[BerntR]

To me the phrases are one and the same. "The Hands are not educated until they control the pivot."

I still think that is too much to ask of a pair of hands. And in conflict with how the human machinery actually works.

The cerebellum is working really hard to organize all the micro mootions that makes up the stroke. They run the low level hands' motions - even though you monitor them on a high level. Then you have a middle layer of sub concious. And then - the top of the ice berg - you have a few elements in your concious.

We can only have concious focus on a very few things at a time. And if I had to choose I'd rather think of the hands and delegate the pivot. Because doing the opposite means that you basically don't know what you're trying to achieve. But there are alternatives to the hands as well.

TGM'ers seems to organise everything around their hands motion. Perhaps because Homer said so. I tend to organise it around the club head. It has it's pros and cons. A lot of good golfers seem to start with visualising the shot. Everything else is a response to the planned shot.

It is a given that we need to have a focus that makes us target oriented. But it doesn't have to be the hands.

Further, I think we are basically doomed to never aquire a maintainance free and fault free swing. Parts of the total motion run by the sub concious will break down from time to time. In the end it is our awareness skills (monitoring, interpretation & correction) that provides the consistency. Monitoring the hands only isn't enough.

Which components are most likely to prevent the desired outcome? Why not run those components from the concious too if you have the mental capacity to do it? Or you can group and combine several real components to Key Performance Indicators. Like they do in business.

The "lag pressure" indicator could be a combination of all the resitance and impact shock you feel throughout your body as the club contacts the ball. It certainly says a lot more than just the hands. The "on plane indicator". Wether your arms are round housing, your right shoulder comes in too high or something else, you can basically feel it when a number of components in combination produces a non-flat swing plane. Etc.

Eventually you need to be able to drill down into those indicators and sort out what really happened when the last stoke went south. To prevent the errors from repeating. Or have a "go to shot" that saves the round. Or compensate and hope for the best.

When I bend over to pick something up off the ground, I am conscious of my hand going to the object, somewhat. But my mind is not in my pivot..... unless my back is killing me that day.

I agree. But your mind probably isn't on your hands either. They are most likely at the ball.

If I throw a ball towards you, so you can catch it with your hand, your eyes will be on the ball flight. Your mind's eye will take your hand to where it will need to go to catch the ball. And your hand will go where it needs to go and catch the ball - AND IT WILL NOT EVEN KNOW WHERE IT'S BEEN.

I haven't played socccer for quite a few years now. But that is probably one of the most sophisticated sports as far as motoric skills are conserned. I don't think any decent soccer player thinks about any body parts while they are playing. They respond to the ball, plan their actions and monitor the ball and the playing field. The command centre of the body operates on a higher level of abstraction than any single body part can represent.

When I drive a car, I basically don't think of any body parts whatsoever. I pay attention to the traffic and where I'm going. Everything I need to do to manouvre the care is delegated to sub routines. Of course I can start monitoring any of the involved motions any time I wish. Further, if I drive the same route regularly, I develop an auto pilot. I still have to watch the traffice, but the rest basically takes care of itself. I've experienced several times that the auto pilot kicks in when it shouldn't and when I get back to "manual" I discover that I'm about to drive where I usually drive and not where I am planning to go today.

In principle, there's basically no limits as to how we can program our sub concious to respond to any stimuli in a certain way. Whether it's the hands or something else. I think Pavlov proved that with his dogs.

The amount of waist bend is controlled by the brain naturally, automatically and this would be another common example of Hands to Pivot or Hands controlled Pivot.

The pivot or body enables, facilitates as the hand seeks its target.

Or the pivot and the hands enables as the club seeks it's target.

Or: The pivot and the hands and the club enables as the ball seeks it's target. It's basically our choise. But going the other way - to the hands' side of the ball and away from the target ball will make us forget what we are trying to achieve and is doomed to fail.

I suppose you could think about both Pivot and Hand but....that would detract from your control over hand path wouldnt it? Maybe during Pivot training it would be necessary, but once trained let it go. That would be the ideal anyways to my mind.

I agree.

Let it go. But still be able to bring anything that breaks down back to the concious mind and fix it before the score is ruined. Not hands controlled pivot. General awareness.

Bernt, I know what you mean, maybe we're splitting hairs but I think the Hands could fix a Pivot problem.

I guess whether we are splitting hears depends on the frame of reference. Seen from outside TGM it is hair splitting. But perhaps not from the inside.

I don't think the hands can fix anything that goes wrong in the pivot. The hands' motion is part of a bigger plan. They will sense it when the pivot fails. They will even carry the consequences. And possibly contribute to compensating actions. But the hands will only sense the consequences, not the causes.

Ive often been searching for something out on the course, trying different things, mostly futile, only to get mad and put my brain in my hands, in my pressure points and to great effect. Its a lesson I keep relearning, actually.

I am very pressure point oriented at address but I still lose it from time to time. Still searching for the keys that unlocks my stroke each time. I know they are not to be found in the hands. When I struggle, I just play on and hope the good ball striking comes back. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

"Grip it and rip it", isnt as stupid as it may sound if you also "direct it".

I've found many greens on bad days when I eventually shut down the monitors, just take a couple of trial swings and strike the ball immediately thereafter. It's not a conficende booster though.