Speaker 1: Hey y'all, this is Ray Cipriano from Fort Worth, Texas.
Speaker 2: I play at Hawk's Creek in Westworth Village. This is
Speaker 2: Golf Smarter.
Speaker 3: Golf Smarter number four hundred and sixty eight, published on
Speaker 3: December twenty three, twenty fourteen.
Speaker 4: Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
Speaker 4: insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Speaker 4: Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets Old. Our
Speaker 4: interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
Speaker 4: like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 1: And to finish the swing, rather than lifting with the shoulders,
Speaker 1: elbows and hands lifting the club up, you actually keep
Speaker 1: the right foot the back foot turning after you've launched
Speaker 1: from the end step and knee in hips, and you
Speaker 1: keep the foot turning till you're up on your toe.
Speaker 1: And here's a really, really big tip. I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: I've had so thanks for this one. Turn your heel,
Speaker 1: turn your right heel. If you turn your right heel,
Speaker 1: it controls your hips, So you turn the right heel
Speaker 1: the hips automatically turn. Now your belly, your belt buckle,
Speaker 1: your center is facing the target, and now your shoulders
Speaker 1: turn automatically. One of my students calls it, they get
Speaker 1: a free ride on your feet and your hips because
Speaker 1: guess what, if you're in good posture, they're right over
Speaker 1: your hips and feet. If you turn to your foot,
Speaker 1: your heel turns your hips, now your shoulders turn your hands,
Speaker 1: and your club come flying through.
Speaker 3: Lower body Launch Power Hard two with Jamie Zimron.
Speaker 4: This is Golf Smarter, sharing tips and insights from golfers
Speaker 4: and golf professionals to help lower your score.
Speaker 2: It's worked for your host, Fred Green.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Golf Smarter Podcast, Jamie.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Fred, glad to be back.
Speaker 3: Happy Honikah, Happy Christmas, Happy Kwansa, Happy Holidays to all
Speaker 3: of us.
Speaker 1: Absolutely all of the above, right.
Speaker 3: Yep, everybody, everybody, all inclusive, Happy happy December.
Speaker 2: What can you do about it?
Speaker 3: So let's go back now, because last week's conversation was amazing,
Speaker 3: got so much out of it, and it just launched
Speaker 3: so many more questions for me.
Speaker 2: I want to go back and learn a little.
Speaker 3: Bit more before we get into the lower the lower
Speaker 3: part of the body and how that really is so
Speaker 3: critical for your balance. But I want to talk about
Speaker 3: your BLISS concept. The BLISS works. What it stands for.
Speaker 3: I know it's an acronym, and how we incorporate that
Speaker 3: into our game.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, the acronym is be as balance, l lengthen
Speaker 1: I integrate s stretch as strengthen. So BLISS it was.
Speaker 1: Actually it's a fitness system developed by a wonderful woman,
Speaker 1: a teacher of mine in San Diego. Her name is
Speaker 1: Joannie Kettler, and I've adapted it to golf. So we
Speaker 1: have eighteen holes of golf Bliss. Make your golf club
Speaker 1: your health club office Bliss how to take refreshing, refocusing,
Speaker 1: creative activity and productivity, inspiring bliss breaks at work, fitness breaks.
Speaker 1: What's important about BLISS is exactly every one of those letters.
Speaker 1: Let me talk a little bit about the eye part. Integrate.
Speaker 1: Integrate has to do with getting your left and your
Speaker 1: right sides working together, literally your sides of your body,
Speaker 1: your left and right hands, your left and right hemispheres
Speaker 1: of your brain. It also has to do with the
Speaker 1: lower in the upper body, getting them integrated and working together.
Speaker 1: It has to do with the mind and body, the thought,
Speaker 1: the visualization connected to the physical execution of what you're
Speaker 1: wanting to do. And the other part, which is kind
Speaker 1: of interesting. This gets a little deeper, maybe a little
Speaker 1: more here, but it's the integration of the inner body
Speaker 1: and the outer body. What does that mean. There's our
Speaker 1: inner body kind of that inner thought process inside and
Speaker 1: our energy, our breath, this life energy, this key that
Speaker 1: we have that is actually what we're needing to get
Speaker 1: out to our outer physical limbs and then out into
Speaker 1: our golf club and into the golf ball. So this
Speaker 1: inner body outer body thing is really it's a frontier
Speaker 1: for most people. Yogi's martial artists, people in the East
Speaker 1: know a little bit more about the inner body than
Speaker 1: we tend to here in the West. Depak Chopra, who's
Speaker 1: quite famous, doctor d Pak Chopra, talks about becoming astronauts
Speaker 1: of inner space. So part of the training I do
Speaker 1: is to help people to get in touch, focus on
Speaker 1: the inside and to begin to feel that their energy
Speaker 1: inside their mind and their body and learn how to
Speaker 1: get that out to the outer body where we're actually
Speaker 1: performing and interacting with the world with the tools of
Speaker 1: our trade with people, with the project and the golf ball.
Speaker 1: The thing we're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 2: So now let's thank you for that explanation.
Speaker 3: And it just makes me think, like, when you bring
Speaker 3: that California thing with you to back to Michigan, are
Speaker 3: there people who are like totally enthusiastic about it?
Speaker 2: And I'm not talking about your folks.
Speaker 3: Are they just like rolling their eyes, going, Oh, you've
Speaker 3: been in California way too long.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what, I just got back from Denver yesterday.
Speaker 1: I was working with some corporate folks and some executives
Speaker 1: in Denver. I have done this stuff literally all over
Speaker 1: the world, all over the Midwest and Florida. It was
Speaker 1: in Ethiopia not so long ago. I've been in the
Speaker 1: Middle East, been all over Canada. They seem to have
Speaker 1: life energy and inner bodies and outer bodies everywhere I've
Speaker 1: ever been. Now I get to joke about it. I'm
Speaker 1: from California, so I can talk about it. But the
Speaker 1: thing is this is it's really not so out there.
Speaker 1: It's not really so esoteric. It's definitely not just wou
Speaker 1: woo and new agey. I do so just some basic
Speaker 1: exercises where everybody begins to realize oh yeah, and within
Speaker 1: a few minutes they're all right there with me, and
Speaker 1: they're going like, boy, why never never tell me this?
Speaker 1: This is makes so much common sense, and nobody talks
Speaker 1: about it this way. I remember I had a guy
Speaker 1: who was probably know, late seventies in Florida, Boca Raton, Florida, right,
Speaker 1: and he said to me, boy, now I really wish
Speaker 1: I was twenty because I'd like to really start my
Speaker 1: life over now knowing this, and start my golf over.
Speaker 1: If someone would have taught me about my energy, that
Speaker 1: would have helped me a long time ago and how
Speaker 1: it works. And it's so obvious now that you pointed out,
Speaker 1: and it really isn't so California, and it's certainly not
Speaker 1: wu wu. It's actually very practical, very common sensical. You know.
Speaker 2: I just love the Woolu Park.
Speaker 1: Well, we still make California jokes, and I mean that's
Speaker 1: the great thing. I'm from California, so I get to.
Speaker 2: Know you're not You're from Michigan.
Speaker 1: I'm from Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: Excuse you.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm sorry, I'm say my bad, my real bad.
Speaker 3: That is a that's a big mistake, especially when you're
Speaker 3: talking about college sports. You know what, I just want
Speaker 3: to let you know you know years ago and back
Speaker 3: in twenty eleven, Mark twenty eleven, you and I did
Speaker 3: a video together that has been up on golf Smarter
Speaker 3: TV and people should go check this out. It's the
Speaker 3: Golf Smarter TV Jamie Zimmern chipping tip. We've gotten over
Speaker 3: twelve almost thirteen hundred views on that thing, so obviously
Speaker 3: it's working for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: That's fabulous.
Speaker 3: I would like to say I had one hundred million views,
Speaker 3: but you know it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Well, after this we probably will. Yeah, I mean, we'll
Speaker 1: tell you what. You know what I did. I did
Speaker 1: a video and you can see it. Everybody can go
Speaker 1: to it. It's on YouTube. It was for this Golf
Speaker 1: channel instructor search context. I had so many people wanted
Speaker 1: me to win that thing. Turned out they were whatever.
Speaker 1: It wasn't exactly a real contest. Doesn't matter. But I
Speaker 1: actually gave about a ten minute teaching segment and a
Speaker 1: lot of some fundamentals of golf and ki golf. It's
Speaker 1: very interesting. And then I did a ninety second little
Speaker 1: tip on the secret of the right knee and the
Speaker 1: lower body launch power. That's what I call it, lower
Speaker 1: body launch power that has over thirty one or two
Speaker 1: thousand views, So I recommend people look at that. And
Speaker 1: the one that you and I did on chipping is
Speaker 1: perfect because that's the core drill to start to understand
Speaker 1: how to use your lower body. And what's nice is
Speaker 1: it'll give you better chipping, better short game, and that,
Speaker 1: it turns out, is the sort of microcosm of your
Speaker 1: full swing. If you can get that down, you have
Speaker 1: not only a better short game, proper use of your
Speaker 1: lower body, and you also have the true core foundation
Speaker 1: of your full swing. So I really recommend that maybe
Speaker 1: we'll get that those twelve hundred views up to twelve
Speaker 1: thousand pretty quick.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, your golf channel instruction video has over thirty
Speaker 3: three thousand views. That's phenomenal. Wow, congratulations, very impressive, very impressive.
Speaker 3: So then let's go Let's go back to and if
Speaker 3: I can use you know again stealing from you lower
Speaker 3: body launch power, love it.
Speaker 2: That could be the name of this episode.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about let's talk about the lower body, the balance,
Speaker 3: the knees that you know, all that and stability that
Speaker 3: is so critically important that is just overlooked by so
Speaker 3: many people. People just don't realize the value of how
Speaker 3: important it is to be balanced.
Speaker 1: Well, let me to overlook as a good word, because
Speaker 1: if you can imagine yourself addressing a golf ball, you're
Speaker 1: standing up tall or maybe bent, you know, to your
Speaker 1: angle to address the ball. But you're up there, you're
Speaker 1: in your head and you're overlooking the golf ball. You're
Speaker 1: overlooking things, and all you can look at and see
Speaker 1: is your arms and your whole body, your trunk, your core,
Speaker 1: your legs, your feet get literally overlooked as you're up
Speaker 1: there from up above holding your club and looking down
Speaker 1: at your golf ball. And this is one part of
Speaker 1: where being disconnected from the lower body begins. So let
Speaker 1: me say this. A lot of people think that there
Speaker 1: is no footwork in golf, or if you begin to
Speaker 1: talk about there, like huh, you're just standing there. I
Speaker 1: mean there's obviously footwork in tennis, or in dancing or
Speaker 1: in football, right, but because we're just standing there, not
Speaker 1: going anywhere, people don't think there's footwork involved in golf.
Speaker 1: But I guarantee that if you talk to any tour
Speaker 1: pro or any teacher of tour pros, they are working
Speaker 1: on their footwork in a big way. So the first
Speaker 1: thing is to actually feel your feet right, and you
Speaker 1: get kind of heavy in your belly, connects you into
Speaker 1: your legs, and that will translate right down to the
Speaker 1: soles of your feet. All of a sudden, you're feeling
Speaker 1: more present, stronger, more grounded as you're addressing the golf ball.
Speaker 1: These are keys to what a lot of instructors say,
Speaker 1: take an athletic stance, but so many people don't even
Speaker 1: know what that means or what that feel like. So
Speaker 1: that's the first part of it, and footwork you typically
Speaker 1: in general, I would say there's controversies about this in
Speaker 1: the golf swing, but the mounern golf swing, the left
Speaker 1: foot if you're right handed, the left foot stays down
Speaker 1: on your back swing. Now, some weight rolls into the
Speaker 1: arch of your foot, and that allows your right hip
Speaker 1: to turn, and then that lets your spine turn and
Speaker 1: your shoulders turn. But it begins down there and your
Speaker 1: foot and your left foot and your left end step. Obviously,
Speaker 1: if you're a left handed golfer, it would start in
Speaker 1: your right foot, but we try to keep that foot
Speaker 1: down on the ground, and what that enables is this
Speaker 1: sort of dynamic tension, dynamic coil of the body. If
Speaker 1: you lift that foot, lift the heel up too much,
Speaker 1: what can happen is that you sort of sway your body.
Speaker 1: Your energy sort of goes floating up there into right
Speaker 1: up or outer space.
Speaker 2: Are we're talking about.
Speaker 3: We're talking about the left foot of the right foot.
Speaker 3: Now for a right handed golfer, for.
Speaker 1: A right handed golfer, the left foot right.
Speaker 3: On the back swing the right and so many people
Speaker 3: do that. It's I don't know why. It seems like
Speaker 3: a natural thing when you're not instructed that you on
Speaker 3: your back swing, that right heel comes up and you're
Speaker 3: and the left heel comes up, yeah, and the knee
Speaker 3: is now pointing not towards the ball or straight, it's
Speaker 3: it's pointing way behind you.
Speaker 2: It's pointing right yeap.
Speaker 1: You lose, yeah, and you lose, you lose that connection
Speaker 1: to the earth. It allows that kind of coiling of
Speaker 1: your energy and your power as you rotate, you know,
Speaker 1: into the back swing when that heel comes up, and
Speaker 1: a lot of times it comes up either from lack
Speaker 1: of proper instruction, you just don't know any better, but
Speaker 1: it also comes up. This is where fitness comes in.
Speaker 1: If your muscles are too tight, if you can't really
Speaker 1: rotate if your hips and your low back and your
Speaker 1: quadratus lumborum these things are too tight, or your hamstrings,
Speaker 1: you can't keep that foot down. So part of fitness
Speaker 1: is too in flexibility as well as strength training in
Speaker 1: the quads and the legs, but particularly flexibility enables that
Speaker 1: left foot to stay down on the backswing, and along
Speaker 1: with the left foot and the left end step. Okay,
Speaker 1: the left heel stays down pressure on the left end step.
Speaker 1: What happens in the right leg we're talking about lower
Speaker 1: body on the back swing. I'm going to tell you
Speaker 1: what happens with the right leg is nothing in a sense.
Speaker 1: I mean when you address the ball. I always tell
Speaker 1: people toes a little out, knee a little in. Okay,
Speaker 1: you've created this kind of knees in toes are out
Speaker 1: a little bit, particularly the four toes, but they're out there,
Speaker 1: flared out just a little bit. The reason for that
Speaker 1: is anatomical. It enables the hip joints to be more
Speaker 1: open so that you have rotational ability. A lot of people,
Speaker 1: the first thing I look at is in a person's
Speaker 1: stance is their feet. And if they're pointing straight ahead
Speaker 1: real square, that locks the the trocanner the hip. It
Speaker 1: locks the rotational ability, and then people have a hard
Speaker 1: time turning. They strain their back and they're all they
Speaker 1: can do is try to lift the club with their
Speaker 1: shoulders in their hands, and all of a sudden they're
Speaker 1: in their upper body a little flare out of the
Speaker 1: toes and pull the knees in a little bit towards
Speaker 1: the golf club. The golf club's kind of right there
Speaker 1: in the center line. If you toes out knees in.
Speaker 1: What happens is Number one, you've got your weight on
Speaker 1: your end steps. That's helpful. That's what Jack Nicholas said.
Speaker 1: Right golf's play between the arches of your feet. Uh.
Speaker 1: In classical golf instruction, it's referred to as pronating. When
Speaker 1: you get your weight on the end steps and the
Speaker 1: toes are flared out a little, the knees are in
Speaker 1: a little Number one, you're locked in around the center line.
Speaker 1: That's a good thing. You're not going to sway so much.
Speaker 1: Number two, you can actually push a little bit on
Speaker 1: that left end step and you're able your hips are
Speaker 1: open enough that you can make the rotational turn.
Speaker 3: I just realized something that months ago, maybe this year,
Speaker 3: early this year or last year. But I realized that
Speaker 3: on my follow through of my swing, I was rolling
Speaker 3: over my left foot, so my like so on the
Speaker 3: outer part, so that when I was my swing was complete,
Speaker 3: that the sole of my foot was up right and
Speaker 3: pa and facing back towards my other foot. And it
Speaker 3: was suggested to me that a simple fix on that
Speaker 3: would be just open my toes, you know, open my
Speaker 3: stance right, point my toes out a little bit. And
Speaker 3: I just realize that since I've been doing that, my
Speaker 3: back pain is a lot less. Is that coincidental or
Speaker 3: is that something that's help?
Speaker 1: It's Anna chocolate.
Speaker 2: Flown away right now, And I thought of me, so
Speaker 2: I don't have to go swimming every week.
Speaker 1: Well, no, here's the thing. I mean, you know you
Speaker 1: will end up a little bit on the outer part
Speaker 1: of your left foot and the follow through, but you know,
Speaker 1: it sounds like that was really exaggerated in your case.
Speaker 1: And when you have toes out, knees in and address
Speaker 1: actually the forward foot, left foot if you're alrighty, right
Speaker 1: foot if you're lefty, So we'll be flared out a
Speaker 1: little bit more than the back foot. That's because as
Speaker 1: you keep your you know, your forward foot down on
Speaker 1: the back swing, and you keep that back knee flexed,
Speaker 1: but without straightening, without swaying over to the side, it
Speaker 1: just stays put where it is. Then you're able to
Speaker 1: kind of turn into that back leg load and coil
Speaker 1: up your power, and you actually want some kind of
Speaker 1: a stop on that rotation. You don't want to just rotate, rotate, rotate.
Speaker 1: That's why you turn the backfoot out a little bit,
Speaker 1: but not a lot. Now when you're coming through, and
Speaker 1: we'll we'll talk about that part in a minute, but
Speaker 1: when you're coming through, you're coming through it. You know,
Speaker 1: seventy eighty nine dred miles an hour with a lot
Speaker 1: of power and speed and energy. That's a lot for
Speaker 1: a skeleton, muscles, for a body to handle. And so
Speaker 1: if that forward foot is flared out even a little more,
Speaker 1: it allows us to go shoom and really release and
Speaker 1: still have some some hold, some stop there so that
Speaker 1: we can have a balance finish. But that's what takes
Speaker 1: the pressure off your back and even your knees.
Speaker 3: Give me a drill, give me some help to not
Speaker 3: for me, of course, for a friend of mine.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it's definitely not.
Speaker 2: A friend, he is you with thirty three thousand views.
Speaker 3: But on the how to remind myself how to create
Speaker 3: a drill for myself to make sure that I keep
Speaker 3: my left heel down on the backswing, How do you
Speaker 3: keep the lower body quiet?
Speaker 1: Well, that's a that's an interesting question. And you know
Speaker 1: some people will you know, maybe put a tiny piece
Speaker 1: of board. You can just get a little sort of
Speaker 1: board and put it on the inside of the foot,
Speaker 1: you know, inside of the shoe, and they don't want
Speaker 1: to move that board, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 1: that's just a.
Speaker 2: Little vision, not in the shoe, literally in the shop.
Speaker 1: Sure, no, no, next to it, next to it. You
Speaker 1: could put a golf club down right next to that foot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you don't want to be moving the golf club,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Or you could have a
Speaker 1: golf club that is on the other outside of the
Speaker 1: foot and you don't want to you know, you could
Speaker 1: put your foot in a little track, you see what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, and so you want to keep it there.
Speaker 1: You don't want to be lifting it or rolling over
Speaker 1: it or stepping on it. You know. That's a basic one.
Speaker 1: But let me say something else. So the forward foot
Speaker 1: stays down. Right. Most people, not most, but a lot
Speaker 1: of people tend to lift the heel on the forward foot. Now,
Speaker 1: then they do something really interesting, which is they come
Speaker 1: down in the down swing impact phase of the swing,
Speaker 1: leading with their shoulders and their hands, and they try
Speaker 1: to hit the ball hard, kill it with their upper
Speaker 1: body right, not knowing how to engage and properly use
Speaker 1: the lower body. And then what happens is they try
Speaker 1: to hit it with their arms and that back. For
Speaker 1: a righty, that'll be the right foot, a left would
Speaker 1: be the left foot, but the backfoot they tend to
Speaker 1: keep on the ground or to only rotate through a
Speaker 1: little bit, and it's actually sort of you know, bass ackwards.
Speaker 1: So they keep but they lift the forward foot and
Speaker 1: they keep the back foot down when they're supposed to
Speaker 1: keep the forward foot down, and as they come through.
Speaker 1: It's just like throwing a ball. You could be throwing
Speaker 1: a baseball, you could be hitting a baseball, you could
Speaker 1: be throwing a football, you could be hitting a tennis ball.
Speaker 1: All of those throw the ball sports, which is what
Speaker 1: golf is a throw the ball sport. They all the
Speaker 1: body mechanics of throwing a ball before the arms, the shoulders,
Speaker 1: anything gets engaged. The back foot, the instep of the
Speaker 1: back foot rolls a little bit, that sort of slight
Speaker 1: pronation the d step of the foot, and then that
Speaker 1: kicks in the back knee. Gary Player was huge on this,
Speaker 1: by the way, best example. And so right foot, right
Speaker 1: knee for a right e and then that starts to
Speaker 1: turn the hips, and then that allows the shoulders elbows
Speaker 1: to just relax and drop into place. Then the hands
Speaker 1: come through, they release through the golf ball, okay, And
Speaker 1: so at that point you're kind of on your right
Speaker 1: end step and to finish the swing, rather than lifting
Speaker 1: with the shoulders, the elbows and hands lifting the club up,
Speaker 1: you actually keep the right foot, the back foot turning
Speaker 1: after you've launched from the end step and knee and hips,
Speaker 1: and you keep the foot turning until you're up on
Speaker 1: your toe. And here's a really really big tip. I'm
Speaker 1: not kidding. I've had so many thanks for this one.
Speaker 1: Turn your heel, turn your right heel. If you turn
Speaker 1: your right heel, it controls your hips, So you turn
Speaker 1: the right heel, the hips automatically turn. Now your belly,
Speaker 1: your belt buckle, your center is facing the target and
Speaker 1: now your shoulders turn automatically. One of my students calls it,
Speaker 1: they get a free ride on your feet and your
Speaker 1: hips because guess what there, that's what's if you're in
Speaker 1: good posture, they're right over your hips and feet. If
Speaker 1: you turn your foot, your heel turns your hips. Now
Speaker 1: your shoulders turn, your hands and your club come flying through.
Speaker 1: This is right there visualized on video in lower body
Speaker 1: launch power on that Golf Channel video that I did
Speaker 1: so people can see what I'm talking about. But it
Speaker 1: is amazing. So a lot of times people are told
Speaker 1: to stand on their right toe at the in their
Speaker 1: finished position right if you're righty, But more than just
Speaker 1: being on your toe, turn your heel, because it's your
Speaker 1: heel that is like this lever that turns your hips.
Speaker 1: And when your hips turn, that's when your center, your
Speaker 1: belly button, your belt buckle is facing down the fairway
Speaker 1: face and your target and your hips and your hands
Speaker 1: and your club have automatically just flown through with their
Speaker 1: full full speed, full club head speed, and you are
Speaker 1: facing your target after you've launched the ball down the line,
Speaker 1: and you've been able to launch the ball down the line,
Speaker 1: which is what you've done with your you know, on
Speaker 1: the downswing impact face with the back end step and
Speaker 1: knee and hips. So you've launched the ball down the
Speaker 1: line and now you finish up completely.
Speaker 3: So when you're saying rotate the heel, you are lift
Speaker 3: the heel, turn the heel. You mean rotate on the
Speaker 3: ball of your foot, correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you're sort of in a natural turning
Speaker 1: motion and from your foot, and so yeah, you're turning
Speaker 1: on your big toe shall we say, ball in big
Speaker 1: toe until you're standing tall on that on your toes.
Speaker 1: But you've actually turned your heel as well many times,
Speaker 1: and you can just go up and down the driving jill.
Speaker 1: If you watch people's finished position and you look at
Speaker 1: their back foot, look at where it is, not a
Speaker 1: lot of people have fully turned their foot all the
Speaker 1: way to turning the heel, and so then they haven't
Speaker 1: had a complete follow through.
Speaker 3: What it sounds like to me is that, and I
Speaker 3: think this is a problem with so many golfers is
Speaker 3: to them, the contact with the golf ball is like
Speaker 3: the end of the swing. There's not a lot of
Speaker 3: thought or energy put into the follow through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's true. To use a martial arts
Speaker 1: metaphor if anybody's ever tried to break a board, if
Speaker 1: you try to just hit the board to break it,
Speaker 1: you will hurt your hand, right. That's like if you're
Speaker 1: just hitting the ball, but you're not thinking about getting
Speaker 1: through it. To break a board, you don't think about
Speaker 1: the board. You are focusing a foot or two ask
Speaker 1: the board you're trying to like touch all the way
Speaker 1: down to the floor with your hand. The boards just
Speaker 1: in the way, shall we say, and then it like
Speaker 1: sort of magically splits in two because the energy's gone
Speaker 1: all the way through. Same with the golf ball. When
Speaker 1: we say the golf ball gets in the way of
Speaker 1: the swing, you're not trying to hit the ball, you're
Speaker 1: moving all the way through it and extending through it
Speaker 1: an ike do or when we try to teach people,
Speaker 1: we have these rolls forward roles, so you have to
Speaker 1: roll on your arm and body and end up standing.
Speaker 1: A lot of people try to just like kind of
Speaker 1: get their arm down and do this role, but a
Speaker 1: lot of times and they have trouble with it. So
Speaker 1: if I tell them, you know what, here's how you
Speaker 1: should be at the end. You should be standing up
Speaker 1: all the way at the end. Just focus on being
Speaker 1: standing at the end, and when they do that, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, they roll. The role happens because they're
Speaker 1: standing up the momentum the energy carries all the way through.
Speaker 1: So the follow through is important partially because it means
Speaker 1: that we're just sort of swept right through the ball.
Speaker 1: But the balance and position at the end is absolutely crucial,
Speaker 1: and it's both a cause and an effect of a
Speaker 1: good golf shot. It means that the energy was contained
Speaker 1: throughout the swing, it delivered into the ball and now
Speaker 1: here you are standing in good balance. For people who
Speaker 1: try to hit the ball, you'll see it all the time,
Speaker 1: especially these guys. Women aren't as guilty of it because
Speaker 1: they don't just use so much brute force. But these
Speaker 1: guys who are going to hit a ton or a mile,
Speaker 1: they try to hit the ball and then they do
Speaker 1: that and they get this rebound kickback effect, and so
Speaker 1: they kick back and they're standing there like I mean,
Speaker 1: and nothing that begins to resemble their initial address position
Speaker 1: or proper follow through position, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And then they're standing there going, oh my god, they're
Speaker 1: watching this like huge slice off into somebody's roof or whatever.
Speaker 1: They're going, Gosh, I wonder what happened, how did that
Speaker 1: get offline? Or how come that didn't go anywhere?
Speaker 2: No, my favorite is I lifted my head.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all It's the go to response whenever a
Speaker 3: bad shot happens. Oh, I lifted my Head's like, no,
Speaker 3: you didn't, that's.
Speaker 2: Not your problem. Actually, go ahead.
Speaker 1: You don't know. That was a good entre. You teed
Speaker 1: it up for me to talk about lifting your head.
Speaker 2: Okay, and that's not where I was going to go,
Speaker 2: But I'm glad I did.
Speaker 1: Go ahead. What's that really all about? When we say
Speaker 1: keep your head down or keep your eye on the ball,
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you from a key I golf
Speaker 1: point of view, what that's really all about. That means
Speaker 1: that you have stayed for the most part, centered and
Speaker 1: then balanced during your golf swing. What does that mean?
Speaker 1: For example, an analogy I like to use is the
Speaker 1: Solar system, where we have planets circling around because the
Speaker 1: golf swing is basically this orbit around our body, our
Speaker 1: rotational body. So in the Solar system we have to
Speaker 1: have the Sun, and the Sun is strong and steady
Speaker 1: in the middle and then all the planets go around
Speaker 1: their orbit. If you could imagine the sun looking up right,
Speaker 1: the sun starts dancing around, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Speaker 1: We'd be flying all over the place. And same like
Speaker 1: those revolving doors and buildings, it has a really strong
Speaker 1: center column, and then the door goes around nicely. But
Speaker 1: if that thing it wasn't bolted down and strong and
Speaker 1: in place and was moving around, we wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to make a smooth circle through the door. Same thing
Speaker 1: in our golf swing. We are that center column. Our
Speaker 1: trunk of our body and our legs and our feet
Speaker 1: create that strong center column that we rotate around so
Speaker 1: that we can have a good consistent circular arc of
Speaker 1: the swing that the ball then gets in the way
Speaker 1: of when we lift our head or move our eyes
Speaker 1: or sway or don't have stability and strength in our
Speaker 1: lower body. What we've done is to destroy the orbit
Speaker 1: of the golf swing, and that means that the club
Speaker 1: is not going to come down properly or in any
Speaker 1: consistent way, or hit the sweet spot from the club
Speaker 1: to the golf ball, you know, once in a while,
Speaker 1: but not so much. That's why when we have stability,
Speaker 1: and we keep our on the ball, we keep our
Speaker 1: head down, we're able to keep the orbit of the
Speaker 1: swing intact, and therefore we can then make centered contact
Speaker 1: on the golf ball. How's that?
Speaker 3: How was a woo woo moment? I think we definitely
Speaker 3: just had a woo woo moment, a wooh.
Speaker 1: True moment, That's what I mean. It actually makes a
Speaker 1: ton of sense. And when you lift your head or
Speaker 1: you look up and you peak, even putting a tiny
Speaker 1: little stroke, right the minute you peak and you move
Speaker 1: your eyes or you move your head or you wobble
Speaker 1: your body, you've just destroyed the path of the club
Speaker 1: of the putting stroke. And and then you don't hit
Speaker 1: the ball. The putter doesn't make very good contact with
Speaker 1: the ball, and it goes offline, it doesn't go the
Speaker 1: proper distance. It's not a nice, smooth rolling putt. So
Speaker 1: stability and putting is huge, and keeping your head down
Speaker 1: and your knees steady, and you know, having a solid
Speaker 1: foundation so that then you can just make the stroke
Speaker 1: and deliver that energy just a sweet spot just the
Speaker 1: way you want and roll the ball right up the line.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, but wait, we're getting into putting now too.
Speaker 3: We don't have this, that's a whole other episode.
Speaker 2: We only have seconds left, ye putting, Yeah, pudding here
Speaker 2: we go.
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 3: Well, then that definitely means that you can't wait or
Speaker 3: I can't wait another couple of years to invite you
Speaker 3: back on.
Speaker 2: We've got to have you back.
Speaker 1: I mean, really we could keep going wait.
Speaker 2: Way too long?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yeah, I mean that last episode back in
Speaker 3: twenty eleven, that was just after we played golf together.
Speaker 2: And that's been too long.
Speaker 3: Now that we're both here in northern California, but you're
Speaker 3: moving around so much, you're traveling like crazy.
Speaker 1: Well, I have to tell you very briefly. The origin
Speaker 1: is a KEII golf. How did I get back to golf?
Speaker 1: How did this happen? A great little story actually written
Speaker 1: up in a new ike do in Daily Life book.
Speaker 1: But here's the story. My best friend since kindergarten from Milwaukee.
Speaker 1: I went to the same grade school in high school,
Speaker 1: one of those types. I was not an army brat.
Speaker 1: It was just, you know, the same place the whole
Speaker 1: way through. So my best friend since four years old
Speaker 1: was visiting me in San Diego and she said, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm golfing. Would you give me a golf lesson now,
Speaker 1: mind you, I was being an ike Do instructor and
Speaker 1: not a golf pro at that time, and I said, yeah, sure.
Speaker 1: I took my seven iron and my iike Do sword,
Speaker 1: and she took her golf clubs and we went to
Speaker 1: Tory Pines to the driving range, and I started showing
Speaker 1: her a few things about being just these basics that
Speaker 1: we're talking about in her stance and grounded and centered
Speaker 1: and extension and relaxed release into the golf ball. Well,
Speaker 1: she started hitting the ball within one hour, like unbelievably.
Speaker 1: She could not believe it. I was kind of surprised
Speaker 1: to it was so well tould be told. But she
Speaker 1: literally fell on the ground. She threw her clubs at
Speaker 1: her feet up in the air. I remember she yelped
Speaker 1: and she went, oh, wow, you've got to teach us
Speaker 1: to the world. This is amazing. This she goes, this
Speaker 1: is like enlightenment. And I remember going that that was
Speaker 1: pretty cool. That really worked. It was like the golf
Speaker 1: sense sort of appeared full blown. This is like fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago. And so I started going to the driving
Speaker 1: range quietly by myself for about a year and putting
Speaker 1: all these principles back into practice and consciously developing my
Speaker 1: golf game. And that's when I rejoined the LPGA and
Speaker 1: developed PI Golf, et cetera, et cetera. But it started
Speaker 1: from that one one hour that was just you know,
Speaker 1: just so happened to be uh and for her to
Speaker 1: go this is like enlightenment. You got to teach us
Speaker 1: to the world. So I've been trying to do that,
Speaker 1: and I do see that it's making a difference, and
Speaker 1: that it's certainly putting some new thoughts, new practices, new
Speaker 1: perspectives into the whole approach to teaching the game better,
Speaker 1: playing the game better, and actually having people improve, because
Speaker 1: golfers don't really improve that much. You know, we pour
Speaker 1: a lot of money and ego and energy. You go
Speaker 1: to the Golf show, a couple of million square free
Speaker 1: to golf stuff. You watch Golf Channel twenty four to seven,
Speaker 1: and the statistics on handicaps going down is one indicator
Speaker 1: of real golf improvement are really dismal. I mean, they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, they're almost down at zero percent. So most
Speaker 1: of us don't take that kind of ROI right, return
Speaker 1: on investment in anything, but we keep plodding along in golf,
Speaker 1: and I think that there's ways to make a real difference.
Speaker 1: And I've seen that bringing these kinds of principles and
Speaker 1: practices that are actually quite accessible make a big difference
Speaker 1: for golfers at every level, begin intermediate players, advanced players,
Speaker 1: even pros really makes a difference absolutely.
Speaker 3: And I know for instructors it's like beating their head
Speaker 3: against the wall that these numbers don't go down. But
Speaker 3: for someone like me who likes to talk to golf instructors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll just say one more thing. I mean, everybody
Speaker 1: has their system and whatever, and the thing about KI Golf,
Speaker 1: I mean, you could say it's a system of methodology,
Speaker 1: but it's universally applicable, so you know, you can still
Speaker 1: do what you're doing and incorporate this stuff in. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying you got to like quit doing what you're
Speaker 1: doing and do this. The one and only real bias
Speaker 1: that KI golf has is that it does start with
Speaker 1: the lower body. I believes that that's where it's not
Speaker 1: about your shoulder turn. It's much more about this holistic
Speaker 1: and starting from the lower body and the core. Outside
Speaker 1: of that, it's universal principles and can be woven into
Speaker 1: other approaches.
Speaker 3: I would say, awesome, perfect, All right, well listen, I
Speaker 3: want to wish you a very happy and healthy new year,
Speaker 3: and before twenty sixteen rolls around, you'll you will be back.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that, and happy
Speaker 1: holidays to you to everybody listening, and we do have
Speaker 1: some holidays specials, so they can go to my website
Speaker 1: and check them out. DVD's instruction, you know that sort of.
Speaker 3: Stuff, and all the details are at the end of
Speaker 3: last episode. But again it's keigolf dot com, ki ai
Speaker 3: golf dot com or the kiway dot com.
Speaker 1: Right, Thanks Jamie, thank you, Happy holidays, Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Spread