A lot more work poured into my swing today, I’m beat, mentally and physically. It’s tiring working so hard on changing a golf swing and rewards often come in only small doses. Today’s rewards were small, nice straight ball flight, decent speed and I’m getting closer to some positions that I wish to achieve, but I still have a long way to go.
In the sequence below from today, I’m still trying to get comfortable with my setup, which looks fairly poor here looking at my spine. The top of my swing has gotten loose and a little disconnected and I’m more rotated early in the downswing than I would like. Sheesh! I’m not sure I saw much that I like, except the ball flight was still good. I’m so focused on my balance at address and during my backswing that it’s tough to do the other things I want, but I’ll keep plugging away!
Only the 2nd day Chuck
How many swings did you perform today and how is the body holding up? Any aches?
What exactly did you not like about your spine at address?
Zero pain in my knee and hip – ZERO. Hit balls for 5 hours. Lower back is a little sore because I’m not using my hips correctly, but it’s getting there. My spine is not very flat, I crept into some lazy posture at the end of the day when this video was taken.
Chuck: Toying with this a bit today; In this setup, it feels like the chest is more vertical…yet, that’s impossible given the steeper back angle…no? Golf is always a case of the counter-intuitive.
My left foot has always had a spin-out to it. With weight totally on the left heel, you’d think it would REALLY spin out. Just the opposite. Go figure.
It will feel like that because you are more back on the heels and standing tall through the chest in a more powerful position. For the left foot to spin out, your weight would have been on the ball of your foot! That’s why this stuff is going to be so important!
I went out this afternoon for the first time since you’ve said it was “okay” to have the weight more to your heels. I had always, and even for most of the time that we have worked together, been more stacked over my ankles at address. Long story short, I stuck the ball better than I have in a while as I have been focusing on getting more into your original RS address position. I knew where the ball was going as soon as struck it. It was going straight.
What is most striking is how much more upright your arms are at the top of the swing- arms and shoulders are definitely much more “two plane” than down the line views of your prior swings. Is that a new fundamental of your work with Alison?
How about a drive swing down the line? Thanks.
Yes, I noticed how much higher your hands are here too, Chuck. It looks like your wrist is a teensy bit bowed at the top too. Is that part of the looseness you mention? Obviously it’s a little longer than you’d like, but that often happens with a swing change, I find.
it is obvious that you are taller and closer to the ball. Wasn’t that one of the changes El Tigre made in 2007 and then just blitzed everyone?
Patience, bro. Follow the Plan.
4 FUNDAMENTAL MOVES: 30 DAYS EACH
Shoulder Blade Position
Pull & Pull
Width of Stance
Bend From Hip
Then work on stacking them. YOU said it would take 9 months. Looks good. I am amped for this teaching.
sicneil, my arms are higher here than normal, but I’m not worried about it. I’m focusing solely on the core, not the extremeties. I expect things to get loose for a while, that’s what happens when you make changes, everything can get a little out of whack, but as you can see from the video the club still comes down on plane and that’s the only thing that really matters in the end. Once I get past my few baby steps, I’ll work on the extremeties, but they’re not a priority at the moment.
Steve, I will post a driver swing DTL soon, I just took face on with the driver yesterday.
Dean, my wrist might be a bit bowed there, but again, not something I’m focused on or even care about at the moment. There are far too many moving parts in the golf swing for everything to work right out of the box when making significant changes, so I just let those go until I retrain the key pieces I want right and that’s the body movement, then I’ll worry about details like this.
Hayes, I feel taller over the ball, but my spine angle has actually increased slightly due to my rear moving backwards. My plan today is to not hit any balls, but to do 300 repetitions of my entire swing, from beginning to end in slow motion and then faster while monitoring the movements in the mirror. This will probably take me an hour or more. Alison has really stressed the amount of repetition it takes to retrain the brain and so I’m going to pay my dues. I once watched Tiger Woods at Isleworth sit on the corner of the range doing a takeaway drill for 45 minutes, literally, 45 minutes non-stop without ever hitting a ball. I think he gets it. 3,000 reps to ingrain it, I’m going to do 10% of the work today.
I just watched the seven-part lecture/presentation. Very, very interesting! The shoulder piece alone is unique. (Seem to recall being taught somewhere along the way to pretend squeezing a ball on the back with the shoulder blades…Doesn’t jibe with what Allison is saying.) Thanks for bringing this into the site, Chuck. Really looking forward to following your swing changes and rolling some of this information out.
In Alison’s seminar she,or the Dr., state that each of the 4 Fundamental Moves should be practiced 3-5000 reps, or 30 days. That’s 4 months to engrain them. Thank God the long winter is setting in. Great opportunity to get the mundane work in.