Ernest Jones video

[14ledo81]

4 hours ago, Ernest Jones said:

Kinda disappointed that none of these videos are of me.

You could always change that....

[Ernest Jones]

17 minutes ago, 14ledo81 said:

You could always change that....

I was gonna, but I don't have anything recent, or at least nothing that doesn't fall into the NSFW category.  Lots of video of me swinging, but...

 

[Jack Watson]

21 hours ago, Vinsk said:

Point: Anyone can swing a golf club. Virtually any human will have an idea of 'swing this' and 'hit that ball' be it a golf ball on the ground, a base ball tossed to them, or a stationary ball on a tee. But the MECHANICS of a proper golf swing are far from natural or innate. It's the MECHANICS that are the substance of the activity at hand.

Well,  imo we are at an impasse.  I feel like the man in black here so forgive me but this classic movie scene came to mind...

Again a bit of humor never hurt but I am not gonna play "less filling tastes great"

[iacas]

20 minutes ago, Jack Watson said:

Well,  imo we are at an impasse.

We're at an impasse because you won't actually say anything of substance.

All golfers can swing a club, it's called a "golf swing" after all, but you just reply to say that they're not making a swing… they're doing something else.

Improved mechanics improve how the clubhead swings.

[Jack Watson]

@iacas

thats true,  I would say a video like this maybe shows a visual example of a swinging motion vs a crowbar leverage type action.

 

[Vinsk]

Oh! I see, I've always been just trying to leverage the ball! I need to just swing it! Eureka! Come on @Jack Watson....again, as @iacas mentioned in another post to you awhile back,  and I'm paraphrasing, most of here are trying to learn about the mechanics of the golf swing that will most efficiently provide us with better ball striking. Nobody sits around being confused about what 'swing' means. Like I said before, I think you're actually complicating what is simple and completely trying to simplify and/or disregard what is rather complicated and extremely important. I'm trying to understand you Jack, I'm just  not getting what your goal, point, belief is. 

[iacas]

51 minutes ago, Jack Watson said:

thats true,  I would say a video like this maybe shows a visual example of a swinging motion vs a crowbar leverage type action.

That's still not saying anything at all.

12 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

Oh! I see, I've always been just trying to leverage the ball! I need to just swing it! Eureka! Come on @Jack Watson....again, as Iacas mentioned in another post to you awhile back,  and I'm paraphrasing, most of here are trying to learn about the mechanics of the golf swing that will most efficiently provide us with better ball striking. Nobody sits around being confused about what 'swing' means. Like I said before, I think you're actually complicating what is simple and completely complicating and/or disregarding what is rather complicated and extremely important. I'm trying to understand you Jack, I'm just  not getting what your goal, point, belief is. 

Me either.

Say something concrete, please, @Jack Watson. Nothing you've posted has any meat to it. It's all vapid pie-in-the-sky mumbo jumbo.

What do you tell someone who is, because of poor sequencing, unhinging the club early and flipping? "No, no, don't swing it that way, swing the clubhead… uhhh… differently. Swing it better!"

C'mon…

[Jack Watson]

49 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

and I'm paraphrasing, most of here are trying to learn about the mechanics of the golf swing that will most efficiently provide us with better ball striking. Nobody sits around being confused about what 'swing' means. Like I said before, I think you're actually complicating what is simple and completely complicating and/or disregarding what is rather complicated and extremely important. I'm trying to understand you Jack, I'm just  not getting what your goal, point, belief is. 

Well,  perhaps what you say is true about everyone knowing what swing means.  (Jones used the example of the club moving like a playground swing as compared to a teeter totter in one of his books)

In that case why have so many hall of fame instructors emphasized this idea so heavily?  If everyone knows it and does it why do so many people have a hard time improving their ballstriking?

37 minutes ago, iacas said:

Say something concrete, please, @Jack Watson. Nothing you've posted has any meat to it. It's all vapid pie-in-the-sky mumbo jumbo.

Okay I will try my best,  I was trying to show someone here about how a very aggressive move with the left shoulder from the top towards the target can tend to cause casting/over the top/too much leftward path at impact in some cases.

Imo it's because the left arm is pretty much extended at the top so a violent move with the left shoulder acts directly on the left hand (obviously for a righty) moving it in a fashion that tends to apply a levering action that causes casting/over top etc.

So,  imo that's correct and it's mechanics.  

For me saying slow down etc etc back to target feel etc all that's great and good.  Another way to get the same goal would be to demonstrate:  "you swing here,  now swing here instead".   (Now show me...etc). That's like the video I showed first.  Club emphasis.  Without video in this online situation I am not sure the second way would have much effect.

Body emphasis gets real complex real fast in many cases.  I don't dispute that the swing biomechanics are very complex

So online it's very hard to keep it simple.

I just really am trying to emphasize the point that just because a concept is simple doesn't mean it lacks effectiveness or meaning,  there's  reason De La Torre and Jones were put in the hall of fame.

Conversely,  I see many post swings who clearly are swinging.

These guys and gals could maybe use the fine tuning only a true pro can provide to maximize results.  I try not to make a fool of myself with those types.

 

 

Edited June 16, 2017 by Jack Watson

[Piz]

I agree.  Useful information is subjective.  If it isn't interesting to everyone...well...that's par for the course.  

[Vinsk]

9 hours ago, Piz said:

I agree.  Useful information is subjective.  If it isn't interesting to everyone...well...that's par for the course.  

It has nothing to do with being 'interesting.' It has to do with substance, usefulness and applicability. If I ask Iacas, " What position should my lead wrist be in at impact, why, and how do I work on achieving this?"

Iacas response: Your lead wrist should be straight to slightly bowed. This is due to you optimally wanting your hands ahead of the ball, forward shaft lean with your low point of the downswing arc being just past the ball. If you cup (dorsiflex) your lead wrist, this will cause a flip which diminishes your power and consistency in a pure strike. Then he would post a link to show drills to help obtain this position. Sorry for any errors Iacas, just trying to make a point.

Jack Watson response: Ben Hogan once said he wished he had three right arms. Swinging the club is a dynamic body movement often misunderstood. Moving the club from here to there is the cake of the golf swing. Mechanics are just icing.

See the difference? If you don't, then I must say...yes, we are at an impasse.  

[iacas]

Yeah, I said I was done in this topic, and for a good while I was. But if there's anything to this, I'm discussing it hoping to draw out any nugget I can. I'm not trying to be argumentative for the sake of being argumentative, or because I disagree or because I just want to protect my way of thinking and that's that… I'm trying to draw out information, the nuggets or pieces of good, so I can learn and improve. To this point I'm just not seeing much.

And sometimes it's as simple as that I will agree with the nugget, but the other person (in this case @Jack Watson) has no idea that I incorporate that nugget into my teaching, and is arguing against some other collection of instructors that he either has seen or guesses are out there… so I'm discussing something that doesn't even really apply to me.

Do I sometimes focus on "club" cues, or extrinsic cues? Yes. All good teachers should have a bunch of tools in their toolbox. Do I think that "swing the club" is a "primary" or "foundational" thing (for lack of better words at this time)? No. I think the club is inert, and that telling people to just swing it differently is not going to work for the vast majority of people. They lack awareness of what the club is doing, where it is in space, etc. Many lack this awareness of their own bodies, which as I've said is the only thing that moves the club in space. So getting them to have the awareness of their body and to change that motion is the first step. Often.

Now, on to what was posted.

Before I go on, please, everyone: https://thesandtrap.com/how-to/mention-members. If it doesn't turn into a link, you didn't really do it right. Just putting an "@" symbol doesn't do it.

10 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

Well,  perhaps what you say is true about everyone knowing what swing means.

I don't think that's what he's saying. He's saying that you can't redefine a term like "swing" to only include "good" swings.

Everyone "swings" the club. People say (often correctly) "my golf swing sucks." You can't redefine "swing" when it's so commonly used another way. Trying to do so needlessly puts a huge roadblock in your own path. It's stupid, largely because it's semantics, and also because it's so cemented in the vocabulary.

10 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

In that case why have so many hall of fame instructors emphasized this idea so heavily?

What idea?

10 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

If everyone knows it and does it why do so many people have a hard time improving their ballstriking?

Because "Golf is Hard.®". Seriously.

And because most people don't practice. Most people don't take lessons, and of those who do, most don't practice properly (in part, because most take lessons from lousy instructors).

Anyway, that wasn't the response to my question, so I hope to have kept that part short.

10 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

Okay I will try my best,  I was trying to show someone here about how a very aggressive move with the left shoulder from the top towards the target can tend to cause casting/over the top/too much leftward path at impact in some cases.

An aggressive move in what direction? Define "aggressive"? Because from a physics standpoint, aggressively moving things further up the chain sets up for the clubhead to come in late, which preserves "lag" (not a fan of the word but it has its uses and people tend to know what it means). For example, if the hands slow down too early, the clubhead flips through impact. Feeling the hands maintain speed later into the downswing can help people achieve better impact conditions.

10 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

Imo it's because the left arm is pretty much extended at the top so a violent move with the left shoulder acts directly on the left hand (obviously for a righty) moving it in a fashion that tends to apply a levering action that causes casting/over top etc.

I don't really agree, and physics favors disagreeing with you as well. The left hand really doesn't act as a lever in the golf swing because it's almost just a "point" in space connected to the END of the clubhead. All of the mass of the clubhead is to one side of the left hand - the left hand doesn't act as a real fulcrum.

None of those really apply because the fulcrum and the force are often aligned at the left hand.

(I'm simplifying things a bit, because there are some torques and things you can apply, and of course your left hand is not a "point" but a "region" of influence… but still…)

And as I said above, in a double pendulum like many kind of simplify the golf swing to be, the forces that act on the left shoulder keep the clubhead "lagged" well behind. It's when these things slow (segment by segment, "outward") in the kinematic sequence that we see them catching up and passing. When the hands slow, the clubhead passes. Like a boat pulling a water-skier…

That's the left shoulder (rotating around its axis), pulling the left arm (objects want to line up with the forces acting on them - pull a rope north and it will line itself up to the south behind and inline with the force), which in turn pulls the clubhead.

9 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

So,  imo that's correct and it's mechanics.

I don't necessarily agree with that. In what dimension is this "violent" movement of the left shoulder? If, at the top of the backswing, the left shoulder is at 6 o'clock on an inclined clock, the left shoulder will move in three dimensions: up (toward the sky), forward (toward the target), and horizontally (away from the golf ball and toward whatever is "behind" the golfer).

That's what happens in a golf swing. If one of those is too exaggerated, the forces can shift "out of plane" for lack of better words and cause the trailing things (the arms, the clubhead) to get "out of plane."

9 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

For me saying slow down etc etc back to target feel etc all that's great and good.

Why? A lot of amateurs are actually too closed to the target at impact.

And how is that not teaching mechanics? You're teaching someone to delay rotating their torso.

9 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

Another way to get the same goal would be to demonstrate:  "you swing here,  now swing here instead".

That doesn't say anything, @Jack Watson. You're demonstrating… mechanics. You talked about the left shoulder. You talked about keeping the back to the target.

9 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

That's like the video I showed first.  Club emphasis.  Without video in this online situation I am not sure the second way would have much effect.

Maybe I'm stupid, but I'm not seeing this. It's starting to sound like simple mimicry, which again good teachers already use… but as ONE of MANY tools in their arsenal. It's mechanics but just simplifying it by maybe not using anatomical terms (which I almost never use in a lesson) or something…

9 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

Body emphasis gets real complex real fast in many cases.  I don't dispute that the swing biomechanics are very complex

I completely disagree.

And perhaps that's the crux of this "disagreement" if you'd even call it that.

In theory, and if I'm talking with a fellow instructor about biomechanics, yeah, it can get pretty complex. We can use words like "dorsiflexion" and "anterior" and things like that while discussing the effect this motion has on a body segment (or the clubhead) five segments away.

But if you think that's how I teach GOLFERS, you don't know very much about me at all. Golfers get one very simple thing. And that's it. It's my job to know how changing this affects something five segments down. It's NOT my job to explain that to the student and then test them on it, and it's not THEIR job to learn biomechanics or learn all that I know.

I don't even think many of the crappy instructors allow "body emphasis" to get "real complex real fast" because they don't know enough about the biomechanics to get into it. The crappy instructors tend to give instructions more like "just swing in to out, like a tennis shot hitting a topspin forehand." They almost tend to give less "body" lessons and feels because they don't understand the stuff well enough to know how the body works to control the clubhead.

Me, trying to get someone to swing outward more, I can look at the (making this up) 27 different things that might be causing them to swing too far to the left, and attack that cause, directly, rather than just saying "swing in to out, and feel the clubhead moving outward, and if that doesn't work, well, I don't know what else to tell you…".

9 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

So online it's very hard to keep it simple.

I think you've dumbed things down too much. So much so that you can't effectively teach many people. "Swing the clubhead." Yeah, okay… and when that doesn't work? "Swing it better." Okay… sure buddy.

9 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

I just really am trying to emphasize the point that just because a concept is simple doesn't mean it lacks effectiveness or meaning,  there's  reason De La Torre and Jones were put in the hall of fame.

I don't put much emphasis on lists. I'm on a list, and still don't put much emphasis on them. That holds very little water with me, because we've got no empirical way to measure a teacher's ability.

9 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

Conversely,  I see many post swings who clearly are swinging.

Everyone is swinging. Stop trying to re-define the term. Attempting to do so is doing you no favors.

[billchao]

11 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

If everyone knows it and does it why do so many people have a hard time improving their ballstriking?

There are a lot of reasons for this. Some people don't take lessons. Some don't take lessons from good instructors. Some aren't working on the right things. Some don't practice correctly to make changes. Some don't practice at all. Some have unrealistic expectations of improvement. I can probably keep going but I won't.

54 minutes ago, iacas said:

Do I sometimes focus on "club" cues, or extrinsic cues? Yes.

I can attest to this. I forgot what we we working on but during a lesson with Erik once, he wanted me to get a certain feel so he told me try and hit a low cut. I sucked at it yet it made sense to me what he was telling me to do, but I'm not your typical golf student.

I still can't hit a low cut BTW but that wasn't really the point of the exercise.

[Vinsk]

On 6/6/2017 at 8:28 PM, Jack Watson said:

Dimo if you can simply learn the swinging motion and focus on producing it then you can have fun even if you don't shoot 75 every time out.

@Jack Watson  Let me try a different approach. You wrote this. Read it and ask yourself what anybody who wants to improve their swing can gain from this. Again, I know some people can get that warm tingly feeling when Bagger Vance gives Juna his vision of the hole and enlightens him, but that's not reality.

'Learn the swinging motion' Vague and meaningless.

'focus on producing it' Ok, and what are you suggesting one do to do that? And please don't say....'focus.'

@iacas can get as mechanically technical as you want. He is a professional at this sport that the majority of this forum comes here to try to improve on. If you're only interested in 'having fun without shooting 75 every time out' then I'm not sure why you're posting anything regarding instruction, mechanics.

@iacas has posted many responses for you with explanations and his reasoning behind his statements. I too have stated that I don't think the golf 'swing' is the cake and the 'mechanics are the icing.' I don't really understand that unless we're trying to be poetic or Bagger Vanceish. 

What are your swing thoughts when you're playing golf? 

[Jack Watson]

17 hours ago, iacas said:

Everyone "swings" the club. People say (often correctly) "my golf swing sucks." You can't redefine "swing" when it's so commonly used another way. Trying to do so needlessly puts a huge roadblock in your own path. It's stupid, largely because it's semantics, and also because it's so cemented in the vocabulary.

Ok,  I think you have a point simply due to common usage of the term.  Obviously it's causing a ruckus when someone like me says most people don't swing.  Most people use the term to describe any attempt to use a club to strike a ball so I will go with the accepted definition from now on.

17 hours ago, iacas said:

What idea?

The idea of a hands/club focus.  As you said you often use both internal and external cues when you teach.  I have had a lesson here and there from some who simply are incapable of that.  

17 hours ago, iacas said:

Because "Golf is Hard.®". Seriously.

And because most people don't practice. Most people don't take lessons, and of those who do, most don't practice properly (in part, because most take lessons from lousy instructors).

This +1.  Golf is a tough game.  Most don't practice to build their skill and understanding.  Lousy instruction stinks also.

17 hours ago, iacas said:

An aggressive move in what direction? Define "aggressive"? Because from a physics standpoint, aggressively moving things further up the chain sets up for the clubhead to come in late, which preserves "lag" (not a fan of the word but it has its uses and people tend to know what it means). For example, if the hands slow down too early, the clubhead flips through impact. Feeling the hands maintain speed later into the downswing can help people achieve better impact conditions.

Targetward as I said but in a very linear fashion such that the handpath is disrupted from what could be considered proper or effective and also causing the golfer to be out of balance.  Posting this,  I was thinking of a swing that has a heavy pull slice path tendency.  Aggressive to me is very abrupt to the point where mechanics are breaking down.  Essentially there's no more circle.

I am not a fan of getting 'ahead of it'.  I am not a fan of the clubheads arc and position getting too much out of synch behind the torso with the type of swing mechanics I am describing.

Obviously yes imo on hands maintaining some speed.  Ok,  so we know they will slow due to many reasons but as far as intents go I think maintaining speed would be far more effective for people than trying to stop them like some kind of whip snap.  

17 hours ago, iacas said:

don't really agree, and physics favors disagreeing with you as well. The left hand really doesn't act as a lever in the golf swing because it's almost just a "point" in space connected to the END of the clubhead. All of the mass of the clubhead is to one side of the left hand - the left hand doesn't act as a real fulcrum.

Right,  what I was describing with the left shoulder thing was a case in which the fulcrum point would be between the left hand and clubhead.   I was not describing a correct action,  but a faulty one.  My apologies since I was not clear on that.   Left hand applies force to handle incorrectly on downswing due to being pulled by aggressive shoulder move clubhead moves opposite (casts a bit).   Not a good situation (a cast from the top ensues).  I am trying to describe the exact opposite of a TGM drag load type thing.

17 hours ago, iacas said:

 

And as I said above, in a double pendulum like many kind of simplify the golf swing to be, the forces that act on the left shoulder keep the clubhead "lagged" well behind. It's when these things slow (segment by segment, "outward") in the kinematic sequence that we see them catching up and passing. When the hands slow, the clubhead passes. Like a boat pulling a water-skier…

That's the left shoulder (rotating around its axis), pulling the left arm (objects want to line up with the forces acting on them - pull a rope north and it will line itself up to the south behind and inline with the force), which in turn pulls the clubhead.

I am not a huge advocate of left arm left shoulder focused swinging efforts as a feel,  but I've seen people crush it with that swing intention though like Sasho M's one armed driver.   I used to swing left dominant with right arm along for the ride. Very cool,  just not my cup of tea anymore if you will.   BUT you are showing there a thing I love.  Circular motion.  Also It would be illogical to disagree with the diagram.  That's very different from the situation which I alluded to above in the case of the leftward path golfer.  Also,  we are not iron Byron.

17 hours ago, iacas said:

I don't necessarily agree with that. In what dimension is this "violent" movement of the left shoulder? If, at the top of the backswing, the left shoulder is at 6 o'clock on an inclined clock, the left shoulder will move in three dimensions: up (toward the sky), forward (toward the target), and horizontally (away from the golf ball and toward whatever is "behind" the golfer).

That's what happens in a golf swing. If one of those is too exaggerated, the forces can shift "out of plane" for lack of better words and cause the trailing things (the arms, the clubhead) to get "out of plane."

To me yes,  I agree with the idea on a conceptual level of an efficient physics wise iron Byron like motion.  My caveat is that in some cases the ideal is unobtainable in reality for many reasons.  Sometimes you have to be creative to help a person.  On the aggressive move I referred to above imagine at six o'clock but moves in a more straight line towards the target-aggressive-quick-no more circle-clubhead and body both out of position-no bueno.  Also some of what we are talking about here is very situation specific.  Some golfers who are very efficient can have left arm matching shoulder plane at top from dtl with fairly deep hands and shoulders inclined at a nice angle.   Generally flexible young athletic types. 

Other golfers turn the shoulders with less inclination and the left arm is above shoulderline at the top.  I never thought I would ever stoop to this but I will say it matching 'pieces' is very important.  

17 hours ago, iacas said:

 

On 6/15/2017 at 8:41 PM, Jack Watson said:

For me saying slow down etc etc back to target feel etc all that's great and good.

Why? A lot of amateurs are actually too closed to the target at impact.

And how is that not teaching mechanics? You're teaching someone to delay rotating their torso.

That was a bit out of context.  I was trying to give a quick example of a body cue or internal feel that might get the desired result in a certain situation.  I.e. Feel like your back is to target a touch as you start down.  Purely a subjective feel based thing.

It absolutely is a form of teaching mechanics.  If someone is way out of sequence as I am sure you know much better than someone like me it can be a challenge to change.  The Swiss Army knife with many tools comes to mind.

17 hours ago, iacas said:

That doesn't say anything, @Jack Watson. You're demonstrating… mechanics. You talked about the left shoulder. You talked about keeping the back to the target.

Yes,  it's true,  although in general I try to avoid it if possible,  at times there's no other option.  Just like this discussion.  I am now involved in a mechanics discussion even though it was not my intent to get into one. 

A demonstration however is basically monkey see monkey do.  It's a simple way to express something difficult to communicate in words so there's advantages there.  IMO many times in instruction less is more.

17 hours ago, iacas said:

On 6/15/2017 at 8:41 PM, Jack Watson said:

 

I completely disagree.

And perhaps that's the crux of this "disagreement" if you'd even call it that.

In theory, and if I'm talking with a fellow instructor about biomechanics, yeah, it can get pretty complex. We can use words like "dorsiflexion" and "anterior" and things like that while discussing the effect this motion has on a body segment (or the clubhead) five segments away.

But if you think that's how I teach GOLFERS, you don't know very much about me at all. Golfers get one very simple thing. And that's it. It's my job to know how changing this affects something five segments down. It's NOT my job to explain that to the student and then test them on it, and it's not THEIR job to learn biomechanics or learn all that I know.

I don't even think many of the crappy instructors allow "body emphasis" to get "real complex real fast" because they don't know enough about the biomechanics to get into it. The crappy instructors tend to give instructions more like "just swing in to out, like a tennis shot hitting a topspin forehand." They almost tend to give less "body" lessons and feels because they don't understand the stuff well enough to know how the body works to control the clubhead.

Me, trying to get someone to swing outward more, I can look at the (making this up) 27 different things that might be causing them to swing too far to the left, and attack that cause, directly, rather than just saying "swing in to out, and feel the clubhead moving outward, and if that doesn't work, well, I don't know what else to tell you…".

 

Well,  for starters I don't remember the post where I made a disparaging comment towards really almost anything I have seen coming from you technically.   I believe in fact I have complimented you many times.   Why would I disparage when I like what you have made available?  It kind of occurred to me to take things back a step or two in my mind and think about like if I took a lesson from this man and he asked me what I wanted to get out of it what would I say?  Seriously I would want to put some effort into giving the right answer there in order that we could be on the same page from the start.   Maybe in the case of Internet discussion about rules and Tiger we had disagreements but I like what you have created here.  It's better than the rest.  I am not trying to criticize you with my take on golf mechanics;  It's just that sometimes I notice my tone if you will of my posts is lost over this Internet situation.  I just thought I would take a break from the multi post frenzy to say IMO if it is a disagreement of sorts regarding instruction method it is a minor one.  If I was lucky enough to be in your area I would try to setup a lesson.  

I really agree also with the gist of the quoted comments.

17 hours ago, iacas said:

On 6/15/2017 at 8:41 PM, Jack Watson said:

So online it's very hard to keep it simple.

I think you've dumbed things down too much. So much so that you can't effectively teach many people. "Swing the clubhead." Yeah, okay… and when that doesn't work? "Swing it better." Okay… sure buddy.

I never said that. 

17 hours ago, iacas said:

I don't put much emphasis on lists. I'm on a list, and still don't put much emphasis on them. That holds very little water with me, because we've got no empirical way to measure a teacher's ability.

Objective empirical way?  True.  But,  when students improve and 'buy in'  it's a sign of good things and the guys I mentioned were widely heralded as effective.  Lol in some circles people would say the same about Austin though so I do see your point here.

17 hours ago, iacas said:

eryone is swinging. Stop trying to re-define the term. Attempting to do so is doing you no favors

Ok.  You do make a strong point.  I will now use the term as most people understand it even though it irks me haha.

I think a good point to be made is that while it would be interesting to have a competition where we had un programmed golfer robots and each instructor got to program say 3 to play in the tournament field,  the results may not indicate who is the more effective teacher;  although if all Leadbetters bots shot 98 I would not be surprised.

16 hours ago, billchao said:

I can attest to this. I forgot what we we working on but during a lesson with Erik once, he wanted me to get a certain feel so he told me try and hit a low cut. I sucked at it yet it made sense to me what he was telling me to do, but I'm not your typical golf student.

I really like that kinda stuff.  I like your mechanics I have seen also. 

4 hours ago, Vinsk said:

On 6/6/2017 at 5:28 PM, Jack Watson said:

n simply learn the swinging motion and focus on producing it then you can have fun even if you don't shoot 75 every time out.

@Jack Watson  Let me try a different approach. You wrote this. Read it and ask yourself what anybody who wants to improve their swing can gain from this. Again, I know some people can get that warm tingly feeling when Bagger Vance gives Juna his vision of the hole and enlightens him, but that's not reality.

'Learn the swinging motion' Vague and meaningless.

'focus on producing it' Ok, and what are you suggesting one do to do that? And please don't say....'focus.'

I never watched the Bagger Vance but I did enjoy the greatest game ever played.

From a technical standpoint my emphasis on a circle would be very strong.   However it may not appear so based on whatever advice I might give.  Again I am talking about relatively high cappers not competitive type plus handicaps.  My advice from player to player might be opposite!

I have nothing to say to the low cap competitive sect.

Iacas drove home the point that my definition of the word swing is not the one commonly understood.  So for now in its place I will say something about circular motion until I can come up with something clear.  Absolutely,  for your understanding of the word swing your posts are logically consistent.

So in response to your questions I would emphasize the circular aspects of the mechanics espescially as related to the handpath I guess.  To me though each golfer is a snowflake in a sense.  

The bottom line is golf is a tough game and teaching it is certainly tougher.

Imo a swing is built similar to anything else.  You have a rough draft then hard plans then level the foundation then there's rough framing and electrical and plumbing and then finish.  My comments/perspective are more related to the rougher aspects of development.  The finish work or fine tuning is not for me.  The only area I have had success exists in the golfer say struggling who then is able to get low 80's and that's reality.  So I guess it's important to understand that when you talk to me.  Plus everyone is different.  You may be concerned about a wrist alignment at impact.  I would only be so if there's an obvious problem in that area.

4 hours ago, Vinsk said:

What are your swing thoughts when you're playing golf? 

My psr is very conscious and focused on alignment really.  Often from address to swing I don't even look up anymore.  Kinda crazy maybe to some  but not so much to me if you are like me and don't try to shape shots.

To be totally honest I have a sense of which way I send the clubhead going back from address  and a sense of its path coming forward through impact.  As far as verbal cues in my head?  Zero except maybe slow and soft going back if I am pushing my shots right too much. That cue would happen before the clubhead starts back if it happens at all.

Visualization?  For me really none except in short game.  Awareness of my body?  Very little.  My swing is flawed and not very good,  but I have a pretty good idea about my dispersion and very good idea of how far I carry each club.  It's hard for me to play without a rangefinder or gps.  Pacing off sprinklers is not the same as good numbers to the front or to the bunker or to carry something.  

My psr is a very conscious thing but it's all preswing.  I like my psr very much.  My swings well I would say decent at best.

4 hours ago, Vinsk said:

t as mechanically technical as you want. He is a professional at this sport that the majority of this forum comes here to try to improve on. If you're only interested in 'having fun without shooting 75 every time out' then I'm not sure why you're posting anything regarding instruction, mechanics

I don't see why there's anything wrong with sharing.  

I can get damn technical too.  I made a conscious choice to go in a direction regarding that and I am glad I did.  

I can think of some examples of ams online posting literally hundreds of swings when in fact certain fundamental flaws never change.  Every time they post it's some slightly different internal focal point they are doing that makes the swing feel like it's changing to them.  Usually they are pretty good so I have never openly commented to them but that is out there.  They make long flowery descriptions of how they did xyz to cause abc and it resulted in them having to modify dq.  It's madness when you look at it and the basic shape of the swing remains.  I want to scream NOTHING CHANGED!

Seriously,  changing an internal focal point changes the feel without affecting the mechanics.  I've been trapped there.

Ive been on a tee box and what I was trying to do was so convoluted that I could barely take the club away.  That's no way to play.

 

 

 

[iacas]

I'm going to attempt to simplify here, as we've gotten well into the weeds here.

6 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

Ok,  I think you have a point simply due to common usage of the term.

Okay. But what people were asking, though, which you never could seem to get to… is how did Ernest Jones and others teach "swinging the clubhead" or what did they mean by "swinging the clubhead." You got lost debating what a "swing" was or wasn't, and never really defined what "swinging the clubhead" was to EJ himself.

6 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

The idea of a hands/club focus.  As you said you often use both internal and external cues when you teach.  I have had a lesson here and there from some who simply are incapable of that.

You could have saved everyone a lot of time if you'd said that earlier on. If you did, we all seem to have missed it.

To that, I'd simply say this: focusing on the hands and clubhead works when the problem is with the hands and body. If the problem is the way the person is moving their hips, though, it's really difficult to get someone to fix that by talking about the clubhead or their hands. Sometimes, oftentimes perhaps, the focus can't be on the hands or clubhead to quickly and best fix the issue the golfer has.

6 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

Targetward as I said but in a very linear fashion such that the handpath is disrupted from what could be considered proper or effective and also causing the golfer to be out of balance.

I'm skipping this because I doubt the person you're talking about only moved the shoulder targetward, and not in the other dimensions.

6 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

Obviously yes imo on hands maintaining some speed.  Ok,  so we know they will slow due to many reasons but as far as intents go I think maintaining speed would be far more effective for people than trying to stop them like some kind of whip snap.

I don't know of anyone who teaches stopping them. Good or bad instructors.

6 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

Right,  what I was describing with the left shoulder thing was a case in which the fulcrum point would be between the left hand and clubhead.   I was not describing a correct action,  but a faulty one.  My apologies since I was not clear on that.   Left hand applies force to handle incorrectly on downswing due to being pulled by aggressive shoulder move clubhead moves opposite (casts a bit). Not a good situation (a cast from the top ensues).  I am trying to describe the exact opposite of a TGM drag load type thing.

I still think you have the physics wrong on that one, but… it's beside the point.

6 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

Objective empirical way?  True.  But,  when students improve and 'buy in'  it's a sign of good things and the guys I mentioned were widely heralded as effective.  Lol in some circles people would say the same about Austin though so I do see your point here.

Hank Haney is widely regarded as a great instructor. I happen to think he's terrible. Leadbetter has a good reputation (somehow), yet is also responsible for "Lead Poisoning." Etc.

6 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

From a technical standpoint my emphasis on a circle would be very strong. However it may not appear so based on whatever advice I might give.  Again I am talking about relatively high cappers not competitive type plus handicaps. My advice from player to player might be opposite!

Very little in the golf swing moves in a circle. TGM's Endless Belt describes the feeling of the hands moving in almost a straight line. The Aiming Point concept ties into that too.

The golf swing is full of arcs, but very few are - even for 90° arc - evenly circular.

6 hours ago, Jack Watson said:

I've been on a tee box and what I was trying to do was so convoluted that I could barely take the club away.  That's no way to play.

Agreed, but… again… that's neither here nor there. I don't teach people to do that either. Hell, look at my last posts in @saevel25's Member Swing topic.

[Jack Watson]

3 hours ago, iacas said:

I don't know of anyone who teaches stopping them. Good or bad instructors.

Well,  a quick search found this.  Towel snap related to ch speed.  I don't care for this analogy.

 

3 hours ago, iacas said:

Very little in the golf swing moves in a circle. TGM's Endless Belt describes the feeling of the hands moving in almost a straight line. The Aiming Point concept ties into that too.

The golf swing is full of arcs, but very few are - even for 90° arc - evenly circular.

So,  if we maintain a relatively steady head and the hands stay about the same distance away from ourselves while we turn don't we get close to a circular motion.  Ok,  not a geometrically perfect one and I realize that this photo angle is not perpendicular to the plane but still??  Also above you noted in the simplified diagram circular motion?

I remember the section in the TGM book about straight line delivery path and aiming point concept and what not.  My understanding of that as an intent would be something like "point the butt of the club at the ball and drive the hands to the aiming point (some location on the target side of the ball)".  I remember something about this generating an 'automated snap release' or something along those lines.  This intent would not be something Ernest Jones would advocate.

He wrote that the application of power in the downswing starts slow and builds smoothly. 

3 hours ago, iacas said:

I still think you have the physics wrong on that one, but… it's beside the point.

Well just imagine the club at the top and applying force to the handle from its end in a direction perpendicular to the shaft.  IMO that's very incorrect.  This is why it gets so difficult when we discuss mechanics.  

I would argue that from the top starting down the application of force should not immediately be directly at the ball.

re Haney and Lead,  I am not a fan of their work.

Ernest Jones talked in one of his books about swinging a weight on a string in a circle.  He gave the example of hit impulse leverage as if one took the hand not holding the string and pushed on the string at its midpoint.

I can see no relation between Homers idea of endless belt and Jones idea of the weight on a string.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 17, 2017 by Jack Watson

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, Jack Watson said:

Well,  a quick search found this.  Towel snap related to ch speed.  I don't care for this analogy.

He still didn't say to stop the hands. Biomechanically he's correct. The club grip never "stops" at all - it's always moving forward.

I get what you're saying, but you're misinterpreting what he's saying, too… he's suggesting a feel that may or may not work for people.

Biomechanically, the hands slow down, and that's why the clubhead passes the hands.

4 minutes ago, Jack Watson said:

Nothing in that image is truly circular.

8 minutes ago, Jack Watson said:

So,  if we maintain a relatively steady head and the hands stay about the same distance away from ourselves while we turn don't we get close to a circular motion.

I didn't say it wasn't close. I said it wasn't cirular.

Plus, if the center of rotation is the between the shoulders near the spine, the angle between the left arm and the chest changes, which changes the distance of the radius (this "URC" or "upper rotational center" to the left hand). That distance changes as PA4 (TGM terminology) releases.

8 minutes ago, Jack Watson said:

Also above you noted in the simplified diagram circular motion?

That illustrated forces and how pulling the left shoulder keeps the club trailing behind. It illustrated a moment in time, not a period of time with multiple changing radii.

8 minutes ago, Jack Watson said:

I remember the section in the TGM book about straight line delivery path and aiming point concept and what not. My understanding of that as an intent would be something like "point the butt of the club at the ball and drive the hands to the aiming point (some location on the target side of the ball)".  I remember something about this generating an 'automated snap release' or something along those lines.  This intent would not be something Ernest Jones would advocate.

Right, my point being… this feeling or concept or "feel" or mental image or thought or whatever you want to call it works for some people. @Hardspoon, for example… Tell other people to move their hands around in a wide circle and you'll get some huge flips from other people.

Do John's hands trace a straight line? Of course not. It's a feeling. Mental image. etc.

8 minutes ago, Jack Watson said:

Well just imagine the club at the top and applying force to the handle from its end in a direction perpendicular to the shaft.  IMO that's very incorrect.  This is why it gets so difficult when we discuss mechanics.

In a good golf swing there is a little force applied across the shaft in that direction at the top of the backswing.

8 minutes ago, Jack Watson said:

I would argue that from the top starting down the application of force should not immediately be directly at the ball.

Biomechanically, or from a feel perspective? Because if you're trying to say the latter, and I doubt you are, you're off base.

But the forces and torques aren't necessarily the direction you think they are, either. For example, if the clubhead drops a little in transition… the force at that moment is actually perhaps up and away from the golf ball and/or target.

---

This seems to boil down to the simple idea that you have one very specific way that you view the golf swing, and IMO that view is limiting and in some cases a little incorrect, or at the very least shelters you from the wider range in which golfers and instruction can and does often operate.

You're trying to make something simple when it's not a simple thing. You're leaving too much "stuff" out. My lessons are VERY simple, but I understand the complexity and it's my job to boil it down to a single little nut of truth that the student most needs at that moment. I do this by having many, many things at my disposal: many models, many feels, many biomechanics motions, many cues, many drills… etc. I'd fail at my job if I had to fit everything into the Ernest Jones model, or the Manuel de la Torre model.

[Jack Watson]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Biomechanically, or from a feel perspective? Because if you're trying to say the latter, and I doubt you are, you're off base.

But the forces and torques aren't necessarily the direction you think they are, either. For example, if the clubhead drops a little in transition… the force at that moment is actually perhaps up and away from the golf ball and/or target.

Good question.  I avoid the term biomechanics like the plague.  As a feel it really makes no sense to say swing in a direction other than through the ball.  IMO though I would say the forces applied to the handle from the top would not be directly at the ball.  That would not create the beginning of the ds arc correctly.

TO the second point,  I don't think there's any need to discuss the creation of torque in the shaft resulting from 'off plane' forces at the handle and if it can assist with squaring the face to path at impact.  Swings like Hogans that are very shallow very early in the ds with a steepening component mid ds create certain effects,  but discussing that's a bit beyond my pay grade.  It's opposite works too,  like the steep outside in swing just doesn't 'like' to square up to the path by impact.  I am aware that there's many shapes of swings and I am not intimately knowledgeable about most of them.  So usually I refrain from comments on that.   When I talk mechanics I refer mostly to a major fault and trying to move the swings shape closer to neutral.  

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Right, my point being… this feeling or concept or "feel" or mental image or thought or whatever you want to call it works for some peopl

No doubt.

1 hour ago, iacas said:

I understand the complexity and it's my job to boil it down to a single little nut of truth that the student most needs at that moment

The essence of it is this.  That judgement call of what advice to give is important.  Yep.  Heck maybe it's even just a feel like the straight line thing...if it gets the result it's a good thing.   Also it needs to be understandable to a person who may know very little about mechanics and just wants to improve their swing.

You mentioned perhaps my view is limited to one way of viewing the swing.  It's not really that way.  I have studied a wide variety and experimented with many ideas.  I rarely comment on a lot of it though because it's not my job.

Maybe I do dumb things down.  For a high cap it really is surprising when you hear some of the ideas they use.  A dumb down idea is better than something that's totally wrong.  One feel that really clicked with a friend of mine is just throw the clubhead with the right hand.  Sure it's way way dumbed down but for some reason he plays well for him with that.   Obviously it's not Ernest Jones but as long as it works for him what's the harm?

I am definitely ok with not having something to offer every golfer.  I am not a pro.  For some people though my way of explaining things has a positive effect.  For others it's useless.  Such is life I guess.  It's a good thing I don't have to make my living doing this or I might be in a trailer down by the river lol