Heads up, folks, here comes the ghost of Happy Gilmore… .
To crib from Einstein, let’s try a thought experiment. Start with your mod1 impact drill. Now, elongate the shaft of your club maybe 35-40 percent, but do not change any of the other dynamics. Take a few swings (please, lawyer alert, do this only as a thought experiment) and notice how the impact point of the club moves backwards and into the ground.
Now, move your lower hand down the shaft, somewhere between the 2/3 and mid way point. Go to your end point of the mod1 drill. You’ll have to bend at the waist a bit to fit it in (axis tilt is most def not a prob for hockey players to achieve, something about that big ol hunk o’ lumber whackin’ ya in the ribs that provides motivation to get into the right position.)
Now turn your shoulders, so that the number on your back (oops, forgot to mention this thought experiment is done while wearing a jersey from your favorite sports team) is pointing at your target.
Congratulations, you have now achieved position A in an ice hockey slap shot. And thus ends our thought experiment
Now to be clear, a slap shot like this is a relatively rare position, one seldom has time to get to it. It’s usually only seen in practice, or when the rest or your team has successfully set you up to take a shot like this.
The other 95 per cent of the time, hockey players use mostly some version of a snap shot, which involves torquing the blade by levering it into the ice. Those shots have zippo, nadda, rien, to do with a golf swing.
But a full on slap shot? That’s lag’s mod 1 drill done with a stick that’s long enough to fit under your chin, a marginally stiffer shaft than a golf club, and the hands split apart.
But is it a pivot driven swing? Holly Hannah, yes. That’s why ABS fits so perfectly, I can Grok what lag is getting at. The muscle memory is finally a help, not a hindrance.
As for fallin’ on your keester if ya try a pivot driven swing on ice? The trick to skating is learn to control one’s edges. Once controlled, you can create a platform which will resist rotary motion to the point where your knee ligaments will fail before it slips; a properly set inside edge has zero percent lateral movement. I know we all miss steel golf spikes, but lemme tell ya, they were like banana peel specials compared to a skate blade.
Granted, there are some elements of the hockey / golf comparison that don’t transfer over. I’ve sliced WAY to many balls into the next time zone to doubt that. And yes, a hockey player will almost without fail adopt an over the top move in golf.
But take a player who knows how to shoot a decent slapshot, but plays typical hockey player golf, show him / her lag’s mod 1 video, and I’ll give you better than Vegas odds that you will soon be watching a St. Paul-level epiphany.
And one last thought, this is all for what we’ve come to know as hitting protocol. There is no parallel for a swinging protocol in hockey, 'cept maybe when ya throw your gloves off… .
In one of the other threads, lag described the difference between hitting and swinging by the position of the club, if it were let go at impact. The swingers would be down in the hole to the right, the hitters would be up in the tree to the left. Well, that club would be right beside a hockey player’s stick, were he executing a slapshot, and let go at the appropriate time.
Anyway, I’ll turn off the Happy Gilmore mode now. Thanks for readin’ eh.
hawg1
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