My Swing (iacas)

[iacas]

21 hours ago, colin007 said:

Hey @iacas, with practicing the way you do, standing with your torso slightly tilted for a minute or more at a time rehearsing and re-rehearsing, do you ever experience lower back issues?

Not really, no.

I mean, I know what you’re talking about, but generally, no. I have pretty strong legs, so I think that’s a big part of it. My arms aren’t exactly huge, and my belly is a bit smaller now.

[iacas]

So two things are my focus for the next three weeks:

• Keeping left wrist extension (not flexion) during the backswing. Left wrist cupped. I go arched during late backswing and that f***s up the right wrist and the right elbow. Causes a steepening move, and shuts the face, but I still tend to swing out slightly. So I get straight over-draws or if I don't force it inside, some big pulls.
• Left arm not anywhere near as deep. This starts early — from A1.5.

Three swings here from VERY early in today's practice:

• Swing 1 — bad wrist.
• Swing 2 — almost the same.
• Swing 3 — Long, but maintained the left wrist cupping longer. Too deep, though.

[iacas]

From the 5 Minutes Daily topic:

Hit about 35 balls at Chautauqua before lessons today. The first four or five weren't great, so I really slowed down. I put a little stick between my feet and the ball to feel like my hands traced straight back. I almost felt like the handle went first, and the head stayed down by the ball for a split second, to help cup the left wrist. Then I hinged it up and out away from me, then just hit it. Sometimes after a pause. Lots of straight shots, more divots than usual, good session.

The initial takeaway seems to get me a bit more of a divot if I feel my left rib cage work under a little. I think tying those two bits together was good.

[iacas]

So I wanted to detail a bit of what I was doing during the four hour session (not all of which was spent hitting balls, but I got downtown at 8:45 and left just after 4pm, so a good chunk of it was, particularly after 11:30 as we built a training aid and I helped Matt start out with his stuff). @saevel25 was there most of the time, and @NatalieB was there for a chunk toward the end.

I recorded this at 12:10 or so. I had mostly been warming up, experimenting, etc. I like to get early video because it usually tells me:

• How exaggerated I have to feel that day (i.e. it gives me a kick in the pants to do it more)
• Whether I'm ignoring something else because I'm so focused on one specific thing.

In this video, I'm rehearsing:

• Straight back start and then…
• … hinge the club out and up (which feels in front of my face, but with the rotation, carries around me quite a bit).

I'm not worried much about the little wrist arching toward the top, though I want that delayed longer. But what this video showed me is that I'm pretty good about this bit - I can take it back and get it up pretty well. Sure, it still feels exaggerated, but okay.

Mid-way through the day I took another video just keeping the left wrist cupped a bit longer:

Good. I did that. So you'll notice if you watch the last slow downswing that though I'm just starting to add a bit of the "lay the shaft down" feeling, it's not really in there much. I know I can take care of this with an alignment stick angled in front of me on the target line, so I'm not worried about that. That can come in a few days. Maybe a week.

But, since I can take care of it with a stick in the ground in front of me, I'll begin doing work with that soon, because it's "free," and easy.

These are familiar feels. I worked with them in March and April last year, and started the year on a terrific heater, playing some kick-ass, "easy" golf.

---

One takeaway here is that I would hope people would notice two things:

• How many rehearsals I take for each ball. The two videos are about 1:40 in length… and I hit two golf balls. If you have 35 golf balls in a small bucket at the range, you can easily spend 30 minutes hitting those balls, and get more out of THAT time than almost everyone else does out of a large that they hit in about the same amount of time.
• How exaggerated the rehearsals are. When i have to hit a golf ball on the course, it's going to feel at least as exaggerated yet probably be only 1/3 as much (right now).

---

As @saevel25 hinted at somewhere, I showed him how I could make a ridiculously exaggerated backswing… pause, even look in the mirror quickly, and then just SMASH the ever-lovin'-piss out of the ball, and it feels like nothing.

I showed him this with a 6I. Then he came over while I was hitting a 3I (a muscle back blade, the Nike VR Pro II) and just roasted the hell out of one. So crisp, clean, effortless.

It always reminds me of the Ian Poulter "Playing Lessons with the Pros" with Stephanie Sparks. He showed her that if he pre-set his wrists to about A2, and swung from there, he said "he flushes it every time." She said "Why don't you play that way?" He replied "Because… " and basically said that people would make fun of him. She said "If I could guarantee you'd win a major, would you do it?" His reply was "Uhhhhh, get back to me in five years." (Stephanie Sparks hosting tells you this was ~14 years ago).

So sometimes I wonder "should I just play golf like this?" And the answer is… people would make fun of you. Plus, you probably don't absolutely flush it as often as you think. But it can — and should — stress to you how:

• much you have to exaggerate.
• how freeing it feels to do it, how little effort it takes to hit a ball from the "right" spots.
• how much you can slow the backswing down.
• how important the backswing is in getting into the right spots.

I hope my work here can help you, even if it's mostly written up for me. 🙂

[iacas]

A little of my work/practice today.

Going to start working on the transition/downswing here soon.

[iacas]

July 4:

https://www.gamegolf.com/player/iacas/round/3070448

July 5:

https://www.gamegolf.com/player/iacas/round/3070833

A bit of my one-hour practice session yesterday, July 4…

I will start each session off by doing an early checkpoint. What I mean by this is that I'll check that my backswing feels are good. This was particularly important today as I had two very, very bad sessions yesterday.

I think what I was feeling the day before was my right elbow being kinda "high" and almost internally rotated too early, with my right shoulder not staying "down" and my elbow not pointing "down" much early in the backswing, which makes it tough to get into a decent position at the top. So this swing is a bit "over the top" (in my way), but that doesn't matter, because the backswing is good (exaggerated, but good):

So then I moved onto doing the transition/downswing. I have to kinda "throw" the clubhead behind and away from me a bit. Since the transition is not something you can do "slowly," or at least it's not something I can ever really practice well slowly, this is as "rapid fire" as I will ever really get in a practice session.

What you will see is that I'm trying to exaggerate the transition move here.

I thought I'd only made one of those swings in slow motion, but I got two and the intermediate "reaching out and getting another ball" is in there, slow, too. Sorry.

I feel good about this. The thing is, these are ALL exaggerated. I'm surprised at how well I can do this and hit the ball, but done properly it feels like I have a lot more "room" and the speed is much easier. I'm watching a little bit of the EE which is going to make it tougher to get my elbow in front, but my weight loss should make that easier, too, right? 😄

Anyway… I have another few longer practice sessions scheduled. My wedges always feel a bit funny, because I'm exaggerating how far up and steep and out the club is early, so partial swings are always a bit funny during this exaggeration period. But I should be okay by the 17th.

[iacas]

A little update on my 35-minute session today.

I started out hitting some chippy 8I. Just like 120 yards, something like that. I hit them okay.

Then I took a little break to hit a few short chips and pitches. I've been catching the new SMS wedges on the toe a bit. Little too much early rotation with ma face. 😄 But anyway, just a way of slowing things down a little bit, by hitting those shots.

When I went back to some 8I, I focused on an older feeling I had. It's funny how I'm re-acquainting myself with some of these old feels, but if I try to jump to one before I'm ready, it doesn't "work" or feel quite right. But when I'm ready, I'm like "oh, wait, I KNOW THAT FEEL!"

So today the newly re-discovered old feel is that at the top my right palm turns in such a way that the face feels like 60° open. The right palm stays facing out away from me on the backswing (and almost a tiny bit toward the ground, feeling only), and then faces 90° up and out away from me to start the downswing and stays there a bit throughout.

Hit some very easy, solid 8I with some divots. It's almost surprising, still, how straight the ball can come out when it still feels like the face is like 45° open, but that's how it felt last year too.

I have to dial in the specifics here but it's a familiar feel and I think it's working out pretty well — it makes the swing feel pretty good and relatively simple.

I messed around briefly with a little "stick the butt out in transition" feel during the downswing, but that's not needed right now.

Onward and upward.

[billchao]

4 minutes ago, iacas said:

It's funny how I'm re-acquainting myself with some of these old feels, but if I try to jump to one before I'm ready, it doesn't "work" or feel quite right. But when I'm ready, I'm like "oh, wait, I KNOW THAT FEEL!"

It's funny that you mention this, because the same happens with me. The last piece you taught me isn't something that's new to me, it just never worked with my swing in the past.

You sound like you're putting in a lot of work lately. Two more weeks!

[iacas]

Did a little work downtown today before a certain someone who may or may not be related to me showed up for some work on her game…

This shows a bit of the practice session.

I'm finding that I'm able to re-find and re-discover feels that "worked" for me last year, but if I just remember them and try to do them before the "before" pieces are in place, they don't "work."

Today I was able to have the "feel like the right palm faces out even past impact" feel I had last year. It feels like it's 45° open, maybe more.

I wrote the same thing yesterday, and it's just a continuation. This video will look similar.

---

Disappointingly, I went to play today and though I hit a few good shots, I filmed myself later on the course and saw that my swing was getting WAY too long and the right elbow was getting very, very bent (which for me is not too bad, but I'm being dramatic as a kick-myself-in-the-ass move).

So, more of that work, with very, very little "arms" doing stuff. I hit a driver on 18 that felt much shorter, and which @DrizZzY said was shorter/better/wider. It still went far, and felt like it had less effort.

[chspeed]

On 7/7/2021 at 9:14 PM, iacas said:

I filmed myself later on the course and saw that my swing was getting WAY too long

My friend has the theory that there are people with naturally long swings and naturally short swings, and that no matter how much you work, you'll always end up reverting to your natural swing length. Do you think you just have a naturally longer swing and that it's a losing battle? Or is this something that is changeable in people with enough work?

[iacas]

2 hours ago, chspeed said:

My friend has the theory that there are people with naturally long swings and naturally short swings, and that no matter how much you work, you'll always end up reverting to your natural swing length. Do you think you just have a naturally longer swing and that it's a losing battle? Or is this something that is changeable in people with enough work?

I can and have changed it.

In trying to do something with my swing (I'm being vague as it doesn't matter), it got long because I was "making sure" I "did" that "thing." I just only needed to "do" it like 20%.

---

But no, I don't buy into the idea that swings are naturally long or short. People do things because of reasons, and can work to change them.

[iacas]

Just some full speed stuff today, which I'm mixing in more and more as we get closer to the Sand Valley trip. And, honestly, because it's easier and easier to do.

These were pretty early (and not 100% level) in the session, and focused mostly on backswing length:

Not bad.

I'm pretty happy with those. I wasn't trying super hard to "do" anything with the backswing. After these videos (the DL is a bit steeper than i like on the downswing), I messed with not only "not letting the right elbow collapse" but actually expanding it out and down while the right palm faces open as a way of being more "active" about right elbow maintenance. Hit some crushers.

Pretty pleased, but not getting ahead of myself. Should have a long practice session set up tomorrow.

[iacas]

I'll have to work on the wrist stuff later on. It still loves to go a bit arched at the top, a bit sooner.

I'm having good success with a few feels. The right elbow diving down, the right palm out, the elbow expanding quickly.

It'll upload eventually. 🙂

[iacas]

Made some swings today where I took what felt like a half backswing (which I know is going to be like almost 3/4), and I was pretty close. And, as you can expect… the ball goes about 95% as far as normal. 😄

Mid-late backswing:

The end of the backswing (9I):

[iacas]

Spent about 45 minutes doing this stuff:

I like how the guy in the background (Brian) hits two balls in about 2/3 of the time it takes me to hit the one. 😄

[SunkTheBirdie]

 

This exaggeration drill looks a bit like Ledbetter's A swing.

:)

Steep to Shallow >> Shallow to Steep.  

Do you have any videos of your swing  with the GEARS  avatar (but your swing data) ?

[iacas]

21 minutes ago, SunkTheBirdie said:

This exaggeration drill looks a bit like Ledbetter's A swing.

A bit. It's not like he invented it. 🙂

21 minutes ago, SunkTheBirdie said:

Steep to Shallow >> Shallow to Steep.

Truth be told I don't really want to be either of those things.

21 minutes ago, SunkTheBirdie said:

Do you have any videos of your swing  with the GEARS  avatar (but your swing data) ?

Not yet.

[SunkTheBirdie]

Steep to Shallow >> Shallow to Steep (for beginners)(as an anti-flat.and.inside tool).