My Swing (Lihu)

[Lihu]

Lihu,

I took a look at this thread and I think I could explain your irons shots.

My irons is also like that. Used to. My 7 irons could go 185 yards but left and right. But my driver could go 290 yards and my 3 woods also around 280. That was before and the thing is I really go for it like a long drive champion. And nobody can get good scores like that.

The swing should be relaxing with little effort. I lost tons of distance in irons. But so what. Golf is much easier when we are relaxed. It's not a distance enhancing game. It's a scoring game. We can hit 7 irons 135 yards but if it's straight and controllable and we have a relax state of mind and swing. We can score better. I know it's impressive to hit distance but it's not consistent. And the score became inconsistent.

So the objective should also change, build a relax repeatable controllable swing. And the distance will slowly come after that. Being relaxed equals better state of mind too.

Just my 2 cents .

Yeah, this is more or less my line of thinking as well.

My swing feel last week was pretty good. I hit a ton of greens playing on the course. I was a lot more relaxed during the transition and felt less "rushed" if that makes any sense? The results were pretty good. Plus, my coach has been telling me to do this all along, although, until recently I did not actually know what he meant! Now, when I was trying to capture video to prove that I can carry my 8i 155 yards, I tensed up and shot hooks and slices (pin high, but all over the course). The people behind me had their hands on their hips while waiting for me to pick up the mess I left around the green.

So, experimenting some more, I was hoping to be able to swing well even with some tension if I could just overcome it with some "aggressiveness". With this swing feeling I was hoping that if I really "went after it" maybe I could even hit further? Well,. . . no. Tried it on Tuesday evening at Santa Anita on grass and was getting pretty long distances and high flight with my MP-52 S300 all the way up to my 5i. That in itself was nice, but the unfortunate side effect was wild slices and hooks on most of the shots with the longer clubs. So, while it did go further in total path, the direction suffered a lot. Next, I tried the same thing yesterday morning at Brookside with horrible results (On a side note, I really hate hitting off mats with cement right under them. It feels like crap and I started hitting thin shots because I'm pretty sure I was lifting my head/shoulders as a reaction to prevent the pain from hitting off the cement. I'm pretty much in the category of "digger"). All I ended up doing was letting out aggression by hitting my driver the remainder of the session.

Clearly the "going after it" mentality does nothing except make my shots wild and probably decrease in distances.

What my son told me last night was to relax (which is exactly as @mvmac has been telling me to do), the results on the simulator were nice long straight shots up to 6i. The more relaxed I could get, the further and straighter my shots. I even got a couple to draw nicely. What he told me was that my actual swing speed should be faster with less effort, even though my swing is a lot slower everywhere other than at impact. This seemed to be the case. I am still working on getting this relaxed swing under "all" conditions. It seems the more relaxed, the further and straighter the ball goes. Any tension or speed in the wrong part of the swing will kill both accuracy and distance.

[newtogolf]

Yeah, thanks, and see below for my apology to you. . .

Sorry for this, it was completely unintentional that I called you a liar, that was as far from what I wanted to do as possible. I was responding as if I were hitting the balls with my 135 yard iron, and would almost never expect it to go 155 yards. Again, sorry for unintentionally accusing you.

No worries, glad to see you back here

[Lihu]

First set of drill swings.

Note that the actual drills begin at 1:20.

See if they made any difference with some casual swings immediately after the drill.

Obviously, no, at least not yet. We'll see if these drills work for the long haul.

Note: The distance to the sheet is 10 feet from the setup position. The structure is 10'x10'x10' the sheet is about 1.5' from the back and the ball is setup about 2 feet outside and back from the net. This might increase in the future.

[iacas]

@Lihu , no, that's not really how you practice. Plus I get the feeling that you were doing it purposefully to show us (post in this thread), which means it's different than how you normally practice.

I think a lot is still being lost in translation, so I encourage you to work with Mike very very soon so you know how to practice. As a reminder, pay attention to this, and note that this ball would have gone maybe 1/3 as far as it normally would have gone.

Here's the thing about that video… though the little subtle feels and pieces might be a little different*, the thing I'm working on there I've been working on for three years now. And those "new" things are just new in comparison: they're the same things I've been doing since January.

THAT is what I mean (and what others mean) by "SLOW." That video is two minutes long, and if you take out the part where I am walking and stretch my back a little, I'm spending 90 seconds rehearsing, at slow motion, checking my reflection in the mirror, exaggerating, FEELING what I'm feeling, and then, at the end, as my "reward," I get to chip that 6-iron about 70-80 yards.

That is practicing properly. Compare my video to yours, which I think you'll admit is your best effort to date. You hit your first ball at about 0:32. By 0:45 you'd hit your second (at quite a lot of speed). Then you changed what you were practicing to "try to keep lag." You hit your third ball before a minute elapsed. And I don't mean a minute from your last swing… I mean a minute of the video, which includes 10 seconds of introductory text. You then said "I don't know if I succeeded, we'll see." That is the point! You should almost immediately know whether you succeeded or not. 1:15, another ball. 1:27, another ball.

So even if we count the intro text, that's balls at 0:32, 0:45, 0:59, 1:15, 1:27. Five balls in a combined time frame of less than one minute.

And please, change the listings of the videos in post #432 back to public. C'mon…

[Lihu]

Thanks for the explanation.

@Lihu, no, that's not really how you practice. Plus I get the feeling that you were doing it purposefully to show us (post in this thread), which means it's different than how you normally practice.

I think a lot is still being lost in translation, so I encourage you to work with Mike very very soon so you know how to practice. As a reminder, pay attention to this, and note that this ball would have gone maybe 1/3 as far as it normally would have gone.

Would like to do this sometime next month, when I'm back from business travel. That was the plan about 2 months ago, but our schedules got mixed or something. . .

Originally Posted by iacas

As a reminder, pay attention to this, and note that this ball would have gone maybe 1/3 as far as it normally would have gone.

Here's the thing about that video… though the little subtle feels and pieces might be a little different*, the thing I'm working on there I've been working on for three years now. And those "new" things are just new in comparison: they're the same things I've been doing since January.

THAT is what I mean (and what others mean) by "SLOW." That video is two minutes long, and if you take out the part where I am walking and stretch my back a little, I'm spending 90 seconds rehearsing, at slow motion, checking my reflection in the mirror, exaggerating, FEELING what I'm feeling, and then, at the end, as my "reward," I get to chip that 6-iron about 70-80 yards.

That is practicing properly.

The stop motion stuff at the top of the swing was just a start. I hope to be able to build up to the point where I can start at any point in the swing and move that slowly throughout the entire swing with the ability to complete it from any point. I'm sure it takes some practice just to learn to practice.

Originally Posted by iacas

That is practicing properly. Compare my video to yours, which I think you'll admit is your best effort to date.

Definitely so. Just a "start" as I mentioned in the video.

[Lihu]

My last attempt at a drill swing for for the next 2 weeks as I am traveling. . .

Comment in the video page. I am trying to do kind of a "checklist" of things, then working on the hip turn. Trying to find a body position where turing the hip has no "resistance". That's pretty much it.

[iacas]

My last attempt at a drill swing for for the next 2 weeks as I am traveling. . .

That's fine, but please never do the thing you do from 1:19 to the end of the video again.

[Ernest Jones]

That's fine, but please never do the thing you do from 1:19 to the end of the video again.

Yeah, that little piece you tried at 1:19 looks like a major slice move to me.

[Lihu]

[QUOTE name="Lihu" url="/t/71030/my-swing-lihu/468#post_1137004"]   My last attempt at a drill swing for for the next 2 weeks as I am traveling. . . [/QUOTE] That's fine, but please never do the thing you do from 1:19 to the end of the video again.

Agreed, that was a glaring error. [quote name="Ernest Jones" url="/t/71030/my-swing-lihu/450#post_1137035"][quote name="iacas" url="/t/71030/my-swing-lihu/400_100#post_1137034"] That's fine, but please never do the thing you do from 1:19 to the end of the video again. [/quote] Yeah, that little piece you tried at 1:19 looks like a major slice move to me.[/quote] Yup, it kind of shocked me too. Although exaggerated in slow motion, I'm pretty sure that happens during my swing which explains my fade/slice tendency. Going to do major mirror work the next two weeks. Thanks, guys. This gives me something to work on.

[Ernest Jones]

Agreed, that was a glaring error. Yup, it kind of shocked me too. Although exaggerated in slow motion, I'm pretty sure that happens during my swing which explains my fade/slice tendency. Going to do major mirror work the next two weeks. Thanks, guys. This gives me something to work on.

I have made the exact same move in slow practices. It feels like a nice powerful move but it ain't. Thank God for video!

[Lihu]

[quote name="Lihu" url="/t/71030/my-swing-lihu/400_100#post_1137074"] Agreed, that was a glaring error. Yup, it kind of shocked me too. Although exaggerated in slow motion, I'm pretty sure that happens during my swing which explains my fade/slice tendency. Going to do major mirror work the next two weeks. Thanks, guys. This gives me something to work on.

I have made the exact same move in slow practices. It feels like a nice powerful move but it ain't. Thank God for video![/quote] I'm sure it's the reason I feel like a lack of speed at impact during some (many or most) of my swings. :-) I've got 2 weeks to work on it. Thanks again. . .

[mvmac]

Yeah, want to get that looking more like this.

[Lihu]

[URL=http://thesandtrap.com/content/type/61/id/120067/] [/URL] Yeah, want to get that looking more like this.[URL=http://thesandtrap.com/content/type/61/id/120066/] [/URL]

Wow, right. That was my lower scoring but shorter hitting swing! Well, that kind of settles it. I should probably go back to that swing and somehow figure out what I was doing wrong to hit so short with that swing? I didn't try the wrist loading with that swing for more than a month before going too steep. I'll deprecate to what I call swing revision 1.5. Thanks. . .

[Play4Fun]

Mirrors is better though than visual check like that

[boogielicious]

@Lihu

http://thesandtrap.com/t/75473/my-swing-boogielicious/72#post_1131691

The drill I do in the post above is a great drill to help get the trail elbow in the proper place in the downswing.  You can do this drill without a club.  I travel a bit and do this without a club.  I just grab my lead arm thumb and go through the motions slowly.  I do it in front of a mirror if I can.

[iacas]

Wow, right. That was my lower scoring but shorter hitting swing! Well, that kind of settles it. I should probably go back to that swing and somehow figure out what I was doing wrong to hit so short with that swing?

I didn't try the wrist loading with that swing for more than a month before going too steep. I'll deprecate to what I call swing revision 1.5. Thanks. . .

Your swing is your swing. It subtly changes over time, but you don't have "Swing #A43.2.1" and "Swing C7.10.19" or something like that. You just have your swing.

[Lihu]

[QUOTE name="Lihu" url="/t/71030/my-swing-lihu/468#post_1137185"] Wow, right. That was my lower scoring but shorter hitting swing! Well, that kind of settles it. I should probably go back to that swing and somehow figure out what I was doing wrong to hit so short with that swing? I didn't try the wrist loading with that swing for more than a month before going too steep. I'll deprecate to what I call swing revision 1.5. Thanks. . .[/QUOTE] Your swing is your swing. It subtly changes over time, but you don't have "Swing #A43.2.1" and "Swing C7.10.19" or something like that. You just have your swing.

Do you mean if you swing naturally or if you are actively trying to make the swing look a certain way? I'm asking because in Martial arts training you are trying for a specific movement, and simply training your body to achieve it. Not sure what you mean by your swing is your swing? In my case, it looks totally different as I'm not really swinging naturally anyway.

[Lihu]

Mirrors is better though than visual check like that

[quote name="boogielicious" url="/t/71030/my-swing-lihu/480#post_1137224"] @Lihu [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/t/75473/my-swing-boogielicious/72#post_1131691]http://thesandtrap.com/t/75473/my-swing-boogielicious/72#post_1131691[/URL] The drill I do in the post above is a great drill to help get the trail elbow in the proper place in the downswing.  You can do this drill without a club.  I travel a bit and do this without a club.  I just grab my lead arm thumb and go through the motions slowly.  I do it in front of a mirror if I can.  [/quote] Thanks, guys. The hotels I'm staying in do have lots of mirrors. I also brought a golf training fan. Will try to post videos while here. I'm currently posting while on a train in China. Even 3 years ago, I wouldn't have been able to do this. China is advancing pretty quickly! Thanks again. . .