Craig Session 5 of Phase 1

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Practice Session 5 –

Some of the final reps before graduating to the next phase
Should the lead leg be straight or locked out with a discussion during the recap
The importance of discipline during your reps and eating your vegetables


Welcome everybody to another session of Craig versus Phase One today.

I'm gonna do the same thing as I did in the last video, I'm gonna try to keep it short and sweet.

Because the the further I get in my process, and the more and more consistent I do.

I don't want to just kind of bore you with the same thing, I want to show you kind of new things and challenging things.

So this is more just kind of an update to show you what's going on.

And before I get started on this stack, I'm kind of doing this in the middle of my session.

Just because the Sun, we don't, I don't think we're gonna get as lucky with the cloud today.

And so I want to be able to squeak in down the line before the angle gets too low.

And I won't be able to get it on the film.

But with that being said, I'm gonna answer a couple of the questions that I saw on this morning's forum.

Just kind of cover overall basis.

One of the questions that I had because it, I'm sure it's gonna come up again, was at setup.

People were noticing that.

I kind of set the club a little bit further behind the ball.

Like, I'm not exactly right behind it, that's basically just me being weird there.

There is no purpose behind it, there's no mechanic.

I think it started early on and my career, like, really, really young.

I had a lot of takeaway problems back in the younger days or the junior golf days.

And so I used to have a really big hover and I think I kind of have a happy medium now instead of hovering.

I'm kind of just a little bit behind the ball.

It's it's more just a position that helps me kind of not feel like I've got to get perfection right off the golf ball.

The second thing is, I also saw another comment that someone made about wearing a towel under the armpits.

For this phase now, technically we're not really adding a whole bunch of elevation.

The arms aren't getting very high and you could get away with it on this one.

But the towel drill in the long run is going to be limiting.

And I don't want you training in a way.

That's gonna hurt the swing further down the road, because when you start deleting elevation, it's gonna be very hard to keep the arms in front of your chest as you work towards the top, the arms have to move up.

And a towel drill really keeps your arms low.

And it'll tend to kind of round out your swing and make you a little bit deeper.

Other than that, it's a nice.

I think it's 96 today, so perfect temperature for me.

I'm gonna show a session of 10, I'm gonna strive to get a perfect set of 10.

If I don't, that's okay, though.

According to my progress tracker, I'm 87% of the way through right now, so I'm moving on up.

And something hits me as I'm going through these, I'll let you know.

I do want to mention, though, like I said, if something hits me.

I did have some comments talking about the discipline in doing these smaller shots.

Let me get this one in and we'll.

We'll expand upon that.

Oh, that one had to be good, right on the bag.

I want to expand upon the the discipline of doing these things.

I know that these shots can get very mundane, boring, repetitive, but isn't that?

The whole goal with golf?

isn't, the whole goal with golf is to play boring golf.

If if you start doing something over and over again the same way, it's going to make golf much easier and you'll have a lot more fun.

Still using my cue from the other day of pushing into the ground to get that leg, keeping that wrist off.

I've always kidded with my students if you give me a 15 yard slice, but I hit a 15 yard slice every single time.

And with every club, I can still go out and shoot 65.

So eating my vegetables right now, or kind of doing these kind of these simple, boring, mundane drills over and over again.

This is how you gain that consistency in golf, when when you know where the ball is going and you have that semblance or that idea.

Okay, this is my shot pattern, this is my trend.

It's a way of eliminating a lot of mistakes that happen when you get out in the field.

Nobody wants the two-way mess.

There we go, there we go.

It's got to be pretty good.

A little tired today, a little bit extra heat.

It's middle of the day for me, so got a little, a little bit of work on my mind.

Let's see if we can keep this trend going right on the money.

Sounded a little thin, though, just a little thin.

I think it was just a touch bottom groovish.

But see, that kind of goes back to my point I was trying to make earlier.

I can't count this one because it wasn't appeared shot.

But on the golf course, if thinking of scale wise, that would have still been 10 feet, that miss would have easily worked out for me.

So if my Missus start to get really consistent, it's going to make scoring a lot easier, it's going to make scoring a lot easier.

There we go back on track and hopefully I can keep this nice and clean like I did in the last session.

Really get that good, clean leg work, do a little bit better than how I finished.

On that one, I felt a little tension there.

It's okay to back away, you don't have to just pull the trigger.

A little bit of tension got me on that one, I felt it, the lower back started tightening up on me a little bit.

All right, there should still be pretty good over there.

Draw, foots rolled in, hip looks good, head still down, chest behaving.

I think we're doing okay today on the checkpoints, so hopefully the sun isn't too bad from this angle.

I can feel it, but I don't know how the camera is picking it up, but hopefully we're okay on that one.

I can round off this set, as you know, still focusing on making sure when I get set up, not getting too sloppy with my knees.

Kind of gets my hips a little bit flat.

It's my weight towards my toes.

Trying to make sure all my ducks are in a row as I start to round third in phase one, so hopefully my knee works a little better.

Postures, hanging in there, a little takeaway rehearsal, just taking out a little tension right there, tiny little bit of a push.

I hit that one pretty well, though, that dispersion for this size shot, especially for me.

This window's got to be really tight, all right, even though to me it really wasn't that bad.

This window needs to be really tight for So we're gonna have to throw that one out there, we go.

That was a little better, much more solid at that nice lower trajectory, just a tiny bit of turn on it.

It looked like at the end that was good right there.

I'm still searching for that elusive 10.

I have yet to record a 10 out of 10.

If I do, I'll post it up on the community, be like, I finally got it all right.

Let's round this home.

We got to at least get a par on the scoreboard out of this set.

Should be good with the knees, good hinge, nice and balanced weight, isn't too far towards the toes.

Feeling good right here, had the right flight.

I think we're golden, let's do one more going for that par, there we go.

That was a good one, so that one was just a little bit quicker, Rhythm tempoed.

For me, I could kind of feel like, all right, hey, it's time to kind of go.

And what I mean by that is, it's good to have my little breather, take my time, get my practice swings.

But everybody kind of has their own like natural little rhythm, and so I can't stand slow play.

so if anything, I tend to kind of rush a little bit too much, so I need to slow myself down.

But like on that last one right there, I could really feel like, Okay, I got in my setup, everything was set up, it was just time to pull the trigger like it was.

It was kind of a innate feeling.

Or, hey, let's go, let's be snappy with this.

So, with that said, I'm going to keep this one nice and tight.

Do a little recap.

And hopefully by the end of this week I will be graduated from phase one.

So that we can start tackling phase two, which is where I definitely believe the real fireworks are going to begin, all right, overall, another productive practice session, the swing's starting to become much more consistent, the ball flight, the strikes, and that's what we're looking for.

So as I was going through my swings, comparing them to my prior practice sessions, there were a lot of similarities.

There weren't a whole lot of differences.

And less the ones that I kind of messed up on.

Which is a version on the right hand side right now from today's session, my previous practice session is on the left hand side in the highlighter shirt.

But the only thing that I really want to talk about is the lead knee.

I've seen a little bit of discussion on the forum and I've had this question asked a few times in the swing reviews as of late.

Because of what we've been talking about with clearing that lead leg is how straight should the lead knee be?

The lead leg lead knee needs to be passively straight.

You're not trying to lock out your knee during this post up.

I don't want you blowing out an MCL or an ACL.

Because you're trying to make this post up so aggressive that you're snapping back that knee into a kind of an inverted position.

Could you get a little bit more speed by doing that?

there is also a player the initials TW that used to do the same thing and the problem is is it creates too much wear and tear and down the road eventually something is going to give out so when you're thinking about getting this post up right here I want you to think about straightening the lead leg but I don't want you to try to snap back the knee it's a passively straight position and I think that the swing on the right hand side where I just didn't quite finish it shows it I work into impact I'm still in a safe position but watch what happens right as I work into the follow through you'll see I kind of have a little bit of finishing that lead leg motion see that little bit of straightening right there just that little bit it's kind of like a double hop I posted a little bit didn't quite finish it and then I realized oh no I gotta finish straightening that leg but this position I'm wearing pants it may be tough to tell I'm not locking out my knee I'm just finishing that little bit of straightening of that leg I would have liked for it to have been as clean as it was on this side where I didn't add that extra motion but I don't want you to try to lock out the lead knee that's not the purpose with this post up we straighten the lead leg we don't snap back the lead leg lead knee into a position where we can injure ourselves

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Fred
Hey Craig, Just a heads up - I was having issues with consistency until I focused on your one piece take away video that you had awhile back and keeping the wrists loose in this short swing. I went from 6/7/8s to 9/10s instantly.
September 16, 2022
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Great Fred! Takeaway isn't the focus in Phase 1 but excessive roll or movement can hurt the quality of reps/shots in the early going.
September 16, 2022
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Fred
When are you going to start and publish your Phase 2 practice sessions?? These videos are very helpful !!!
August 14, 2022
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Thank you Fred. Glad you are enjoying the series. I had a couple setbacks. I hope to start filming phase 2 later this week.
August 15, 2022
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Matt
I just graduated from phase 1 to phase 2. When you do the practice sessions on phase 2 do you do a few phase 1 type of shots to get warmed up? Also in Chuck's explanation of the phase 2 he talks about letting go of the right hand. Would those set of 10 reps count on the tracker or no? I noticed my tendency is definitely a big push with my right shoulder and right hand especially right pointer finger pushing. I feel like I need to train my right hand after years of early release and casting.
August 13, 2022
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hello Matthew. You can include the let go versions, but the goal will still be to have both hands on completing a proper 9 to 3 length move. I think warming up with a few Phase 1's is a great idea.
August 15, 2022
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Shane
Hi Craig, This might have been answered elsewhere but are you controlling these smaller swings with the Axiom, ie your right foot? If so, is the correct method for smaller swings to do the clockwise motion faster or to use a narrower radius in the foot?
August 9, 2022
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hello Shane. I am focusing more on my lead foot at this point. When I start to add speed I will be incorporating the Axiom/Trail footwork movement. At this stage I wouldn't say you need to do it faster but a tighter radius.
August 9, 2022
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Stefan
Hi Craig, When you post up on the lead side, you have your lead hip above your lead knee and ankle. But the lead side of your upper body seems to hang back a little. Is that because of maintaining your axis tilt? So when you are talking about stacking up on the lead side, the goal and focus is only on your lower body?
July 31, 2022
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hello Stefan. The majority of my swings the shoulder is stacked in NJA. While doing Phase 1 I am working hard on maintaining the axis tilt so you may see it be a tiny bit too much especially since I am trying to hold impact going through. We will see in future episodes as I have the tendency to get too much secondary tilt. For sure a problem I know will have to be tackled. Coincidentally what creates to much secondary tilt (pushing too much from the trail side and getting my hip ahead).
August 1, 2022

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