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Tathata Golf

ShotScope
Days 14/15

More repetition of body movements, which helps if you do them outside of the videos. The more repetition, the better. By this time, you've gone through the basics of the swing (body movement and hands), and "more will be revealed later" is a constant theme. It's one step at a time, no getting ahead. In both of these days, he goes into deeper detail as to the hips and shoulders -- he does not focus on their movement, but focuses on how the learned body movements put the hips and shoulders in position during the swing. It's novel in terms of teaching -- it's about leveraging your body to put it into positions of speed and strength. And it all makes sense if you are open to learning.

The mental training is designed to make you feel confident and powerful so you have no hesitation during the swing -- you become extremely confident. Just be open to it.

On the range, let's face it -- you're going to have up and down days as you incorporate new positions and trash old ones. Patience. Lots of 45-55 wedges. With low speed you can go slower to incorporate changes.
 
Day 16 - Review and Test Day.

You are presented with multiple choice questions, they give you time to think, and then give you the answer - Bryan explains the movement relating to the question. It's a great way to obtain more detail that you may have missed in earlier sessions.

The best feature of this day was the Added Materials - a 10 minute video on the takeaway. Basically, nothing is contrived or gimmicky in Tathata - it is desgined to put you in a strong position and to load or place you in a position of leverage. The takeaway is a push down with your arms in which the front shoulder loads. He offers detail as to the position of the hands at address, the push down with the arms as you start the swing, and then critically turning the back elbow in -- so it remains in front of the body. Great explanation. He then has you push back with the glutes as the takeaway begins -- great vid.

Very impressed with the program.
 
Am I using my old swing or what I've learned from Tathata?

Work is up, and Weather is up and down (tornado season in Tx and Ok) so I've concentrated on the training.

When I play soon, it will be with the new training. It's not difficult to incorporate much of it. It's pushing the glutes back when you begin the backswing, and then on the downswing, pushing the knees forward, and back (so no early extension) that is difficult for me to incorporate. Moving the glutes back gets more weight on the back foot (good), and then you must use the feet, shins, and knees to get that weight forward. Tough for me, which is why I use a lot of wedges on the range. Pressing the feet into the ground is a new sensation - I mean really pressing.

During breaks, i get out a club and rehearse the backswing, and then downswing. A kid's club helps if you don't have much room.

I use a lot of his analogies -- as in surfing the hips -- pretending you're on a surfboard to level out the hips at the start of the downswing, and then he uses the word "Snap" to offer speed.

Incorporating some of it too soon will lead to some issues as you don't have enough of the training. The repetition and additional videos help clear up "technique" issues. Thinking that by Day 20, you've got enough for the basics if you've spent the time to take it to the course. I am at the range 2X during the weekdays for an hour after work, and then a couple of hours each day on the weekends. Some of it is wasted time because mistakes are made. Patience is needed as Bryan reveals more in time.
 
Days 17-21

Mind-numbing repetition with added twists is how I'd describe 17-20, and 21 introduces pressure movements.

It's important to get the reps -- the body movements with hands/arms -- you pick up more detail along the way listening and watching him describe the movements. He usually does 2 sets of each movements and sometimes, I will just watch the first set to pickup details and listen more intently. He also has deeper discussion about the hands/arms as chapter extra. Deeper discussion means more detail and explanation so you buy into the program. He is taking you on a journey that makes sense. Stretching and Mental Training continues. The mental gives you confidence and purpose during the swing - yes, it's important.

Day 21 introduces pressure - I was not sure what to think about it at first, but as the Chapter progresses, all is revealed (as he says time after time - lol). It's not only about grip pressure, but also arm pressure, upper body, lower body pressure and their respective parts - how much pressure and how you measure it throughout the body in various stages of the swing. The idea is to have one measure of pressure for the entire body at these stages so you are in synch -- it all makes sense.

The program takes out all extraneous movements that once seemed like basics - after this, they all seem inefficient.

Impressive.

On the range, progress continues as the movements learned thus far are incorporated into hitting golf balls. It is not easy incorporating new movements and trashing inefficient habits, and it occurs over time, but it does occur. When it occurs, the swing seems effortless. And the more one learns and incorporates, the more consistent, I believe, that effortless feeling of strength and power becomes.
 
Days 22-24

These 3 lessons are filled with pressure and hand movements and integrating them. What the heck does that mean? My head is still spinning from these lessons.

Like everything else in this program, all pressure increases in your body move togetther. By that I mean, if your grip pressure starts at 2 on a scale of 1-10, then your entire body is at 2 -- everything is in synch. Pressure with arms/hands increase together, so when you move into the downswing, your entire body is at 5, impact is 6, then 7-8-9 at the finish. By the time you finish, your feet, legs, glutes arms, hands, grip, etc. are all feeling 9. There is a reason to this madness and when you are swinging it makes perfect sense -- you have that ah-ha moment.

He shows how pressure straightens and/or pushes certain parts of your body to positions we see every day among pros. For example, at the top, you are at pressure of 4 and feel the arms pushing out and the elbows get closer. We then spend time on pressure at the armpits and the connection with that pressure on the arms.

He goes into great detail without a ball about impact and how the body and arms move together - there is no rollng of arms, the arms are close to the body, everything moves together and with strength following the body. Lots of great movements here so you surf but don't straighten up through impact.

You are making all of these movements with him and the two models -- usually what hair I have left is wet by the time I finish -- it is 18 movements of 2 sets and 5 reps, and you are moving and focusing. Sometimes, I am so focused on the new movement that I forget to pressure the feet, then I tell myself to focus and have the feet move the body -- the basic movements learned in lesson 1 are building blocks you are using in lesson 24. It takes repetition, and them more repetition, make it good repetition. Mentally, you do get fatigued during the one hour lesson. That's where the 8 minute mental cool down at the end of each session helps. It keeps you determined to finish - to do the reps.

The mental training - drivel or not, the message is staying positive, strong, and looking forward. It's a good way to end each lesson, even though I find myself skipping to the short test during the last minute or two at times. Don't think I've mentioned the short test at the end of each chapter - about 4-5 questions, and until you answer all questions correctly, you do not get to go to the next lesson. Not to worry, you will pass, although one questions every 6 lessons might cause you to scratch your head.

Don't think I've heard the word "crucial" used so many times in 3 lessons. lol.

I believe days 18-25 are the most mind boggling part of the full swing, and then in future lessons we go forward with more repetition, and then speed. I will finish lesson 25 before going to the range. Days 21-25 seems like a package deal.
 
Days 25-32

In this segment I was finishing up the full swing movements. We learned more about pressure and increasing it throughout the body and swing -- there is a delicate balance between pressure and tension - when tension is introduced, I think that leads to the wrong movements. So one must move to the top, not loose but on a scale of 1-10, you go 2, 3, 4 (4 is at top), and 5-9 is the downswing - with 8-9 squeezing the crap out of your buttocks/body. I say that, lol, while still thinking about the tension/pressure relationship.

We also learning about movement during impact and afterwards - arms/hands, and day 31-32 introduced different "setup" positions for let's say, 7i, wedge, driver - in their normal and strong positions -- big wedge versus stock wedge - position of legs and basic squat movement - more squat-like for a big driver. Okay, still getting into this 4th chapter.

But you want to know more about what actually happens to the golf ball -- well, more yardage on the course but I had some issues, as explained below. My bad tendencies had crept back, but were happily resolved with a lesson from my "live" instructor. As I posted for tathata:

One issue is integrating all of the movements into your swing and finding a balance. Taking an online course, you wonder if you are going “too far” with a particular movement or not enough. Some of the issues are resolved with more repetition – time.

Second, as to making contact with the ball, I was experiencing excessive toe hits. I think this issue originated because the right arm while surfing returned to the body, but what about the clubhead? What path does it take?

Now Bryan has an overlooked video on the clubhead going out (seemingly over the top) to show if you are making the proper lower body movemement, the arms can go out.

I’d like him to take this one step further with a golf club to show the arms in, clubhead out and emphasize that movement. After day 31, I had a lesson with my “live” instructor and he noticed my arms at my side as well as my clubhead, so my club path was greater than 7 degrees in to out — we had worked on getting that to decrease, but I’d neglected that movement in favor of training. He pointed it out and I remembered Bryan’s short vid on the arms.

My instructor and I spent an hour getting me back on two issues (my tendencies from earlier training) — arms too attached to chest on backswing causing clubhead to get too far inside, and clubhead too inside (not out) on downswing. I also found that I was smothering the ball left. What happened is that I surfed, but my lower body was not opening up sufficiently. As a result, I’ve reviewed my rhythm/tempo to give my lower body time to open up so I can launch the ball

I think that is the weakness of video training — not having enough camera angles for our viewing experience. It cannot do everything, but hopefully feedback helps improve the program.

With my “live” instructor training, I was able to correct these issues after a couple of sessions of hitting balls. Now it’s back to repeating basic movements and finding that balance. As a note, my live instructor did like the lower body movements and “posting up” at the finish of the swing.

On the course, my drives, even with these issues, are longer. I gained 15 yards on a gap wedge ... a gap wedge! Apparently, I had a lot of untapped potential. Your mileage will vary.
 
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I want to reinforce this now that I am a bit out from my last post and having been playing more golf. I am definitely playing much better than I was previously. I feel so much more confident over a golf ball. I am swinging well, I really feel like my swing is starting from the ground up and am just fine tuning my tempo to make sure I keep the ball in play consistently. I will post some more, but want to reinforce that I've gained distance, consistency in my ball flight, and just a much greater understanding of the golf swing in general. Maybe the best money I've spent so far in golf.
 
Hopefully, the following offers practical insight on tathata and how a live instructor helps as you go through the training.

Had a live lesson today, and I think tathata with an instructor works well. I am into this program for a couple of reasons – to avoid injury, to gain speed with a polished swing, and to learn the detail that most instructors avoid. I am also lucky. My instructor is what I call "tahata-lite." I am staying with tathata movements that do not interfere with my live instructor. Thankfully, I am discovering that they seem to only differ in degrees. My live instructor tells me what he does not like and gets rid of the exaggerations. For example:

He saw the glute squat and said, "you don't have to squat that much to create pressure. Try this …” For the feet, he asked me to feel as if my right foot was moving backwards towards the top and the front foot pushing forwards at the top (creates a pressured, twisting motion).

He had me “lengthen” (essentially, stand on the front foot) the front (left) side at the top to open up the hips while the lower body opened up and arms stayed on body — the clubhead pops out and moves left after impact if the arms are on the body (tathata-like thrust).

After impact, I am not staying down through the swing. So after practicing the above, I moved the abs through and past impact to pick up speed and hit with the right arm... that kept me down and the finish under control. (tathata-like)

All of the above had me striking the ball with more consistency.

I know programs or instructors exaggerate movements so you will do them correctly. Every instructor over the last 20 years has me do the exaggeration and then backs it off. Finding the right instructor has been a chore … so many bad habits with poor instructors need to go…

I sometimes wonder if Bryan Helper (tathata) wants us to hit golf balls before we finish Lesson 40 -- I say that because he is building upon each motion. I watched lesson 32 as a preview (I am now browsing before doing), and at the moment it seems he is still building.

For example, I am surfing fine (first body movement from the top) - my instructor looked - but I was too square, and did not move the body (tug the front hip) sooner to open it up before impact. Can you say ball go left? I also did not need to squat much during the swing to create pressure, as explained above. I need to get my left side taller after the initial surf...

I think the swing occurs so quickly that doing some of these movements during the lessons is an exaggeration, or they are done slowly, and when translated to the swing, they must occur faster.

As my instructor says, I give you what you need, you need to go to the gym (the range), and use what I gave you to get good contact and get the ball in the air. You will figure it out, but do not deviate from what I gave you. I think this program is the same - they give us the base and we find less or more exaggeration of movements based on what is needed to get to a place in the swing where one can play golf.

Edit: I need to add that at the end of lesson 32, Hepler addresses my issue of dropping the club at the top resulting in a severe inside to out club path that gives hideous results depending on my degree of in to out on a particular swing.

He wants you to feel an over the top move to get the clubhead moving outside with arms in. Because tathata puts you in a position where your glutes are back and arms in, the over the top move results in the club coming from the inside. (I get this better when I use my instructor's foot movement from a post above)

This makes me think that since tathata builds each movment upon an erlier movement, that hitting balls before you get to lesson 40 may be discouraging because all is not revealed. Keep on going.
 
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Desmond, thanks for your detailed feedback on this program. Sounds like you are seeing promising results. Please keep the updates coming. I am seriously pondering on this one.
 
We are coming on a month since my last update:

I am at lesson 42.

The last 8 lessons were work -- Bryan still has you sweating even though you are almost done with the formal full swing program -- working on full swing movement and drills, many drills on pressure -- it's worth talking about as pressure offers more width on the downswing and helps you finish the swing. Think of pressure as a range from 2-8. Taking the grip, it is 2. At the top of the backswing, you are at 4, then coming down you increase the prssure, and the result is the arms don't go backwards and one actually increases width with more pressure -- you pressure the hands, body, legs so at ball contact you are at 6, and in the followthrough, the entire body is at 8.

Helper makes a compelling argument that you do not relax during the swing but build up pressure. When you throw a football 40 yards, you are not relaxed in a true sense - your arm is not flimsy. Same way in golf, if your arms are loose, you will lose width -- add pressure and you add width. I've even started adding pressure while putting and I get a better roll.

Can you change your swing from old patterns to new in 60 days? No. It takes time to rid yourself of old patterns.

I am still growing accustomed to basic body and hand movements, and pressure. For example, I went 10 days without hitting a ball, just inside work. Went to the range and suffered a severe case of toe hit-itis. The good thing about getting to lesson 41 is that they open up another segment of the program that organizes various movements and discussions so they are easier to find. I spent time on Bryan's deeper discussion of getting the club in front of you, shoulders, legs, and going back to a few lessons - told me that I was trying to reconnect too soon on the downswing so I was coming too much from the inside. I needed to push my glutes and hips back on the downswing to get the club in front and to "surf" more aggressively. I also get the weight into the heels of my feet. Solved the toe hit issue.

Once again, I go to the range and repeat the fundamentals of the first 40 days. Sometimes, I have a gap wedge in my hand for 2 hours, only doing drills and repeating movements.

Once you "get it," the moves are powerful, but it is work.

You need the mental training to get you strong and to keep you going.

Lesson 40 is where he gives you confidence in the program by showing how the game's greatest players use the same moves.

In lesson 41, you begin the short game with chipping. Similar movements as in full swing but meaningful changes.

Is it worth it? Yes. Why? I have watched, listened, and experienced a lot of instruction. Instructors tell you where they want the club, but most I've listened to, do not tell you the how and the why - tathata gives you understanding.

Hope this helps.

 
Thanks for all your updates here - great stuff. I am on day 8 right now. Being from Wisconsin, I wanted a program that I could work on during the winter. So far this seems to be really promising.
 
Any updates on finishing the program or progress thus far?

Sent from my ONE A2005 using Tapatalk
 
They've got a black friday special going, trying to decide if it's worth it, keep getting blasted with commercials/ads for them
 
Where do they have the Black Friday special?
I am interested as well for the winter.
 
Interesting.............thanks for taking the time for the feedback. This is really helpful and I will be looking into this. After seeing it on TV you think its another deal you buy and it make or may not help. Im kind of at a Plateau with my game and it seems instruction really isn't getting anywhere. The last two lessons have really got me down and really didn't get much out of them.
 
Based on what I have read about the program(Arms first, body release) it sounded like what I want to accomplish with my swing....
Also, during winter I thought it would be a great way to make my game better working on it indoors.
And with the Black Friday deal I took the plunge.

Just finished my 1st lesson, and there is a surprising amount of great information already... that makes perfect sense!
I will try to post my experience from time to time as well, although Desmond has already done a great job posting his experience.
 
any feedback from those who finished?

any feedback from those who finished?

Ryan Loves Golf said:
Based on what I have read about the program(Arms first, body release) it sounded like what I want to accomplish with my swing....
Also, during winter I thought it would be a great way to make my game better working on it indoors.
And with the Black Friday deal I took the plunge.

Just finished my 1st lesson, and there is a surprising amount of great information already... that makes perfect sense!
I will try to post my experience from time to time as well, although Desmond has already done a great job posting his experience.
Click to expand...

gonna take the plunge too! should help with the winter blues! Does the stretching help and increase the golf specific flexibility? I hate stretching and dont mind yoga but i like the option of being able to combine golf and yoga together!
 
Ryanhcartoon said:
gonna take the plunge too! should help with the winter blues! Does the stretching help and increase the golf specific flexibility? I hate stretching and dont mind yoga but i like the option of being able to combine golf and yoga together!
Click to expand...

The stretching is awesome to be honest. From a guy that is not very flexible and dreaded this part of it and also thinking to myself there is no way I can do the things he does in the routines. But I did and I surprised myself not only being able to accomplish the stretches but see and understand what he stretches and why. Yes, you will be a little sore after the first or second day but it makes sense to get the places he targets stretched and loose as those are the areas he is incorporating in his routines and lessons.

Im on day 12 and finally getting the hands and arms incorporated.
 
Glad I found this thread and have been looking at this to improve my game as well.

First do I need to have a club available? I was thinking of getting this to put on my (Ipad) and doing on the road while at work. Being a pilot I have a lot of down time and thought this would be great to do in the hotel or while sitting in the crew lounge. However I really cannot bring a club on the road. Think this is still worth it for me? Or any suggestions?
 
Motopilot said:
Glad I found this thread and have been looking at this to improve my game as well.

First do I need to have a club available? I was thinking of getting this to put on my (Ipad) and doing on the road while at work. Being a pilot I have a lot of down time and thought this would be great to do in the hotel or while sitting in the crew lounge. However I really cannot bring a club on the road. Think this is still worth it for me? Or any suggestions?
Click to expand...

It would be great for downtime and is a great program so far. Im on day 29 which recently introduced pressures and impact. Coming from a guy that used to swing with arms and upper body and different way to manipulate the club face to be square it puts a whole new feeling in the golf swing.

Im not sure what to do on the issue with a golf club?
 
You're out of luck with the golf club. I just bring a grip with me on the road. Get my reps in that way. I don't what you require with Tathata.


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Finished up Day 31 starting to introduce speed and strength. Kinda makes you think to yourself...hhmmm interesting yet makes perfect sense. My biggest thing that im having a hard time catching onto or I don't know if im doing it correctly is snapping to level, pushing the hands down through impact. I might have to take video and see. Ill say it again, im only half way through this program and I already know this is going to help my game. I cant wait to hit some balls. I know its going to be a little rough possibly out of the gate but so far there are good self diagnosing strategies if things go south.
 
And you are swinging a club while watching the video? Or is it for only certain parts? Put this on possible xmas list from the wife.
 
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