Great post by Shattuck, September 7, 2008:

"I have found in the past 3 years working on this swing that the biggest mistake I make is thinking you can ignore certain components of what JH is telling us to do. A perfect example for me is the twist the trail forearm immediately from the top at the start of the downswing, sort of reversing the twist you do in the 2nd half of the backswing. I had never tried this in a committed fashion because it made no sense to me. But when JH went on line on a recent post and shared his "elements that are most vital to accomplish" I really paid attention to his statement "...slice with your right forearm while moving the right elbow up and behind you in the backswing and then try and hook with your right forearm (not wrists) down onto the inner circle..". Now I know this is essentially old news in that he stated back on 9/12/07 in another post where Jeffy had described his aha moment, "So many people don't really think that I actually want them to twist the right forearm counterclockwise as hard as you can, right from the top...." Well paying attention to this I had my best two rounds of scoring and ball striking all year this past weekend.

Another item I had essentially not been committed to is "left upper arm area connected to chest". Well lo and behold when I started twisting my right forearm immediately from the top guess what???? that left upper arm area stays much more connected to my chest. I know I am striking the ball the JH 1 plane way when I twist the right (trail) arm hard from the top and rotate the body through so that when I hit the ball I have side bend, which results in a different perspective in terms of "how you see impact".

I really think JH's recent post I alluded to above is key in terms of his most vital elements. Prior to reading it I was hitting the ball good with alligator arm feel with both arms on the downswing. But for me alligator arms do not ensure I keep the right elbow back and I can almost swing alligator arms faster than my rotating body in the downswing so the right elbow blows down and under my stomach because my arms are swinging faster than my body is rotating. The twist from the right arm from the top thought keeps that right elbow coming into impact at about the same time the right hip is.

Also with this twist move I am focusing on my power is coming back. I carry PW 150 and 5 iron 200 with my old two plane swing (6'2" with 37" arms helps with the two plane distance). While I was losing 10-15 yards with the way I was doing the one plane swing, with this downswing arm twist focus I am about 5-10 yards shorter which is fine because I have a lot less wild misses.

The information is all there but you cannot blow any of it off or think varying something JH is saying is going to work better for the one plane swing. And as tgreenwood stated in a recent post, repetition is key towards getting the swing to feel less segmented and more like a fluid motion.

I know I wrote alot above but I never asked my question. If you are doing 1/2 swings, so you never get to the point where you rotate your right forearm open in the backswing, does that mean your downswing is simply rotating the body through keeping the right elbow up and back. In other words you do not twist the right forearm hard in the downswing? I have been hitting knock down 7 and 8 irons this way and it seems to be working."

Dave,

I have a quick question about the right wrist and this twisting motion through impact. As I have worked on this twist I have found that I am back to having a bowed left wrist and an angle in my right wrist at impact. I had a lot of this befor converting to the OPS but it was achieved the wrong way-by pulling and draging with the left wrist.

Someone else described the right hand feeling as like putting the lid back on a trash can as hard as you can. That image has worked for me. I have noticed that that action promotes the retention of the angle in the right wrist. From impact to follow through the feeling is almost like the club move horizontal to the ground until it gets to the left hip and then it most straight up into the finish, if that makes sense.

I had read a bunch about the slap hinge release and the left wrist giving way and the right wrist releases its angle. I had tried those things in my journey down the OPS but found that that stuff promotes inconsistency.

Interested in your thoughts. I have come a long, long way since I first sent you a video.

Grady

Grady, your description of what you're doing sounds completely right to me. Jim Hardy has illustrated a variety of ways to hit a golf ball in his DVD's on the full swing, the short game and sand play, and what they all have in common, it seems to me, is that they're in a circle on plane. Indeed he really stresses that the flippy releases should be in a circle on plane. DaveH