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Step Swing, Step Swing - Find Your Body Tempo

A simple drill for learning to get your whole body into the swinging of the club. It also helps you feel a natural sequencing of the lower body leading the upper body. If you do this drill and hit balls to the right, then it is very likely that you are using the path of the club, and sequencing of the body, to help correct for an overly open club face. Also, do your best to control the location of your steps, you want to avoid swaying and sliding too much. Instead you want to use the steps to help with sequencing and rhythm while maintaining your alignments.

Tags: Drill, Intermediate

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The Stirl is step swing, step swing. If you're going to say the name of the drill, you have to say it like that.

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There has to be a little pause because this is a rhythm drill. This is a sequencing drill.

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So the step drills have been around for a long time, but I've seen this particular version last year at the open forum from Rob Holding.

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I've used it with some pretty good success, especially with beginners, just kind of learning to feel the whole body swinging the club.

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I think is really, really important, especially when it gets to these longer clubs.

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You can get away with using just your upper body as your power source to swing the club with say an eight-iron to one of your wedges.

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But when you start getting into the seven-iron and down, you gotta start using more of your body when you get to driver, you gotta use your whole body.

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So the step swing step swing is basically doing a little bit.

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It's a little bit, it's a play on the step change direction drill, which is a little bit more of kind of a one-time thing,

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where this is going to be more of a rhythm drill, and then we're just gonna let the golf ball get in the way when we apply it.

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So you're gonna get into your golf posture, and you're basically gonna have about half second to three-quarter second little timing in these little steps.

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And when you get real comfortable, you can kind of do it without having your upper body, so put in, slam the mic there,

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but you can get kind of this little weight shift going almost like a salsa movement, where I'm just using my legs and kind of feeling the step.

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Now phase one of this drill is without using your arms, so I'm step step step step step step step step step step.

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And I'm just gonna connect my arms to this stepping movement, so I'm basically gonna step and then swing, like my arms kind of swing,

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and then I'm gonna step and then swing, so becomes swing step step step step step step step step step step step step step step.

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What a lot of amateurs do when they first start playing golf is they're going to step and then as everything,

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when they go to the top of the swing with the club, basically everything's gonna come down together, instead of having this pronounced step and then arms.

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So this is a really good way to kind of feel this sequencing of the lower body and the core kind of leading the arms, both in the takeaway and the backswing, as well as in the transition and the downswing.

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Once you have a good sense of this, then you can take some swings with your normal golf club.

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So step and I'm just kind of feeling the weight of the club, I'm not gonna do this too quick as far as the steps go, so it's not like a quick march as much as I can.

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I'm sure there's ways you can use that, but I like the rhythm of more kind of like so, and then I can do it bigger and bigger,

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kind of keeping that same rhythm, but again feeling the step and the lower body and the core leading the arms both in this takeaway and the backswing, as well as in the downswing.

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So now to take it to actually hitting a golf ball, you can either do 9 to 3 or you can do full swings, doesn't really matter, but I'm gonna get that step in going.

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So I'm doing my little step on about that rhythm that I like, and then I'm just gonna let the club and my arms swing as a result of the body movement.

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And then once I've kind of got a feeling going, I can just step forward so that that swinging motion hits the golf ball now.

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So if you're really high handy-cappering, you have trouble making contact, just kind of get the sense of it and then set up to the ball.

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So I'm gonna be here, I'm gonna get my step swing kind of rhythm, and then I'm gonna step up to the ball, and I'm gonna get kind of that step swing step swing type rhythm and try to apply it that way.

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So if you're a lower handy-capp, I do like where you just kind of walk in place and just kind of really get a sense of it.

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Anytime you're trying to make changes, it's easier to kind of sneak up on it and do something that's a little different than your normal pre-shot routine.

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You know, whatever that may be, if you have some nuances over the golf ball that your brain uses as your trigger, the more you get away from those, the easier it's going to be a detrainsfer.

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So when you take it to this swing, start a little bit away from the ball and then just kind of gradually walk in.

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That'll give you this sense of this total body movement, one little point about this step swing that I forgot to mention.

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If you have a hard time, if you kind of do this step swing and the ball tends to shoot high and way off to the right, then it means that your body is being shut down to help you control the clubface.

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And you should look at the clubface control stuff where the arm motions and transition in the release.

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It's much more important for the longer clubs than for the shorter clubs, especially with the driver through with those kind of things.

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We want to make sure that it's the total body movement that's swinging in the club, not just the arms.

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Step swing helps you develop that feeling and then you can transfer that into your stock swing.

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