**Josh Nichols**
Hmm.
**Jayne Storey**
Whereas you’d know now that you would try to approach it in a slightly different way.
**Josh Nichols**
And you know, that’s, there’s such a fine line between I want to, I want to try to recreate this. I want to make that happen again. I’m going to try to get into that state. I’m going to write down a list of my pre-shot routine in order to do this. There’s such a fine line between that and there are conditions that are more conducive to the state. So how can we recreate the conditions? So, I mean, how do you draw that line between trying and still trying? I don’t know, do you know what I’m saying?
**Jayne Storey**
Well, the whole thing is a process. a lot of times people, we need the patience to go through the process. A lot of times people have instant results. Oh, I did meditation this morning. I went out, I shot 68. Oh, it was amazing. And then they’ll think, oh, I’ve got that now. I won’t bother doing my meditation this morning. So that often happens.
**Jayne Storey**
Or people have like a honeymoon period with it and it all going well for sort of several months and then it starts to go wrong. But you see the same attitude that we bring to the mental game thinking about thinking, that’s what I call that, or thinking about moving, which is the swing teaching, a lot of it, not all of it. Bye. We bring all our habits and all our assumptions and all our associations to our performance practice. So we have to have the patience to sort of go through it and learn. We have to learn to get out of the way. Sorry, I’m not sure if that answers your question.
**Josh Nichols**
Absolutely does. sure it does. Well, Jane, kid you not, we got through one of my bullet points of my maybe 30. So we have to do this again sometime because this was deep and fascinating. And I hope we’re not too far off for people. Hopefully they’re gleaning something for this and this is valuable. to out there for most of the common listener? Or do you think it’s helpful?
**Jayne Storey**
I think whether you believe it’s what we’re saying is true or not, doesn’t really matter because you’ve had the experience that you’ve had and that experience is a universal experience. That’s almost the whole point. You’re involved, you were there, but there was something else appeared.
**Jayne Storey**
And that’s something else is available to everyone. You can block it by thinking, what Josh and Jane, what are they bloody talking about? You you can block it or block it with your ego or with thinking or trying, but it’s available to everybody. And I just think it’s good to have these conversations. And thank you very much, because I had no idea we would be talking on this level. In fact, it’s only last week. Actually on one of my podcasts, let’s say two months ago, I mentioned Sri Aurobindo for the first time. And then in my Scottie Scheffler article I put out last Wednesday, I wrote a bit about Sri Aurobindo and had a couple of quotes. So today we’ve talked a lot about that and I enjoyed it anyway.
**Josh Nichols**
Good, yeah. I mean, you’re introducing these concepts that don’t traditionally exist in the same sentence with golf, which is beautiful.
**Jayne Storey**
Well, it’s new. It’s all new stuff. It’s all on the horizon. Yeah. But I’m happy to talk to anybody. But can I just say that, may I show my books?
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah, of course. was good. That’s next thing I was going to ask you. What do you want to share with people? Where can they find you?
**Jayne Storey**
Well, the books that I’ve written, what I’ve sort of determined really, even though I’m becoming more interested in the spiritual side of sport, is that the performance practice is good preparation for it. It’s preparation whether you want to just, you know, go beyond the mental game, whether you want to learn to step back, whether you want to learn to get out of your own way. whether you want to have more experiences such as you’ve described, Josh, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to, but it gives you the opportunity to develop inner quietude and relax readiness. So there’s, that’s my first book, that’s Breathe Golf. Beautiful covers on your books, by the way.
**Josh Nichols**
Thank you. Thank you. There’s connected golf. So breath golf is all about your seated meditation in a quietude, controlling the biochemistry, managing that with your breathing and quietening the mind. Connected golf is more about the Tai Chi and the martial principles and the standing meditation practice. So this relaxed readiness. And then I bought this book out last year. The athletes are sent deep practice and high performance. And that opens up the performance practice to athletes from all different sports. Not just golf.
**Josh Nichols**
Right. Not just golf. Sure. Yeah. is, it’s, your, your work is going a direction that, few are. it’s, it’s, it’s awesome that you’re kind of pioneering. I see you as pioneering this. So, hopefully this, this podcast will allow you to retire from coaching and, and just simply write. and it will be like you winning the lottery. So everyone’s going to buy your books. You can just write for the rest of your life. How nice would that be?
**Jayne Storey**
That would be wonderful. I do love to teach. So I love to speak to people. sorry if I’m going on, but we need to keep having the conversation. What is that experience that you had? What is it? If we try to say, oh, it’s this and I can recreate it with top 10 tips that I just read in golf monthly, then you’ll you quash that experience.
**Josh Nichols**
Yeah, what is it? What could it possibly be? Can we open to receive more of it? Can we be grateful? Can we aspire? Can we be devotional in our practice? we have gratitude? to eat.
**Jayne Storey**
and see these things as gifts when they come, it’s like a grace. You know, we can’t go to it. The lower can never go to the higher. But the lower can open itself to receive the higher.
**Josh Nichols**
That’s really well set.
**Josh Nichols**
Okay, well Jane, good. Thank you so much, Jane. This has been a pleasure.
**Jayne Storey**
Enjoy talking to you.
**Josh Nichols**
You’re welcome.
