The golf swing from the first moment to the last is about generating
torque. Torque is what creates acceleration. Acceleration through
the impact zone is Power Golf. Even many low handicappers are
decelerating through impact.
So why do we train torque? Well, if you want to pull
off that “One Inch Punch” you’ve got to train
torque.
Now what I’m doing with my Flow Training program is making
the connection between the torque that generates the “One
Inch Punch” and the torque that generates clubhead acceleration
through impact.
They’re one and the same. The methods that train the one
will train the other.
The Kinematic Sequence is about one smooth and flowing release
of explosive impact energy from the ground right on up through
the body and out the hands.
We in Western Sports training define it as “the correct
and timely sequencing of major body parts.”
In Asia they don’t look at it so much in terms of “parts”.
They do talk about joints opening and closing in sequenced release,
but for the purpose of letting the “wave” pass through.
So the image is like a wave rippling up through a whip before
it cracks at the end. This is the one inch punch.
The advantage of looking at things in this way is that it helps
you devise remarkable training methods. Training torque is training
a whole body event. One end twists against the other end, just
like wringing out a towel.
If you wind up a spring it can’t help unwind in “sequenced
release.”
With advances in 3-D computer generated imagery it becomes possible
to measure “the correct and timely sequencing of major
body parts.” Even accomplished amateur golfers create big
power leaks because they break this kinematic chain.
The “One Inch Punch” is really a whole body punch.
And it’s the same for the golf swing. The torque that generates
clubhead acceleration through impact is not trained by doing
curls or bench presses, for example. Only whole body drills can
train this torque.
Golfers who disrupt the kinematic sequence are only getting
half body power, or less. They have to rely on the force generated
locally in the upper body. This is highly inefficient. They can’t
possible achieve their potential. Their release now occurs over
a long distance. With some it’s really the entire arc of
their downswing.
Here’s an example of what the Asian fighting masters teach.
Hold a ball out in front of you with your left hand on top and
your right hand on the bottom. Now reverse them. They teach that
such a reversal releases tremendous stored striking energy.
If you perform that reversal by simply using the isolated muscles
of your forearms, then what you’ve released is whatever’s
stored in your forearms. But if you’ve trained to cause
that reversal to occur by using your entire body, then the energy
that you’ve released is the energy that’s stored
in your entire body.
All great strikers of the ball do this instinctively. But this
whole body action can be learned, and it can be trained using
these methods developed in Asia.
Even great strikers of the ball should be training this way,
because Time’s not on their side.
Time’s on nobody’s side. But a person who does successive
sets of these spiraling patterns of movement in combination with
the moving stancework, working higher and lower, back and forth,
will find that Time has to give them some respect.
In later routines we’ll learn how to integrate and synchronize
our breathing and even our feelings and imagery with the movements.
This will increase by another order of magnitude the results
we get.
But all journeys start with the first step, and this system
starts with the 1st Routine.
Trainer Joe Scuderi
