Post by Richie3Jack on Jan 20, 2010 18:32:32 GMT -5
I was reading over at Manzella's forum where Manzella Academy Instructor Steve Khatib was bashing The Golfing Machine and their instructors, going so far to say that they do not get golfers hitting the ball better and fill up their students with all of this terminology.
I actually like Steve. He's a very informative poster. I'm also a 'fan' of Manzella's work. I think he's an uber dedicated teaching professional who has made it his life's goal to become the very best teacher he can possibly be. Brian once told me that if there was a guy in Guatamala who knew something new about the golf swing that what legitimate, he would fly down their tomorrow to ask the guy questions.
And you know what? I believe him. And while Brian's personality or 'tact' may not appeal to many people, I always dig a guy that I believe is that dedicated. In fact, I found his last couple of live webcam sessions to be unbelievably helpful.
That being said, I found Khatib's post to be completely wrong, misinformed and arrogant. And what's silly about it is about 5 years ago Brian was more or less a TGM 'literalist' and I doubt he filled his student's heads up with all this TGM terminology and I doubt that he couldn't get his students to start hitting the ball better. So if anything, Khatib's post was very short sighted.
But, this thread isn't here to bash Khatib because I think he's a good teacher and anybody can say something that isn't right and a bit arrogant (I do it all of the time). You deal with it, apologize, and then correct it from happening again.
Before I created this board, I asked blog readers to send me suggestions as to what they want to see out of a message and what they don't like out of message boards. The overwhelming message had to do with TGM.
Too many people that bash, too many TGM'ers that get easily offended, too much condescending words and tones, too many insults and name calling.
So, I really want to hear other people's perspective.
**************************************
From my perspective I think you have to go into how I learned TGM. I first was introduced to TGM back in 1997 by an instructor who was a protege of Tom Tomasello.
He was a very accomplished golfer himself and he really helped my game and I saw him make gigantic improvements to just about every golfer's game that he came across. And his 'lingo' that he used from TGM came down to the 'flat left wrist at impact', 'ring the bell with the left arm', 'pivot' and 'compression.'
He was actually teaching me a 'swinger' procedure, but I would never know it because he never mentioned a 'swinger' vs. a 'hitter' or 'drag loading' vs. 'drive loading.'
I eventually told him that I wanted to really learn the TGM book and he told me that you can only understand about 2 pages of it by reading it and more or less didn't want me to get involved with it because he thought that it was only something useful to swing teachers and not students.
So, does that really sound like a teacher 'filling your head with TGM terminology.'
Anyway, I wound up graduating from college and taking 8 years off from the game. I came back this past January and wanted to learn things on my own but I soon got stuck in a rut. By then I started reading Lynn Blake's Web site and decided to get some lessons from Ted Fort.
Ted works in the same way as my old college TGM AI worked, although I think Ted understands TGM much better and is even better at customizing golf swings for golfers. Furthermore, he's an expert at relating with people and understanding what they like and dislike and what clicks with them and doesn't click with them. If understanding people were the piano, his name would be Ted Beethoven.
One thing I explained to Ted in our first lesson that I was insistent on completely understanding the book that I purchased about a week before and I wanted to understand the terminology and if there was something I didn't understand, I would appreciate it if he could briefly explain it to me in our lesson. He had no problem with that request.
Still, outside of when I asked Ted the 'TGM terminology' that he filled me with was things like 'throwaway', 'right forearm on plane', 'running out of right arm', 'pivot', 'compression', 'down, out and forward' and 'bending the plane line.'
Again, if that's filling up my head with TGM terminology, then I am way too smart to be playing the game. And nobody has ever accused me of that
However, as I kept reading TGM and understanding the book and reading things from scientists, swing instructors, etc., I did realize that there were many things that didn't make TGM infallible.
However, much of the core stuff of TGM is dead on and much of the stuff that is not correct, you can see what Homer Kelley was thinking when he wrote it. And I think while the concept may be incorrect, if the golfer ran with that concept they can still use it to help their game. Plus, Homer Kelley didn't have access to the technology that we have today. Remember, the book was actually written in 1941, but wasn't published until 1969.
Endless Belt (2-K) is a good example of a concept that wasn't factually correct, but I think HK's idea was logical and if you followed much of the concept, while you wouldn't be doing exactly what HK wrote, it can still help your game. More of a 'feel isn't real' thing. A big part of Endless belt is that the hands should move at the same rate of speed on the downswing, but the clubhead actually accelerates as the downswing progresses. We now know from science that the hands slow down in the downswing as the golfer starts to release the clubhead while the clubhead accelerates. Still, the *thougth* of not actively trying to slow down your hands isn't all that bad of an idea and can help a golfer from massively decelerating or having a jerky downswing motion. And I agree with Homer on the other big part of endless belt...the bigger the pulley means the more handspeed the golfer will have to generate to keep the clubhead moving fast. And if a golfer wants to increase clubhead speed, they either need to make their pulley smaller or increase their hand speed.
I think there are a few big reasons why TGM has such a diehard following.
- For starters, it does work. If it didn't work, nobody would care.
- Many golfers grew unbelievably frustrated with popular golf instruction and that frustration grows with a game like golf where so much time, money...blood, sweat and tears can go into improving your game and only see it get worse. So when a golfer goes to TGM, improves from it, understands it...then they often steadfastly protect it because it has done them so much good.
- According to Alex Sloan, Homer's goal was to take the ambiguity out of the English language. While it's a lot of new terminology, Homer's writing in general is what is real confusing. It almost comes off as reading an odd book full of haikus. So what happens is when the golfer finally understands the book, they get a lot of those 'ah ha!' moments which can be very pleasing to readers.
- Much of the criticism comes from people that have never spent one second to read the book.
In fact, that's probably what I see most of. Usually the scenario is some swing instructor says that you need to be an MIT physicist to understand it and it teaches you only 'one way' to hit a golf ball and they don't believe there is only one swing in golf. Then you watch this teacher teach and you find that basically they are the ones teaching 'one swing' to all of their students.
Still, it's not like the TGM people are all saints here. In fact, I've just explained why there is such a diehard following and with a diehard following comes *some* people that act inappropriately or rude when their beliefs are challenged.
On this board, we certainly welcome TGM, but we welcome thought, philosophies, debate, disagreements as well. But we welcome it when it's brought forth with facts, logic and reason and not with name calling, condescending remarks and tones and obsequious posters.
3JACK
I actually like Steve. He's a very informative poster. I'm also a 'fan' of Manzella's work. I think he's an uber dedicated teaching professional who has made it his life's goal to become the very best teacher he can possibly be. Brian once told me that if there was a guy in Guatamala who knew something new about the golf swing that what legitimate, he would fly down their tomorrow to ask the guy questions.
And you know what? I believe him. And while Brian's personality or 'tact' may not appeal to many people, I always dig a guy that I believe is that dedicated. In fact, I found his last couple of live webcam sessions to be unbelievably helpful.
That being said, I found Khatib's post to be completely wrong, misinformed and arrogant. And what's silly about it is about 5 years ago Brian was more or less a TGM 'literalist' and I doubt he filled his student's heads up with all this TGM terminology and I doubt that he couldn't get his students to start hitting the ball better. So if anything, Khatib's post was very short sighted.
But, this thread isn't here to bash Khatib because I think he's a good teacher and anybody can say something that isn't right and a bit arrogant (I do it all of the time). You deal with it, apologize, and then correct it from happening again.
Before I created this board, I asked blog readers to send me suggestions as to what they want to see out of a message and what they don't like out of message boards. The overwhelming message had to do with TGM.
Too many people that bash, too many TGM'ers that get easily offended, too much condescending words and tones, too many insults and name calling.
So, I really want to hear other people's perspective.
**************************************
From my perspective I think you have to go into how I learned TGM. I first was introduced to TGM back in 1997 by an instructor who was a protege of Tom Tomasello.
He was a very accomplished golfer himself and he really helped my game and I saw him make gigantic improvements to just about every golfer's game that he came across. And his 'lingo' that he used from TGM came down to the 'flat left wrist at impact', 'ring the bell with the left arm', 'pivot' and 'compression.'
He was actually teaching me a 'swinger' procedure, but I would never know it because he never mentioned a 'swinger' vs. a 'hitter' or 'drag loading' vs. 'drive loading.'
I eventually told him that I wanted to really learn the TGM book and he told me that you can only understand about 2 pages of it by reading it and more or less didn't want me to get involved with it because he thought that it was only something useful to swing teachers and not students.
So, does that really sound like a teacher 'filling your head with TGM terminology.'
Anyway, I wound up graduating from college and taking 8 years off from the game. I came back this past January and wanted to learn things on my own but I soon got stuck in a rut. By then I started reading Lynn Blake's Web site and decided to get some lessons from Ted Fort.
Ted works in the same way as my old college TGM AI worked, although I think Ted understands TGM much better and is even better at customizing golf swings for golfers. Furthermore, he's an expert at relating with people and understanding what they like and dislike and what clicks with them and doesn't click with them. If understanding people were the piano, his name would be Ted Beethoven.
One thing I explained to Ted in our first lesson that I was insistent on completely understanding the book that I purchased about a week before and I wanted to understand the terminology and if there was something I didn't understand, I would appreciate it if he could briefly explain it to me in our lesson. He had no problem with that request.
Still, outside of when I asked Ted the 'TGM terminology' that he filled me with was things like 'throwaway', 'right forearm on plane', 'running out of right arm', 'pivot', 'compression', 'down, out and forward' and 'bending the plane line.'
Again, if that's filling up my head with TGM terminology, then I am way too smart to be playing the game. And nobody has ever accused me of that
However, as I kept reading TGM and understanding the book and reading things from scientists, swing instructors, etc., I did realize that there were many things that didn't make TGM infallible.
However, much of the core stuff of TGM is dead on and much of the stuff that is not correct, you can see what Homer Kelley was thinking when he wrote it. And I think while the concept may be incorrect, if the golfer ran with that concept they can still use it to help their game. Plus, Homer Kelley didn't have access to the technology that we have today. Remember, the book was actually written in 1941, but wasn't published until 1969.
Endless Belt (2-K) is a good example of a concept that wasn't factually correct, but I think HK's idea was logical and if you followed much of the concept, while you wouldn't be doing exactly what HK wrote, it can still help your game. More of a 'feel isn't real' thing. A big part of Endless belt is that the hands should move at the same rate of speed on the downswing, but the clubhead actually accelerates as the downswing progresses. We now know from science that the hands slow down in the downswing as the golfer starts to release the clubhead while the clubhead accelerates. Still, the *thougth* of not actively trying to slow down your hands isn't all that bad of an idea and can help a golfer from massively decelerating or having a jerky downswing motion. And I agree with Homer on the other big part of endless belt...the bigger the pulley means the more handspeed the golfer will have to generate to keep the clubhead moving fast. And if a golfer wants to increase clubhead speed, they either need to make their pulley smaller or increase their hand speed.
I think there are a few big reasons why TGM has such a diehard following.
- For starters, it does work. If it didn't work, nobody would care.
- Many golfers grew unbelievably frustrated with popular golf instruction and that frustration grows with a game like golf where so much time, money...blood, sweat and tears can go into improving your game and only see it get worse. So when a golfer goes to TGM, improves from it, understands it...then they often steadfastly protect it because it has done them so much good.
- According to Alex Sloan, Homer's goal was to take the ambiguity out of the English language. While it's a lot of new terminology, Homer's writing in general is what is real confusing. It almost comes off as reading an odd book full of haikus. So what happens is when the golfer finally understands the book, they get a lot of those 'ah ha!' moments which can be very pleasing to readers.
- Much of the criticism comes from people that have never spent one second to read the book.
In fact, that's probably what I see most of. Usually the scenario is some swing instructor says that you need to be an MIT physicist to understand it and it teaches you only 'one way' to hit a golf ball and they don't believe there is only one swing in golf. Then you watch this teacher teach and you find that basically they are the ones teaching 'one swing' to all of their students.
Still, it's not like the TGM people are all saints here. In fact, I've just explained why there is such a diehard following and with a diehard following comes *some* people that act inappropriately or rude when their beliefs are challenged.
On this board, we certainly welcome TGM, but we welcome thought, philosophies, debate, disagreements as well. But we welcome it when it's brought forth with facts, logic and reason and not with name calling, condescending remarks and tones and obsequious posters.
3JACK