Dark Ages

[Michael Finney]

The previous two posts are exactly why the everyone needs to get together. The end user of this "great information which is floating out there" is the golf instructor. The scientists need to research and the player needs to play. The golf instructor needs to teach the stuff to the player. That's why I think Brian is in the best position possible.

I honestly feel that the Top 100 don't understand the D plane (maybe 10 of them). I honestly feel the "pet pattern" teachers don't want to evolve because their economic well being is too closely intertwined with their pattern.

Brian understands just enough science to be dangerous and he's always been broke - he's got nothing to lose. And did I mention that he can flat teach? He gets the job done in minutes rather than days, weeks, and months.

I've seen the other guys' acts..........Brian does it better.

 

[dbl]

Those who believe that there are zillion possible ways that let achieve the goal are right, however, the key is that only one of those ways the best one from a biomechanical point of view. Cheers

Without meaning to be offensive, can I say that sounds silly? Maybe there is some special meaning to "best from a biomechanical pov", so if so please let me know. But otherwise,
the first basic thing is to define what is meant by "best". One must be optimizing and evaluating something.

-energy used
-efficiency of energy conversion to ball speed
-maximum clubhead speed
-longest life available to the golfer
-consistency week to week
-consistency within a single round of golf
-fewest muscles needed to be involved beyond some level
-lowest impact on certain tendons or ligaments


Secondly when evaluating swings for that goal, it is quite likely that 10 or 20 or 100 swings might be achieving 99.99% of the "best" one; and due to human limitations from moment to moment, those 11 or 21 or 101 swings may well need to be considered equally good.

Just a joke, but suppose the swing which achieves the goal of "maximum clubhead speed" for a golfer involves an action which breaks an arm. He could achieve this swing once every 3 months... It might take him 9 years to finish a round of golf. Maybe he could replace his "weak" bones with some sort of titanium rods which could REALLY handle the stress of that great method.

 

[matt kluck]

Absolutely the Best Discussion

The previous two posts are exactly why the everyone needs to get together. The end user of this "great information which is floating out there" is the golf instructor. The scientists need to research and the player needs to play. The golf instructor needs to teach the stuff to the player. That's why I think Brian is in the best position possible.

I honestly feel that the Top 100 don't understand the D plane (maybe 10 of them). I honestly feel the "pet pattern" teachers don't want to evolve because their economic well being is too closely intertwined with their pattern.

Brian understands just enough science to be dangerous and he's always been broke - he's got nothing to lose. And did I mention that he can flat teach? He gets the job done in minutes rather than days, weeks, and months.


I've seen the other guys' acts..........Brian does it better.

Gentlemen,
Not only are we the end users but we should be ashamed to not expect to understand the science behind the principle. It is our duty as instructors to apply the "D Plane" and the "U Plane application because one of the greatest influences on Newton was a man named Kepler and his biggest angst was that the circle was not the perfect...
Look it up and come to a better understanding of the science behind the law.
Good luck and mandrin, it is good to see you posting once again. It gives me hope that there is some sanity in this world of fictitious notions!
MK

 

[Dariusz J.]

Without meaning to be offensive, can I say that sounds silly? Maybe there is some special meaning to "best from a biomechanical pov", so if so please let me know. But otherwise,
the first basic thing is to define what is meant by "best". One must be optimizing and evaluating something.

-energy used
-efficiency of energy conversion to ball speed
-maximum clubhead speed
-longest life available to the golfer
-consistency week to week
-consistency within a single round of golf
-fewest muscles needed to be involved beyond some level
-lowest impact on certain tendons or ligaments


Secondly when evaluating swings for that goal, it is quite likely that 10 or 20 or 100 swings might be achieving 99.99% of the "best" one; and due to human limitations from moment to moment, those 11 or 21 or 101 swings may well need to be considered equally good.

Just a joke, but suppose the swing which achieves the goal of "maximum clubhead speed" for a golfer involves an action which breaks an arm. He could achieve this swing once every 3 months... It might take him 9 years to finish a round of golf. Maybe he could replace his "weak" bones with some sort of titanium rods which could REALLY handle the stress of that great method.

DBL, if you take this particular sentence out of context it surely can sound silly. Think in macroscale (or as I said, use the big picture). All depends on a goal a given human activity wants to achieve. If the goal is hiting the golf ball the furthest - the best model (underlining again, in macroscale) would be different to a goal that is building the most repeatable and consistent motion (in macroscale). One of the biggest problems is that a golfer needs both goals - therefore, not mentioning the very complex nature of a living organism, it is really tough to work in microscale. Say, on a teacher's level. It is much easier to be a theorist, and I agree 100% with Michael's last post.

Cheers

P.S. Your example of breaking bones is not quite good here since its BIOmechanics, not just mechanics. One of the most important things for a biomechanist is to prevent injuries because of working within the frames of human's natural limitations. But I know what you wanted to say.

 

[spktho]

This kind of reminds me of a discussion I had with my 2nd grade daughter's teacher last week. I'm currently a high school teacher among doing some other things in my life. But, my daughter's teacher is a staunch supporter of learning to read by phonics and is lowering my daughter's grade in reading because she tends to look at a word and say what she thinks the word is. This is termed "whole word recognition" and there are many studies that show people read mostly by whole word recognition when compared to phonics. My daughter's past teachers have also taught reading by use of phonics and my daughter has developed the whole word recognition strategy on her own.

Anyway, this current teacher will not even acknowledge that whole word recognition even exists as a reading strategy. I also pointed out that she marks students down for spelling when they write sentences and this is a complete contradiction to the phonics system of reading and writing--for example "like" is spelled this way, but using phonics "lik" or "lyk" would be acceptable because the letters would be sounded out correctly.

Especially as a teacher of anything, a person needs to keep somewhat an open mind to new, old or just plain other forms of doing things, especially within their profession. They need to not only pay attention to the strengths of their particular style or method(s), but need to really understand the limitations in order to improve. They owe it to their students.

 

[TROYNYGOLFER]

This kind of reminds me of a discussion I had with my 2nd grade daughter's teacher last week. I'm currently a high school teacher among doing some other things in my life. But, my daughter's teacher is a staunch supporter of learning to read by phonics and is lowering my daughter's grade in reading because she tends to look at a word and say what she thinks the word is. This is termed "whole word recognition" and there are many studies that show people read mostly by whole word recognition when compared to phonics. My daughter's past teachers have also taught reading by use of phonics and my daughter has developed the whole word recognition strategy on her own.

Anyway, this current teacher will not even acknowledge that whole word recognition even exists as a reading strategy. I also pointed out that she marks students down for spelling when they write sentences and this is a complete contradiction to the phonics system of reading and writing--for example "like" is spelled this way, but using phonics "lik" or "lyk" would be acceptable because the letters would be sounded out correctly.

Especially as a teacher of anything, a person needs to keep somewhat an open mind to new, old or just plain other forms of doing things, especially within their profession. They need to not only pay attention to the strengths of their particular style or method(s), but need to really understand the limitations in order to improve. They owe it to their students.

I believe this is an outstanding analogy to what we are all here for. The issue is results, and the best way to achieve them. What seems to deparate the Manzella instructors is the recognition that there are many different ways to get from point A to point B, and their job is to learn and discover how to best achieve that goal. I have been to far too many golf lessons with this teacher's philosophy.

 

[spktho]

If you can raed this snetnce, tehn you do not raed uisng pohnics aloan.

Teachers, instructors, coaches, doctors, lawyers.....add more tools to your toolbox. But, know why you are adding a tool

 

[bax1865]

Dark Ages of Instruction don't work.

To me the Dark Ages of golf instructions were like this. The struggling golfer breaks down and goes for a golf lesson after trying everything they can think of first without success. The instructors asks them a few basic questions, "where do your misses go? how often do you play or practice? da da da.......The instructors watches the golfer hit a few shots. The instructor gets a good idea on what needs to be "fixed". The instructor then shows the golfers how to fix the poor swing and make the ball fly "better". The golfer says thank you and pays the instructor. The instructor leaves and soon after the golfer is slowly slipping back to their old "habits" and the cycle begins again. Until we as Instructors are able to EDUCATE the student and not just correct their "bad swing that day", golfers will continue to struggle and be apprehensive about taking lessons. The best teachers don't teach they Educate their students to the point that without the Instructor being present they can begin to solve their own shortcomings. "Reactive" golf instruction does not help the student long term. It is only a quick "triage" fix and the reason the average handicap has not improved for decades.

 

[tongzilla]

biomechanically best doesn't mean the best ball flight for that person.

 

[Michael Finney]

Leo, how's your golf game?

 

[DCgolf]

When we believe something to the point of swearing by it, it is inevitable we are missiing some greater truth. It is what I learned after I knew it all that has helped me the most. I'm new around here, but a 30-year vet of the trenches, and I believe (know?) that the more sacrosanct we treat ideas, the less likely we are to find new ones.

 

[birdie_man]

Welcome back Mandrin!

Hopefully you know that we at the Manzella Golf Academy welcome the truth with open arms. We seek out the truth. No pseudo-science. If we believe something about the golf swing and find out that real science proves otherwise, then we change our belief. It's that simple.

Again, welcome back!

Here here. (word!)

Initially everybody wanted to see me burn at the stake and/or be dragged over hot coal. Golfers, surprisingly, can be quite cruel.

mandrin The Heretic!

I think I gave you a bit of grief early on.

Though to a degree it may already be understood, I do apologize.

Lesson learned, and I am glad I did not dig my heels in nearly as far as some.

Funny thing is, Kelley seems like the type that would adapt based on new discoveries in science. He wrote six editions to the book. In what profession, does anyone say they have all answers available. None. If you are not learning every day, you are losing the edge. I have been in my profession twenty years and I learn something new every day. It does not mean I didn't know what I was doing before, just that my mind is open. Interesting, I have never heard anyone criticize Mandarin for being wrong.

Good post.

What do you mean about "criticize Mandarin for being wrong" though?

Are we being too easy on him now?

One sees this happen frequently. There are very few people with original ideas and many who are intelligent but without any trace of originality. The latter group when taking possession of ideas only know how to use ideas but not how to generate and further cultivate them. They are afraid of criticism not knowing how to properly handle ideas as a beginning, not an end.

I like it.

Good questions - seems you know my theories more than I have suspected, since my previous attempts here were deleted and your suspicions are quite correct...LOL.
I have never presented myself as a biomechanics expert in any case (because it MUST refer to levels that are beyond my research possibilities as e.g. neurokinetics), I sacrificed a lot of my free time to biokinetics (dealing with hard structure of human organism - mainly joints and their motions).
And my answer to your question is yes, there is a one best model of human activity in all motions in a big picture. We all are equipped with head, main body, two arms and two legs and, (again, in the big picture), all is a matter of proportions and natural limitations. Those who believe that there are zillion possible ways that let achieve the goal are right, however, the key is that only one of those ways the best one from a biomechanical point of view. The rest is in the frame of the unknown in our 3-d reality, i.e. subconscious mind, timing, etc. It happens often that a motion that is biomechanically not ideal is being performed with a guy with a great ability to deal with timming isues - and his succes is erroneously directed to his "great (bio)mechanics.

Cheers

Interesting post. (honestly)

I am not saying I necessarily agree full-on or anything but...interesting.

My thinking is that there are things you can call optimum.

There is a lot of sameness out there in good golfers, of course.

(these things would support what you say)

There also is a lot of sameness in intent. (what each golfer intends to do...HOW they mean to execute a shot)

But to me there also will always be differences in those things.

Plus things that happen without intent.

This is just an opinion, of course. But again I can't see there being "one single optimum."

Just knowing that we have seen a Norman and a Hogan and even a Trevino supports this (fairly well) already.

That is to say...

These guys all do it differently. Would you try to change any one of them to "further optomize"?

Without meaning to be offensive, can I say that sounds silly? Maybe there is some special meaning to "best from a biomechanical pov", so if so please let me know. But otherwise,
the first basic thing is to define what is meant by "best". One must be optimizing and evaluating something.

-energy used
-efficiency of energy conversion to ball speed
-maximum clubhead speed
-longest life available to the golfer
-consistency week to week
-consistency within a single round of golf
-fewest muscles needed to be involved beyond some level
-lowest impact on certain tendons or ligaments

Just a joke, but suppose the swing which achieves the goal of "maximum clubhead speed" for a golfer involves an action which breaks an arm. He could achieve this swing once every 3 months... It might take him 9 years to finish a round of golf. Maybe he could replace his "weak" bones with some sort of titanium rods which could REALLY handle the stress of that great method.

Good post. Raises some good questions.

Good luck and mandrin, it is good to see you posting once again. It gives me hope that there is some sanity in this world of fictitious notions!
MK

With all the goings on in this forum lately it gives me feeling we are approaching a "New Age" (I hope that is not too corny but fits the theme) of instruction.

Thank God.

Lots of good stuff on the forum right now though...

Clearly this is quite the place for New Developments. As it should be.

ISRAD 4 Life.

When we believe something to the point of swearing by it, it is inevitable we are missiing some greater truth. It is what I learned after I knew it all that has helped me the most. I'm new around here, but a 30-year vet of the trenches, and I believe (know?) that the more sacrosanct we treat ideas, the less likely we are to find new ones.

Open-mindedness...an imperative!

 

[Dariusz J.]

biomechanically best doesn't mean the best ball flight for that person.

Care to elaborate what do you mean by: "the best ball flight for a given person" ?

Just knowing that we have seen a Norman and a Hogan and even a Trevino supports this (fairly well) already.

While in a microscale there are obvious differences between the motions, all three best ballstrikers you mentioned had a lot of common denominators in a macroscale that contributed fairly to eliminating some serious impact of timing issues (such as swinging sequentially from the ground up, maintaining arms at a perpendicular angle to the thoracic spine, proper CoG transfer for a bipedal, etc.).

Cheers

 

[birdie_man]

I realize there are similarities...(and am unsure of some of the mechanics and terms you mentioned...can you explain?)...but they are not the same.

I don't want to pigeon-hole you too much.

Do you support the idea that there is one optimal swing or many optimal mechanics?

 

[spktho]

I realize there are similarities...(and am unsure of some of the mechanics and terms you mentioned...can you explain?)...but they are not the same.

I don't want to pigeon-hole you too much.

Do you support the idea that there is one optimal swing or many optimal mechanics?

It seems that you are suggesting there is only one sequence of events required by the human body to hit a golf ball correctly. If this is the case, I think you are discounting the differences between people's DNA that results in different physiological makeups between people that would lead to the necessity of teaching different patterns to different people.

Good questions - seems you know my theories more than I have suspected, since my previous attempts here were deleted and your suspicions are quite correct...LOL.

And my answer to your question is yes, there is a one best model of human activity in all motions in a big picture.
Cheers

Hope I didn't take your quotes, Dariusz, out of context too much.

 

[tongzilla]

Care to elaborate what do you mean by: "the best ball flight for a given person" ?

A nice high 2-yard draw with a non-biomichanically optimal swing vs a short 20-yard slice with a biomechanically optimal swing.

 

[Brian Manzella]

Fair enough, but...

To me the Dark Ages of golf instructions were like this. The struggling golfer breaks down and goes for a golf lesson after trying everything they can think of first without success. The instructors asks them a few basic questions, "where do your misses go? how often do you play or practice? da da da.......The instructors watches the golfer hit a few shots. The instructor gets a good idea on what needs to be "fixed". The instructor then shows the golfers how to fix the poor swing and make the ball fly "better". The golfer says thank you and pays the instructor. The instructor leaves and soon after the golfer is slowly slipping back to their old "habits" and the cycle begins again. Until we as Instructors are able to EDUCATE the student and not just correct their "bad swing that day", golfers will continue to struggle and be apprehensive about taking lessons. The best teachers don't teach they Educate their students to the point that without the Instructor being present they can begin to solve their own shortcomings. "Reactive" golf instruction does not help the student long term. It is only a quick "triage" fix and the reason the average handicap has not improved for decades.

To me, the Dark Ages of Golf Instruction has two eras:

Pre-Easily Purchasable high-speed shutter video (Sony V-9 about 1986)

and

After that.​

The first era was highlighted by total and complete BS, the second era with lines drawn all over 2D video.

I have seen LOTS OF THE "FAMOUS" TEACHERS of both eras teach live, and 95% of them could NOT IMPROVE BALL-FLIGHT a lick.

So, I am not exactly following here...

 

[Dariusz J.]

A nice high 2-yard draw with a non-biomichanically optimal swing vs a short 20-yard slice with a biomechanically optimal swing.

All depends on goals, as I said. If one's only goal is repeatability (being a human machine, so to speak, with the lowest possible maintenance motion) noone cares if it is a draw or fade or how long the distances are (let's exclude out of discussion your, well, ridiculous example). If the goal is to win a golf game that requires several goals (ability to play draws, fades, full shots, half-shots, ability to hit the ball with biggest possible compression, ability to hit farthest possible drives, etc.) deviations from main principles are not only allowed but simply necessary. Our world is a constant battle between 3-D reality and the 4th dimension. Possibly even 5th or 6th that we are unable to verify.

Cheers

Hope I didn't take your quotes, Dariusz, out of context too much.

Again, the key word is big picture or macroscale. I believe there is a one best biomechanical pattern for e.g. hammering nails or drawing circles on paper for a human that is "equipped" with head, main body, two upper and lower limbs in our 3-D reality. It does not mean that it should be an ultimate model to copy without paying attention to one's DNA (handedness, eyedness, etc.). But the principles remains the same depending on a goal.

Cheers

 

[Dariusz J.]

I realize there are similarities...(and am unsure of some of the mechanics and terms you mentioned...can you explain?)...but they are not the same.

I don't want to pigeon-hole you too much.

Do you support the idea that there is one optimal swing or many optimal mechanics?

I support the idea that all depends on goals and the scale one sees the issue. See above post of mine, please.

Cheers

 

[TROYNYGOLFER]

To me the Dark Ages of golf instructions were like this. The struggling golfer breaks down and goes for a golf lesson after trying everything they can think of first without success. The instructors asks them a few basic questions, "where do your misses go? how often do you play or practice? da da da.......The instructors watches the golfer hit a few shots. The instructor gets a good idea on what needs to be "fixed". The instructor then shows the golfers how to fix the poor swing and make the ball fly "better". The golfer says thank you and pays the instructor. The instructor leaves and soon after the golfer is slowly slipping back to their old "habits" and the cycle begins again. Until we as Instructors are able to EDUCATE the student and not just correct their "bad swing that day", golfers will continue to struggle and be apprehensive about taking lessons. The best teachers don't teach they Educate their students to the point that without the Instructor being present they can begin to solve their own shortcomings. "Reactive" golf instruction does not help the student long term. It is only a quick "triage" fix and the reason the average handicap has not improved for decades.

Bax, I am a student rather than an instructor, who is here to learn. While I am not defending the mediocre or poor instructors, do you not believe many of the problems lie with the students? I cannot count the number of golfers I encounter who bad-mouth a pro because "I had a lesson last weekend but I am playing even worse this week." When I then asked how practice sessions went, I get a blank stare, some mumbling about yeah, he gave me some drills and a suggested schedule, but I just don't have the time, or a reply like why practice, that's why I took the lesson!

There are another group of people who will take lessons from the same guy, practice, and when they do not improve, or barely improve, simply increase the lesson frequency. DUH!

If you took your car to a mechanic and the problem re-appeared shortly, and repeat visits to the same guy did not resolve the problem, exactly where does the responsibility lie? Whether we are taking instruction to break 100, make the "A" flight of our league, win a club championship, or make a run at the Tour, we are the folks swinging the club, and it is equally incumbent upon us to demand and find good instruction. I am sure the Manzella Instructors will say that these guys have no business being there in the first place, but my point is that if we were intelligent consumers, they would not be there for long.