Be Warned Do Not Feed the Camaro Mullet
 

Cometgolfer,

Better that you "almost" choke upon your dinner than to disturb the most violent and nefarious character that is the Camaro Mullet. Such a mistake in judgement could lead your being choked and consumed for dinner.

This creature is extremely dangerous. Its habitat is typically Adult Book Store Parking Lots, Office Supply sections of Walmarts where it can be found sniffing magic markers, sand boxes, and mama's underwear drawers where sniffing is also taking place. Should you ever hear Dokken, Black Sabbath, or Ratt cacophonously being emitted from an 80's circa muscle cars, you should turn and walk away . . .

quickly.

Here is a more gaunt version of the same.

Well, after enough contests, learned to wait until the end of the season to gloat. Have some conflicting memories of '91 when we lost to those baby blues by 30 in the ACC Championship, only to pull off one of the greatest upsets in NCAA history over the Running Fugitives of UNLV.

Back to the point, you can even draw more parallels when you consider divying up a walking machine in to zones 1(trunk & hips), 2 (leg & knees), 3 (feet & ankle). Zone 1 powers & positions the legs and feet. Zone 2 is the lever assembly. Zone 3 is predominantly sensing(or propioception) to make sure the walking is correct.

Since I know you have young kids, you probably remember how your lil Parfait hesitantly took his first steps. My boys all started by mostly by focusing on their feet. Not recognizing that the trunk could do the work, it was a bit herky-jerky. But once the feet are "educated". They let it swing & it is much smoother.

The Devilish One,

Very nice analysis concerning the Zones. Hadn't thought of that but very nice.

I used to have a tee shirt of Larry Johnson with the gapped-gold toofus smile of his stepping on Greg Kobeck (sp?). Wore it so much it just fell apart.

Educated feet. Like it. I'll further disseminate my theory . . . as I make it up.

A shift in the center of gravity so as to cause a "controlled fall".

the fall
 

I totally agree with Tom. It is a "controlled fall", and your feet continuously keep your face from making contact with terra firma. It's when the feet are uneducated as to their respective tasks that impact is inevitable, of which my 7 month old is becoming more aware. One of the major snares in this model is alcohol. This substance interrupts the brain to feet connection.

"Occifer, I'm not as think as you drunk I am."

Boo Yow!!!!!
 

That is the answer I was a lookin for! How would you connect that to The Golfing Machine?

Yep. You think this has anything to do with the operation of the Machine? The "controlled fall" not the alcohol part . . .

I'm gonna kick your Mass
 

Determinants of the center of mass trajectory in human walking and running
CR Lee and CT Farley

It happens that about 5 years ago, a fellow by the name of Tad McGeer built some mechanisms, basically legs with knees and hip masses, that walked down shallow slopes with NO CONTROL or actuation. Stability was born from the passive interactions of gravity and inertia, and dissipative collisions at kneestrike and heelstrike. In other words, walking is a "natural mode", if you will, of a set of legs.

Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley 94720-3140, USA.

Walking is often modeled as an inverted pendulum system in which the center of mass vaults over the rigid stance limb. Running is modeled as a simple spring-mass system in which the center of mass bounces along on the compliant stance limb. In these models, differences in stance-limb behavior lead to nearly opposite patterns of vertical movements of the center of mass in the two gaits. Our goal was to quantify the importance of stance-limb behavior and other factors in determining the trajectory of the center of mass during walking and running. We collected kinematic and force platform data during human walking and running. Virtual stance-limb compression (i.e. reduction in the distance between the point of foot-ground contact and the center of mass during the first half of the stance phase) was only 26% lower for walking (0.091 m) than for running (0.123 m) at speeds near the gait transition speed. In spite of this relatively small difference, the center of mass moved upwards by 0.031 m during the first half of the stance phase during walking and moved downwards by 0.073 m during the first half of the stance phase during running. The most important reason for this difference was that the stance limb swept through a larger angle during walking (30.4 degrees) than during running (19.2 degrees). We conclude that stance-limb touchdown angle and virtual stance-limb compression both play important roles in determining the trajectory of the center of mass and whether a gait is a walk or a run.

Above is an example of the SPRING LOADED INVERTED PENDULUM MODEL

Look anything like a G.O.L.F.er?

gravity
 

Are you trying to make the connection with the "counter fall" as described in David Lee's Gravity Golf?

I've seen his stuff. But nope not going there. I got a hunch on something that I think Mr. K had right. But I'm still chasing it down. Google is a wonderful thing.

At this point, it seems to me anyway, that walking is dependent upon how our mass is distributed. And as we "lean" or "tilt" our mass forward the Laws of Physics enable us to walk. It's like it was supposed to be . . . that if we stand up right then in turn we would walk. Top heavy mass leans forward, then leg movement follows. A lot of what I have read says that there is an "optimum" gait velocity at which we reach optimum efficiency. Also, they say that running is easier than walking. Other interesting things are the transition from walking to running.

I've got some ideas on what application this has to The Golfing Machine, but I'm still looking for the precise connection.

You got any thoughts on this? I think a lot of it has to do with our INTENT with regards to the execution of the golf shot. And as a result where our COM moves as a result.

You know golf better than me. Do you think this crap is at all relevant?

Or am I just . . .