That’s probably better!
Aiguile,
Thanks for the clarification on the cone image… I had to think about it some but I can totally see where you’re coming from and it makes a lot of sense.
I’m finding that as I work on strengthening my post impact pivot (it still isn’t where it needs to be, but it’s getting better), I have to be careful with how much lag I create with “module 1”. If I can’t pick up that amount of lag pressure at impact and sustain it to p4 with my pivot, then things can get a bit flippy. This has me moving at p3 into impact with a bit more of a “governed” accelerator now, but with much more solid strikes and more lag pressure at p4.
Robbo
Robbo,
The idea of rotating around an inverted cone allows one to think of the golf swing in circles rather than straight lines…like a rollercoaster ride rather than a simple straight down chute.
Lag’s observation of Hogan’s right elbow glued to the plane from P3 to P4 (which I have extrapolated to the inverted cone) is helpful for me as it develops the frozen right arm which is an essential component of the hitting method.
It’s wonderful to be having these kind of discussions here… because unlike other forums I have been involved with, concepts are actually being experienced by students, rather than it being strictly conceptual in nature.
A couple of you are onto module #4, and it can be bit confusing for those who are not or haven’t arrived there yet. For the ones who are on module #4, I’m sure you can see the natural progression this course takes from working on releasing the club actively with force, to learning to properly support and stabilize those pressures, then how we channel these new energies into a post impact path, direction, intention and clubface protocol that utilizes what we learned in the previous modules.
It is important that we master the module that we are on. We all work at our own pace, and I only require that the student master the form to a reasonable degree of proficiency and then perform a healthy dose of repetitions to ingrain some good old fashion muscle memory. ( I use that analogy metaphorically of course!)
I will always answer students questions the best I can, and often a student will get ahead of themselves, but this is ok, and a good sign that the proper lightbulbs are going off. It is not uncommon for module 3 questions to come from a module #1 student without them having any knowledge of that future module. This is a perfectly natural and healthy phenomenon. 
So as far as this discussion of the cone and so forth… it is a very powerful concept that is not likely to be fully understood until a fair amount of module #4 work. For module #4 to have any relevance, we must have a fairly proficient ability to execute module #1 #2 and #3. Module #4 gives us a chance to see how far we have come, and a very objective way of measuring our progress without the typical smoke and mirror stuff of many other teaching methods. Module #4 is a very thought provoking and deep module. Simple, yet poses us with new and very relevant challenges.
Most golf instruction is based upon 2 dimensional geometry. The problem is that the golf swing in real life is not a two dimensional experience. We live in a world of three dimensional geometry. Non Euclidean topography.
Our geometry is being created in 3 dimensions by motion physics. Any type of 2 dimensional instruction such as books, videos, charts, diagrams and so forth have limitations. This is why I shoot the modules, usually from multiple camera angles, to offer the students more than one option for wrapping their intellect around.
The various feel diagrams that are posted on the various module pages are meant to bridge the link between 2 and 3 dimensions. Between standard two dimensional geometry and non Euclidean spacial geometry and or topography.
I’m not personally a fan of overly complex diagrams, although I might find them interesting, rarely very useful or practical. A simple image that might bring about the correct feeling or sensations is 1000 times more powerful and effective than a diagram that looks like the electrical schematic of a V12 Jaguar. How do I know this? 
Mastery of module #4 sets us up for a much clearer concept of how we can apply the feeling of a conical frustum to describe the proper path of the hands in the golf swing. Put more simply a cone with the top chopped off… better yet the shape of a typical lamp shade. 
The problem of the golf swing is that we are bound by the reality of our vantage point, which is a birds eye view of the path of our hands, the shaft and the clubhead. We do not swing on an eye plane 
So because of this condition, we might as well throw the book of linear or two dimensional geometry into the fireplace, because it is much more likely to create problems for us than help us.
The sooner we realize that any attempt to swing the golf club back and forth along the plane line with some hope of creating a simple visual geometry…
the sooner we realize that this is not helpful, the quicker we will “get” the golf swing. The golf swing is much more about arcs, ovals, circles… curved things not flat planes or straight lines. It’s understanding how to FEEL the right sensations… to move the body in a way that great applications of physics can then produce the kind of geometry we love to look at in golf books, magazines, or even two dimensional video footage.
So that various feel diagrams that I post in the student forum are there to help bridge the gap… to try to connect physics directly to feel… in as simple and concise a way as possible.
History has shown us over and over from the hickory age to the titanium age that great golfers do not have to be mathematical wizards, nor do they have to be highly analytical or intellectual. Great golfers FEEL the physics… This is one of the reasons I really like the books written by Hogan, Snead, Knudson, and many others, because they often offer great insight into these feelings… that are experienced within the body that then create the wonderful visual geometry we all love to drool over.
Trying to DO anything based upon visual assessment only, usually falls well short of the desired result.
So feel free to discuss cones, conical frustums, and all the other concepts that might lead us to proper sensations… and I can assure you all of these things will be covered in great detail as we move through The Advanced Ball Striking Course.
If I see problem arising which could easily be misinterpreted or overly confusing I will do my best to bring light and clarity. 
This was my light bulb on Friday…!
I love playing golf in San Francisco!
[attachment=0]lincoln17a.jpg[/attachment]
I posted the rest of the pics in the Classic Courses with Classic Clubs thread here:
viewtopic.php?f=43&t=97&p=1382&sid=64e39cd163b98420367ce4f349d690cb#p1382
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ConicalFrustum.html
I had to Google it as I hadn’t a clue 
I have a good idea what it’s descibing, I think but won’t think about it too much 
I look forward to learning/feeling when I get there
Back to Module 2 for me 
Wow, more lightbulbs than the Vegas strip today!
Hadn’t hit a ball for the best part of a week as i was on a bit of a holiday. Took the bag with me though and did some module #1 reps and some more #3 work. Started my practice today with high expectations and was frankly a little disappointed. Not great striking and misses both ways 
. However, i persevered and was rewarded.
I thought about my feelings whilst swinging and remembered Lag’s angled hinge diagram. I realised that i had done some good work on my module#1 that week and was feeling more axis tilt, a deeper 4:30 line, more open club face, more closed shoulders, more cup in the left wrist, (which incidentally, never shows up on camera as much as it feels!) but i wasn’t working the club anywhere near left enough from impact through to P4. I made an effort to exaggerate the feeling of going left by trying to practically hit my left leg with my hands and bingo. The feeling of tightness was more than i had felt before and the ball couldnt be happier. I was already spending tournament prize money in my head 
! I started to picture a very small, tight, semi circle around my thighs and tried to trace it with my hands. The closer i could feel to achieving it the better i hit it. The more i felt i went hard left with the club, the deeper 4:30 position i wanted to get, and vice versa. The faster i rotated and the harder i hit it the more pressure i felt in my hands (a VERY good feeling). Also, without consciously thinking about it i started to grip the club much more firmly even from address. I started to feel pressure and a taughtness in my body and hands which remained from start to finish of the swing and which also felt like it propelled my pivot action at the same time.
The feeling of a tight grip, taughtness in my body and closeness of my arms and hands to the body through P3 to P4 gave me an enormous sense of reliability and repeatability in the action, but in no way a deliberate ‘steering’. Really did feel like a passenger on the carriage of a rollercoaster track when it speeds through a sharp downward curve. The powerful pressure of g-force you feel in your body was very similar to that, and my hands felt like the tight clamps that were connecting the carriage to the track and taking the strain of all that force.
It is now a genuine effort to get the arms up and off the body once they go hard left.
Make no mistake. There is nothing soft or dainty about any of this. I believe the correct feelings are much stronger and more physical than most probably think (especially in the hands), but also less visibly obvious to the observer than most swings display.
Hogan quotes like ‘wish I had 3 right hands’ and ‘the more pressure you put on it the better your swing should be’ started to make sense. I believe we are constructing a high speed rollercoaster that is actually safer and more reliable when we exert extreme pressures on it.
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Great post str8flush, I really identify with the idea of the swing being pinned by forces like a rollercoaster and that the more pressure you generate, the more stable the feel is. Check out Lag’s post on advice for TGM converts in the module 1 section. I have attached an excerpt below;
[b]You will learn in this course that even the swing plane itself must be created by opposing forces, not tracing a line with laser.
I’m setting you up to do this with module #1 as we speak… so that by the time we get to module #4 you will have a swing plane that is created by manipulating CF to our advantage forcefully. In Module #2, I show you how to bolt your swing to the ground, then #3… I show you how to apply the opposing force on the front end (post impact) that counter balances the lay off we are working so hard to create now. A hook move pre impact, countered they by a slice move post impact gives a net 0… meaning a straight shot… but now you’ll be able to properly feel the golf club in your hands harnessing CF like all the great ball strikers do[/b]
Spent some time today working on another lightbulb moment I had yesterday evening while playing a few holes on my own, something I haven’t done for ages.
I was rehearsing my module 4 move, which is essentially connecting the dots from P3 to P5. Lag calls it the secret map of the golf swing and the part of the map I was concentrating on was from impact to P4 after the wrists and forearms have fired and are spent. I was focussing on that part of the swing where the club is swept over to P4 post impact. Its actually very difficult to do that if there isn’t a cohesive tension in the body at this stage.
I remembered how Lag had told us in the very first module about how important it was to direct as much pressure as possible to the left armpit and how ‘the left armpit was a beautiful thing in golf’.
I concentrated on increasing pressure in the left armpit from P3 to P4 and found this to be a very stabilising and cohesive influence. I remember reading somewhere that Lag said that this left armpit pressure was one of the secrets in sustaining shaft flex and certainly my ball striking seems to have improved another notch since accepting and finally embracing this very early basic lesson.
Its odd how the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle slowly fall into place when you least expect it!
Lag is right…as usual! The left armpit is a beautiful thing in golf!
Yes, as we work through the modules, we learn to apply the correct pressures to the club, but also within the body so that everything we do, every movement of the golf club is motivated internally, so that the golf swing develops a cohesive connection from our feet right through to our hands. Nothing is left to chance. As we learn to control our body, we learn to control the golf ball.
Some people say steering in golf is bad.
I say every time I get in my car, I grab the wheel firmly with the hands and take control of what happens.
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I haven’t reached module #4 yet but i think we’re on the same page Aiguille.
Realised this yesterday too…
For those on module#3 i would suggest it very beneficial to really apply pressure under both arms onto the body at the start position of the drill. Having the hands very close to the left pocket will start you on the right track but i think you will incorporate the right feelings into your real swings alot more quickly if you really press the upper arms down onto the chest and upper belly area with some genuine effort to create a cohesive tension, not simply resting the arms on the body. This makes the drill even more tiring and physical to perform. This is a good thing because it will need to feel like this in your real swings.
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There are a number of phrases that Lag has used in describing the hitting protocol…for me, the most vivid image is that of pressing the shaft of a club into a door jamb so that one can almost visualise the C shape that is created and then retaining that feel/ pressuring sensation from P3 to P5.
I have found that referring back to this holy grail concept of sustaining lagpressure has helped me understand the purpose of the drills and the hitting method so much better.
Its not about swingspeed or ballspeed…its about generating and sustaining pressure on the shaft into impact and beyond.
It is a very simple concept but actually physically very hard to do…primarily because it is so counterintuitive but also because it is physically demanding and in fact totally impossible without a good post impact pivot.
There is a secret map on how to get from P3 to P5 both in terms of geography and pressure.
Hi Everyone, I like to share my progress.
So far my progress has been really good, I have gone through many changes just from module one. First, I changed my grip because I did not feel I was holding the club properly doing the drills of module one, that alone helped me release the club better and also took care of a hook. Then, I flatten my swing which I find it easier to bring the club to a 4:30 position before firing the hands. The flatter swing has helped me hit long irons and fairway woods better than ever, and when I make mistakes, the mistakes are not as costly.
When I started the program I was a 14 handicap, average score 83. Two months later I have gone down to a 6 handicap, average score around 80, but at least once or twice a week I shot in the 70’s, 76 being the best ever.
I have been playing golf for 6 months, improved really fast at the beginning, breaking 90 two months after I started playing, then I got to the low 80’s and could not improve until I started this program.
Cheers and good luck to everyone,
alfonja
Great Job Alfonja; playing of 6 in 6 months really puts me to shame. Module 1 in itself should not improve your scoring its your superior ability. I am a 14.6 after 3 years of extraordinary effort and currently on Module 4.
Great to catch up with everyone’s progress!
I have had a summer of playing and am now preparing for an autumn/winter of training.
Its going to be hard for me because Lag knows how much I love to play and score. I need to go right back to seeing only the strike as my aim and the scoring will be second to that.
I have at most 4 games left to play this year that are important to me. I am playing in a scratch foursomes event this sunday and have a foursomes matchplay final to play before the middle of the month. There are also two medals left to play for at my home course, the last being the October medal.
That will then leave me 6 months (at least) in which to get back to where I was in module 1 and move on to some of the later modules as well.
I worked on module 1 at the very beginning, you could say I was one of the original students! The timing didn’t work out for me though. A combination of no money to move to the next module and the playing season starting mean’t I felt it was in my best interest to wait till the season ended.
I will say that the bag work I did do was well worth it! I’ve had my best season in years with winnings to date of over £300 not including golf shoes I won as well! I am also due maybe as much as another £150 in vouchers from events I have reached the finals of.
So over the next couple of weeks I will be getting my bag in order (actually will be getting a new one as the last one is full of holes now!) and getting ready to drill! Alex Saary is the uber driller, if I can do half the reps he does I’ll be well on my way!
Good to have you on board Styles, I enjoyed reading your posts on iseek. You will have a new swing come next spring…and even more vouchers to spend in the pro shop!
Since Lag gave me the green light on my Module 1 form and execution to move through with “about 3000 repetitions”, I have had plenty of time alone with my impact bag. I have come to a handfull of small insights and observations on how this exercise can lead to a bunch of personal ‘lightbulb’ moments. My favorite so far is the observation that my inner right thigh was sore from my groin to my knee the day after performing about 150 repetitions in each of the 3 Module 1 hand configurations. I realized that one of the points I had been concentrating on was to keep my right foot flat as long as I could and that I must have been dragging it in order for my right groin/leg to be sore. I went back to the grassy spot where I did the repetitions and sure enough I found that the grass was dug up where my right foot had been (the whole length of my foot). So several days later (yesterday) I got a chance to take some full swings at the driving range while striving for that dragging the right foot feeling through impact and viola! More balance, thus more power delivered and more LAG retained, through impact. For me, this equated to a 3-wood distance of 220-230 yards in the air landing about 10 yards to the left of center (a few hooks in there also). Overall, a very satisfying lightbulb. I am wondering if this is anywhere near what Module#2 is aimed at?
Baggerswing,
I think it is always important to remember the purpose of all of these drills as we work our way through the modules, namely to sustain lagpressure. What you have described is a great sensation and one that will help enormously with the post impact pivot as it gives the necessary platform for the trunk to push against as it sustains stress on the shaft. The more grounded you are, the more stress you can exert on the shaft and for longer. Yes, this is very much what module 2 works on…good stuff!
Str8,
Good stuff regarding the sensation of the upper arms and their attachment to the torso/chest. The picture below (from a pretty good book btw) is what it “feels” like to me:
[attachment=0]hoganarms.jpg[/attachment]
Really good stuff – to go a step further, as the modules have been seeping in, I have also been feeling as though a separate thread of twine is wrapped all the way around the body and upper arms, trapping them to the torso…