It’s pretty frustrating to spend over $350,000 to be told essentially, “there’s nothing else we can do for your swing, it must just be you.” So when Ik-Joon got in touch with me for lessons he was pretty excited to find out that I DIDN’T believe that it was in his head but it WAS in fact in his poor mechanics. In fact, I saw quite a LOT wrong with his swing and felt that we needed to do some serious work on it. Over the next week, the transformation was quite incredible. Below is a pic of how we changed his impact position to produce a penetrating ball flight by using the drills and videos on this website. To find out more and read the rest of the story, visit http://www.rotaryswing.com/golf-instruction/golfbiomechanics/former-david-leadbetter-student-turns-to-rotary-swing.php

Former David Leadbetter Student switches to Rotary Swing Tour

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Windermere, Florida | September 4, 2010 — In March of 2010, RotarySwing.com introduced a free golf instruction membership that includes the basics of both the original Rotary Swing and the new Rotary Swing Tour (RST). Company founder Chuck Quinton contends that instructor preferences, fads, and gimmicks have left golfers confused about what to believe when it comes to golf instruction, and offering a library of free golf instruction videos built around the scientific “truths about golf instruction” has allowed Quinton to reach more players who have struggled to improve due to the contradictory and ambiguous nature of today’s traditional golf instruction.

John Neugent, owner of Neuvation Cycling and one of RotarySwing.com’s free members who later converted to Premium Membership, described his experience this way: “I can know what I am supposed to do rather than guess what I am supposed to be doing. I have lots of books but all of them really don’t tell you what to do. They tell you the result.”

Quinton refers to this as teaching “how” to move during the swing rather than teaching “what” club positions to hit.

“Too many instructors tell students to focus on golf club positions, even though the player has no idea how to move his body to get the club there,” Quinton explained. “The club doesn’t swing itself; it ends up in the right position only if you move correctly.”

Others have also expressed their relief at finding a free golf instruction video system that they can believe in.

“After watching the free videos, I quickly realized the golf action Chuck is teaching is based on common sense fundamentals that most tour professionals use today,” Michael Beaty, another member who upgraded to the paid membership, said. “I also realized Chuck had a talent for explaining the golf swing in a way that makes sense.”

In addition to offering fact-based, scientific golf instruction, the free golf videos contain extensive information that helps students understand the entire methodology.

“You provide a lot of freebies which are very substantive and not just the ‘tip of the week,’” Daniel Boers offered in a New Member Survey after choosing to go the premium route.

Parker Gallagher made the same membership decision and shared this: “Excellent, thorough, detailed and comprehensive free information had me wanting more and the price/value (of a Premium Membership) was excellent.”

While the Free Membership has been a hit with golfers searching for free golf instruction videos online, there were initial concerns that releasing so much information would reduce the desire for some potential customers to sign up for the paid membership.

“It wasn’t without risk,” RotarySwing.com founder Chuck Quinton said. “Some online instructors give you free videos that just contain hints at what they teach. Not us. The basics for my golf swing systems are now totally free. I took a chance that once people buy into my fact-based approach, they’ll see the value in continuing into the Premium Membership, which takes things to a whole other level with the largest library of consistent golf instruction videos on the web-—over 20 hours in total.”

Five months of results indicate the strategy has worked, according to Quinton, as Premium Membership has grown considerably since the free golf videos were added, despite the continued economic downturn.

From a student’s perspective, Dave Ramos, CEO of the Dashboard Group, made the switch from free to premium and seconds the notion that it worked. “I have been to golf camps, taken lessons with PGA professionals, watched videos, read magazines, and even bought stuff I saw on infomercials. Nothing worked. They all told me a different thing, often contradicting each other. In contrast, Rotary Swing is a comprehensive and integrated approach that is scientifically and biometrically proven. The lessons tell you exactly what to do, why you need to do it that way, and exactly how. This is not a quick-fix scam, but a sound, long-term strategy for great golf. Full speed ahead!”

Free and Premium Membership details are available at http://www.rotaryswing.com/golf-instruction/membership_info.php.

About Rotary Swing Golf

Rotary Swing Golf, LLC, was founded in 2006 by golf professional Chuck Quinton and is one of the world’s leading providers of subscription-based online golf instruction via RotarySwing.com, OnePlaneGolfSwing.com, and RotaryGolfSwing.com. These websites offer more than 180 instructional videos, totaling more than 20 hours of content, much of it available in high definition and on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. In addition, Rotary Swing Golf’s websites offer a podcast, golf training aids, online golf lessons, an active forum with nearly 5000 members, and club fittings. Quinton has authored two books: The Rotary Swing golf instruction book that has sold thousands of copies worldwide and the Rotary Swing Tour Instructor Certification Manual – Level 1. He has also produced the golf instruction DVDs Swing Plane Made Simple and Short Game Made Simple. More recently, Quinton founded the Rotary Swing Golf Academy at Sugarloaf Mountain near Orlando, Florida, and was the Teaching Professional at Castle Pines Golf Club in Colorado during 2009.

# # #

This release went out via PRWeb.com on 8/25/2010.  You can find the PRWeb version here.

Technorati Tags: chuck quinton, free golf instruction, free golf videos, golf instruction videos, golf instruction videos online

Rickie is one of the most talented young players on tour with 2 top ten finishes in 7 events already this year.  Watching this swing analysis video will help you learn

-what Rickie Fowler’s “trademark” move is likely to be

-how Rickie is similar to Sergio Garcia

-a key move Rickie makes that you had better avoid or risk tearing up your knee!

After watching this swing analysis, be sure to check out the rest of our podcast where you’ll learn about putter fitting, “getting in the box”, some potentially harmful advice from Jack Nicklaus and insights into Chuck’s new book The RST Instructor Certification Manual – Level 1.

If you enjoyed this video, you should get a FREE Membership to our golf instruction website by clicking here.  Your FREE Membership will get you started with over 2 hours of our 20+ hours of videos.

Technorati Tags: chuck quinton, golf injuries, rickie fowler, rickie fowler golf swing, rickie fowler swing analysis, rickie fowler swing sequence, Sergio Garcia, tiger woods

SETUP
Looking from the face on view, we can immediately notice that Kim’s stance is much wider than 2 inches outside of neutral joint alignment.  This places him in an anatomically inefficient position, which is going to force him to move laterally during the backswing.

From the down the line view, we can see Kim could use more hinge from the hip.  Take notice of the line drawn from his posterior to the ground.  The lack of space from this line to the back of his heels is a clear tell he needs more hinge from the hips.  When examining his weight distribution, the back of Kim’s knees are not directly over the center of his ankle joints, which informs us that his weight is on the balls of his feet at address which will place unwanted rotational stress on the left knee during the downswing.  Finally, the elbows are extended outside of the shoulders, which indicates a slight reaching for the ball.  The farther we extend our arms, the more the weight is shifted to the balls of our feet.  To briefly summarize, Kim is not grounded and anchored correctly at address which places the body in an anatomically incorrect position.

MOVE 1
As Kim starts his takeaway, he makes an excellent shoulder turn away from the ball.  There is no evidence of arm swing, and as he finishes Move 1, his arms are straight and remain directly in front of his sternum.  In addition to a wonderful shoulder turn, I want to highlight the lack of hip rotation.  Kim executes Move 1 by turning his shoulders 45 degrees and the hip turn is almost 0 degrees, exactly the way RST defines Move 1.

Although Kim executes Move 1 very well, his excessively wide stance forces him to have an exaggerated lateral shift to the right.  We have talked at great length in the past of why lateral movement is undesirable in the golf swing, and if you would like to read more please refer to “Why Can’t I Stay Centered” blog.

MOVE 2
As with many players that I encounter on a daily basis, AK starts to get in some trouble during Move 2.  Once the shoulders turn 45 degrees, we need to employ some shoulder elevation to keep the club in front of our chest, keep the club on plane, and prevent the arms from working too far around the body.  AK fails in this critical area.  Take note of his hand position in the following picture.  The arms have nowhere to go when they remain pinned to the body in such a manner.  The club subsequently now works too far around and behind the chest as he arrives at the top of his swing.  In addition, take note of how Kim’s back foot has rolled to the outside.  He has failed to roll the ankles in slightly at address, and once the weight moves to the outside portion of the right foot during the backswing, this makes it much more difficult to transfer the weight efficiently back to the left in the downswing.

MOVE 3
From my multiple film study of Kim’s swing, I found a very interesting trend.  There were some balance inconsistencies in a number of swings I examined.  For example, on certain swings I noticed the left heel spinning out indicating the weight had been transferred onto the ball of the left foot in the downswing.

In another example, Kim fell backwards slightly indicating his weight was still trapped on his right side.

The penultimate issue that I see causing the downswing problems reverts back to the arms being trapped behind the body due to the lack of shoulder elevation.  This paired with the wide stance and the weight shifting to the outside portion of his right foot certainly will cause weight transfer issues even for a golfer with tremendous talent.  Kim displays tendencies to push from his right side in the downswing to compensate for the lateral shift exhibited in the backswing, note the right foot is quite active.  This pushing move, in addition to Kim’s aggressive hip rotation will accentuate the arms getting stuck behind him on the way into impact and may help explain his 2009 ball striking statistics.

Technorati Tags: al consoli, Anthony Kim, Anthony Kim swing, Anthony Kim swing analysis, chuck quinton, Golf Instruction, Rotary Swing Tour

The Throw the Ball drill is key for sequencing and learning how to use a proper positive action of the right arm. The Right Arm Only Downswing drill is key for learning synchronization with the right arm throughout the swing and how to properly use it to increase swing speed.

In these two videos, I use a student named Josh who now works for RotarySwing.com as my test subject. Working with Josh for about 2 minutes, his swing speed went from 110 mph to 118 mph in only two swings. If you think you’d like an extra 25 yards in your game, read this swing speed article today!

Technorati Tags: club head speed, pro swing speed, swing speed

The result of this chain of events occurring in sequence and being performed from the proper origin is rotational force; the body moves away from the target and the arms and club moves towards the target.  A separation between the hips and the upper torso in the downswing is maximized when the sequence of movements are performed correctly.  Highest ball speeds are produced by those producing the maximal rotational separation between the upper torso and pelvis.

As we begin to examine Stricker’s downswing, it should be noted that Stricker finished 9th on the PGA Tour in proximity to the hole, and he hit over 2/3 of both fairways and greens this season.  He has proven himself to be an excellent ball striker, as he does a fantastic job of getting that club on plane on the way down, which is a true testament to both his tremendous athletic ability and work ethic.  Examining his swing from a purely anatomical and biomechanical perspective, however, we will see how the average golfer would likely struggle to recreate Stricker’s move without ample time to practice and improve the timing due to some of the inefficiencies that exist. The first image below is our Rotary Swing Model Chuck Quinton.

When comparing the face on view at impact for our model and Stricker, you can see from the yellow line that Stricker was unable to make a complete shift into his left side which leaves his left hip short of neutral joint alignment.  This has occurred because Striker failed to roll his ankles in slightly at address, which allowed the weight to get trapped on the outside of his right foot during Move 2.  A second cause is Stricker’s need to actively use his arms in his downswing because of his previously discussed push from the left side during Move 1 which allowed his arms to work too deep in his backswing.

This series of photos from down the line illustrates how the lack of proper weight shift has affected Stricker’s hip rotation as compared to our model.  The arrow pointing to the right heel shows how our model has efficiently transferred the majority of his weight into the left heel, and is pulling with that left oblique which allows for the right heel to passively rise off of the ground.

Stricker demonstrates a much flatter right foot at impact indicating there is still a significant amount of weight left on his right side.

This move can lead to a variety of results, most notably, the hands and arms outracing the body rotation which usually leads to pulls and hooks.  In addition, maximum rotational separation between the upper torso and the pelvis cannot be achieved, resulting in a loss of power.

Technorati Tags: al consoli, chuck quinton, rotary swing, Steve Stricker, steve stricker golf swing, Steve Stricker swing, steve stricker swing analysis

A: You’ve probably not been told the correct information about the golf swing.
B: It wasn’t communicated to you the way your brain actually learns.
C: Learning is a biologoical process that requires a specific pathway.

Watch Part 5 now:

Rather than being yet another fad swing theory, we looked at the golf swing from the inside out and asked the question, “If God were to come down and pick up a golf club and he was built exactly like us, how would he do it?” This driving question leads you down a path to objectivity. We don’t care how Tiger Woods swings a club if doesn’t move in this same fashion. We don’t care what has been published in golf instruction before. We only sought out the facts of human anatomy in complete objectivity with the help of orthopedic surgeons, biomechanics experts, learning experts and physical therapists.

The result was the Rotary Swing Tour of this cooperative effort and we’re now sharing these truths with the world via a video series on YouTube which we highly encourage you to watch. The first two episodes have been published and can be viewed below.

We hope this helps you along your path to golf instruction enlightenment!

Part 1:

Part 2:

1.    Shoulder blade glide continues turning the shoulders another 45 degrees for a full 90 degree     turn.
2.    The shoulder blade glide pulls the hips to turn approximately 45 degrees.
3.    Arms elevate, hinging from the shoulders (Shoulder Elevation).
4.    The right arm hinges at the elbow (Right Elbow Flexion).
5.    External rotation of the right humerus occurs.

The effects of Stricker’s Setup and Move 1 become more clearly defined in Move 2.

By this point in the backswing, the Rotary Swing Model advocates that an efficient right shoulder blade glide will have turned the shoulders almost a full 90 degrees and the hips approximately 45 degrees.  This is demonstrated by Chuck Quinton on the left, as the yellow arrow illustrates the position of the right shoulder.  Notice how Chuck’s right shoulder is not apparent in the photo, while Stricker’s right shoulder is clearly visible, indicating the inefficient turn due to the arms dominating the backswing.  The orange arrow further highlights this point as Stricker’s left shoulder has “shrugged” and is disconnected from the core muscles of his body.  The blue arrow illuminates that Stricker’s left arm is above his right, further indicating his arm driven turn.

When examining Stricker from down the line at the same point in his swing, we must pay attention to the circled area.  Stricker’s hands are noticeably behind his sternum, his right elbow is securely glued to his side, and the left forearm is over-pronated.  Once again, Stricker’s push from the left side has caused the club to work too deep, too around, and too flat at this point in his backswing.  He has failed to perform proper shoulder elevation which is responsible for creating some vertical movement of the club to keep the club on plane.

Here we can see the full results of Stricker’s complete backswing.  The orange arrow illustrates the arms being too deep and slightly behind the torso.  The red arrow highlights the loss of right knee flexion, which can lead to weight transfer issues in the downswing.  Finally, the yellow line was placed on the front of Stricker’s head at address, and it is quite clear how much he moves toward the ball on the backswing.  This tipping forward onto the balls of the feet is inevitable for Stricker, because his body must attempt to counterbalance the forces that he created by pushing the club to the inside.

This final image serves to illustrate the effects of Stricker failing to roll his ankles in slightly at address.  The black arrow on Stricker’s right foot shows how his weight has rolled to the outside portion of the ball of the foot.  Notice the white arrow on Chuck that shows that foot securely planted on the ground.

The culmination of Steve Stricker’s slight flaws: push from the left, out of the box, lack of shoulder elevation, loss of the flex in the right knee, and weight distributed over the outside portion of the right foot all contribute to make a proper weight transfer more difficult, even for an elite golfer.  This shall be examined in detail in our next installment, Move 3-The Downswing.

Technorati Tags: al consoli, chuck quinton, rotary swing, Rotary Swing Tour, Steve Stricker, steve stricker golf swing, steve stricker swing analysis

Technorati Tags: al consoli, Golf Instruction, the takeaway

Stricker initiates his swing with a forward press of the hands.  The club is subsequently started back by a pushing motion from his left side.  His left arm pushes across his chest which immediately causes a disconnection from his core rotation.

He is now at the mercy of his arms to turn his shoulders, which can be observed by looking at the figure above.  Notice the difference in shoulder turn between Chuck and Stricker as the club is parallel to the ground.  It is quite clear that the arms have been forced significantly behind Stricker’s sternum by this point.  As a result, the right arm is no longer straight, but instead has been forced to bend.  In addition, the left wrist has begun to pronate, as can be observed by the circles.

Pay particular attention to the logo on Chuck’s glove as compared to Stricker’s glove.  The culmination of these movements results in the club getting inside, the hands and arms working too deep, and the club being moved on a flat plane.

Technorati Tags: al consoli, chuck quinton, Golf Instruction, golf swing analysis, Steve Stricker, steve stricker golf swing

In previous forum posts, I provided some examples of how we first began a little over a month ago.  We started by addressing Kris’s Setup and perfecting Move 1 (The Takeaway).  As these elements improved, we introduced proper shoulder elevation to keep the club working on a proper plane throughout the backswing.  Today is November 23, and it was time for some serious business…Move 3 (The Downswing).  Kris is a prime example of a golfer who would rotate his hips without ever making a proper weight shift into the left heel.  The results of this dastardly movement can be illustrated from the picture below.

On the left side is a trace of Kris’s swing path.  The red line represents his backswing, and the yellow line represents his downswing.  It becomes quite clear Kris was over the top which resulted in many “wiped” shots that would weakly balloon and fade.  On the right side, you can plainly see Kris’s failure to shift that left hip which left him well short of Neutral Joint Alignment.  Kris’s weight is now trapped on his right side which results in the excessive axis tilt and his head backing way up as he comes into impact.  He never covers the golf ball effectively, and fails to compress or flight the shot the way he desires.  Due to his improper origin of movement, the more he would try to cover the ball, the more fat shots he would hit.

Now let’s examine footage from the lesson on November 23.  On the left, you can see a significant improvement in Kris’s swing path.  The red line represents his backswing, and the yellow line represents his downswing once again, but take note the orientation of the lines are dramatically different.  Due to the backswing improvements, Kris takes the club on a much better plane, and is capable of keeping the club in front of his body.  A proper weight shift, planting the left heel and pulling from the left oblique allows the club to shallow slightly and attack the ball from the inside (note the yellow downswing line is underneath the red backswing line).  On the right half of the picture, you can see Kris’s head has not backed up nearly as much, and the axis tilt is improved.  Kris’s left hip has shifted toward the target before he unwinds the hips which allows him to get into NJA at impact.

I want to mention at no time during this lesson did we talk about swing plane or what the club was doing; we focused solely on proper origin of movement in the downswing.  The golf swing needs to be based on a pull-pull relationship in order to abide by the laws of physics of rotary motion.  Kris serves as an excellent model of what can be achieved by focusing on how the human body is designed to work.  While we have lots of work left to do, Kris is finally traveling on the road to success.  RST provides the road map for this journey…want to follow along?

Technorati Tags: al consoli, chuck quinton, Golf Instruction, kris lim, rotary golf swing, rotary swing golf, rst

Stricker’s golf swing has certainly been the buzz throughout the major golf media these days, and many have analyzed his swing attempting to explain his second coming.  This is the perfect opportunity for us to examine Stricker’s fundamentals and discuss in greater detail how he measures up to the Rotary Swing Model.  We will be breaking down Steve’s swing into five parts:  Setup, Move 1, Move 2, Move 3, and Move 4.

Setup
We shall first examine Stricker from a down the line view.  In this image, it appears Stricker is hitting a hybrid club on what we can assume to be a short par 4.  We have talked at great length about the importance of a proper Setup and how the goal for the Setup is to ensure that our bodies are anchored to the ground in such a way that will provide a stable, centered engine for our golf swing, and that the proper muscles are engaged for correct posture, stability, and power.  As we examine Stricker at address, it becomes quite clear that a number of improvements could be employed.

1.  Improper Hinge from the Hips.
Chuck Quinton and Alison Thietje have gone to great lengths to describe in detail how the body is designed to function.  Rotary Swing commonly refers to these fundamentals as the anatomical absolutes.  These are not opinions or preferences but are facts about the design of the human body.  One of these anatomical absolutes is that the body is designed to bear its weight directly over the ankle joint in order to be balanced.  We want to accomplish the same when setting up to a golf ball.  Stricker’s weight is not properly distributed at address.  He displays an improper hinge from the hips, which causes his upper torso to be positioned very upright.  This can be observed by the blue line drawn from his posterior to the ground.  The lack of space from this line to the back of his heels indicates more hinge is necessary.  Proper hinging from the hips ensures that we will not introduce any excessive curvature of the spine during Setup.  This brings us to our next area of contention.

2.  Rounded Shoulders (Excessive Curvature of the Thoracic Spine)
We want the spine to remain in neutral joint alignment throughout the entire golf swing for obvious health and safety reasons.  Stricker, because of the improper hinge from the hips, has now allowed his thoracic spine to slump or round.  The result of this excessive thoracic bending is becoming disconnected from the core muscles of the body.  Stricker has effectively gotten out of “the box,” put himself into “the rectangle.”  The effects of this will be very eloquently illustrated when we examine Stricker’s Move 1 in the next installment.

3.  Extended Arms
The arms should remain tension free at Setup.  When this is performed correctly, the shoulder and elbow will be in neutral joint alignment.  The arms should hang naturally underneath the shoulders with the elbows directly beneath the shoulders.  The hands will hang naturally underneath the chin.  In Stricker’s case, improper hinge from the hips and the rounding of the shoulders have put him into a position of extending his arms, which can be observed by the red and black lines.  The extended arms and disconnection from the core will greatly affect Stricker’s origin of movement as he starts his swing.

4.  Excessive Knee Flex
Stricker displays an excessive flexion of the knees.  This can plainly be observed by the yellow line drawn up through the center of the ankle joint.  The back of the knee joint should rest on this line, but it is quite evident that this is not the case.  The body is designed to bear its weight over the center of the ankle joint in order to be balanced.  We want to accomplish much the same when setting up to the golf ball.  Excessive knee flex forces the weight of the body to be positioned over the balls of the feet which does not allow for the effective use of the body’s anatomical design.  Once again, this element of Stricker’s Setup leads to some balance issues that become more clearly defined in his backswing.

5.  Ankles Not Properly Rolled Inward
Looking at the face on view of Stricker now, he has failed to roll his ankles in slightly which has been highlighted.  This important Setup feature serves to stabilize lateral hip movement in addition to ensuring that the right foot does not roll outward as we load into the right side on the backswing.  This action makes a proper weight shift in the downswing more difficult to perform with maximum efficiency.

In summary, Stricker’s combination of Setup flaws does not put him in an anatomically correct address position.  His main faults are the following: he is effectively disengaged from his core, and his weight is on the balls of his feet.  These faults and their effects will become more apparent as he starts his backswing and will be covered in great detail in the next installment, Steve Stricker:  Move 1(The Takeaway).

Technorati Tags: al consoli, chuck quinton, rotary swing, Steve Stricker, steve stricker golf swing, Steve Stricker swing