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GOAT Code Effortless Power - Head Movement - Pt 2 of 4
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In part 2 you'll see that the GOATs and modern power players do anything but keep their heads still in the golf swing.
Let's start with the king of effortless power right now, Jake Knapp.
I'm going to put a line on the edge of his head, And you're going to see his head's going to move pretty significantly off the ball to start the swing.
Now the camera's moving, so it doesn't look like he's moving as much as he is, but he's moving a lot.
If you use that tree in the background, it's a significant amount of movement, and it's going to keep moving, keep moving, keep moving.
Now you can see his head at the top of his backswing has moved that far, because it was right next to this tree at the top of the backswing.
If we go back, you'll see his head's right on the edge of the base of that tree, and now look at how significant it's moved off the ball.
But we're not going to focus on that yet.
What we want to focus on is what happens next, because this is the key to effortless power.
So right about here, his head is moved as far back to the left as it's going to go.
Now it's going back in a way in perfect sync with the club head.
You can see this as his head begins to arch back and move back this way.
The club is releasing and going down this way and working itself back this way.
And as this art continues, his head is going to kind of keep doing the opposite of what the club's doing.
So now you can see it going back.
Now obviously, it's not going to keep going down in that big of a circle as I've just drawn.
But you can clearly see that the club head, like I've always said, you should always move your body in the opposite direction you want the club to go.
And that is very evident in Jake's swing, which is why his arms and hands don't have to work hard.
He's able to keep them more relaxed.
And that's what allows you to snap with speed.
Now let's take a look at a very interesting perspective view of Rory McIlroy in his golf swing.
So watch as he's going back.
The first thing that's actually going to happen is he's actually going to start to tilt his head to the left.
You see it's a subtle move, but he's actually starting to tilt his head in the counter direction that his shoulders are turning.
We'll talk more about that in part three, but this is key to get loaded up correctly.
So now from here, once he gets to the top of his swing, You would think if he was going to rotate through or do the old Gary Player walkthrough, drill or swing like Annika Sorenstam or David Duvall, he's going to start turning his head and his everything this way, right?
But that's not what's going to happen at all.
He's actually tilting his head this way.
You see that?
Watch again.
Sure, there's some initial rotation as everything starts to unwind, but right here, he's actually going to start tilting his head down toward the ground.
He's tilting his right ear down toward the ground.
And now you can see even more.
Watch his hat.
You can see that his hat is kind of pointing in this direction, the center of his cap.
It's actually now pointing further back behind the ball and further still back behind the ball.
It's continuing to move in the opposite direction that you would think.
Because he's actually using it to lean back, to create leverage against his whole body for his arms.
And now you're going to see a lot of different players, different abilities, but all doing the exact same thing.
And they're all going to be powerful players.
So the first thing you're going to see in this gal from Instagram, she's getting into this goat line that I was talking about earlier.
This motion is how you load the body up to act as a lever in the downswing.
Again, we'll talk about this in part three, but now while it looks like she's reverse pivoting, this is the most powerful position to use the head and the body to act as a lever.
And so watch what's going to happen in the downswing.
So now just like the other golfers that you saw, she's going to move back to the left a little bit, but that's as far as her head's going to go.
Now, where do you think it's going to go from here?
You can practically see the rotational arc that her head is taking that happens to match the arc that the club is taking.
If we go back again, watch.
That's using your head as a counterbalance to lever the body, to rip the arms through and keeping the arms soft, which is what helps feel.
It helps create that effortless feeling in the golf swing.
The head is being used to lever the body.
Here's another girl who's going to out drive most of the guys out there right now.
Watch what Sarah does in her swing.
You're going to see her load up, get into that goat line like I was talking about earlier.
And then from there, which direction is her head going?
You can clearly see the spiraling effect of her head moving away from the target to lever the body, to provide force for the hands, And using this heavy thing sitting on top of your shoulders that you've been struggling with, figuring out how to keep this thing out of your game.
You actually need to learn how to use it to your advantage.
The incredibly powerful golf swing of Gordon Sargent.
You see now he's going to make a much shorter swing than the gals did.
Now watch his head.
You can clearly see it begin to lever and tilt back.
Just like I said earlier with Rory's head that is trying to drop his right ear down to the ground.
He's moving his head this way.
And so now as that head is beginning to use that force, that weight of the head, the mass of the head, to tilt the whole body back, it drives the hands forward.
All just by using the head.
He's not trying to use his arms to get his hands into that position at impact.
He's using his body, his head.
Look at how far his head has moved back.
Let's take a look at Bubba Watson as a righty here.
Of course, this is just flipped around, but now you're going to see the exact same thing.
Bubba, head on that line, moves forward a little bit, but now he's dropping his right ear down to the ground, tilting his head back, using his head, that heavy mass of the head, to tilt the entire body back to act as a lever against the hands.
Now you may be thinking to yourself, well, that's just because they're hitting a driver, so they're trying to get way back behind the ball.
Well, here's Tommy Fleetwood hitting not only an iron, but a hickory iron.
Watch as he goes back.
He's going to get into this goat column, this goat line that I was talking about.
You're going to see the exact same thing in all these great players, but now watch as he goes back to the left.
You can see right there, that's as far as his head is going to go back toward the target.
If we zoom in here and we put a line right here on his head, watch what happens now.
He's actively tilting it back, which is tilting the whole body back, which is driving the hands forward.
And notice how far his head is back now where he started.
If you want to get your hands forward at address, or excuse me, at impact like this, you have to actually tilt back.
Here's 15-year-old PGA, or junior PGA champion, Miles Russell.
Watch.
He's going to tilt his head toward the target, and now watch as he starts down, immediately beginning to tilt the bill of his cap.
See that?
It's tilting away from the target.
You can see his head moving back now very clearly.
If you draw a line on the side of his head here, you're going to see the exact same motion.
He's not trying to move his head forward toward the ball or step to the target like Gary Player talked about.
He's staying back behind and trying to get further behind the ball.
Now check out Ariel Collins, one of the longest hitters in junior golf right now, and watch her head.
No question where her head's going.
Now you may be thinking to yourself, uh, yeah, I'd be in traction if I had to move my body like this.
Of course you don't have to move it to the same extreme, But this is a great illustration of exactly how modern power players are using their head to create counterbalance, leverage, and effortlessness in their golf swings.
And of course, No discussion with effortless power could ever be done and be complete without Tiger Woods early in his career, when he was at his absolute peak.
Now watch, he's going to make a pretty significant move back to the lead side.
And right about here, his head is done moving back toward the target.
And which direction you think it's going from here?
Back and away.
This move is the key to unlocking effortless power.
It's the key to creating the most leverage that you possibly can in the golf swing.
Because you're turning your entire body into one giant lever.
Using the mass of your head to create power.
And it's something that you've been thinking you're supposed to keep it still.
The truth is you have to move your head.
And this is true in all of sports.
Take a quick look.
As I said, my theory in all of sports is that your head is really the guiding catalyst.
It's the most important part of your body, your head, your eyes are controlling your balance, your vestibular process, the ears, all of it is controlling your spatial awareness as to how you're moving in space.
And here's a video.
This is 14, 15 years ago of me at Woodward learning to do a trick.
Now I learned this trick in maybe 30 minutes.
Now, how is that possible when you look at it?
And we're going to walk through this just very briefly.
I'm going to show you all the things that are happening here to set up this trick.
One, as I'm approaching the lip, I'm squatted down, loaded on my right leg, like you want in the golf swing.
You want to have power from that right leg.
And you'll see as I go off the lip, my head is already turned, but it's also going to move forward.
It's going to initiate a tuck and a roll rotation.
All of it is being driven by my head.
Now I could think about all the things that my body's doing in this move.
And that would be how we typically try to learn and think about the golf swing.
I'm rotating 540 degrees here.
I'm twisting.
My body's pointing one way.
The snowboard's pointing another.
My leg, my left leg now has to flex.
My right leg has to flex.
I've got to use my core.
I've got to use my arms.
That's crazy.
And I didn't learn this complex movement by learning any of those individual movements.
What I learned was how to move my head first.
And once my head knew where to go, my body then followed.
And I'm starting to think that the way to learn the golf swing is in exactly the same way that I've learned all these other crazy, complex things that I've done in my life.
Because again, this is too complicated.
Here's another quick example.
Notice that my body is angled quite significantly in a different degree than what the bike is.
And what's going to happen here, as soon as I get off the lip, I instantly snap my head back to the right.
Now look at the position of my head and spine and body.
But the bike is completely crossed up.
The bike is pointing over here in the woods.
You guys always ask me where those golf balls go.
I hit them right here onto this jump and this is where we go and pick them up.
So you always see golf balls here.
But this, now my bike is pointing off in the woods.
If I land like this, I'm going straight to the scene of the accident with a one -way ticket.
So somehow or another, the bike has got to get back underneath me.
But you're going to see my body does nothing.
Does it look like I'm trying to wrestle this 220 pound machine back underneath my body?
No.
But somehow it floats right back underneath me, perfectly straight, and lands perfectly straight on the landing.
Yet this all happened in hundredths of a second.
What's going on here?
My head is controlling this entire movement.
My head being angled to this side and then immediately snapping back to the right sets up the move.
To get the bike to want to rotate back underneath me.
And it floats effortlessly and does it all on its own.
That's how the golf swing is supposed to feel.
The golf swing is supposed to feel like you do something and then it just magically happens.
It's all in your head.
I'm not thinking about carving off the lip here.
My trajectory is completely changing directions.
I've started going straight down this terrifying thing.
If you've ever ridden on Snowflex, it is the scariest thing on earth to get hurt on.
But I was going off straight off the middle, but now my board is going over here while my head is still in the center line.
How would I teach somebody to do that?
But I didn't try and do any of those things.
I literally just started tucking my head and my shoulder together, and now you can see I'm looking at the sky.
My body is moving in one direction, while the momentum is still bringing me straight forward off the center of the ramp.
So now, how is my board now back in the center of the ramp when I went off the ramp to this direction?
I couldn't possibly try and coordinate all of those movements and be able to land and do all of the stuff in the second or two that I'm in the air.
It's all done through how I'm moving through space using my head to set all of this up.
And you'll see it seems kind of strange.
Here's a shot going off with a helmet cam, and you're going to see my head seems like it's doing some weird stuff.
I see some trees now I see sky I see the sun oh now back to the trees and back to the ramp.
All of this movement is initiated with my head.
And the same thing that we're trying to keep so still and so quiet in the golf swing.
What if that is the key to unlocking power?
This heavy thing sitting on top of our shoulders, you can see here.
I'm hucking my head around and that's moving everything.
It's moving my body, my shoulders.
In this case, I'm going to rotate here, I've spotted my landing, but I'm rotating too fast.
And in just a microsecond, I made a decision to rotate another 180 degrees to be able to land this safely.
Now how could we possibly get our body to coordinate all these movements?
We can't.
That's why I think that the way that we're learning the golf swing is completely misplaced.
Here's one last example where you can see here.
I'm facing the foam pit.
So I've kind of got an initial spot on my landing where I want to end up.
But the first thing I do is look away from it.
I tuck my head now, I'm looking at the sky, spotting my landing again, but my head is leading all of this complex motion with my body.
I'm not thinking about anything with my body, I'm initiating it with my head, and that is what I'm going to show you in.
Part three is how to use your head the right way in the golf swing and use it as an advantage instead of a disadvantage.
Because you think you're all in your head, you're not actually in your head enough if you want to learn how to swing with effortless power.
Jeff
Chuck
Jeff
Chuck