THOUGHTS FROM THE SWING CLINIC
really surprised at how far out their aim is (i.e. the mallet is aligned significantly to the left or right of the target). So why is this? The answer is that they have a swing which doesn’t deliver the mallet head in a square position through the strike, and over time, with regular practice, they’ve come to see the mallet as being square to the target when it actually isn’t. It’s not a conscious compensation, their visual system has just learnt to see things slightly differently in this particular situation. Often in the Swing Clinic the thing that looks odd (excessive use of the wrists, or late deceleration of one shoulder, or standing up out of the shot) is a corrective manoeuvre, rather than the actual swing fault. This is the case here, where the swing fault and the misalignment cancel out. How does a Swing Coach sort this out? The answer is always to get the player perfectly aligned first, whilst warning them that they will start to miss everything, and that this is great news. Once you’ve got them missing everything, then you sort out the swing fault and then they start hitting everything. Happy days! If you can get all of this done in 1 hour, and then follow up with clear notes on how to practise and bed in their new technique, then you should take up swing coaching (please). Incidentally, if you did the mallet face alignment test above, and found you aren’t aligned with 100% accuracy then I wouldn’t necessarily fuss about it. You’re in the same position as 80-90% of players, and so long as your hitting is satisfactory then you can just shrug your shoulders like Peter Crouch and say ‘Big deal’. The ‘if it’s not broke don’t fix it’ mentality has its virtues! However, you might find that being properly aligned improves your hitting consistency. If you want to try this then one option is to do something with lasers at home (cf. Peter Olsen videos on the internet). Another option, on the lawn, is a simple exercise where you stand your mallet up pointing at the target, step away to check alignment, correct the alignment and then retake your stance, look carefully at mallet face and target, and then hit the ball. It doesn’t take long to get your visual system retuned to pointing the mallet correctly, maybe 20-30 min, so well worth trying. Will correcting my alignment by myself mess up my hitting ability? The reason I have suggested that players can safely correct their own alignment is that I find that if you correct the alignment the swing starts to adapt to the correct target line quite naturally, so it doesn’t ruin your hitting ability to try this. I think a lot of players would benefit from doing this, so why not give it a go?
RAOUF ALLIM Grade 3 AC/grade 3 GC coach
I’ve recently completed three day-long Swing Clinics and there are some really common problems which players have, some of which they could fix themselves if they knew how. I’m going to cover a few of them in successive articles, but Alison was asking me to write something about alignment, so that’s today’s topic. There are two sorts of alignment to consider. The first is where your body (particularly the shoulder girdle and hip girdle) is pointing. The second is where your mallet points at address (is the mallet face square to the target). Body alignment Regarding body alignment I’m fully in favour of standard doctrine of having feet pointing at the target, or if they are turned outwards or inwards, it should be symmetrical. Most people have their feet slightly outwards. The shoulders should also square up to the target, and you’re good to go. Unfortunately, a lot of players have musculoskeletal issues, and the square position doesn’t allow them to swing properly. For example, my own problems with shoulder pain have forced me to adapt my swing in the last couple of years. Two years ago I had left shoulder supraspinatus tendonitis and couldn’t swing my left shoulder properly. I had to set up with my left foot forwards, and with hands split on the mallet shaft so that only the right shoulder was working. Last year I got right shoulder supraspinatus tendonitis and had to set up with both feet pointing left so that I could swing outwards to the right, keeping the right shoulder stationary, and using more wrist swing. This year the shoulders are OK and I’m back to being square. So, being square is ideal, but if you can’t manage it, then see a swing coach and work out an alternative setup and swing. Mallet face alignment Mallet face misalignment, where the mallet points in the wrong direction at address is a really common occurrence. You can test yourself just by putting your mallet down, pointing at a target, and then step back from it and see where it’s actually pointing. The majority of players turning up to the Swing Clinic have a misalignment, and they are
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