left knee on downswing?

[landshark]

brett:

what is the role and position of the left knee on the downswing? i've heard to keep the distance between the knees. is this correct? i'm working on that connection as well.

[Richmond Golfer]

brett:

what is the role and position of the left knee on the downswing? i've heard to keep the distance between the knees. is this correct? i'm working on that connection as well.

Well, I am not Brett but most teachers instruct to move the left knee towards the target, as the first move in the downswing, to get the weight on the left side, before the hips turn, retaining the spine angle through impact. Merely turning the hips to start the downswing can result in a poor weight transfer forward.

[BrettSmith]

Hi Greg.

You will read and hear many things regarding this topic. In fact, I have seen many featured teaches from the periodicals get this wrong. The fact is that both knees actually have their own orbits or arcs. The right knee dowshifts and presses inward and outward torwards the golf ball. Check this move out senor!...

what happens here is that simutaneously as you perform this operation the left knee actually works inwards left of the target on it's natural arc.... it's a hand-in-hand relationship as you will see. If the left knee fires torwards the target, it actually ends up firing up and the right knee gets to working under which destroys the levels.... the knees, hips and everything else. Flaring the knees outwards as preached by the old school establishment leads to a slide and tilt-BAD NEWS.

This is precisely part of the reason why Jimmy Ballard cooked everybody in sight as a video pioneer. Nobody could dispute the "levels". He showed me pictures of Johnny Miller and Nicklaus when they were winning- they were working the levels. When their games were off both had slide and tilt- loss of the levels. In the case of Mr. Nicklaus, he got injured from this move.

The deal ist hat sliding left knee doesn't slide. It works in it's arc'd orbit and creates the left leg pillar (as my friend Mr. Nick Bradley calls it) The left side firms up without tilting (check belt being level- that's HUGE) and the right side slams into and around that left leg pillar. Awesome book btw- prob best in 20 years.... the 7 Laws of the Golf Swing by the previously mentioned Mr. Bradley.

In fact, I'll do you one better... I will shoot this vid next week!

stay tuned-

Brett

[landshark]

so you're saying the left knee actually gets turned 'inward' toward the right? i don't understand 'inward left of the target' . how can it go inward and still be left of the target/ thanks

[Richmond Golfer]

so you're saying the left knee actually gets turned 'inward' toward the right? i don't understand 'inward left of the target' . how can it go inward and still be left of the target/ thanks

To quote from Nick Bradley at page 56 on "The legs in the downswing"

"As the boxer moves forward to strike his opponent, he will plant his weight firmly on his left leg, creating a pillar against which he can slam the right side of the body as he unleashes his punch. When viewed in slow motion, this movement from the right side of the body to the left is a fluid wavelike motion. First the weight transfers, moving the entire left side of the body over the supporting left leg, then the right side uses this support to deliver a blow using the whole torso. A boxer could never deliver a knockout punch by keeping his weight on his right side and flicking his wrist at his opponent's face"

Can you find an old dead tree and an axe. Set to chop the tree and hack it away. Feel the only way you can do it with any power and precision is coil back and fire the legs to power the top through. ( an arms only move is worthless) This is done naturally by the weight shift first to the left leg and then the firing of the right leg against the firm left leg. You know what to do and chopping a tree gives you the feel of the coil you must make and then take it to your golf swing. The lower body sequence is almost on autopilot if you get the dynamic coil in the backswing move first. I got the Ballard book, out of print, and he states you can only be as good as your backswing, Boy is he right.

[BrettSmith]

the way to feel and see what you want is look down at your knees like under a straight edge of a table. The right knee works inwards torwards the ball- it should disappear under the table. The left knee movement Greg will simutaneously work away from the table... and actually left of target. So when I said inward left- did not mean back torwards right knee, but left of target on it's natural orbital. If you watch this dynamic of the knees relative to being under the straight edge of a table, you'll really see what I mean.

If both knees were to aggressively work directly torwards the target as most people direct, you end up "tilting the levels" and sliding.

does this help senor?

[landshark]

yep. got it. i'm sure i've heard that before--perhaps it was from you. i do have a tendency to slide them both to the target, which pulls my upper body left too and i lose the tilt. thanks for the clarification

[BrettSmith]

slide is a killer....lower body slide gives the upper body too much tilt... and the thing is everything is tilted from face on- the knee levels, the hip level and so forth. Check this out for yourself as a reference- slide the knees aggressively laterally. you will notice that the right knee and hip get caught underneath.... tilting- where the left knee and hip are higher than the right... this is what you want to avoid. As Jimmy B says- maintain the levels.

when you shoot some more vids, be sure to include some face-on stuff too. looking forward to my site launch where we can break this down more efficiently.

Bret