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Post by playa on Dec 14, 2012 8:24:01 GMT -5
Just had a chance to glance over couple golf sites. As usual, it has been a treat, not.
Jeffy group is doing some outstanding due diligence incorporating TM and video. 2 thumbs up. Can't please all the people all the time. Might as well doing your own thing if you have a chance. I trust Jeffy has enough background in science doing a good review and have it published. In the long run, arriving at some true findings through scientific methods and analyses is always the best policy, not necessarily comfort food. Can't wait to see how Manzella wiggles out of this one, now that others not in his camp are doing some real science, not just talking it. I remember Manzella used to taunt other teachers without a TM and sign off his posting with a line to the effect that teaching --albeit blindly in his case-- must incorporate the use of TM.
Manzella must be rolling in his bed wondering about some counter-measures, not to advance knowledge, not to help people open their minds, but to sell his brand of guess what is the next flavor of the week preaching.
To be fair, one thing that both camps got totally wrong is the role of hip rotation around impact. Both camps are missing the point that with individual human anatomy it is possible--actually, mandatory-- to arrive at ideal impact acceleration profile on an individual basis. It is wrong for Jeffy camp to assume because some elite players "accelerate" into impact therefore others will play the most optimal golf following so. In theory it makes sense but just not the way they go about presenting and arguing it. It is misleading on some level as well. And here is why:
The point of contention is that Jeffy camp insists on acceleration through impact and Manzella camp claims otherwise (actually do people even know what Manzella claims???). One insists black the other of course white. Neither leaves room for shades of gray. It is a moot point because both camps are indeed saying accel into impact (I am giving the benefit of doubt for Manzella here as you can see) but because of human physiology and swing dynamics a few can indeed accel through while most cannot. Cannot does not mean not trying. The current debate equates "cannot" as "not trying".
As upper trunk turn catches up with the hip turn, allowing more range for the hips to turn further, with most people, one sees a second phase of accel, as well demo-ed by Rory. There is absolutely no evidence indicating that this 2- phase accel model is in any way inferior to the 1-phase ideal being promoted by the Jeffy camp. Jeffy camp comes up way short in explaining this 2-phase finding and labeling as inferior or even wrong. Coining them non-gold medal players simply does not cut it. There are so many ways to study the 1 vs 2 phasers and not one single study has been done so far but I digress.
Bottom line: accel into impact, don't brace the hip prior to impact consciously or on purpose. Complete a complete hip turn as much as possible. Then, whatever manifests itself, whether 1 phase or 2 phase accel, is a physiological model an individual may want to follow.
If hip turn is complete and non-stop (on purpose), wrist stability, a big thing to Jeffy camp, will be maintained because the physiological lag will be maximized and optimized and subsequently properly released. With a good and solid hip turn, advocated by Jeffy camp (not really that clearly taught by Manzella whose alpha beta gamma forces totally leave hip rotation out of the picture as one would expect!), it is IMPOSSIBLE to flip or early release the wrist because the physical laws of inertia governing this Earth prevent that! In fact, Manzella never quite understands why his out-toss theory is a stillborn because he never quite understands the relationship of sequencing between hip rotation and wrist hinge. In other words, to have an effective out-toss--let's be idiotic for a moment-- one must brace and stop the hip rotation. No wonder his students don't get better and those who do are those who in fact did not really understand him! It is really quite comical that his followers would express gratitude for finally understanding something Manzella "taught" YEARS later. What a farce!
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Post by Richie3Jack on Dec 14, 2012 9:50:08 GMT -5
Thanks for the post, Playa.
It’s difficult for me to take Brian and Co. without skepticism. I think they have some great ideas and concepts, but their work is very agenda driven and when it’s pointed out that somebody else discovered some of those things years ago, they act utterly immature about it.
Brian’s main agenda is to denounce TGM. The first video that Mike Jacobs did on ‘The New Release’ probably could have been titled ‘We Hate Lynn Blake.’ For Brian, it’s a real coup for him to believe he debunks anything related to TGM because two other popular swing camps, M.O.R.A.D. and S&T get their roots from TGM. So debunk TGM and he thinks he gets the others to fall with it
So what we get is research done with falsifying TGM in mind. Most of his scientists, such as Steve Nesbit and Sasho Mackenzie, I really like their work. But the problem is that Brian is the one interpreting their findings and he is trying to make the evidence fit to his anti-TGM agenda.
Case in point, the entire handle dragging argument. Handle dragging is very TGM based. But, they have no adequate way of determining if somebody is indeed ‘handle dragging.’ Even the horse’s mouth stated that you could only determine handle dragging by asking the golfer if they feel like they are trying to drag the handle. That’s beyond silly given that more often than not ‘the feel ain’t real.’ And for being Mr. Science, there is nothing scientific about it.
Earlier this year, somebody asked what happened to Boo Weekley as he didn’t make the top-125 on the Money List in 2011. The reply was that ‘he was a handle dragger who got hot for a few years and then his handle dragging caught up to him.’
There was no mention of how they determined if Weekley handled dragged. Hell, I doubt they ever asked him if he was a handle dragger. But, we do know that Weekley’s swing instructor is Mark Blackburn, a TGM AI and somebody who has worked with M.O.R.A.D. in the past. We also know that Trackman data shows his attack angle being about -3 to -3.5°. So they assumed he was a ‘handle dragger’ and because he struggled to earn money on Tour in 2011, that fit their agenda.
They then claimed how they much preferred somebody like Brandt Snedker’s swing because he didn’t handle drag and he would ‘light up a Trackman.’ And that Weekley may ‘sound good on the range’, but they would ‘rather have Brandt’s Trackman numbers.’
When I pointed out that the reason why Weekley didn’t make the top-125 on the Money List was hit putting was so poor and that he is still an elite ballstriker, they bristled at that notion. In fact, Weekley was the most effective driver of the ball on Tour in 2011. He was longer, more accurate and more precise off the tee than Snedeker. He also generates about 5 mph more clubhead speed than Snedeker, which goes against their theory that handle dragging will lower your clubhead speed.
Instead of doing a mea culpa, the attack was against statistics. Eventually I shot down all of their arguments because it’s impossible to argue that a golfer who hits it further, more accurately and more precise off the tee with more clubhead speed is a lesser driver of the ball.
Then the counter to that was Mike Finney making a post out of the blue showing Snedeker’s earnings in 2012 being more than Weekley’s earnings. The issue was ballstriking, not who earned more. Everybody knows that Snedeker is a tremendous putter while Weekley is typically the worst putter on Tour. If that is their style of arguing, it really presents a problem for me when it comes to trusting what they are saying.
I stayed away from the hip acceleration argument simply because I have no idea if good ballstrikers or long hitters always accelerate their hips. I don’t think this issue is TGM related, but given how Brian and Co. tend to argue things they have to do more in order to make me think they are correct. Ironically, I spoke to teacher who has studied this recently and he tends to agree with your sentiments, playa.
As far as Trackman goes, I don’t think Brian is being honest about his relationship with the company. I think it’s a great tool, but there are things to work around with it. Over the past 12 months, I was getting readers who owned Trackman tell me some of the problems they have had. I started to notice it as well my last few times using the Trackman (I have full carte blanche to use one for free in Orlando).
I then got the chance to do lunch with a prominent PGA Tour player to talk about my statistical analysis and MOI matching. We eventually got onto the discussion of Trackman, which he owns, and he repeated some of the very same problems and brought up the point to me that it seemed like many of these Trackman owners have initial success with it, but then they regress back to the way they were striking it.
I think Trackman is a really good tool, but I don’t think it’s the magic pill. When I’ve voiced this, I’ve been labeled as some sort of traitor. All because Trackman has a certain teach in their back pocket.
For me, I think Manzella has some interesting work and if I thought he was a crappy teacher, he would not be on my Top-50 Instructor list. I just question his interpretation of data because he has a track record of coming up with interpretations that fit his anti-TGM agenda. And it doesn’t matter what part of the swing it has to do with.
Personally, I don't care what it is, I just want the truth. If I am proven to be wrong on something, it does not matter to me. I have no stake in any of this. All I care about is finding ways to improve.
3JACK
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Post by playa on Dec 14, 2012 11:28:43 GMT -5
Appreciate your posting 3Jack. Can't find anything that I do not concur. Almost like he peruses your forum looking for topics of interest! Just now saw a Manzella posting bragging about his yet another success with a student. One thing for sure, you can't win arguing with Manzella. He always "wins" because nobody can out-argue him with nonsense. He would shoot his foot or put a foot into his mouth just to win an argument. Case in point, he wrote "You CAN have the hips over speeding through the release and impact." Wait a minute. CAN or CANNOT??? I don't have time to follow all the posting on his forum, but didn't just recently his point of contention against Jeffy group has been the hips will invariably decel into impact and his forum showed again and again "scientific" data and graphs in support of that exact point? If no-acceleration is to be believed, then, how is it possible that all of a sudden a player now can "have the hips over speeding through the release and impact"  With Manzella, you just have to shake your head, raise your hands and walk out,,, What a farce indeed! His posting: "I gave a lesson yesterday to a person who will remain unnamed in this thread. A really good player. Competitively active and accomplished. Not a new student. The golfer my be the epitome of someone who over handle-drags and doesn't slow their hips down enough, while otherwise having a great golf swing. So we worked on—with the help of another top Manzella Instructor—getting the golfer to use their body better, use the ground better, and release the arms and wrists and club better. When they did, it was better. You CAN over handle-drag. You CAN have the hips over speeding through the release and impact. And you can be a tournament par or under shooter doing it. But this golfer can be better." |
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Post by jeffy on Dec 14, 2012 12:12:46 GMT -5
For some reason the "quote" feature is disabled, so I'll just copy a section from playa's IP:
The point of contention is that Jeffy camp insists on acceleration through impact and Manzella camp claims otherwise (actually do people even know what Manzella claims???). One insists black the other of course white. Neither leaves room for shades of gray.
Absolutely not true. Very few are physically capable of doing it, so we can hardly "insist" on it!!!
What we think is lunacy is the idea of deliberate hip "braking", "core bracing", "digging in the toes", "keep the left foot planted", etc., the nostrums of the kinetic sequence set, which you don't see in the lower body and footwork of elite swingers, e.g., Bubba, Jamie, pre-2009 Tiger, on and on.
At the research-a-thon, this guy (Geoff Olohan) absolutely bombed it. Watch his lower body and foot work: a lot of Jamie and Bubba and a Scott Stallings left foot slide away from the target post-impact. After hitting about 25 drivers in the same spot on Trackman and the Phantom, his right toe had dug a crater. Had to get out the ground crew!
Jeff
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Post by jeffy on Dec 14, 2012 12:23:21 GMT -5
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Post by playa on Dec 14, 2012 13:42:11 GMT -5
Nice try Jeffy. That's bull.
What do you call the opposite of "braking", "core bracing", "digging in the toes", "keep the left foot planted"?
Ans: acceleration into impact.
Don't let couple graphs scare you into a chicken little.
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Post by jeffy on Dec 14, 2012 15:20:53 GMT -5
Nice try Jeffy. That's bull. What do you call the opposite of "braking", "core bracing", "digging in the toes", "keep the left foot planted"? Ans: acceleration into impact. Don't let couple graphs scare you into a chicken little. Bull yourself. You are way out of the loop on this. And a "couple graphs" haven't influenced our thinking on this at all. We have been aware of them, or similar graphs, all along. You have obviously missed a critical distinction. There is a factual difference between 1) accelerating or even maintaining hip rotational velocity all the way to impact and 2) maintaining or increasing the body's applied rotational torque through impact. We believe strongly that elite swingers do 2), but that very few players, including elites, achieve 1). Why? Physics. As the player's moment of inertia in the downswing increases, from the arms and club extending, it will act as a brake against the body's rotation, especially the pelvis. Having the physical goods to overcome this increasing MOI is very rare. Tapio has 4DSwing analyses of a couple of long drivers who can do it and one European tour player (Alex N o r e n). The Motion Reality data of Sadlowski that Brian posted and I subsequently graphed shows that he maintains rotational velocity to impact, but the other MATT data Bman posted shows that all of those tour pros don't. We don't dispute that at all. It is very easy to see with 300fps video. Show me anywhere that I or Kelvin "insists on acceleration through impact." Doesn't exist. Jeff  |
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Post by playa on Dec 14, 2012 15:29:49 GMT -5
That is ridiculous. Your belief or opinion is fine with me and clearly fine with you, not sure with Kelvin M. But you do not have enough people studied to justify it as a trend or a fact. I really don't need to remind you to stay scientific.
Speaking English for a second. How do you tell a golf student if he asks you about the objective and function of hip rotation.
What if the student asks: shall I continue to rotate my hips as hard and as complete as I can during the impact period?
Come on! Not that graph, because joe or jane can't comprehend that!
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Post by jeffy on Dec 14, 2012 15:51:38 GMT -5
That is ridiculous. Your belief or opinion is fine with me and clearly fine with you, not sure with Kelvin M. But you do not have enough people studied to justify it as a trend or a fact. I really don't need to remind you to stay scientific. Oh, really? Again, you are just way out of the loop. It's a long answer. Arrange for a lesson and I'll tell you. Or read Kel's articles. If the player isn't doing a bunch of other things correctly, like right side lateral bend, accelerating the hips hard through impact might hurt them. The nearly linear diagonal line on the graph shows that's Sadlowski's hip rotation is nearly constant throughout the downswing. If joe or jane can't understand that, they are pretty god damn stupid. |
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Post by playa on Dec 14, 2012 17:10:56 GMT -5
Your behavior and stance on this issue is odd at best. You are painting yourself into a corner right now and pretty soon you will be screaming for paint thinnner.
Below is Kelvin's writing:
"The second firing needs to be really explosive and it needs to drive you through the last 90 degrees of hip rotation till the end of the swing.
In a biomechanical graph, this means that Tiger has two velocity peaks for his hips and shoulders. His second hip velocity peak occurs just prior to impact and this "slingshots" his shoulders (2nd firing) into the ball with maximum force. Ben Hogan did this as well.
But Jamie's swing is even more violent and powerful. His hips and shoulders reach their 2nd velocity peaks right at impact. All of this adds to his speed AND effective mass at impact. The added mass of his body firing at high speed right at impact will add to his smash factor and higher ball speeds at impact. This is sledgehammering at its finest."
Whether the above is right or wrong is not of importance to me because science and understanding evolve. So stop the Manzellain trait of being right from the beginning of time on everything.
What matters is that nowhere Kelvin talked about velocity plateau that you are now maintaining. This is not a matter of literary interpretation liberty. A grade school student can see what is what. There is no peak to speak of if velocity stays constant. Read that again aloud.
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Post by jeffy on Dec 14, 2012 17:38:45 GMT -5
Your behavior and stance on this issue is odd at best. You are painting yourself into a corner right now and pretty soon you will be screaming for paint thinnner. Below is Kelvin's writing: "The second firing needs to be really explosive and it needs to drive you through the last 90 degrees of hip rotation till the end of the swing. In a biomechanical graph, this means that Tiger has two velocity peaks for his hips and shoulders. His second hip velocity peak occurs just prior to impact and this "slingshots" his shoulders (2nd firing) into the ball with maximum force. Ben Hogan did this as well. But Jamie's swing is even more violent and powerful. His hips and shoulders reach their 2nd velocity peaks right at impact. All of this adds to his speed AND effective mass at impact. The added mass of his body firing at high speed right at impact will add to his smash factor and higher ball speeds at impact. This is sledgehammering at its finest." Whether the above is right or wrong is not of importance to me because science and understanding evolve. So stop the Manzellain trait of being right from the beginning of time on everything. What matters is that nowhere Kelvin talked about velocity plateau that you are now maintaining. This is not a matter of literary interpretation liberty. A grade school student can see what is what. There is no peak to speak of if velocity stays constant. Read that again aloud. Oh, so the hips can't rotate at peak velocity for a period of, say, just under 0.2 seconds? That's a law of physics I wasn't aware of. Whether it is near constant velocity or accelerating, the hip rotation is not decelerating beginning when the hips are square, which the kinematic sequence guys and Manzella insist is a must and Kel firmly believes is wrong, at least for some elite swings. And to reiterate, your focus on hip angular velocity and acceleration misses the point. The important thing is the player's application of rotational force, or torque, during the entire downswing, which, in an elite swing, should not deliberately decrease, as it it will if you "dig in the toes", "brace the core", "keep the left foot planted", etc. |
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Post by jeffy on Dec 14, 2012 19:02:53 GMT -5
Your behavior and stance on this issue is odd at best. BTW, you're an expert on "odd" behavior, boldly telling the world what I think and being flat out wrong about it. |
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Post by teeace on Dec 16, 2012 12:34:24 GMT -5
I was reading Playa's opening really carefully and have to say it has very good points in it. As i've said it looks to me that hip rotation speed can be decelerating or accelerating to the impact, but it has to fit to hips orientation with the style player is using there.
For me the worst situation is when player decelerates his hips and they are not open enough yet, so it's made with muscular action to release the club. And I have seen quite much that kind of players.
Two other groups are those who stay on the trailing foot longer and use it to support those other movements. (It's about way I teach people.)And then those players who open their hips so early, that they simply cant avoid deceleration before impact.
Anyway for me the main point is that player has to accelerate his shoulders through impact and that can be made with different hip actions.
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Post by playa on Dec 16, 2012 13:14:38 GMT -5
I agree with your point about the commonly seen problem of hip not opening enough while the rotation already slowing down. The question is why. Why so common?
Because using the upper body to connect with hitting the ball is intuitive. This action does not need to be taught. Every person doing the first golf swing, without any prior golf knowledge in terms of how a good player does it, will brace the lower body and swing the upper body at the ball. That is why most people start out as slicers. That is why those who pick up a guitar and learn without a good teacher end up playing in the living room when no one is around.
One point I want to make it clear is that there is a whole world difference between hip decel observed on graphs and hip decel observed in real swing or god forbid, taught. A big difference between hip decel resulting from hip accel effort and hip decel as a result of a purposeful action.
It is perfectly okay to observe the hip in decel while the student is trying to accel. This is a point not clearly made prior and I am screaming at the top of my lungs about it. I believe this is commonly seen and not a big problem, but a beginning. With teaching and practicing, using some of Kelvin's work as aids, a student can learn to decel less, or, with a few human wonders, even learn to accel. To many regular folks, the goal is to change from decel a lot to decel as little as possible. Right here is a big difference between Kelvin and Manzella. Kelvin's work is based on this engine of motion. Manzella rarely or never talks about hip rotation and only focuses on upper body compensation moves with force and torques which are elusive on purpose so confused student end up getting lessons from him to untangle.
The most if not the only effective way to prevent overly active wrist flipping derives from an active, sustained hip rotation, be it in less deceled or even acceled mode. So the wrist flipping is dependent on the quality of hip rotation. The higher the qualify of hip rotation the less timing the wrists squaring have to rely on. The worry of hip spinning out does not apply if we apply Kelvin's lateral bend, right elbow lead, along with other moves.
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Post by teeace on Dec 16, 2012 13:28:35 GMT -5
Playa, I woild like to add bit more to that what you said about beginners.
The first instinct IMO is to try to get the club face meet the ball and there they don't even use their upper body, but hands and wrists.
And your words about players intent to accelerate even they cant do that is something I work a lot with my students, because I feel there is a way to get that acceleration and top speed closer tho the impact and by that keep the whole club moving better.
We can see from video if one stalls his hips at impact, but we can't see the amount of deceleration. I got no problem with student who drops his hip speed from 500deg/s to 350, but I always meet problems when I see people going from 300 to 50 at impact. And those problems are not only for ball flight. They also hurt them back more often and got usually lot of pain in their shoulders, upper back and also at lower back. Teaching good golf swing is not at all only for ball flight. We have to take care that people don't hurt themselves as many do.
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