Coophitter and DG,

Thanks for your replies!

In times of golfing depression or fogginess (but not only then!) I find the Tomasello stuff very helpful!!! Would love to read some Vardon, and also Joe Norwood's book, although it is hard to track down without paying big dollars.

Coophitter, sorry for my lack of anatomical nous, but what is 'radial' uncocking? Is there a feel of the back of the right hand going towards the ground, or is it more a feel of the right hand karate chopping?

Thanks again,
Chris

DG and ChrisNZ,

On day one with Tomasello, he directed me to the last paragraph of 4-D-1 on page 59 and the last paragraph of 7-3 on page 93 in the sixth edition. I brought a brand new book with me to use during my study with him and those passages are the only words I highlighted in the entire book as they represent the only references Tomasello made to the book that he said I needed to study and commit to memory. I did however bookmark 6-B-3-O-1 on pg. 71 per Mr. Kelley and applied the same study and commitment to memory. I'm sure Tomasello would have told me more to study in the book had I not been a GSEB already and showed him my GSEB book that has 25 labeled bookmark tabs and seems to have as many or more highlighted or underlined words as the words that aren't.

As to your question Chris, radial acceleration simply means applying pressure to the distal or far end of something that you can cause to move in a circle. Think of pushing a child on a swing, playing tetherball, or Wheel of Fortune. In TGM radial acceleration means applying linear right arm thrust through the #1 pressure point against the distal, flat wristed, cocked fist of the inert primary lever(left arm). Centripetal force will kick in immediately to pull and divert the primary lever into a circular motion on an inclined plane. Kelley describes it in 2-K as Centripetal Force diverting Linear Force into a rotating motion. The uncocking of the elbow facilitates the fastest and most precise transfer of this linear right arm force to the cocked left fist even if a kinetic chain of force has flowed into the elbow from the ground up.

As to your karate chop question, I think if you read 6-B-3-O-1 carefully you may come to understand that the uncocking of the right forearm vertically from the top does feel like a karate chop to some but the ulnar side blade of the left hand replaces the ulnar side blade of the right hand as the front of the chop that knifes through the air and can slash through wooden planks or break a brick that gets in its way. The right hand palm should start and remain perpendicular to this left hand blade throughout the motion. Its easier to demonstrate than to talk about and I'm sure Tomasello does this in one of his videos on the site, but I haven't been able to access them for some reason. I wonder if anyone else is having problems with the videos and can help me. Thanks

Coophitter,

Thanks for the expert insight to the Tomasello lessons...

A suggestion for your problem in viewing the Tomasello videos...trying downloading the videos to your computer by right clicking on the file and then click on "Save Target as..." with the Tomasello letter videos I had to use this method...

...maybe Bagger or one of the many computer experts on this forum can provide some additional suggestions.

DG

Fantastic!
 

That is a tremendous description! Will try this as soon as my lunch hour rolls around - the second paragraph above is a real fog clearer for me and shifts my understanding somewhat.

Great to have you on the site.

Chris

Tommy Armour
 

"Hold the club firmly with the last three fingers of the left hand, let the left arm act as a guide and whack the hell out of the ball with the right hand."

"The more you can get your hands ahead of the clubface in the downswing, the more power you can apply with the right hand."

Some quotes from Tommy Armour's book How to Play Your Best Golf All The Time.


CoopHitter don't be a stranger on the site I enjoyed reading your posts.

Uh...

Oh....

Here we Go!!!!;)

hahahah. It's okay. Call it what you may but the more you push the more you Hit. The more you pull the more you Swing. It is not important to the geometric look of the stroke pattern.

Here we go
 

Originally Posted by annikan skywalker
Uh...

Oh....

Here we Go!!!!


:p I'm just trying to get Delaware Golf fired up again.:D

Pulling is swinging, pushing is hittting, I agree. But obviously there are people out there right arm swinging whether it is supposed to be dangerous to your elbow or not.

No Need to Worry....DG won't get FIRED UP!!!
 

In the Wizard of OZ it was:

There's no place like Home
There's no place like Home
There's no place like Home

In TGM it's:

There is more than one way to Swing a golf club
There is more than one way to Swing a golf club
There is more than one way to Swing a golf club

followed by...

"it is possible to "Swing" a club with either arm"
"it is possible to "Swing" a club with either arm"
"it is possible to "Swing" a club with either arm"

1-F Homer Kelley...

See page 235 "Hitting and Swinging"...


DG

Sounds ok to me
 

Good response DG.;)

Holding a club with an inert left arm and loose left wrist, then gripping your left forearm with your right hand, and using your right arm to pull your left arm back (while turning it ala standard wrist action) and then push it through, would you be swinging or hitting?

Chris

p.235 is missing in all of my editions.....I need to borrow someone elses ...so I can get caught up to speed....thanks....I know for a fact ..I don't have the right answers.....LOL...:D

Chris,

Checkout Tom Tomasello's "Power" video from the Australia video chapter series. I believe you will find your answer there...

DG

Annikan and 6bmike,

I don't understand your posts. And I don't understand the way TGM describes pulling in a golf stroke or centrifugal force in a golf stroke. I know that muscles can only pull on bones so I guess all strokes could be said to originate from lots of pulling, yet the only way to move an object that is inert in a straight line without that object spinning or cantilevering (pressuring or supporting one end of a beam or object more than the other) is to apply a direct linear force to the rear COG point in exactly the direction you would like the object to go. Hitting is using right arm thrust to push against the rear of the inert left fist through impact while Swinging uses the flyweeling spine to push against the rear of the upper part of the inert humerus bone. Cantilevering is minimal in both because of the structural integrity of the left arm in one case and it's attachment to a large fluid object at the other end in the other case. The Left Arm in Hitters or Swingers - who use anything resembling angled to horizontal hinge action - receives a push on both ends of the left arm through impact. Which push is more forceful or active as Homer Kelley would say determines the diametrically opposed difference between the two. However I think sophisticated equipment measuring muscle innervations would find that the right pec major, right subscapularis, right triceps, and both lat muscles strongly contract to accelerate the arms during a good Swing's downswing and the right external oblique and left internal oblique muscles contract to rotate the pelvis and torso during a good Hit's downswing. A Hit within a Swing and a Swing within a Hit. Perhaps the true push stroke as opposed to the pitch or punch is the only stroke that the upper left arm doesn't recieve a push from the rear by the flywheel.

As for centrifugal force, it doesn't exist. All human motion and anything attached to humans during human motions - like a golf club - are governed by the laws of angular momentum and the conservation of angular momentum. Whether Swinging or Hitting the clubhead is pulled into a circular orbit via the centripetal force caused by its attachment to something else that is rotating about a center. The fact that it doesn't want to be pulled into that orbit creates an opposing force that can stretch the clubhead as far away from the center as possible if there is any stretch in the connective tissue.

As for pushing versus pulling: In most scenarios that involve force production to move an object, pushing is favored since more mass can be behind the object being moved. But we often call pushing pulling instead. A speed boat doesn't pull a skier, the propeller creates thrust to push against water to propel the boat forward; the skier just happens to be part of the boat that is on the opposite side of the push and creates a drag on the whole system. A skier actually has to lean back and create a push against the water as well just to stay up. If he veers to one side of the boat or vice versa, he has to lean back and push even harder against water more and more as he gets pulled into a circular orbit by centripetal force and his mph increases. I could go on and on; horses push their legs into the earth to push into the harness in front of them to move the carriage behind them. Tug of war teams that win don't pull harder, they push into the ground harder. Even oarsmen push feet into extreme friction leaning all their mass way behind that friction in order to push water in the opposite direction that they want the boat to go. The man or woman who is behind a golf ball and applying pressure to the rear of a lever that is striking it is pushing behind the lever with his pulling muscles and pushing into the earth with his pulling muscles. If he is doing that then he has a chance to max out the force that he can push into the ball.

Nice
 

For starters, I think someone needs to remove the two words beneath Coophitter's name from Junior Member to Subject Matter Expert. Fassssttttt....

Yee Hawwww....Go Coophitter Go....

I like the part about Centrifugal Force...

DG

Sounds like a guy named George Hibbard to me.

Mistaken Identity
 

Don't think so, Vandal. :)

Immanuel Kant
 

I don't have the luxury of verifying IP addresses- but I'll bet my right arm that it's - Immanuel Kant - posting. In fact, make that my right arm and my left arm!

I only say that because "perfectimpact" used the same horse and speed boat analogy a few days ago over at the GEA forums.

So it seems that what Coophitter is saying is that everything comes down at some point to leverage, whether there is pushing or pulling, it all comes back to leverage. Otherwise, there would never be any way to effectively "pull" anything without the leverage provided by a "push."

The musculoskeletal system
 

Well spoken RWH. A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet or something like that. But I still observe such friendly debate among TGM students and AIs concerning the inherent meaning attached to so many of Mr. Kelley's words. For example, your words explain the essential passivity of the right arm during the release interval in Swinging versus the conscious deliberate muscular triceps thrust during Hitting's release interval. But I read in TGM and often hear from students and instructors that extensor action is ever present in the Swinging and Hitting procedures. In other words the right triceps is always trying to straighten the right arm in Swinging. That doesn't sound like a very passive right triceps. Is it just that Hitting's triceps activity is conscious and deliberate while in Swinging you don't know it's going on? I never knew I was a Hitter until George Kelnhofer told me I was.

Here is what I truly believe about the execution of golf strokes and it comes from my university physiology notes and related studies. I can't remember the textbooks I was studying at the time so I can't credit my references. These are certainly not my original thoughts however:

Although the whole musculoskeletal system is complex, the basic mechanics that create movement are quite simple. A muscle can only do two things; it can contract or it can relax. By attaching two bones over an articulating joint, when a muscle contracts it pulls the bones together and movement takes place. When the muscle is relaxed it can be stretched by the contraction of other muscles which pull and create movement in the other direction.

The moving body should not be seen, however, as the individual action of separate muscles. The system works as a whole to develop patterns of muscular activity that together can create a huge range of smooth and controlled movements. These patterns not only enable us to to perform a wide variety of complex activities, but also to be able to do them efficiently and with minimal stress. In most activities, individual muscles and joints are rarely taken to their extreme limits. The body develops patterns of movement which share the effort between numerous parts of the system so no individual part should be overstressed. A great example of this is that when a person naturally rotates the right humerus laterally with a bending elbow and then medially rotates the humerus allowing the elbow to straighten, a similar simultaneous rotation of the spine in both directions usually occurs.

Apart from the brain and the central nervous system, the musculoskeletal system is the most versatile and creative system of the body. It is not possible to learn or know exactly how the body moves in all situations; the most we can try to do is understand it.

The emphasis on various ideals of human movement does not correspond with the design of the body. The functions of the brain are asymetrical and most manual or sports related movements require us to use our body in asymetrical ways based on dominant sidedness, physical and neurochemical imbalances, and the nature of the task at hand. Tomosello's right arm swing with horizontal hinging is designed to create a draw which is not ideal ballflight. If I don't let my torso synchronize and rotate to accomodate this stroke, I'll hook the ball. On uphill lies and above my feet lies I'll hook it with right arm swinging so I tighten my grip and use whatever degree of angled hinging I think appropriate. I'd say that on more than half my shots like these where hooking means trouble, I tighten my grip, have the face look at the ball longer on the backswing, shorten and speed up my backswing and throughswing, and then angle hinge to varying degrees through impact. Tomasello said this was the pure Hitting. I still try to let my torso in these cases do the rotation thing it wants to do in rhythmic response, so I'm not sure even this is pure Hitting.

When I tried to be a swinger in the Kelnhofer camp, I was often so concerned with torso rotation that I did't let my arms swing and the ball went right. I've never gotten the hang of a passive right arm so I always straighten it. Conversely, I've never succeeded when I've prevented my spine from rotating when I employ so called right arm swinging. I hook the ball.

This will probably be my last lengthy post unless y'all really want to know my background which is extensive and multidisciplinary since graduating from college.

I will tell you I chose to major in English and that is why I write as I speak and sometimes can't stop. Thanks for the kind words and I look forward to shorter more direct posts on my part in the future.

Sincerely, Cooper Osborne, GSEM, PGA

More please
 

Please continue your posts, lengthy or otherwise. They are interesting and edifying.

RT

A Community of Giants
 

Is this a cool place or what! :)

3 Month Countdown
 

Cooper,

I believe one of your students contacted me on the old TGM forum and told me you went from your 8 handicap to scratch in 3 months after studying with Tomasello? Is that correct?

DG

Extensor Action in Swinging = Active Right Arm Thrust ?
 

Here is a post I made in another thread a while ago (post #22 in http://www.lynnblakegolf.com/forum/s...ad.php?p=11069), which may or may not help clarify things.

triceps
 

Cooper,
I, for one, really appreciate your insight and the quality of your posts.

I agree with Tongzilla on this one, and I'll give you another example and one of the ways I use to explain it:

Imagine a person leaning against you and you're keeping them at a constant distance with the triceps of the right arm (extensor action for Swinging and Hitting). I can keep you at that given distance with a constant pressure, but at any time, I can choose to actively employ the triceps to push you away (muscular drive out for Hitting).

extensor action = fog
 

I've asked this question about the role of extensor action for swingers before and i must admit my understanding is still clouded with fog. What i don't understand is i thought a swingers right arms were supposed to straighten due to centrifugal force, but surely the tension extensor action creates inhibits this. Does this mean a degree of inhibition is acceptable for a swinger?

YodasLuke,
i'm also unsure about your example. I'm not sure your analogy works with the golf swing, Isn't the person only kept at a constant distance when pressure point #4 is place. However, when this is released during the left arm blask off for the swinger wouldn't the same constant pressure result in the right arm straightening and thus using your analogy pushing the person away? Which from what i've read is indicative of a hit.

I really would appreciate any replies, i just can't get my head around this concept.

Cheers,

Danny

6-b-1-d
 

Reading the page on extensor action, you'll find that "This stretches but does not move the Left Arm and produces a structural rigidity..."

In my analogy, if the person slowly moves away under his own power, my right arm can straighten 'passively'. But, I can still give him some help (drive out) in getting him out of my face. :) Also remember, in hitting, you're resisting the deceleration of the hands with muscular thrust.

Swinging versus Hitting as far as trigger types is active Left Wrist versus active Right Elbow. (7-20)

Ahh, thank you YodasLuke that clears a few think up.

I agree, but if this leaning person decides to move away from you of his own accord, will your arm straighten? I don't think it will. I'll have to look up the particular muscles and get back to you, but in your example, I think muscles in addition to the triceps are being employed to prevent further bending of the right elbow. These same other muscles are the ones you use when you have bench pressed a barbell and you then make sure the return trip towards your chest of the barbell you have just pushed away doesn't happen too quickly. A better example of the extensor action Kelley is talking about would be trying to push the person away from you but he's so heavy you can't until lets you. In this case the triceps is active; it just can't do any work until it's allowed to. I don't know what this means relative to a golf swing but how do you make an active right triceps only stretch the left arm in swinging and actually drive or move it in hitting? I don't think there is a steady effort to straighten the bent right arm in Swinging. I think your example would actually be more correct than Kelley's in describing the role of the right arm in Swinging. In your example the right arm is not actively making a steady effort to straighten. It's only trying to resist bending.

My last post was in reply to YodasLuke's #70 post. I just figured out quick reply only replies to the last post.

Non-Accelerating Thrust Versus Accelerating Thrust
 

Thanks for your insightful posts, Coop. You've got everybody thinking and learning. As it should be! :)

Regarding your question...

In addition to Clubhead Lag Pressure (Acceleration Control per 6-C-0-3), there are two types of Thrust: Non-Accelerating and Accelerating. Extensor Action is a Non-Accelerating Thrust that supplies Power Package Mass (6-C-0-2). Used by both Hitters and Swingers, it stretches the Left Arm (in the direction it is pointing -- Below Plane) but does not cause it to move. Hence the modifier Non-Accelerating.

On the other hand, the Hitter's #1 Power Accumulator -- Right Triceps/Elbow Drive-Out -- is an Accelerating Thrust (6-C-0-1). Applied On Plane against Pressure Points #1 and #3, it does move the Left Arm. In fact, it moves both the Arm and the Club (the entire Primary Lever Assembly). You could say that the Accelerating Thrust (Right Arm Drive) Pushes the Non-Accelerating Thrust (Power Package Mass) Down Plane through Impact to the end of the Follow-Through.

Swingers use the Right Triceps to produce only the Non-Accelerating Thrust of Extensor Action. Centrifugal Force -- that phenomenon induced by rotation that causes the Club to seek its In Line relationship with the Left Arm -- provides the Acceleration Thrust (6-C-0-4).

Magic
 

Thanks for the reply Yoda. I think you cleared up my confusion about Extensor Action in Hitting but not Swinging, yet maybe I'm still confused about both. 6-B-1-D says the exclusive steady effort to straighten the bent right arm stretches but doesn't move the left arm. So when a Hitter begins to move the left arm with triceps acceleration, does Extensor Action end, and if it doesn't, is there now a dual force that both stretches and moves the left arm?

And what about THE MAGIC OF THE RIGHT FOREARM description that reads "Bending and Straightening the right elbow will Raise and Lower the Left Arm and/or Cock and Uncock the Left Wrist... Does the "and" of "and/or" apply only to Hitting and the "or" only to Swinging?

I'm not sure what most AI's will say when asked what moves the left arm away from the right shoulder to allow the right arm to straighten during Swinging per 6-B-1-0 so I'd like to hear from you in that regard.

Lastly, I think the folowing excerpts from an early TGM edition points out that Kelley may have struggled with this whole issue as well. "The 'body' is considered herein, primarily as transportation, guidance, and launching pad for the Power Package, rather than a power 'source'. An attempt to hit a ball using nothing but Body motion, and hitting a ball with with no body motion (Non-Pivot), will point up the correctness of this contention.... So Power Package Muscle Power is ideally 95% Right Triceps. The Right Triceps and Pectoral can handle the muscle requirements of the Downstroke and need no help from those on the left, whose feeble contribution makes any such thing as a true Left Arm Power source pretty much a myth."

I wonder if anyone has all the editions and can find this quote. I'd like to know if Kelley was referring only to Hitting when he wrote this. I don't think he was.

Time Out
 

Great questions, Coop. And I can hardly wait to answer. But unfortunately, I won't be able to until later this evening, if then. But not to worry...

I'll get it done!

:)

I'm no expert but it seems to me to be a question of the direction in which the right tricep is exerting force. For extensor action - down the line of the left arm, for hitting muscular thrust: down , out and forward on plane. So I think is just a case of the direction the thrust of the right tricep is in - if (for simplicity's sake) extensor action was down V and hitters thrust was forward > then hitting with extensor action is both down and forward (for which there is no key on my keyboard!) - hitting without extensor action is only forward.

Of course there is also the accelerating, non-accelerating issue - but I think this is taken care of by the fact that the left arm is tethered to the left shoulder. Theoretically, one could attempt to apply as much accelerating force as one wanted down the line of the left arm - it won't accelerate, until the point when the force gets great enough to rip the arm off!

Chris

Triggers are the answer....
 

I truly believe at no time does the golfer actually exert direct force with his or her triceps...the triceps react in all procedures to either the triggering action of a driving right forearm or pivot thrust. I believe that's why all three procedures produce accurate golf shots...and that's why section 20 is called trigger types...

Three barrel swing (with momentum transfer, Low hand-speed)
Four Barrel Hit (momentum transfer and a driving right forearm)
Right Arm Swing (driving right forearm, less momemtum transfer, high hand-speed with full sweep release).

Just different trigger types putting the right triceps into action...that's all.

The one major advantage of using the Right Arm swing is a change in focus..from one of physics and power to one of imagination through hinge action. Those who use the right arm swing and the 3 barrel hit will know what I mean.

DG

Coop...i sent you a private message. When you get a chance, please respond.

Thanks
Jim

Does this have the net effect of putting clubface control in the right wedge? Not sure if I follow what you mean by "imagination through hinge action" when related to the right arm?

Swatting
 

sounds like for hitting the right elbow needs to be in front of the right hip so body supports the right arm thrust---and for swinging it is not needed as such but rather for the delayed release--is that right ??

The Golf Stroke is very dependent on the location of the right elbow so that the right forearm can function accordingly. Three elbow locations - Punch- at the side, Pitch- in front or Push- up and out behind the shaft.

Hitters would use Punch- elbow at the side to drive the right forearm and right hand. Swingers are more identified with the Pitch Elbow location as the right elbow gets deeper into the Stroke Pattern with a Maximum (late) trigger release to whirl the clubhead around a smaller pulley. A swinger could use Punch with a Sweep type release, too.
Push is a chip or putt stroke.

See:7-3 and 10-3

Lynn,

First, in 6-C-0, there are 4 types of thrust...you indicate there are only 2.

Second, the comment about extensor being non-accelerating, I would agree that relates to swinging....with a swinging procedure that utilizes momentum transfer and NO right arm thrust as explained per 6-B-1-D-4.

If hitters can use an extensor action accelerating thrust...I would think right arm accelerating thrust is available for the swinging motion that Tom Tomasello taught. Wouldn't that be confirmed by the commment that Homer makes in the middle paragraph of 6-B-1-D where Homer says, "Extensor Action gives an indispenable control to all Strokes".

How about Homer's comment in the third paragraph of the 5th
edition where Homer writes, "A Ball-related Release (10-19-0) for Swingers can be produced by using Right Arm Thrust instead of Body Momemtum to resist Clubhead slowdown during extension, if there is sufficient Clubhead inertia to restrict Lag Pressure thrust (6-C) to only an Extensor Action application (6-B-1-D, 2-M-3). Its execution must produce a true centrifugal Throw-Out action as outlined in 6-B-3-0. This Throw-Out action is termed herein as "Centrifugal Acceleration" to indicate that Centrifugal Force (Centrifugal Reaction), not muscle, is propelling the Secondary Lever Assembly (the Golf Club) into Impact. So Swingers are totally dependent on their skill at manipulationg Centrifugal Force while Hitters are not. But study 4-D, 6-F-0 and 6-R-0.

Then the comments from Tom Tomasello from his 1991 GI interview where Tommy says..."The only agility needed by the player is to be able to turn the hips--to pivot around a fixed point--and to lever and unlever the right forearm. The faster you can make these two movements, the greater the centrifugal force you'll build up and the farther you'll hit the ball.

From the above comments, it appears to me centrifugal Reaction can be generated from more than once source, pivot thrust or power package thrust...it appears the basic requirement is accelerating the club longitudinally, which can be executed with Pivot Thrust or Power Package Thrust (see Hitting and Swinging per page 235), I believe the problem lies in mixing them...which, Tommy Tomasello didn't do.

DG