Form check RHBH

[semisensei]

Currently driving 300-350, trying to figure out how to push past 400 the right way. Two angles here- from the side and behind. Thanks all for taking a look!

Here’s the link:

https://youtu.be/qMmecTMfhpA

 

[sidewinder22]

There's a lot to like in your swing, but you aren't really using your hips or weightshift very efficiently. You are barely turned back and planting pretty open and flat footed. Your x-step is too crouched on rear leg to allow rotation back away and moving too right to left. Want to stand up tall on rear leg before going into the stride, turning back/shifting from behind and dropping into the plant. I would stop x-stepping for a bit and work on the stride/shift from behind in standstill or small one step.

https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118948
https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=133543

 

[semisensei]

There's a lot to like in your swing, but you aren't really using your hips or weightshift very efficiently. You are barely turned back and planting pretty open and flat footed. Your x-step is too crouched on rear leg to allow rotation back away and moving too right to left. Want to stand up tall on rear leg before going into the stride, turning back/shifting from behind and dropping into the plant. I would stop x-stepping for a bit and work on the stride/shift from behind in standstill or small one step.

https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118948
https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=133543

Thank you, SW22! Was hoping to read what you thought.
Makes total sense about the too crouched legs not being able to rotate at the hip as well. I feel like I'm turning my shoulders to perpendicular with the target line in the reach back- are you referring to my hips when you say I'm barely turned back?
Will definitely work in some standstill weight shift. I've read through all of The Hips and watched the golf videos, and it seems make sense to me, but it must be all falling apart at full speed with the x-step. I've got some bad habits I need to break, for sure.
Thanks again for taking a look.

 

[sidewinder22]

Yeah, your rear hip is restricted from turning further back which also shifts it forward closer to target "from behind", Hogan Power Move, Buttwipe.

 

[semisensei]

Take 2- east does it putter throws, focusing on hips

Practicing stand still throws, weight shifting from behind/backwards into the plant, I had a huge epiphany on my form: my attempts to load or engage the hips in my throw were happening much to early- I was beginning to activate my hips as my plant foot reached toward the ground in the stride. I thought this was loading up the spring, getting all x-ed up before I even had my weight shifted, and then bringing my shoulders around after the plant.
That's why your suggestion that I wasn't turning my hips back confused me- I thought I was already turning them quite a bit in the x-step, and I could feel myself really cranking from the hip. But the thing I realize now is that I was reaching my max hip turn IN the x-step, and then beginning to unwind them (which feels like a rubber band tensing up as I twist my hips past the shoulders) as I reach out my plant. Once I plant, my hips don't have much farther to turn before the disc is released, and I was really throwing with all upper body.
My epiphany is that I realized that the x-step INITIATES the hips turning back, and they continue to wind up/back throughout the backswing, before the plant. At the plant, or perhaps the moment just before the plant, at the apex of the backswing, everything should be in its furthest away point, with max potential energy. Everything can be relaxed, loose. At the plant, hips start to turn and clear, and everything whips through, around the plant and up through the vertical axis of knee, hip, shoulder, and out the arm.
Does this check out?
Because just allowing my hips to RELAX through the back swing, and continue to turn back throughout the stride, to only begin to untwist at the plant, unlocked what seems like a huge well of power. I was throwing putters 250 at about 50% power from a standstill and on a very slow x-step. I couldn't believe it. Not only were they easily flying what was my max power rip distance on putters before that, but after some initial spraying, they were dead accurate, parking shots on a target at 250.
I didn't take video of the standstills, but here is that slow x-step:
https://youtu.be/b8HKCkvBOW4

Ignore the chicken wing left arm in the side shot. As I focused on the hips, old upper body habits resurfaced. But I'd appreciate a look here- am I on the right track here?

 

[Cowabungapizzabomb]

Checks out for sure. X - step just gets you positioned to be able to turn hips in the plant stride.

As for the execution, way more purposeful hip engagement but it seems that in focusing on when and how to rotate your hips, you're relying too much on the rotation and not enough on the lateral move. So while you're getting more efficient power out of the "spin," you'll get even more once you start adding more "shift."

I would work in the swing thought of keeping hips traveling steadily/intentionally targetward until they lead you into your brace. Check your brace leg at the power pocket and hit. yours currently looks like it can't wait to spin open. With a better shift, it will look more like it's absorbing your weight laterally and stretching your IT band before it finally releases open.

 

[Cowabungapizzabomb]

^^^I know this because it's me too.

 

[semisensei]

Checks out for sure. X - step just gets you positioned to be able to turn hips in the plant stride.

As for the execution, way more purposeful hip engagement but it seems that in focusing on when and how to rotate your hips, you're relying too much on the rotation and not enough on the lateral move. So while you're getting more efficient power out of the "spin," you'll get even more once you start adding more "shift."

I would work in the swing thought of keeping hips traveling steadily/intentionally targetward until they lead you into your brace. Check your brace leg at the power pocket and hit. yours currently looks like it can't wait to spin open. With a better shift, it will look more like it's absorbing your weight laterally and stretching your IT band before it finally releases open.

Awesome, thank you!
So in focusing more on the lateral shift into the plant, I imagine the spin/opening would be more delayed than I am showing here, correct? If so, does that mean that the compression into the plant should happen before the hips begin to spin open?
Thanks again, looking forward to getting back into the field

 

[Cowabungapizzabomb]

Yep exactly. In fact for me it works best when I don't think about spinning them open at all, I just load them up and try to move my weight laterally and they unwind on their own.

 

[semisensei]

Standstills to try to figure out weight shift

Finally got some time to get back into the field and throw. I've realized that - wow - I have a long way to go on correcting my form! So I tried to slow things down and go back to basics, starting with one steps, focusing on planting "from behind," and letting the compression into the plant initiate the throw. Not sure if I'm getting the weight shift right, still feel like I'm spinning around the plant. I'm getting a little more power by engaging my hips more in the stride, but I have a bad habit of spending all my hip energy early when I go to a full x-step, I think. The last throws here are basically full speed:

https://youtu.be/yA4OP0BC7sg

Any thoughts appreciated!

 

[sidewinder22]

You are striding way too right to left across the tee pad which pushes you around your front leg. Stride straight, or even left to right while turning back, which should move your body more into or behind your front leg/brace. Striding straight will probably feel like you are going right to left. You need to really exaggerate it because your feel ain't real. See vids in second link The Hips thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogonOY1DoHU#t=40m
"Tiny changes.... for most of you, you have to exaggerate things so far to get that machine to say the numbers it's supposed to that you would probably never stay with it. When I finally get someone to do what's right, they say, that can't be right. My answer to them is that well, you weren't a very good player to begin with, so I wouldn't trust what you felt anyway."

 

[semisensei]

Haha that is absolutely too true on many levels.
I can see how striding straight, or exaggerating left to right to start, can help me get more behind the brace. However, is that just an exercise to help get the feel for landing correctly behind the brace? Or how it should be done? I see the diagonal right to left stride in a lot of good throwers, hence my attempts...

 

[sidewinder22]

 

[semisensei]

Tried practicing the straight stride and plant on their own without a disc, the one leg drill for a while, then tried a slow x-step into the plant. I can feel how the straighter stride helps capture the momentum way better, but I'm still falling to the right in the follow through, not sure what that's about. I also have a tendency to plant open as I add power, must be an old habit from my previous spin and throw mentality.

I throw about 5 throws in each clip, at low speed but gradually increasing to maybe 60%. On the right track?

https://youtu.be/ktBvgaR8ip0

 

[sidewinder22]

Nothing wrong with your followthru. You do tend to tip over a little targetward and open up into the plant, instead of leading the stride more with your hips/CoG and upper body/front foot staying back longer. Try striding more like the toe down leg swing.

Watch how my first two steps are to the left and close the pelvis, and then the feet stride straight with the pelvis out of the way of the x-step. Your pelvis is still open going into the x-step a restricting/twisting your leg/s.

 

[semisensei]

Yes, that From in Front of You gif is exactly how I come through the plant, especially when I power up. Makes sense that that would be due to opening up from the hip through the stride.

When you say your first two steps close the hips, does that mean they should be fully closed before the left foot lands in the x-step? And then the right leg strides straight out into the plant? I had thought that the x-step begins/sets up the hips to close, and hips should continue to close as the stride goes out.

 

[sidewinder22]

Yes, that From in Front of You gif is exactly how I come through the plant, especially when I power up. Makes sense that that would be due to opening up from the hip through the stride.

When you say your first two steps close the hips, does that mean they should be fully closed before the left foot lands in the x-step? And then the right leg strides straight out into the plant? I had thought that the x-step begins/sets up the hips to close, and hips should continue to close as the stride goes out.

Not sure what fully closed means. Just stepping diagonal to the left enough so then your feet can go straight down trajectory line out of the way of each other just closed enough to allow your legs to move uninhibited and efficiently like you want to keep running sideways. You can't run completely sideways efficiently, feet run into each other and can't crossover, either have to open up or close up(most efficient way moving from behind) or switch back and forth.

Try walking perpendicular to the target instead of targetward:
https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136487

 

[semisensei]

Today in the field I warmed up by running sideways/diagonally back like the gif above haha.

Then threw for a bit and I think things have finally begun to click for me in terms of moving closer to the proper weight shift and away from the spin and throw. My plant seems better (more closed), and seems to be best the further right I place it, perhaps because I would be planting right underneath my center of gravity? Along with a straight, closed stride, I also focused more on planting "from behind" and then moving my energy laterally towards the target, keeping my shoulders and hips closed (a la tennis backhand), rather than spinning open.
The plant feels way more solid. I'm not really powering up here, and the drives are all mostly around 250.

https://youtu.be/x7t2QLQkPPk

 

[sidewinder22]

Looking good. Looks like your rear foot/leg is turned too far backward and get stuck on the heel, instead of driving the heel from the toes, and your rear arm is behind your body/back/posterior, instead of in front of the body/stomach/anterior.

https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124523

 

[semisensei]

Awesome. Feels great to be making some progress! I tried a few practice swings in my living room with swim move and gas pedal and whoa I can feel a huge difference in the power potential. Can't wait to throw some more when I get the chance. Thank you so much for the insights!