Science Validates Erickson

I am at 56 minute of your ABS Update video. Looks like ‘science’ is finally proving all John’s ABS assertions to be true. My guess is that many are now familiar with Dr. Kwon. He is not a golf professional but a physics professor at the Womens Univ of Texas. Dr. Kwon is a PhD that has been studying golf biomechanics for years now. His focus is on why proper dynamics leads to proper mechanics. . … just as John explains on why a dynamic/active backswing leads to being on-plane. . . .Dr Kwon uses the term ‘opposing forces.’

So bottom line. . . Homer (the one that wrote The Golfing Machine, not the Illiad) documented how the swing was put together. . . John figured out how the dynamics was missing from Homer’s book. . .Dr. Kwon proves scientifically that John is correct.

Pretty impressive.

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Opposing forces is a term used around here since it’s inception in 2009.

Welcome to the new ABS 2.0 Forum!

How dynamic forces can affect swing plane

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When you say opposing forces do you mean ‘Ground Reaction Forces’ ?

The ground doesn’t really “react”… but our shoes are the only connection to the ground, so we use that to create leverage…resistance. The club in our hands creates an opposing force in a variety of directions as the club moves throughout the swing. If you hold a club out like a hand shake, and I grab it… I can pull it toward me, push it toward you… twist it or move it side to side, up or down and combinations of those. All of these things could create opposing forces and pressures between the club and our hands… that then could bring our entire body into it.

Dr Kwon’s instruction is a for a golf swing, not a hit. He theorises that particular drills can recreate the optimal grf pattern that are used by tour pros.

He copied the step drills from an LPGA pro and then tweaked them. Many of the drills have been used before in lots of golf instruction but not in as much detail as shown in Dr Kwon ‘reprogramming’ youtube videos.

If you look at some of the videos , his reprogramming drills do not seem to work very well for golfers who are not very flexible in the pelvis/torso.

I don’t know much about Dr Kwon. From what I saw briefly he’s in the swinger’s camp.

At some point, the scientists will get up to speed in golf, and realize there is more than one species walking the planet.

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Agree. But most think Kwon is teaching a method. He actually is not a golfer. . . He is a physics professor that for some reason has spent years studying golf bio-mechanics. What he does is just explain the physics behind top golf swings. He sort of reminds me of Homer Kelly as the Golf Machine just really documents the possible options mechanically behind and infinite number of different golf swings.

The ‘reprogramming videos’ on Youtube only show him using old time tested drills that help students use upper and lower body independently. When it comes to swinging vs hitting, I don’t think he has a preference. However, he does say that if one can add ‘using the hands/arms’ through impact, that is the optimum. But having great rhythm/tempo while still crushing through impact really is what separates the truly accomplished golfer from all others. Am I on target or smokin’ the wacky tabacky???

Bottom line is that Kwon explains exactly why ABS works.

As someone who only goes swimming online, this makes perfect sense to me.

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To be honest, I haven’t been impressed with “Golf Science” so far.
For example… the trackman and flightscope machines are held as the pillars of golf science… yet neither takes into account the mass of the clubhead.

In both equations:
f=ma (force = mass x acceleration) hitting

p=mv (momentum = mass x velocity) swinging

Neither have an input or algorithm for the mass of the clubhead.
Both of these scientific machines are only looking at the ball… it’s velocity,
it’s axis and spin rate, then reverse engineering that data and making wild assumptions about what the club was doing at impact.

The machines don’t know the clubhead velocity because a clubhead traveling at a lower velocity with more mass in the head would increase the ball velocity… and the machines don’t account for that. They also don’t know if shaft flex is being maintained into impact… there is no knowledge of the radial acceleration that might be applied through the right hand against the shaft (feel), nor does it know the lie angle of the clubshaft or the resistance in the hands that might be inhibiting clubface torquing on off centered strikes. It also doesn’t know where I am aiming.

On top of that, it doesn’t tell the golfer what to do with their golf swing… this is left up to the purely subjective opinion of the “instructor” who must extrapolate the data and make “suggestions” about how to improve the “numbers”

The only thing I could see it useful for is information on ball speed for long driving competitors … but very little value for actually playing golf.

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Yeah, as we all know professors that teach business that never ran a business are worth about whatever they can sponge from state retirement funds for life

Same goes with golf scientologists pretty useless when ur coming down 18 tied for the lead in the Australian Masters, club championship or any coMpetitive arena period.

Seems more like a big distraction from learning to how to “hit” and a agenda to keep “swinging” into the trees imo.

Why should launch monitors take in the mass of the club head? Not seeing the argument there. They’re designed to either calculate or track a ball’s flight to give a golfer certain data. Certain systems also give club data, mostly related to orientation at impact, etc… Mass is not needed for the scope of what they do.

If someone wanted to study the effect of club head mass on shots, they can easily do that by combining that data with output from an accurate launch monitor.

Kyle, I think the point is not with the launch monitor but rather using the data to provide swing instruction or, in this case, to prove or disprove the ABS hitting theory.

That’s fine. The tech is fine and works pretty well for what it’s supposed to calculate. What it’s used for is up to people on what interests them and their goals. I personally don’t use monitors much or care for them, but I feel I understand why/how they could be helpful for certain applications.

Basically, saying these tools are the pillars of science is pretty odd. As is discounting them because they don’t allow you to input club head mass… Science is knowledge acquired through well designed research, analysis, and observation. Scientists can use tools to conduct such work. As such, they should understand the limitations and capabilities of the tools. Tools are not science. A shortcoming to account for how the tools work and/or misinterpreting their outputs is on the researcher, not the tool.

Well designed, unbiased studies could just as easily validate ABS as they could invalidate. Having an attitude of distrusting what goes against your opinions and praising what validates them is confirmation bias and ultimately will not allow one to learn actual truth. We all should be careful of such attitudes.

I also haven’t seen much legitimate science used to prove or disprove ABS. Which is fine, we’re on golf forums, not publishing peer reviewed research. End of the day, if you get better at golf, you get better at golf. That’s what most of us are after.
I just find the science/technology bashing odd. This coming from a guy that enjoys vintage clubs. But I know why I play them and it has nothing to do with science.

@k2baloo I think its more about the scientist (1or 2) here tryn to promote a swingers technique as superior to JE generous dialogue on shaft flex and orbit pull fundamentals

When you have trolls that dont really want the information to goto the range and practice as he/she sits on their computer bashing the OP.

It takes away from the ABS website and does a disservice to the rest of us that reall want to hear from the people that work it hard and have a history of competitive golf

Ie: John Erickson, Bradley Hughes.

All the debating behind science from 18 handicappers is a waste of all our time,

IMO

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If you don’t like their posts don’t read. Simples.

@NRG I tried to find an ignore button on website? I dont see any.

Yes. I quit reading them finally. Hope Im not missing out on some juicy computer generated swing science :flushed::golf:

I actually use the Skytrak (poor man’s version of Trakman). It uses a camera to determine ball and clubhead speed, spin and probably launch angle. And yes algorithms are used after that to figure pretty much everything else out from there. But as you describe it is just a tool to collect ‘relative’ data. I have to say it is fantastic for indoor coaching during winter months. And for my advanced students, it serves as a great tool when working on spin control. It also helps in figuring out relative distance gaps between clubs. And for my juniors, I can use it to see how their clubhead speed increases over time as they grow and/or work out.

But you are so right that it is not all that accurate. As you point out there is no consideration for clubhead mass. And of course 150 yards is very different between Olympic Club and Edgewood just due to air density.

But all that said, I have to defend Dr. Kwon a bit as he does not really teach/coach people on how to swing a club. He can get most people more distance but accuracy will always degrade as one pushes the limits of increasing clubhead speed.

It is funny as I took one of his online Zoom courses. He explained that he has been just collecting data on top players golf swings to understand and find out what is common in the physics/dynamics of their swings. But after posting to Youtube he found higher handicap players want to take lessons from him. He claims trying to figure out what a medium to high handicap player needs to change is a real challenge for him.

But again, you and ABS seem to have figured out what the optimal physics are which yielded the ABS swing. . .without having a PhD in physics. You dug it out of the dirt while Dr. Kwon just measured hundreds of tour players like yourself and did a regression analysis.

It all seems to end up in the same place.

(But I certainly could be wrong. . . LOL)

Only goes swimming online. . now that there is a funny line. :wink: