Lifeless Left Arm
 

Similarly, I find it difficult to treat my left arm as a rope. If I try to apply that literally, it feels like I'm swinging with one arm.


You took the words out of my mouth! My sticking point is not so much the technical aspects e.g. endless belt, hinge action etc. Those items are based in fact so I know that they will succumb to my persistence at some point. The real challenge for me is (as Trig already said) is treating my perfectly good left arm as an inert length of rope, so I guess extensor action is a bit of a puzzle. It is difficult not to tend towards providing structure to the left arm without using muscular tension in that arm. But pushing or throwing the left arm off the chest is a great swing thought. If you cannot execute do you really understand it?

I can only speak from my own experience but the old ways seemed to have had there own essentials, often non compliant with TGM. My left side needed to be stiff to do all that I was doing with it. Breaking those old ways was like breaking a horse. The old ways were ingrained, learned and deep in my golf psyche.

I have come to think of the adoption of TGM as having two parts: 1. The learning of TGM. 2. The breaking of non complying old habits. Often the old and new seem diametrically opposed and incompatible. The turning off of old motions often a prerequisite to the full benefits of the new motion.

The period of training when both old and new are in play is a time of conflict. Extensor action for instance, feels awful when one is attempting right wrist cocking, left arm push away, left arm pull down etc etc.

I say, let this feeling of discomfort be your guide to the area of the conflict, resolve it and behold the promised land.

My guess is that Yoda's swing feels as good as it looks. No discomfort, no non compatible or conflicting elements. A free wheeling and smooth application of geometrically aligned linear force.

Now, I'm sure that like an old car on a cold morning it takes a little warming up from time to time. A little discomfort a few sputters at first but then after a while choke in and away he goes. More of a smooth running Jaguar 12 cylinder than Mr Magoo's often misaligned jalopy.

Most misunderstood, certainly by those new to TGM

'The' plane is not the shaft, but the hands

Second to that, probably what horizontal hinge motion really is (that it is the left wrist relative to the left shoulder hinge pin). Easy to show on a horizontal plane, confusing to many on the angled plane.

Third, loading as it relates to the flying wedges.

EdZ

As a newcomer to TGM, I would love to see you, and other senior members, open up individual threads on those listed topics, and also topics like the endless belt. I would appreciate any insightful input to those individual threads that increases my understanding of all those topics.

Jeff.

Bucket, great thread.

Here is a quicky for someone to knock off:

I dont get the hooked face irons thing and the implications there of.

Word . . . consider the old weight on a string deal . . . weight is spinning round and round . . . then it flys off. Physics has it flying off at 90 degrees to the radius. So imagine if you tilted the axis of the whirling string so it was spinning around on an inclined plane. It still would leave at 90 degrees to the radius which would be OUT TO THE RIGHT.

The concept is the same in golf. The clubhead is the weight on the string. The force that you are generating would be at right angles to the radius. So anything back of lowpoint the force is OUT TO THE RIGHT. So design hook face into the club to DIVERT the force so you can hit the ball down the target line and not out to right field. Notice the longer the iron the less hook face . . the are designed to be played closer to low point.

Hope that makes sense . . . any correction would be good from any of the HEAVIES lurking.

MAYBE this could be more of an action type deal. I don't think you necessarily have to have your left arm "rag doll" limp . . .but maybe Mr. K was saying that there isn't really any POWER/Action . . . the Left Arm is MAJOR in clubface alignments and low point alignments. So don't go braindead on Left Arm.

OK Maybe this wont be a quickie after all. Sorry.

I am with you on the shorter irons being played further back of low point. I can see how being further back of low point they therefore have more out and down after impact. I get how the weight that flies off the string prior to low point flies to the right of low point, but dont get the relevance to a golf shot.

I've been looking at my irons for years now and dont see a hooked face. Where is it? Is it something to do with progressive shaft lean?


Thanks
O.B.

Hooked on Classics
 

This is an oversimplication but give it a try: Replace your Clubhead with a tennis racket head (on the end of your Clubshaft). At Impact, the tennis racket head would drive the ball both Down and Out into the ground and to the right as Bucket explained. Note: the Sweetspot of the tennis racket is in line with the Clubshaft and the racket has no Loft. The Force is always Down and Out at Right Angles to the Radius. The Club manufactures would then have to add loft to the racket face, which would make it hit the ball further right (rotate the racket face clockwise in your hand to add loft). The manufacture now creates a Lie Angle by taking the Sweetspot of the racket Head out of line with the handle by giving it hookface. Now take you old Club, without the tennis racket on it, and hold the shaft parallel to the ground. Look at the face. Which direction would the ball go if the Plane of Motion were parallel to the ground? It is not going to the right.

Your job, if you decide to accept it, is to drive the Clubhead both Down and Out from Impact to Low Point, not toward the Target. The design of the Clubhead and Face is to divert that Down and Out Force to an on Target Force (Reference 2-D-0, first paragraph on page 24). You do your job and let the Club do its job. Don't do the Clubs job! Let it do what it is designed to do.

The amount of hook face varies from club to club. Mathew did an explanation on the intersection of Planes that goes into more detail than me.
Do a search and you should be able to find it.

Extension Action is easy to apply on the Downstroke but its application on the UP stroke is what increases individual tension in the swing. Less is More to quote Buckminster Fuller. On the Up Stroke EA should guarantee only that the left arm does not shorten its radius as the right arm folds on the way to the top. The folding right elbow is the stabilizing action on the left arm to prevent a limp noodle.
On the DS, extension action is still the outward inline condition of the left arm remaining a constant radius. A limp noodle or string can easily shorten and a little is a lot in a precision golf stroke. This “inline outward” force is not what moves the flying wedges to the ball. The pivot train pushing Power accumulator number FOUR and/or the straightening of the right arm (Number One PA) does that but not with the same force that is EA. Extension Action is the geometric precision of the Power Package- not the power of the stroke.

Trig- swing the one arm but hit the snot out of it with the other using the same power train. A baseball hitter guides the bat with the lead front arm and knocks the cover off the ball with the bent trailing arm- and the arms never move on their own. Its all hips and hands. But the ball comes to the batter in that game.