Whether is was a literal or figurative comment, I’ve always been curious about breathing and it’s merits if there are any. My thoughts on this go back to Norwood’s statement…“Inhale and retain the breath during the swing. This will lessen the weight of the upper body by about ten pounds.” Lord only knows that I don’t need less body mass for a small rat, but it never made sense to me that inhaling will lessen body weight. Any thoughts there Macs? 
RR
Bom,
I’ll have to do some deeper thinking and get back to you. I’m not sure I was thinking of the “whole package” as an analogy, but maybe different parts at different times. But your questions may bring further insight.
I bet you were one heck of a student as a kid…“but Ms. O’Murphy, WHY is 2+2 =4 ???”
did you drive any teachers nuts?? 
RR
I agree. Inhaling should increase the weight some but not a lot.
Eagle, this gave me a good laugh! Suffice it say, some of them are still receiving care, they traumatic years for them…
And I still haven’t gotten sufficient answers to my questions, they’ve morphed into different genres, but they’re still the same ones by and large. Two of them stand out because I was very young when I asked them so I’m sort of proud of them. One of them got me smacked in the back of the head, and the other one just a look of total bemusement or maybe it was pity because she knew what I was in for thinking like that. I remember wanting to know what there would be if there was no such thing as the world and no such thing as space, and her reply was that there would most likely be nothing. My follow up question was, ‘yeah, but what’s nothing?’ She just shook her head, I’m pretty sure it was pity. The other one was about god and all that stuff, because growing up in Ireland, there was no real divide between education and the church. We’d say our prayers when we got to school in the morning, before and after lunch, and right before it was time to go home. It’s funny to think about that now, but that’s the way it was. I’m not sure if that’s the case now, it would be cool to find that out… Anyway, the answer to who made what or what made who, was always some version of ‘god did’, ‘let there be light’ all that stuff. So one day I asked, ‘so who made god?’ That’s the one that got me smacked in the back of the head. I think I still have a lump.
It’s a literal comment in that I reckon you have to be willing to be athletic or put some real effort into it. Leveraging the body effectively isn’t a stroll in the park, your legs are going to feel like they’re doing something not just flopping around in the wind.
Breathing is an interesting discussion and there’s probably a lot in it that’s fairly untapped in terms of it’s application to golf. So many sports and different disciplines address it and have it up near the top of their lists, but not so much in golf. I imagine Lag has done some thinking about it…
I can’t get my head around taking a deep breath effecting your weight, though? How heavy is a breath of air? Is there more to it?
Taking a deep breath of air does add the weight of the molecules in the air that actually entrain into the inflated lungs and airway…in total, less than a couple of milligrams.
I’ve been trying to get my head around the blending between the long game and the short game, and I was thinking that there might be some connections to be found in painting- it’s an interesting search with lots of similarities. This video stood out as a real gem in terms of the links between perspective and action, goal and intent. His last statement is just magic…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwTN6KCQxbo[/youtube]
Nice presentation by him. I wonder if his manner shows up as a nice fluid motion or that staccato- blending stuff he talked about.
That’s one of the things I don’t buy into with that Pelz stuff…all those contrived positions for the short game…I think it’s a load of crap, and is the worst way to play. I often get people saying that they have a hard time judging how much force to apply in chipping, etc., and they always look surprised when I tell them the correct amount is already in us…just waiting for us to get out of the way to let it happen.
I usually have to give them an example: I stand about 15 feet away and ask them to gently toss the ball underhand to me. No problem. Next I back up to maybe 25 feet and ask them to do the same thing, again no problem. When they’ve completed those 2 tasks, I ask them how many more foot pounds of force were required to toss the ball 25 feet versus 15 feet. They have no idea…but the point hits home that up to our maximum, everything short of that is primarily feel combined with some very intricate eye-distance-force computations going on in the old noggin.
A story about art class. My sister was a college junior when rat entered the same school as a freshman. One day she wanted me to bring something to her art class for her. So I trucked across campus…walked into the art area…and low and behold right smack in the middle of the room was a beautiful woman…stark naked. The art students were drawing her I guess. I knew then that I was going to like this college stuff! 
I liked that story Bom…I was kinda the same way in school. I too had a head smack moment I’ll share that I still remember to this day.
For weeks on end the Nuns preached to us that when we receive our first holy communion that we are, under no circumstances to touch the host. Just stick out the old tongue and the priest will take care of the rest. If we touch that host before it enters our mouth we would burn up or something. Well, I can handle that…
So I go through the whole routine…get back to the pue…get ready to do some serious contemplating…when that little host got stuck in the back of my throat and was uncomfortable and gagging. So what’s a little rat to do…simple, stick the old finger down the throat to dislodge that puppy and no one will be the wiser…SMACK! right in the back of the head by a Nun who came out of nowhere!
No one ever said anything about after it enters the mouth…that was the question I forget to ask 
This is one of my favourites, alright, it’s a real eye opener for people who are completely disconnected from distance control or judgement. I use a little under arm throwing motion myself on really long putts if I can’t get a sense of it. I used to do it with everything because I didn’t start out as a good putter, and that kind of became my putting stroke.
In terms of the painting, there’s also a softness that needs to be introduced and felt starting from about 80 yards and in. I think that’s why I was intrigued to hear the language in painting technique. Seve seemed to just push on the back of the shaft when pitching, it’s not a very accelerated move through the ball, it’s like push hold sort of action. Tough to put it into words. Regardless, I do see a softness or gentleness having to be worked in at shorter distances, kind of like holding a paint brush instead of a wrench.
For Reference:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYYWlM7puLM[/youtube]
Boy is that pretty… thanks a lot for that, LipOut. He really used his legs well when he pitched which allowed the soft, quiet, almost dead hand push through. He looks handsy, and he was, but he had great legs too. In fact he probably lost the plot by quietening his legs trying to hit it straight- like that works?! If you see any footage of him later on, even when he won The Open in '88, he was pretty much doing and saving everything with his hands and arms- his wedge play was still magic though, he never lost that. He still played a lot of great golf after that, but imo, it was with less conviction even at his best. What in impact he had for surprisingly short career really in terms of the greats. And he was definitely one of them. He came on the scene in what, '77 or '79? and was done pretty much by 91,92 and maybe played a few Ryder Cups after that? Can’t quite remember, but for one of the greats, it was a short spell.
I found this floating around the internet; perhaps there is something to be learned from this motion:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sylu02rQXJY[/youtube]
The first thing that strikes me is the right foot action just before the release. It’s tempting to think that the optimal form would be to take that last step and throw only off the left. But these throwers make every effort to hold some ground pressure with the right so they have resistance on both ends of the pivot.
Good spot Lipout…
The workings of the R foot has changed big time for me- both conceptually and functionally- since finding ABS
Getting up on the rear toe when swinging is really more a process of rotational movement of the lower body to go around and the heel moves up and out counterclockwise. However in hitting…the pressurized R foot gets up on the toe as a result of post-impact movement to accelerate the club into vertical…or upward.
In the video you posted…the javelin is being thrown “up” not around…and we see the initial pressure in the foot and then getting up on the toe of the foot to throw upward. Watching Hogan videos closely, I see a direct correlation between the rate of up the plane acceleration post impact, and the rate of gettin up on the right toe. 
The king of javelin throw:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6P9WbTPeLA[/youtube]
No one has ever been as raw with the javelin as Zelezny. He was smaller than his foremost competitors but no one could touch him when he was on form.
I was watching, for what reason I don’t know, the Winter X-Games the other night.
When those snowboarders launch into the air it was fascinating to see what differnt body parts were doing in light of the fact that ground pressures are absent once they launch. This one guy was doing somekind of turn and it was amazing how much more forward his eyes were looking ahead of the turn. The action was almost too fast to spot things…but I’m thinking there may be some real good stuff coming from that sport. 
I’m putting these in this thread because it’s a continuation of something I’ve been working on for a while, and something I was talking about a good bit ago in relation to arm action/rotation…
Does anybody have any thoughts/observations about these pix?
Or this?
What I see:
Looks like 3 pairs of takeaways / downswings…caught at similar spots.
The hands/butt of the club are considerably closer to the target line on the down swing, than on the takeaway. But theses guys are not “over the top”.
The first guy’s head definitely drops, and the other two may also. Is this Hogan, Snead, Trevino?
The last one is Billy Casper.