My Swing (RFKFREAK)

[iacas]

Watch out getting "tight" or "narrow" at the top. Right elbow bending, going around you a bit. A full turn might not have the club going to parallel.

[RFKFREAK]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Watch out getting "tight" or "narrow" at the top. Right elbow bending, going around you a bit. A full turn might not have the club going to parallel.

I'm not quite sure what you mean.

[iacas]

6 hours ago, RFKFREAK said:

I'm not quite sure what you mean.

Really?

The right elbow bends too much and goes around you too much. Thus, you get narrow and your hands are too "tight" to your body.

[RFKFREAK]

13 hours ago, iacas said:

Really?

The right elbow bends too much and goes around you too much. Thus, you get narrow and your hands are too "tight" to your body.

Thanks for further explaining.  

So, I tried not to have my right elbow bend as much and made swings around 50%-70% speed and felt after some fat shots, I was able to get better contact.  Backswing felt a lot shorter and wide and initially like I wasn't in control of the swing but as I kept going it also got better and as expected, felt more natural.

I also noticed that I'm still coming way too inside on the backswing and thought I'd try to not have the shaft lean initiate the swing.  It got better but I feel still needs more work.  I think coming into the inside is contributing to the downswing being very steep even though it doesn't feel like it is.  I'm guessing mirror work to get the correct feel will also help that.

On the plus side, by the end of the swing pretty much all my weight is on the left foot without my actually doing anything so I feel like I'm getting more of my weight forward.   Here are today's swings:

 

 

[boogielicious]

20 hours ago, RFKFREAK said:

Thanks for further explaining.  

So, I tried not to have my right elbow bend as much and made swings around 50%-70% speed and felt after some fat shots, I was able to get better contact.  Backswing felt a lot shorter and wide and initially like I wasn't in control of the swing but as I kept going it also got better and as expected, felt more natural.

I also noticed that I'm still coming way too inside on the backswing and thought I'd try to not have the shaft lean initiate the swing.  It got better but I feel still needs more work.  I think coming into the inside is contributing to the downswing being very steep even though it doesn't feel like it is.  I'm guessing mirror work to get the correct feel will also help that.

On the plus side, by the end of the swing pretty much all my weight is on the left foot without my actually doing anything so I feel like I'm getting more of my weight forward.   Here are today's swings:

 

 

Work with shorter swings to start and try to feel the right arm having less bend. The idea is to have your right elbow in the proper position so during transition it won’t get stuck behind your right side. The thread below goes into this, as did some of the COVID drills. The video is from page 3 of the thread.

 

[RFKFREAK]

33 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Work with shorter swings to start and try to feel the right arm having less bend. The idea is to have your right elbow in the proper position so during transition it won’t get stuck behind your right side. The thread below goes into this, as did some of the COVID drills. The video is from page 3 of the thread.

 

Thanks, @boogielicious.

I'm about to go to the range in a few.  One thing I noticed from the video from the thread is that it appears that at the top of the back swing the forearms are pretty much on top of each other so I'll be trying to mimic that.

 

[RFKFREAK]

So, I tried to feel like I didn't bend my left arm at all to shorten the backswing and it feels pretty short here.  Also felt like my trail arm isn't bent as much.  Face on view I didn't feel like my arms were on top of each other.  I also fixed my issue of getting the club too far underneath the plane on the backswing.  Overall, felt good about the range session, though, as contact was mostly good and my distance on the few swings I took at full speed seemed to be about the same, but I'm not sure if the range I go to uses limited flight balls or not.  Anyway, here's the swings, not the best but not the worst.

 

[ChetlovesMer]

Hey brother, I'm enjoying watching your progress. Keep up the good work. 

[RFKFREAK]

1 hour ago, ChetlovesMer said:

Hey brother, I'm enjoying watching your progress. Keep up the good work. 

Thanks, sir!  Now just have to get this to translate to the scores on the course!

[iacas]

Much better.

[RFKFREAK]

28 minutes ago, iacas said:

Much better.

Thanks!

No range practice tomorrow - try to get some in Friday before playing Saturday so we'll see how this plays out.

Haven't practiced with the driver in a while but I'm guessing I should incorporate some of the same movements except for the shorter backswing piece, right?

[iacas]

Yes.

[boogielicious]

4 hours ago, RFKFREAK said:

So, I tried to feel like I didn't bend my left arm at all to shorten the backswing and it feels pretty short here.  Also felt like my trail arm isn't bent as much.  Face on view I didn't feel like my arms were on top of each other.  I also fixed my issue of getting the club too far underneath the plane on the backswing.  Overall, felt good about the range session, though, as contact was mostly good and my distance on the few swings I took at full speed seemed to be about the same, but I'm not sure if the range I go to uses limited flight balls or not.  Anyway, here's the swings, not the best but not the worst.

 

Keep at it now. Try to work the feels every day even for 5 minutes. 

[RFKFREAK]

2 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Keep at it now. Try to work the feels every day even for 5 minutes. 

Haha - Trying to get me to post in that thread? 😜

[boogielicious]

4 minutes ago, RFKFREAK said:

Haha - Trying to get me to post in that thread? 😜

Nah. We just need to reinforce swing changes to make them permanent. You will have set backs, but repeating the work helps change the picture.😉

[RFKFREAK]

23 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Nah. We just need to reinforce swing changes to make them permanent. You will have set backs, but repeating the work helps change the picture.😉

It's almost as if that's the best way to make changes stick. 

[RFKFREAK]

So, didn't have an opportunity to hit the range yesterday but did do some indoor work, albeit very little.  This morning I almost didn't go to the range because it was cold and I was lazy but found the motivation to go.

So, I kept working on shortening the backswing while trying to not flex my right arm as much.  Felt it went well. although contact was uneven and made a few regular swings of which I believe I hit only one well and distances were woefully short of what I'm used to with my 6 iron.  All that said, felt it went well.

Did some driver work, however, whereas I felt the iron swing change went fairly seamlessly, driver just felt really clunky and out of control.  Was hitting it all over on the face and didn't have any balance, which, of course, led to the ball not going very far or very straight.  My mistake was starting it out too fast, about 80% of full speed and to keep trying it at that speed rather than slowing it down sooner.  But it finally dawned on my to slow down and I felt more in control and better striking.  However, one thing I noticed was the ball was too far forward in my stance which contributed to ball striking being uneven and the flight being very low.  I also noticed that my backswing seems longer so that probably also a part of the bad ball-striking.  Then, because I planned on playing tomorrow and don't know if I'll have a chance to hit balls before playing, I decided to just groove a few drivers which, after a few swings, I was able to do.  

Anyway, here be the swings!

 

 

Edited September 18, 2020 by RFKFREAK

[boogielicious]

21 hours ago, RFKFREAK said:

My mistake was starting it out too fast, about 80% of full speed and to keep trying it at that speed rather than slowing it down sooner.  But it finally dawned on my to slow down and I felt more in control and better striking. 

This was the hardest thing for me to learn, practicing with slower swings. It took a couple of years to really be disciplined and do it. I still sometimes fall into the trap at the range of just swinging fast and wasting a session. To make the changes stick, slow it down, map the swing by going to a position and stop, etc. 

For the feel in the shorter swing, try pressing down lightly on your left thumb with your right palm at set up. That keeps the right arm from collapsing. Then slowly (like a 5 count) go to A4 and do a slight transition to A4.5 with that feel. Don’t even hit balls at first. Go up, transition, repeat. After maybe ten reps, go down to A5 or 6 then punch a shot at 60% and stop at A9 with arms extended. Repeat. Slowly up and transition, stop, then to A6 and punch at 60%. Remember to rotate your hips as you normally would. And don’t care about contact that much.

I did this drill all winter as a warmup and by March, it stuck. Film the drill and post it here.