Similarities between golf and speed skating

Public Forum—Concepts in Advanced Ball Striking
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It’s funny I started speed skating at age 30. I coach a club in park city utah now. Had some accomplishments considering that late of start.

Anyways I trained with a Korean coach starting in 2008 and made huge improvements at age 43. I know now why Koreans are great at golf. We did lots of training and there was method to their madness. Everyone in our group from Olympian’s to lesser skaters improved big time. What did we do. A lot of skating (8 times a week) but also a ton of off ice training (dryland). It was that that made the biggest impact. I equate it to the drills hopefully. I just started mod 1. Anyways I looked for something similar to this when I picked up golf a few years back, unfortunately chose the drills by Paul Kopp from SITD. Did them tons and many people complimented me on my great looking swing but I still would play army golf under the pressure because of my steep swinging swing.
Anyways back to the similarities of speed skating and golf. I can’t tell u how many times I’ve heard coaches say keep the pressure to the ice and wait for the push. I emailed John and a lot of what he says is keep the pressure and don’t fire too early. Sound familiar. Also I now know what the slot is and what release means.

In speed skating for example in the straights we recover our leg and that’s a build up of forward momentum and pressure and as the leg starts to come thru u want to sink into your push and keep the pressure like pressuring the shaft. When u sink into the push it’s like stepping on a scale and a 150 pound person can get 250 pounds or more if pressure. If u lose that u get nothing out of the push. And also u need to keep ur abs tight otherwise would be like trying to shoot a cannon from a canoe :canoe:. Your push comes out of your Lower Dantian as lag days. Once I learned that speed and endurance came easier. I skated many years with just my legs and not my bigger muscles of core and glutes. I was in a decent groove one day at league in may when the last 4 holes I felt like I hit drives with all of me. Could feel like i hit it in core with all of me and hit longest straightest drives on holes that were tight and would always lose balls on. Want to get those feelings again. I think this will help get there.

We used to say it doesn’t get any easier you just get faster. A lot like golf. It doesn’t get easier the round just takes fewer strokes.

This year I started swinging right arm only and I naturally would get the palm pointing up and feel more hitters release. Would warm up right arm only always to get that feel and hit balls better than two hands. I went from a swinging flipping draw to an open stance flatten the club more straight ball miss right. Got down to 74 best ever but still needed more. I was naturally heading towards this hitters method. The feels of this program makes so much sense and Lag and two speaks truth it feels like to me no matter all the noise that others feel. I did the braking drill and never understood why I could hit it straight now I do. Why in the world when I tried to stop at impact it felt right.

Like to get back to this shape 10k warmups then workout and then10k cool downs.

This gives u a bit of feel as to how hard a 1500m (one mile) sprint is. U open at 90% then fast lap and hang on for life last two laps 800 meters in a lactate haze unless of course ur chemistry is right. That’s a whole other topic right there. I raced masters and pro cycling against at least a half dozen caught dopers.

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‘Waiting for the push’, this is such a good post- it brings back thread memories from Lag, Two, BomGolf, and others, from ABS beginnings. I think it was 222 that said something like sinking down into really firm foam rubber, or something like that.

Firing too quickly from the top will lose those leg down-pressures and it will become a struggle to then move weight left with-through the strike. And, of course, the cannon and canoe image from a long way back is a superlative image, Azinger spoke of this in a similar manner. Thanks for posting Boudie…

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For what it’s worth…golf is like alot of sports, some that you maybe don’t even consider to be sports. My other hobby is ballroom dancing. I’m a better ballroom dancer than a golfer, probably about a 4 hcp at ballroom. My teacher was a European national champion in her 30s and teaches highly technical, sophisticated movement dynamics. We spend very little time drilling dance steps because she won’t let me even learn a step until I learn the proper mechanics of the movement. Everything in golf - correct use of the ground, independent control of the movement of upper and lower body segments, proper sequencing, timing of weight shifts, timing of rotation - is also important in dance. She says dance is like golf, but in every step, one partner is the golfer and the other is the golf club. You sort of take turns swinging each other across the floor. The couples that win competitions and move the best are the ones who most efficiently transfer momentum to each other and do it with control. The easiest dance in which you can see this is Viennese waltz, where you basically just continually spin. If you don’t have control and proper dynamics, you stall out and stop. You see it all the time, even in high level events occasionally, if dancers are tired and don’t focus and grind it out.

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Probably the two biggest mistakes amateurs make compared to pros are incorrect use of the ground, and incorrect movement of the upper body relative to the lower. Amateurs tend to move forward leading with their upper body or head. Pros sink into their knees and push/pull strongly from the legs, driving the pelvic girdle and this automatically transfers momentum to the partner’s COG so that she moves. When you lead from the upper body, you just tip the partner over, and she is backpedaling to try to stay with you. With regard to upper and lower body movements, depending on which way you are rotating (there is always some rotation in any step), sometimes your thoracic cage must be turned one way while your pelvic girdle is turned another way. Amateurs tend to have their thorax and hips always aligned together, and they “fake” the proper orientation by pulling their arms to the side or twisting their shoulders. When you move your upper and lower centers independently, the lady has no choice but to move exactly where she is supposed to go.

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Finally watched this. I like his putting drills. Interesting on the 2 footers. I always tried to accelerate and would use tees to keep stroke short. I want to try those push the ball drill and super short stroke from 2 feet. Thanks RR!