John Erickson (Advanced Ball Striking) in 2022

[Phil McGleno]

A decade or so ago-This guy was a mini celebrity online.

But I think so much of what he thinks is done is not really done.-This video says his torso is accelerating through impact but that does not really happen with anyone good-The kinematic sequences you can measure show us that.

I have watched several of the videos on the Be Better Golf channel with John-And the BBG guy is not smart enough-or maybe he just does not want to offend- to want to challenge anything said. And he travels around and takes lessons and works on things constantly but is not improving because that is not a good way to improve-even if you have a B instructor it is often better than having eight As.

Does anyone here remember ABS or still use it?-The ABS site is not busy at all-https://forum.advancedballstriking.com/.

 

Ha ha-Jeff Mann.

Cupped Left Wrist Explained

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John, You wrote regarding Hogan’s clubface-: “The more open, the more the body can rotate aggressively and close the clubface with pivot rotation.” I...

Public Enemy Jeff #1

[iacas]

Yeah, so… I think people can get better doing some of these things, but in general, I think the advancement of science has not been particularly kind to some of these "here's what Hogan did" or "here's how you 'hold the shaft lag' on your swing" or "here's why you should swing a 6° flat lie angle" or whatever type of guys.

I also think — and I realize this is blasphemy — that Hogan was a good ball striker, for sure, but that there are probably fifty players capable of hitting it like Hogan today. Maybe more. And some of them are quite likely women.

[Warlock]

Unless I'm mistaken, this 'hitting' technique (whatever that really means) he is promoting seems to be a torso pivot driven swing of the arms/club through impact (while just passively uncocking the lead wrist). Arms being connected to the torso where body rotation squares the clubface.

I can't imagine that this type of swing could create much clubhead speed unless the golfer has a very quick torso rotation. He claims this technique will keep the clubface squarer to clubhead path because he's not using any significant lead forearm rotation and that he is maintaining lagging shaft flex through impact.  By doing the latter, he is also claiming less ball dispersion for off centre clubface strikes through impact.

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Warlock

[Vinsk]

44 minutes ago, Warlock said:

Unless I'm mistaken, this 'hitting' technique (whatever that really means) he is promoting seems to be a torso pivot driven swing of the arms/club through impact (while just passively uncocking the lead wrist). Arms being connected to the torso where body rotation squares the clubface.

I can't imagine that this type of swing could create much clubhead speed unless the golfer has a very quick torso rotation. He claims this technique will keep the clubface squarer to clubhead path because he's not using any significant lead forearm rotation and that he is maintaining lagging shaft flex through impact.  By doing the latter, he is also claiming less ball dispersion for off centre clubface strikes through impact.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had trouble getting past him sounding like Fozzy Bear. But it seems to me this guy is one of those who’s feeling something he’s not actually doing.

[iacas]

11 hours ago, Warlock said:

Unless I'm mistaken, this 'hitting' technique (whatever that really means) he is promoting seems to be a torso pivot driven swing of the arms/club through impact (while just passively uncocking the lead wrist). Arms being connected to the torso where body rotation squares the clubface.

I don't think that's an unfair simplification. He also gets (or says, and tries) very shallow, with clubs like 6-8° flat.

11 hours ago, Warlock said:

I can't imagine that this type of swing could create much clubhead speed unless the golfer has a very quick torso rotation. He claims this technique will keep the clubface squarer to clubhead path because he's not using any significant lead forearm rotation and that he is maintaining lagging shaft flex through impact.  By doing the latter, he is also claiming less ball dispersion for off centre clubface strikes through impact.

Yeah, I highly doubt he's "maintaining a lagging shaft flex." And a few other things. Maybe the era of GEARS and high-speed video and so on have left him a bit behind? I don't know.

[phillyk]

On 8/11/2022 at 11:24 AM, Phil McGleno said:

This video says his torso is accelerating through impact but that does not really happen with anyone good-The kinematic sequences you can measure show us that.

One of my favorite comparisons was that to Olympic hammer throwers. Their bodies rotationally accelerate a lot until that final step when it decelerates to transfer that built up energy to throwing the object.

[Warlock]

On 8/17/2022 at 1:00 AM, iacas said:

I don't think that's an unfair simplification. He also gets (or says, and tries) very shallow, with clubs like 6-8° flat.

Yeah, I highly doubt he's "maintaining a lagging shaft flex." And a few other things. Maybe the era of GEARS and high-speed video and so on have left him a bit behind? I don't know.

This is his proof that he's creating lagging flex through impact without striking a ball.

 

 

But if you look at his video below, you'll see what seems to be a remarkably similar frame image, but after striking a ball.

 

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by Warlock

[Big Lex]

I thought GEARS, 3D, and other similar systems have given us data that show us many previous theories of what happens in a given golf swing are not really true. 

Some correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought on GEARS we see that all golfers, no matter their swing style, create club face rotation or closing from multiple sources: The face closes because the forearms rotate...and because the lead wrist ulnar deviates....and because the lead wrist flexes...and yes also because the body turns. Body rotation closes the face relative to the target line, but the other factors close the face relative to the swing arc. 

So is it fair to say that everyone closes the face with their bodies? Among other things? 

Is Erickson's swing really doing what he says, and if so, are there really different patterns of swings which are mechanically advantageous, as is often suggested by these pre-GEARS types of theories which claim to create a better chance for a good club face angle at impact? 

I don't know how GEARS has been used to study the idea of the "best" swing; with HackMotion, studying wrist flexion/extension, radial/ulnar deviation, and rotation, they have said there are 3 basic swing patterns: 

Scott Cowx: 3 Tour Player Wrist Patterns - HackMotion

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PGA Tour coach Scott Cowx explains 3 Tour Player Lead Wrist Patterns Using the HackMotion Sensor's Data.

 

[iacas]

29 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

I thought GEARS, 3D, and other similar systems have given us data that show us many previous theories of what happens in a given golf swing are not really true. 

Is this a response to something specific?

29 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

Some correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought on GEARS we see that all golfers, no matter their swing style, create club face rotation or closing from multiple sources: The face closes because the forearms rotate...and because the lead wrist ulnar deviates....and because the lead wrist flexes...and yes also because the body turns. Body rotation closes the face relative to the target line, but the other factors close the face relative to the swing arc.

So is it fair to say that everyone closes the face with their bodies? Among other things?

The point is that you have to do ALL of those things to "square the face." Nobody squares the face with just their body either because they don't need to do all of those things, or because they didn't do their counter-part during the backswing.

29 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

Is Erickson's swing really doing what he says

No.

For one, he's not "holding shaft lag" or "keeping the face square to the target" like he says. (Those are paraphrased and not direct quotes.)

[Big Lex]

17 minutes ago, iacas said:

For one, he's not "holding shaft lag" or "keeping the face square to the target" like he says. (Those are paraphrased and not direct quotes.)

Yes!...I agree. My point about GEARS is that it really exposes the golf swing, and shows us that many previous ideas, such as the one referenced by Erickson in this thread, are simply wrong, or not what they claim to be. 

I'm not trying to smear John Erickson or anyone else who wants to try to discover a swing pattern that has a mechanical advantage. I find videos like his to be very interesting and fun to watch and think about. And when all we had were photos or mediocre quality videos of golf swings, analyses like these were at least better than someone constructing a swing theory based off nothing more than their own subjective feelings of what they thought they were doing. But they only take us so far, and they don't take us nearly as far as they claim. Sometimes they take us down dead end streets. 

GEARS and 3D have shown us that - as you point out - video is deceiving and has its limitations. He claims that the club face has stayed "looking at the target" and offers video "proof" at one point. But if he were on GEARS, I'm pretty certain we would see that the club face has indeed rotated relative to his swing arc by that point. Ditto with his claim on maintaining shaft lag or shaft flex or whatever it is. 

What I'm trying to say is that from the perspective of a student, all of these theories which claim to have a mechanical advantage or eliminate some source of variation in the swing don't really do what they say. All of us, from Hogan all the way down to weekend hackers, rotate our forearms, pivot our bodies, extend our wrists, ulnar deviate our wrists, etc etc. There is no way to hit a golf ball consistently well without learning an overall swing pattern which controls all of these different sources of variation. If Collin Morikawa varied his amount of forearm rotation by 10% from swing to swing, he would hit it all over the golf course; it's not *just* the fact that he bows his lead wrist (while some other players don't, or do it much less), it's that he's learned how to repeat a swing where his lead wrist action matches his forearm rotation, his body rotation, his degree of side bend, etc. etc. etc.  Is that fair? All this is by way of saying that chasing swing theories like Erickson's here probably holds the average golf student back, it doesn't help them get better.  

[Warlock]

On 8/23/2022 at 2:10 PM, Big Lex said:

Yes!...I agree. My point about GEARS is that it really exposes the golf swing, and shows us that many previous ideas, such as the one referenced by Erickson in this thread, are simply wrong, or not what they claim to be. 

I'm not trying to smear John Erickson or anyone else who wants to try to discover a swing pattern that has a mechanical advantage. I find videos like his to be very interesting and fun to watch and think about. And when all we had were photos or mediocre quality videos of golf swings, analyses like these were at least better than someone constructing a swing theory based off nothing more than their own subjective feelings of what they thought they were doing. But they only take us so far, and they don't take us nearly as far as they claim. Sometimes they take us down dead end streets. 

GEARS and 3D have shown us that - as you point out - video is deceiving and has its limitations. He claims that the club face has stayed "looking at the target" and offers video "proof" at one point. But if he were on GEARS, I'm pretty certain we would see that the club face has indeed rotated relative to his swing arc by that point. Ditto with his claim on maintaining shaft lag or shaft flex or whatever it is. 

What I'm trying to say is that from the perspective of a student, all of these theories which claim to have a mechanical advantage or eliminate some source of variation in the swing don't really do what they say. All of us, from Hogan all the way down to weekend hackers, rotate our forearms, pivot our bodies, extend our wrists, ulnar deviate our wrists, etc etc. There is no way to hit a golf ball consistently well without learning an overall swing pattern which controls all of these different sources of variation. If Collin Morikawa varied his amount of forearm rotation by 10% from swing to swing, he would hit it all over the golf course; it's not *just* the fact that he bows his lead wrist (while some other players don't, or do it much less), it's that he's learned how to repeat a swing where his lead wrist action matches his forearm rotation, his body rotation, his degree of side bend, etc. etc. etc.  Is that fair? All this is by way of saying that chasing swing theories like Erickson's here probably holds the average golf student back, it doesn't help them get better.  

I think you make a fair point although many of his 'students' are very defensive about any science that may question some of his claims. In response to any doubters that he can create lagging shaft flex through impact, he recently posted the youtube video below.  

 

I wish he's actually made a full swing and then run it in slow motion because it can be quite easy to create lagging shaft flex with a short backswing and 'whippy shaft/heavy clubhead'.

 

[Blades Balata]

These comments are hilarious. Read Erickson's CV on wikipedia...TGM prodigy under Ben Doyle, junior golf phenom, college All American, eight years on Pro Tours worldwide, winner the Canadian Open over Bradley Hughes, has played in the final group, on the final day, with Greg Norman...etc.. In other words a REAL pro golfer.

Visit the practice range at a tour event. The difference between tour level and club pro ball striking is (strikingly?) obvious. Pro shots sound different, flight differently and are amazingly consistent.

I've stood on Mr. Erickson's teak wood deck and seen him hit ball after ball, alternating between bullet fades and frozen rope draws. Plus, any other shot you'd like to see. But if you prefer to get your golf instruction from a man with a badminton racket, it's your call.

Dr. Balata 

[iacas]

21 hours ago, Warlock said:

…although many of his 'students' are very defensive…

Right on cue:

14 hours ago, Blades Balata said:

These comments are hilarious. Read Erickson's CV on wikipedia… TGM prodigy under Ben Doyle, junior golf phenom, college All American, eight years on Pro Tours worldwide, winner the Canadian Open over Bradley Hughes, has played in the final group, on the final day, with Greg Norman...etc.. In other words a REAL pro golfer.

The best players don't necessarily make the best instructors, and science doesn't really care what you accomplished as a player.

14 hours ago, Blades Balata said:

Visit the practice range at a tour event. The difference between tour level and club pro ball striking is (strikingly?) obvious. Pro shots sound different, flight differently and are amazingly consistent.

Nobody's said any differently.

14 hours ago, Blades Balata said:

I've stood on Mr. Erickson's teak wood deck and seen him hit ball after ball, alternating between bullet fades and frozen rope draws. Plus, any other shot you'd like to see. But if you prefer to get your golf instruction from a man with a badminton racket, it's your call.

Again, players ≠ instruction. Often the best players make the worst instructors, because they don't know how to help someone solve a problem they've never really had to solve themselves.

21 hours ago, Warlock said:

I wish he's actually made a full swing and then run it in slow motion because it can be quite easy to create lagging shaft flex with a short backswing and 'whippy shaft/heavy clubhead'.

Yeah. I'd be interested to see the full swing, with a ball, and a good 1000 (or more) speed camera along with the launch info.

It seems to me that to create "lagging shaft," two things would generally be true:

• The handle of the club would be accelerating (radially, not linearly) in a way that is out-pacing the head. That strikes me as poor or at least not optimal kinematics. Peak hand speed in many PGA Tour players occurs much earlier in the downswing.
• At the very least he's costing himself the "boost" of added clubhead speed from letting the shaft kick forward. Most Tour players deliver a forward leaning shaft at impact with almost all clubs.

As was pointed out above, he does use like ridiculously heavy heads and whatnot, too, so the shafts will probably lag those behind even after his hands stop out-accelerating his clubhead.

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Some of the comments he's made on the video are… let's go with "interesting."

• "The key is to accelerate post impact" (not sure what he's accelerating post-impact, but if you have speed left to accelerate post-impact, it's wasted, as that'd be a dumb time to accelerate).
• "I used a driver with probably a regular shaft and a heavy head so we can actually see the shaft stressing." (So, a party trick? I have some GForce golf shafts. I can probably deliver the club in lag with those if I want to. But why would I want to?)
• "What is a full swing? That is a pretty ridiculous comment actually." (One that goes back probably farther than the swing you demonstrated? Past hip height with the hands?)
• "Students learn to accelerate through the strike with their post impact pivot thrust" (We don't see these types of things from ANY good players these days. Has he done any kinematic sequencing stuff?)
• "One of the first things you don't understand is that the longitudinal force stretches the shaft downward and straightens it" (Ummm, no, the club's CG wants to line up with that… which puts the clubhead and shaft in lead deflection.)
• "I haven't seen even one scientist than can properly define the difference. Or trying to analyze a golf swing by only looking at ball flight.. with no consideration for mass of the clubhead. f=ma or p=mv they don't even consider such basic fundamentals of physics." (Oh no. I won't even get into how bad it is that he did "f=ma" here, except to link again to this).

You're basically in over your head when it comes to the science! Also nice open club face at the impact interval , you realize that the club head in your demo is open at impact due to your so called holding shaft flex which makes it impossible at that point to square the face.

The shaft is supposed to flex in the swing like this...right from "A TGM SCIENTIST" http://www.theswingengineer.com/faq8.html

PLUS THIS FROM A REAL SCIENTIST

https://people.stfx.ca/smackenz/Publications/MacKenzie%202010%20Understanding%20the%20mechanisms%20of%20shaft%20deflection%20in%20the%20downswing.pdf

Because of the offset position of the club head’s center of mass, the shaft was gradually pulled into its maximum leading position (1.22 cm) at impact. Similarly, the shaft was gradually pulled into its maximum toe-down position (-1.33 cm) at impact when radial force acted as the lone contributor to shaft deflection.

I did invite John to come get on my GEARS system, though:

Quote

I'd like to invite you to spend a full day, free, on my GEARS system. Maybe even two (it can get tiring), depending on the timing and your availability. We can measure things like your hand speed, your clubhead speed, the shaft deflection, your hip speed, etc. You can record any video you want and I'll screen record anything you want from the GEARS session. You can bring whatever equipment you'd like.

The offer has no time limit.

[Big Lex]

22 hours ago, Warlock said:

I think you make a fair point although many of his 'students' are very defensive about any science that may question some of his claims. In response to any doubters that he can create lagging shaft flex through impact, he recently posted the youtube video below. 

I wish he's actually made a full swing and then run it in slow motion because it can be quite easy to create lagging shaft flex with a short backswing and 'whippy shaft/heavy clubhead'.

 

Opinions and ideas about the golf swing - what really happens, is there a "best" way to swing, what causes what, etc. - are interesting in and of themselves. The Golfing Machine is an extremely detailed and complicated book written in a decidedly low-tech fashion in a much lower tech era than today, yet the fascination with it and the interest in it only seems to grow. I got no problem with any of this. 

And when we didn't actually know what happened in a golf swing, these ideas and treatises were more compelling still, because (for people like me anyway) they offered the promise of a key which unlocked a better game. 

But all that's changed, with the advent of 3D motion capture systems, and advanced motion science studies by people like Dr. Kwon, Sacho Mackenzie, and probably several others. Ideas like Erickson's are less powerful as teaching tools today, because we have so many better tools that actually measure what we are doing. That isn't to say that Erickson's method isn't valid. Depending on one's perspective, it doesn't really matter whether the shaft does or doesn't do what he thinks it does, or whether modern tour players do it or don't. What matters is it works for him, and it's his conception of the swing. But just because one person has success with their idea and concept doesn't prove it's scientifically valid as the person describes it. 

It also doesn't prove that it's the best way or even a better way for ordinary people to play golf. 

A whole school ("Natural Golf") was created around Moe Norman's swing, and it failed. I read some comments from one of the people involved in that school, and the problem was that the people who really embraced the method hit the ball so much shorter than they normally did, without a significant improvement in directional accuracy. Basically it worked for Moe Norman (and maybe a few others), but not for everyone. 

It would really be great for someone like Erickson to take up @iacas's offer and get on GEARS. Not to prove him right or wrong, but to learn. To have an expert striker, who has thought about the swing so much, and experimented so much, for that golfer to be armed with the detailed data from 3D motion capture systems would only HELP him, and enrich and refine his ideas. 

Edited August 25, 2022 by Big Lex

[Carl3]

On 8/16/2022 at 8:00 PM, iacas said:

clubs like 6-8° flat

Do you mind explaining what this exactly is? Sounds intersting. Very curious.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Carl3

[Big Lex]

35 minutes ago, Carl3 said:

Do you mind explaining what this exactly is? Sounds intersting. Very curious.

Flat lie angle. Erickson plays clubs that are 6-8 degrees flat. He claims that this helps accuracy with respect to the club face being open or closed at impact. If you think of a hockey stick where the striking face is at right angle to the handle (L-shaped).....if you twist the handle on its axis, the face of the stick will rotate, pointing left or right. If the stick is perfectly flat, however, meaning it's just a straight board, like a capital letter I but lying horizontal...if you twist the handle of this "club," the striking face doesn't rotate left or right at all, it just rotates up and down. So loft changes, but not direction. 

Whether this has a practical, real advantage in golf clubs, i.e., within a range of 10 degrees between clubs of say 4 degrees upright to 6 degrees flat, I have no idea. 

 

[Carl3]

9 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

Flat lie angle. Erickson plays clubs that are 6-8 degrees flat. He claims that this helps accuracy with respect to the club face being open or closed at impact. If you think of a hockey stick where the striking face is at right angle to the handle (L-shaped).....if you twist the handle on its axis, the face of the stick will rotate, pointing left or right. If the stick is perfectly flat, however, meaning it's just a straight board, like a capital letter I but lying horizontal...if you twist the handle of this "club," the striking face doesn't rotate left or right at all, it just rotates up and down. So loft changes, but not direction. 

Whether this has a practical, real advantage in golf clubs, i.e., within a range of 10 degrees between clubs of say 4 degrees upright to 6 degrees flat, I have no idea. 

 

And this is 6 to 8 degrees flat from a "standard" lie angle for a given club. That adds to the confusion for me, but thanks for clearing that up. Looks like someone would be hard pressed to find a club maker to bend a club that much.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Carl3

[iacas]

2 hours ago, Big Lex said:

yet the fascination with it and the interest in it only seems to grow

It's not growing, no.

2 hours ago, Big Lex said:

Ideas like Erickson's are less powerful as teaching tools today

And let me be clear about two things:

• John is a very, very, very good player.
• He's taught a lot of people to become much better players. His feels, whether they're "real," can help people play better golf.

Teachers who had the ball flight laws wrong still taught some players to get a lot better at golf.

I'm never talking about John's "feels" or whether they're accurate. Today alone I told people to feel that they didn't bend their trail elbow at all, that they kept their lead arm pinned to their chest, that their lead knee didn't transfer back at all, etc. All not real, but that's what feel they needed to produce better mechanics.

Undoubtedly what John feels he does (whether he does it or not) can help others play better golf and improve their mechanics.

2 hours ago, Big Lex said:

It would really be great for someone like Erickson to take up @iacas's offer and get on GEARS. Not to prove him right or wrong, but to learn.

Well…

4 hours ago, iacas said:

I did invite John to come get on my GEARS system, though:

The offer has no time limit.

I'll reach out later today. After I mow the lawn.

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On to some other things he's said since this morning:

• No matter what I post, folks locked into swinging release belief system still will not believe it, because most of the "scientists" collecting golf data are studying swinger's and not hitters. (I'm not a fan of the distinction. Your arms both push and pull in the golf swing, and "hitter" versus "swinger" is more a feel than an actual "fact". At best, it's a spectrum. And who are the modern-day "hitters" and if there are none, why is that?)
• If you shorten the backswing, put less stress on the shaft at transition, swing a heavier club and greatly increase the hand action at the bottom (not passive) and greatly increase the post impact pivot acceleration beyond lowpoint, that's the best way to do it. (What's the point in that? Just to show you can do it? Who cares? Can you do it playing golf? Is it "best" for playing golf, or are you costing yourself speed?)
• The reason the greatest strikers were different was because they did things differently. They weren't just better that timing the release, they used a different technique that seems to really upset the science world because they have built their machinery and a belief system around it studying the normal swing and not the advanced swing. (These kinds of claims just make me shake my head. Scientists haven't studied "the advanced swing"? You know, like the millions or billions of dollars in GEARS, or on ENSO, or… any of the other systems we have?)