Bom and Iron of Zion…pretty neat stuff to say the least. A lot of things to see in those videos that are remarkable. Will take me a couple days to really have a hard look at them, then I’ll post some comments after that.
That’s precisely what I was trying to say…a cohesive unit that doesn’t get away from us…and if our totality doesn’t move properly to support that process, something will start to leave that cohesive connection…and we are left with some type of flip, lunge, or jerk at it. Something like that.
Especially like the drag flicking…played around with it a few weeks ago it seems and the results were much to my surprise.
When I could keep my wrists from deliberate overcocking on the way back so I can have dragging intentions, the flights were really cool…a little lower, boring shot…but arrows.
A quick aside…you guys on this forum are the best. On lazy days at work, I sit around with a group of range rats that are so set in their ways, closed to new ideas, fear pushing the envelope…that our discussions in our beer-stained shirts are like the movie Ground Hog Day. It’s like now I’m sitting around with a bunch of top players, and professionals, from across the planet discussing things that have always had a strong hold on me…doesn’t get any better than that. RR
IronOfZion,
Fantastic videos!.. I can’t get enough of them, great stuff… thanks a lot for posting them. So many thoughts about them too…
I have a question for the hitter/swinger people… what would you guys call the action in that first video?
Makes sense in terms of ABS as far as I can tell… would that be the standard ABS assessment of that action, or would the principles not transfer to other sports? Seeing as I’m someone who sees the compatibilities in things, I’m inclined to think that similar principles carry over. His hands do ‘cut left’ as it were, but there’s no torso acceleration to speak of, he uses a ‘strong flick sweep’ of sorts. It seems like an interesting discussion to me… have any other ABS’ers or swinger/hitter people have any thoughts on this?
Does the pivot impose it’s pull on the arms, hands, and club, or do the arms, hands, and club impose their downward push/fall on the feet and pivot and then the pivot fires? What are the two most important things in the golf swing? What serves what? Thoughts?
That’s how I feel it for hitting. When the pivot fires there is a feeling of the R side ribs stretching and getting though the impact interval by winning the race with the club. During this potion the right palm goes from facing skyward to facing kinda forward and downward towards the target. Like a punch press machine.
But while those things are dropping…the legs and feet are loading to support that process and will allow the proper torso rotation. That’s how I’m feeling hitting. RR
Great to hear your thoughts, RR… you’ve got a fine mind…
Q’s…
Why do you think the right palm faces skyward to begin with, or why do yo think the back of the left hand points skyward? I know that they do it in good strikers, but why? These are not things upon themselves! They have a purpose… what are your thoughts on this?
Exactly, RR… Hogan had a different perspective, he was looking outside what was considered appropriate…
I really like what you’re saying about how he looked beyond the norm, and looked to his surroundings in an abstract way- I’ve got no doubt he looked everywhere for answers…
Someone posted a while ago about how obvious it was that Tiger was so much more athletic that Hogan… I remember thinking how mistaken that assumtion was- imo, Hogan was and is as athletic as they come, the way he used his body to propel the club and ball is like nobody I’ve ever seen… as far as I’m concerned… Tiger and a million others look like athletes in the gym but are they? Maybe not…
But apart from that, his only real concern was striking the ball as powerfully and efficiently as he could… that’s my goal too… IMO, there’s not much better than that…
Could probably write for years on this question…would say that @ the top that palm(s) inclination is due to, among other things, the weight falling right of center shaft axis. Then when gravity, or passively dropping, squatting, or whatever, starts it’s active process…then those inclinations become more pronounced in both hands due to dead weight dynamics.
Too many thoughts on this in the old noggin to try to put them all down. But it probably boils down to how precisely the club is gripped for the action. I’ve always believed that because most mortals palms face rearward while standing, and the thumbs are opposed, forces within the swing will tend to return the palms to their natural positions…unless some deliberate intention overrides the process.
Kinda like Hogans weakened L hand. I think all things being equal, the L palm of a weakened hand @ address will turn a little clockwise inward thru impact causing an uncentered cutting action. I know my L hand is stronger…3 knuckles…and I am as straight a hitter as they come…which always made sense to me since the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line.
Here’s something I find cool and revealing @ at times…@ address while gripping just with the L hand…if you loosen the hand just enough, does the club fall to the ground, or is the club caught by the fingers. Mine falls to the ground 'cuz that palm is oriented precisely the way it falls when the arm is by the side and everything is relaxed. I don’t want any hand arguments going on…I want to control them, not the other way around.
My tiny noggin needs a short rest for now. Later…RR
[b]Why do you think the right palm faces skyward to begin with, or why do yo think the back of the left hand points skyward? I know that they do it in good strikers, but why? These are not things upon themselves! They have a purpose… what are your thoughts on this?
[/b]
My opinion: In some good golfers…like Nicklaus, Trevino, Furyk, Couples …I think it is because in the beginning of the backswing the clubhead is outside of the hands from a DTL view. They have a more obvious “lag” on the taleaway. Then, at as the hands and clubhead get “even” the momentum of the club pulls everything away from the target line, which creates the right palm up result. And the heavier the club, the more this will happen due to momentum without the golfer having to do it. I wonder if this is a cause/contributor to the “heavier clubs create better swings” philosophy?
The videos of the field hockey players showed this movement of the shaft of the stick quite well as the stick approached the top on the way back and up.
Nicklaus had the flying elbow. As he tucked it in, he facilitated this process. I suppose Couples and Furyk , and Trevino do this too. Kinda the “out to in”
from the takeaway to just after the transition.
The hands “are” the clubface, and since the are open at the top, it is required that they shut by impact, and this is another power source that is appears effortless by many.
Other good players don’t do it this way…Raymond Floyd, Bobby Jones, Knudson. For me, I am curious as to how they get their great results via a different route.
Eagle, is the backswing motion you are describing similar to what Steve Elkington shows Martin Ayers in this vid? He calls it the belly roll move (the belly being the fat side of the forearm).
I think he’s got his forearms wound up towards the target at address and he ‘belly’ rolls them away from the target halfway through his backswing.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g014tRudVI[/youtube]
This is Abe Mitchell inspired stuff me thinks…
IOZ…yes, it looks like the same. And apparently it is more pronounced in some golfers than others, but the overall feel may be the same. Another variable I am pondering is the force the golfer gives to the takeaway…the more the initial force, then the earlier the golfer probaly will stop using that force and let momentum take over. but he then has a segment in his swing that feels weightless, or forceless…and it may be a little risky because he may lose controlif his timing is off. Maybe this is why some golfers have advised a slow takeaway. …so they can apply force longer, and thereby have more control.
RR said;
[b]
Could probably write for years on this question…would say that @ the top that palm(s) inclination is due to, among other things, the weight falling right of center shaft axis. Then when gravity, or passively dropping, squatting, or whatever, starts it’s active process…then those inclinations become more pronounced in both hands due to dead weight dynamics.
[/b]
I think this move I am talking about results in what RR is saying…the clubhead weight falling to the right of the center shaft axis.
Hey …the really good golfers can do this without thinking…and I am sure laugh at my musings.
Here’s a lenthy one…Each year @ the range I am witness to one of nature’s passion plays and it concerns hawks and blue jays.
Each spring the when the jay-eggs are first laid in the nest, the hawk makes giant looping orbits around the entire perimeter of the woods…like he’s scouting the terrain. When the eggs hatch, I presumed their hatched, the hawk’s flight patterns change dramatically. He now breaks the orbit often and does a dive-bomb through the trees to get a first hand look at his targets. In time, the hawk wins…but not without a valient fight from the jays. Occasionally, a wounded in flight jay will wobble around the back portion of the range. The other day while watching this annual event unfold, I saw something really vivid and enlightening. I’ve seen it many times before, but never paid close attention to it.
The hawk was going after a wounded jay on the ground. The hawk’s wings were working hard and he was flying @ a moderate speed while flying parallel the the ground about 50 yards west, and 50 yards above, the wounded jay. The hawk passed by by jay by about 50 yards, then he did something really cool
His wings were going harder because be made a intense climbing move, flapping his wings all the way against gravity, until he got pretty high up into the sky.
He then made a reverse-loop, inward move backwards…kinda like a f-16 doing a inverted looping dive.
While he was doing this inward maneuver after reaching the apex of his climb, his wings seemed to be almost inactive. He was using Centripetal Force to increase the downward acceleration on his own merit combined with gravity. He was flying so fast using natures forces it was really breathtaking.
Got me thinking about all the stuff around ABS, which is the best. I also started to wonder about the hawks wings and if there are similar radial and ulna bones in them…like our arms and how might the oriention of those work in harmony, much like the hawk uses his wings.
The stark change of directions the hawk displayed got me to thinking about the Hogan golf ball picture over on the Lightbulb thread. So that’s why I posted about vector changes.
All because of the hawk at the range. I know of another hawk who liked to follow the sun…instead of jays.
Hey Lag…any thoughts to Hogan’s action having 7 direction changes.
The rat is tired…time for a piece of Pinconning and a nap… RR
Forgot to add…given the hawk flight I described, are there any bird of prey videos you might be able to find that shows this scenario- or close to it. If you have the time, that is.
Now all of a sudden there’s too many thoughts! As they say, be careful what you wish for…
RR, apart from anything else, that’s just a really cool story and well constructed, and kind of sad too. I hadn’t put the 2 Hawks together until you said it- the sign of a good story teller I reckon. Not to mention the observations.
I’m going to do a little thinking about it as I want to get the picture clear in my head. I can feel the power in the cutting action of the hawk for sure, they use air pressure and release like we use the ground and acceleration/thrust- I posted a photo of an eagle back a while ago on this thread that I equated to how we load in the golf swing.
Swallows would be my favourite birds- they’re ubiquitous on the links courses back home. One of my favourite things is when they circle you as you walk through the grass unsettling the different flies and bugs, then they swoop in and pick them off- that appears to be what they’re doing anyway. Their agility is just phenomenal.
I will get back to this…
Cheers…
Eagle, this is exactly right. What’s interesting about them too is that they’ve got very Jimmy Bruen/Rickie Fowler type ‘takeaways’ and in a more subtle way, Nelson and Hogan.
I guess what I’m getting at is what the intent is that creates this action. These hockey players do exactly what golfers should do yet they’re doing it quite naturally. Why do you think that is?
IronOfZion, what do you see as the difference between hitting a golf ball and hitting a hockey ball?
Elk got very steep for a while, and I think this is from during that period. I know he was working with TGM stuff and S%T stuff which encouraged this sort of up and down lateral hands ahead digging action that he had going. Classic Elk was much shallower through impact and more rounded in general. He seems to be a serious thinker about the game, it’s cool to see that side of him.
BOM, I think there may be more than one answer to this question:
A few thoughts:
The amount of force needed to propel the ball.
Here a some measurements to show the differences:
A golf ball weighs about 45 grams, a field hockey ball weighs 170 grams.
A golf club weighs around 450 grams; the hockey stick 560 grams.
Also the swing weight of a golf club feels much heavier.
The dynamic nature of field hockey,
You need to be able to hit a ball that is almost out of reach and that flattens out the plane a lot. When you are reaching for the ball close to the ground the only way to generate speed is to cut left.
Another explanation would be that because you need to master a lot of different types of strokes in field hockey (push, hit, flick etc.) your body finds the most efficient motion more or less naturally.
In field hockey it’s almost impossible to put a lot of hook or slice spin on a ball so it’s easier to achieve good results with a post impact slice move / cutting it left option no matter what pre-impact conditions.
In golf this is only workable with proper pre-impact conditions so therefore maybe harder to learn ‘naturally’ for golfers…
RR
RR
RR