MDLT…wow

[Shanker84]

I had heard the name/concert before but never spent much time looking into it but I came across something on here earlier and it piqued my interest to watch a YouTube video about it. For kicks and giggles I decided to give it a shot at the range. 
 

Holy crap. After only watching a video and taking a couple practice swings I went through two buckets and and, while they weren’t perfect, most were very good. Distance was solid, compression great, very straight with the occasional pull/hook. 
 

 

I’d always struggled with a passive hands/arms swing AND struggled with a hitting swing. I feel like with this being passive wrists but still (upper) arm drive, it’s kind of the best of both worlds and makes a lot of sense. 
 

I know this might just be a honeymoon phase but I was genuinely shocked at how effortless it all was and can’t wait to try it again. 

[DShepley]

13 hours ago, Shanker84 said:

I had heard the name/concert before but never spent much time looking into it but I came across something on here earlier and it piqued my interest to watch a YouTube video about it. For kicks and giggles I decided to give it a shot at the range. 
 

Holy crap. After only watching a video and taking a couple practice swings I went through two buckets and and, while they weren’t perfect, most were very good. Distance was solid, compression great, very straight with the occasional pull/hook. 
 

 

I’d always struggled with a passive hands/arms swing AND struggled with a hitting swing. I feel like with this being passive wrists but still (upper) arm drive, it’s kind of the best of both worlds and makes a lot of sense. 
 

I know this might just be a honeymoon phase but I was genuinely shocked at how effortless it all was and can’t wait to try it again. 

I try it from time to time as a reset but eventually curiosity and the chase of improvement lead me somewhere else again (right or wrong).  I find what it does best is change your focus to the target and in that way it clears your head of swing thoughts and gets you to play the game in a more reactionary way.  It's hard to move in a fluid motion if we are trying to instruct ourselves while we are doing it.  The key to good golf, (as I have experienced), is to be reacting as much as possible....the ball isn't the target of the swing, it just gets in the way.  Removing the focus from the ball and placing it on the target can help us think less about out motion and a lot of times that is a good thing.

[Liveonce]

I follow Shawn clements stuff which is really similar. It definitely frees up the swing and I enjoy it, especially since practice time is limited. 

[BeTheBall_]

There's a great (long!) thread on this forum, with some amazing insights from juststeve who learned from Manny himself, and he's been incredibly generous sharing his knowledge of this swing philosophy.

 

Worth seeking out. 

[AndersUK]

20 hours ago, Liveonce said:

I follow Shawn clements stuff which is really similar. It definitely frees up the swing and I enjoy it, especially since practice time is limited. 

 

Not really, Shawn very much focuses on what the body does.

[AndersUK]

On 5/20/2021 at 1:37 AM, Shanker84 said:

I had heard the name/concert before but never spent much time looking into it but I came across something on here earlier and it piqued my interest to watch a YouTube video about it. For kicks and giggles I decided to give it a shot at the range. 
 

Holy crap. After only watching a video and taking a couple practice swings I went through two buckets and and, while they weren’t perfect, most were very good. Distance was solid, compression great, very straight with the occasional pull/hook. 
 

 

I’d always struggled with a passive hands/arms swing AND struggled with a hitting swing. I feel like with this being passive wrists but still (upper) arm drive, it’s kind of the best of both worlds and makes a lot of sense. 
 

I know this might just be a honeymoon phase but I was genuinely shocked at how effortless it all was and can’t wait to try it again. 

 

If MDLT resonates with you then you may also enjoy Marcus Bell (Zen Golf).  Both instructors focus on what to do with the club rather than instruct the student to attain certain positions.  The difference with Marcus is that he prefers the lower body to control the swing and uses feedback drills to achieve this allowing the person to find their own natural swing.

[Liveonce]

2 hours ago, AndersUK said:

 

Not really, Shawn very much focuses on what the body does.

Agree to disagree. He says the body responds naturally to swinging the club

[tm3]

1 hour ago, Liveonce said:

Agree to disagree. He says the body responds naturally to swinging the club

I'm going to take the middle ground on this one, based on the SC videos that I have seen (which may have just scratched the surface -- he seems to have a million videos).

 

Shawn talks a lot about target focus and swinging the "arm club unit" as he calls it to the target and just let the ball get in the way.  Very MDLT.

 

He also goes into some body stuff such as how to properly move the hips, his so-called "Hogan move," as well as his "leveraging against the ground for power" with the legs, which IMO is not very MDLT-esque.

[Shanker84]

I had very limited exposure to the MDLT stuff but from what I saw, he seemed to eliminate any conscious thought on the lower body. That alone seems to be worlds different from everything else I’ve seen and what set him apart. 
 

On video, when I focused on just hands/arms, what I did was a proper golf swing. Not perfect but also not a hack arms only rip. 

[pacman16]

11 hours ago, AndersUK said:

 

Not really, Shawn very much focuses on what the body does.

 

These two are both great instructors but I’ll say this.  
 

I can swing a club freely towards the target (ie Shawns perpetual motion walk) and it feels good .... but I’m actually collapsing my right arm tremendously each swing.  

Swinging freely after addressing this problem was of great benefit.

[Hilts1969]

 

MDLT had a great swing and was poetry in motion but as a swing method not so sure, can help to free your mind of clutter but it is too simplistic in nature without an instructor himself guiding you. 

[CB67]

55 minutes ago, Hilts1969 said:

 

MDLT had a great swing and was poetry in motion but as a swing method not so sure, can help to free your mind of clutter but it is too simplistic in nature without an instructor himself guiding you. 

Agreed. 
 

I dedicated some time to his method, and if you have sound mechanics then I think it’s great. However even though I was swinging freely without any thoughts and focusing on just swinging the club head in the manner he suggested , I still had early extension, my hips still stalled , I still rotated my club face open in the back swing etc. 
 

It takes work to change bad habits that have engrained bad mechanics and that simply can’t be cured by “just don’t think.”

Edited May 22, 2021 by CB67

[ThinkingPlus]

Delete

Edited May 22, 2021 by ThinkingPlus
Delete...wrong thread

[juststeve]

Shanker:

 

The key for you is to stick with Manny's instructions without being lured away by well intention ed people teaching something incomparable.  You already know that what Manny taught works.  Your task is to practice so you can do it better and more consistently.

 

If you do you can change your handle to something more optimistic. 

 

Steve

[Shanker84]

On 5/24/2021 at 11:01 AM, juststeve said:

Shanker:

 

The key for you is to stick with Manny's instructions without being lured away by well intention ed people teaching something incomparable.  You already know that what Manny taught works.  Your task is to practice so you can do it better and more consistently.

 

If you do you can change your handle to something more optimistic. 

 

Steve

 

 

Another thing that I didn't realize at the time I started with this is that with the focus being so simple, it seems to make it easier to highlight and correct what's wrong when I'm on the course and things start going South. 

 

So far I've found that my common misses, fat, thin and slice are an issue of left hip sliding towards target (fat), standing up out of my posture (thin) and getting too steep/arms finishing too high (slice). 

 

It's by no means perfect but I feel like I'm able to correct on the fly much easier now than before when I had a billion things going through my head.