The stroke is the most important of the fundamentals, yet far too many players rush their swing. They bring it back, then lunge it forward. This has been talked about countless times, but it can be very difficult to explain to someone doing this what it means to let the cue start slowly and accelerate. Somehow explanations and comparisons don't seem to work.
During my last bootcamp I tried something new with my student. I call it the '4 second stroke'. Here's the deal. I looked up an online metronome ( http://metronome/ ) and I set the BPM to 50. I challenged my student to do a slow motion stroke that started on beat one and ended on beat five (roughly 4 seconds). The rules were that he had to accelerate the entire time, so he couldn't start fast, slow down, then speed up again. And he had to time it so he was at top speed right as his arm was straight up and down which would be at the 5th beat.
Something about doing this in slow motion is really eye opening. It is hard not to be wrapping up by the count of three. In order to accelerate the entire time and not finish early you can't even be visibly moving until the three count. And the majority of the movement doesn't happen until the very last beat
It was hard to do, so we found a way to get a good demonstration. I found a near flat surface on a granite counter nearby and put a billiard ball on it. It wasn't absolutely level so the ball did roll after a while, but it took forever to pick up speed. First it sat apparently still, maybe just rocking slightly, then it would start to turn, then rotate, then roll very slowly, and finally roll and pick up speed. We timed how long it took to travel a foot and sure enough the majority of the distance came in the last 20% of the time.
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. After that my student had a much better time understanding what it meant to not jerk the cue forward and to use a slow start with an accelerating swing. It also goes to show that you don't necessarily have to pause at the back of the stroke, because a pure acceleration is close to a pause anyway (the same way when you're on a swing set you seem to 'hang' at the top).
Anyway, if you're trying to smooth out your stroke you might want to try slow motion practice. There's some mental stuff that's important too but physically speaking this is a great way to map it out for your mind. Have fun and swing smooth!
During my last bootcamp I tried something new with my student. I call it the '4 second stroke'. Here's the deal. I looked up an online metronome ( http://metronome/ ) and I set the BPM to 50. I challenged my student to do a slow motion stroke that started on beat one and ended on beat five (roughly 4 seconds). The rules were that he had to accelerate the entire time, so he couldn't start fast, slow down, then speed up again. And he had to time it so he was at top speed right as his arm was straight up and down which would be at the 5th beat.
Something about doing this in slow motion is really eye opening. It is hard not to be wrapping up by the count of three. In order to accelerate the entire time and not finish early you can't even be visibly moving until the three count. And the majority of the movement doesn't happen until the very last beat
It was hard to do, so we found a way to get a good demonstration. I found a near flat surface on a granite counter nearby and put a billiard ball on it. It wasn't absolutely level so the ball did roll after a while, but it took forever to pick up speed. First it sat apparently still, maybe just rocking slightly, then it would start to turn, then rotate, then roll very slowly, and finally roll and pick up speed. We timed how long it took to travel a foot and sure enough the majority of the distance came in the last 20% of the time.
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. After that my student had a much better time understanding what it meant to not jerk the cue forward and to use a slow start with an accelerating swing. It also goes to show that you don't necessarily have to pause at the back of the stroke, because a pure acceleration is close to a pause anyway (the same way when you're on a swing set you seem to 'hang' at the top).
Anyway, if you're trying to smooth out your stroke you might want to try slow motion practice. There's some mental stuff that's important too but physically speaking this is a great way to map it out for your mind. Have fun and swing smooth!
