El Camino…great memories for me. Summer job 1972, a boss/ buddy had one of these I used to admire. Seems I’d hear this song nearly everyday pulling into the parking lot and seeing his car/truck hybrid.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZwFmNmB0OQ[/youtube]
Sage advice…“Lighten up while you still can…”
Does that vehicle have an 8-track tape player?? 
I like that…pretty cool.
Actually Golfsmith took away a lot of our repair business, as did a local Dick’s Sporting Goods. That’s ok though.
Prior to the big box stores coming to our area we did quite a few repairs, regrips, custom assembled stuff from Golfworks, Dynacraft, KZG, etc. That part of the business was pretty good actually because at the time our ball sales were not that impressive on a consisent daily basis. Now our ball sales are driving everything and something had to give as we are basically a crew of one…me! That’s why you see little in terms of equipment in the light work area. Some stuff you don’t see like shaft pullers, etc, are located under the counter which we pull out as needed. As repairs dwindled, we gave some of our repair equipment to a local guy who wanted to learn how to do his own stuff.
Joan, runs the ball shop in the afternoon while I rest and Ed, although not as active as he used to be, picks up and washes balls when he feels the urge, and does some shaft pulling, making extenders, etc over in the shop behind the house. He likes to tinker. I’ll try to get some pictures from the shop. It looks like a small Hudson Motor Company factory inside but very cluttered. However he knows where everything is. It’s funny, we have an industrial lathe machine over there which cost $10,000 new many years ago that we now use to make dowel extenders! Need something rebored precisely? You bet. Wait to you see the drill press.
The ball picker is old and rusty yet Ed and the tractor mechanic have kept it rolling with custom made steel parts, a little welding here and there, custom made bearings, etc.
Presently we stripe resalvaged OEM balls which we buy from a local supplier. We used to buy OEM range balls used from a range across town, but decided we didn’t want to deal with their delays in doing so sometimes. Works better for us anyway…gives Ed and Joan something to do, and in the end it is a little better quality range ball to hit.
This new supplier is making us very happy. Check this out. We recently purchased 20,000 very nice reclaimed balls from him. All kinds of different brands in there. As we sorted through and washed the first 1000 balls we found about 150 Pro V’s and Pro VX’s in the mix…mostly in great condition. The 20.000 balls were purchased at .08 cents per ball for a total of $1600.00. In our display counter a person can now buy a dozen used Pro V’s that cost us .96 cents a dozen as a cost basis, and they are retailing for $19.00 per dozen…for a profit of $18.04 per dozen. They are literally walking out the door in sales.
If we contine to find them at the rate of 150 per thousand…well let’s just say the $1600.00 initial cost was a good investment. If anyone knows the supplier, please don’t tell him! 
Speaking of 8-tracks. I think it was 1971 me and a buddy drove his car to Florida. Can’t remember what the car was…maybe a Cutlass or a 442? Damn, the memory is gone on that one, but his 8-track died before we got out of Ohio.
He only had AM radio as a backup. So driving between major markets and the open road, all we could get was church preachings, farm reports, and all other sorts of stuff.
The bad thing was John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High” was a popular song and we heard that song each and everytime. or so it seemed, we drove through a major city all the way to Florida, which by the time we got there I probably would have broken his fingers so he could never play again!
Good stuff Eagle…and some good years. 
Time for some musical inspiration.
My favorite all time song bar none…the best piece of music ever performed live.
So much freedom, power, thunderous accents and multiplicity all rolled into one- and at the end of the video a neat smile by Carlos as if to say to the heavens…“thanks”. Headphones turned up?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JryQXilMj4[/youtube]
RR,
I’ve not been very regular, but any thoughts on these? I’ve been playing around with all sorts of different images/intentions, mostly focused around transition and beyond… I’ve been hitting it quite crisply for some time now and noticing some common threads in a lot of good actions… what are you seeing here?
Cheers,
B
Wow…I like the Geezer one at first glance…looks like some forward to back intentions initially to me. But just got home from work and a little tired to do my thorough rat analysis. I’ll hit some coffee tomorrow morning, and maybe along with a few red pills, will do my rat sniffing- then get back later on.
Btw: that riddle picture you posted earlier which was 2 arc segments surrounded by a red circle, riddle solved and I’ll get back to that later too.
Nice to see you around again…you’ve been missed. 
Still rattling around in the old rat brain…but having some fun with it. The hammer motion is pretty good actually when seeing things as propulsion driven system- as that would obviously have to harness and use the entire body to drive the action.
Those hammer throwers, in some of the videos I watched and may be a starting point for all throwers, have an interesting intial start up move. It’s like they lift their arms over their head to start things and if one were to freeze frame when the rope, or whatever it is that is attached to the ball, is parallel to the ground at the top it almost looks like the top of the backswing. The other thing I noticed is how much the left heel is involved in the total propulsion: the left heel moves quite rotationally while the right foot looks mostly involved with pushing the movement.
The other thing might be applicable is how the feel work in relation to the location of the ball’s orbit: when the ball is lowest to the ground, or on the path to the lowest, is when both feet are firmly planted, but with a nod to the left heel moving, or being prepared, to move rotationally. When the hammer ball at the highest point from the ground, the right foot has already done its work so to speak and comes somewhat disconnected to the ground.
So as it relates to the Sneed video- the top of his swing would be the equivalent of the hammer thowers action where the ball is at the highest point from the ground and only one foot has real direct and constant interplay with the ground. In Sam’s case the right heel due to not only the direction he is moving the weighted cluhead, but because he is not using a full 360 degress of motion like the hammer guy. Now on Sams downmove, when the clubhead is approaching low again both feel are firmly planted for a spell. Lots of inward pulling.
I see a lot of similarites to swinging and hammer throwing, but was wondering if it would feel to you like it would be more of a “collecting” the ball feel in harmony with the path of propulsion.
What are some of your thoughts on your pictures.
Hey Bom…you tell me your thinking on your pictures, and I’ll tell you all about this one of mine:
RR said…and I wanna know also…
If I can interject… what hits me…look at the hammer thrower’s feet, knees, and naval…and Snead’s… what if they were told “you can’t do that?”
Well Bom…you guessed it probably by now. I was doing some hammer throw intentions this morning with some golf gear and it was actually pretty cool and enlightening at the same time. Sorry, just can’t resist the urge to go the the edge of the envelope with different feels and intentions.
But I was watching some YT videos too this morning prior to embarking and noticed how much inward pulling is going on while the hammer ball is descending on the downward arc. A fight going on for sure, but maybe a different kind of fight than I am used to. But it felt good and distance/accuracy was superb if the weight stayed between the feet to assist the inward pull when the clubhead was traveling down and out to the ball. Seemed like ball presence is more a primary factor with this intention, as I was feeling maximum backward pulling during the outward orbit, and a lot of weight getting rearward toward the old keester, or throne cushion if you will!
In some respects, it kind of felt like that old picture of Macs that he posted a while ago where he is fighting the outward stuff…and there was some discussion between the both of you about the weight staying too long on the right foot. But my feel with this intention was weight centered and equally distributed between the feet, and pulling backward as the cluhead was descending, and just after ball collection, the weight started to get off the right side- but it still felt like I was on it a little so maybe a little reverse C stuff at the end.
Many different feels with this intention as opposed to getting low and left with Lag’s stuff, but I liked it a lot…going to play around with the tempo of it more. Was impressed with the distance. And it was an easy intention to execute.
Good stuff as always and thanks for the idea, which made for a fun fun morning. Might have to go back into the rat maze and do some thinking about this hammer move. Subject to some timing for sure, but rats always have good timing, so timing things is pretty easy if one can get out of their own way to feel the timing- which, in this case, is really more about feeling the weight flow and inward pull dynamics versus a pure timing interval.
Kind of reminded me of the old standard: is the weight moving you, or are you moving the weight. With the hammer guys, they start out moving the weight up to the point that the weight starts to move them- and they’ve trained their feet to handle that demand.
Again…pretty cool stuff Bom 
RR,
Good to ‘see’ you again my man, it’s been a while. I hope all is well…
I reckon a good propeller of the club understands that it’s going to be pulling away from him/her, so the transition, as we see it in the golf swing, is a prepping of sorts for what’s to come during maximum acceleration. I reckon so many of the great strikers set the legs down and the spine backward to brace during transition due to this- I first noticed this with Moe a long time ago. A term I came across a while ago was ‘dynamic equilibrium’, which by definition is “a state of balance between continuing processes”. I can see this as a Newton’s 3rd law sort of thing and has to apply to the swing I would say. The setting of the legs during transition is both a prepping to resist and a prepping to accelerate, because I reckon, at least instinctively, they’re the same thing to us. You could get into a long ‘chicken and egg’ debate about that, but I don’t think it would change the result or the action. The transition is also a setting of the angle of a attack into a shallower journey, so again, this is a great effect and/or cause/goal of that motion.
Knowing that CF will increase, and trying to increase it, are very ‘chicken and eggy’ imo- I imagine trying to fling water or sand out of the shaft through the impact zone as a good image, you’d want to save some of it to fling towards the target in an arc of sorts. I remember reading a thing by Jackie Burke where he was talking about holding seeds in the palm of your right hand and ‘spreading’ them on the ground through impact, he was saying that some of them needed to be dispersed prior to impact, but most of them beyond- that’s a pretty cool picture imo. I’d see the setting of the legs and body to create and/or resist that, as very important during transition. The hammer throw is relative to that.
As ever I’ve got lots and more to say, but I’m a little short of words these days. I suppose I’ve been trying to capture thoughts and pictures in images and intentions as I reckon they’re more valuable when it comes to going out there and playing the game.
Another observation I have about the game is that 100% of the last 2 Majors were won by Irishmen It’s important to state ‘facts’ from time to time…
Cheers…
B
On one of the hammer thrower videos I watched the thrower mentioned during the demonstation that any forward leaning while the ball is going toward the ground is a bad idea. Their back actually loses spine angle, and gets more vertical to the ground, because the backward/inward pulling is so extreme during the hammers travel toward the ground.
It reminds me of pair figure skating in a way when the male skater holding the ankles of the female skater while doing those “death spirals”, the spine angle forward is nonexistent…the spine straightens to assist the inward pull.
Anyway…I like this hammer stuff…going to explore it with rat vigor some more!
In the meantime, here is something I play around with as an image/intention sometimes that is fun. The solid yellow line is an extended looping action backward. The dotted line is 4:30 and the green line is post impact travel. And the tires are a goofy representation of the feet.
This is how hitting feels to me as an image. Have to make sure to go low and down the front hood instead of up it.
Just thought a beetle was a different way to look at things…and rats love beetles, yummy! 
From this …
To this…
For these, it seems the initial motion is to get the weight up, then let it fall behind. Do the arms cause or promote it, or simply let it happen?
I always liked this picture of Jimmy Bruen. Similar in some ways.
I wouldn’t actually say the arms promote it. Instead it is a responsive cohesive effort calling on many body parts…all responding to a mass that is moving within an orbit so to speak.
I wouldn’t even say that there is an “up” involved either. Sure, the clubhead is further away from the ground at the top from where it started on the ground…but I see it more as a “little out, in and around” with an effect of looking “up”, NIcklaus used to actually go up and reach for the clouds as taught by his teacher, but I think even Nicklaus, and Watson too, changed that a little as they both stated it was more of a slappy way to move something- starting with the hands and leaving the torso behind.
As you know, when the shoulders/torso is not involved with the backmove along with the arms, a false sense of completness at the top exists, and really lacks stored up power to unload at the right time.
I was tying in to the sequencing of the hammer intiative today as it applies to hitting. Here’s what I found…it’s after the free ride transition that the spinal realease shows in force…as long as the path stays circular and moving leftward. When those two forces collide it feels just like reeling in a big fish…you are actually pulling that thing out of its natural orbit ( to the right ) that would be there IF the pivot stopped.
Another close feel would be when suddenly braking your car in an emergency stop. You press down hard with the feet onto the brake pedal, and down into the steering wheel with the hands, while extending, or straightening, the spine. The down pressures of the feet and hands are being magnified by the spine straightening providing resistance to the process. If the spine didn’t assist the process, less pressure would be applied through the feet…and pressures lost is not good.
That’s the biggest thing probably for me anyway taken from ABS by the cheese stealing process…the pressures create the lag…and the creation of the pressures, much like the hammer thrower feels, is what allows total awareness as the body loves feeling the cohesiveness of the process.
Good stuff Eagle and IOZ
A golden nugget…and another from the land of the gold rush on a still Sunday night.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ruYuQl6NCA[/youtube]
Nice song RR.
You said…
Pressures…here’s a sport that requires precise application of pressure, and cohesive body tension, and like golf, makes use of levers(pulleys) and “spring loaded” pressure for power. Doesn’t the Bruen/Nicklaus…and Twomasters… type takeaway,when combined with a proper transition, have the advantage of automatically creating a spring load of the shaft, that they can utilize as a power promoter?
As Paul Bertholy said to explain, “if someone holds their index finger in front of your nose, he can’t hurt you very much, but if he uses his thumb to oppose the index finger, he then can flick your nose with power and hurt you .” ( another ABS principle…opposing force)
For sure, although a spring load wouldn’t be my choice of terms. A dynamic load makes more sense to me, although it is really a semantic difference as springs can load too- so a good point. The transition is a point which corrals motion…a stoppage of the motion in one direction if you will, but it is such a dynamic process there really isn’t stoppage- it’s one harmonious piece.
Just like one cannot completely stop a moving car on a dime as momentum will not allow it… but it can slow down for a direction change. And the direction change is what makes the pressures for the car in the tires ( feet ) and for the driver in the steering wheel ( hands ) and the car’s suspension system ( the body ). That’s where those pressures are.
Is that a small eaglet?
Yep. He’s a grand-eaglet.
here he is using pressure to maneuver in another sport( posted previously)…funny…don’t have to tell folks to move pressure to go back and forth over the wake, people just figure it out.
I agree. In the case of the bow, there is complete stoppage at the “transition,” and the power is set and you can’t dial it in. In golf, the transition has varying degrees of dynamic speed, and I think Lag has pointed out that if you can handle the faster transition, like Hogan, there may be some advantages…meaning more pressure and power (if I remember correctly.)