Once you are adept at turning your chest independently of your hips, from your perfect address position, while at the same time shifting your weight, which you have been working on in Golf Swing Drill 204 – Takeaway: Turn with Weight Shift, this drill builds upon that movement by lifting (flexing) your arms and rotating them slightly as you turn.
You’ll note that we’re not yet introducing a golf club into the takeaway drills — you’re learning how to move your body, how to turn correctly while shifting your weight, and now how to lift your arms while keeping your hands in front of your chest. The best way to learn how to move correctly, to build the required neural pathways so that you can ingrain the proper movement and perform it automatically, is by building the movement a piece at a time, and by isolating each piece so that you can learn what the proper movement feels like. Once you can do this properly, the golf club will almost automatically move along the perfect path, as we’ll see shortly.
You will probably find this drill surprisingly difficult to perform perfectly, at first. But it’s well worth taking the time to master it, it is the crucial first move away from the golf ball, and it will set you on track for a beautiful golf swing…
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…working with video, pause for a moment before you watch yourself, think hard about what, exactly, it is that you are expecting to see each time.It’s difficult at first, but try to focus your awareness on different parts of your body each time you move, not just your hands. Perform the drill several times while focusing individually on your hips, your weight shift, your abdominal muscles, your shoulders, your right elbow, your left hand, and your right hand.
Step away regularly, shake yourself down, and take your stance again, working through the relevant setup drills to make sure you are in perfect position. The feedback that you get from your body as you move will be directly related to your stance width, weight distribution, spine angle, spine tilt and arm position — all of these must be perfect if you are to ingrain the correct movements with this drill. You are training your proprioception as well as your muscle control.
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Next, we’ll discuss the correct movement of the golf club in the takeaway, in Golf Swing 206 – Takeaway: The Perfect Golf Club Path.
