swipe impact

[casey]

Coaches and friends,
I have noticed that often when Swiping (can you say "swiping" :?:) one club makes a slight impact on my back. First, are there any specific exercises or perfromance nuances you could point to to remedy this? Second, what do the rules say on this? It seems to me that one could get away with many shoddy reps by bouncing the clubs off of the back if there were no rules against it. (So there should be, is what I am trying to say...) I imagine some of this might be covered in Coach Szolek's book, but I have not yet had the good fortune to purchase a copy. (soon!)

Thanks in advance,

Casey

[Doug Szolek]

Are you practicing the Performance Swipe or the Technical Swipe?

If you're training for OCS then you should be doing the technical variant. If you're not sure what the difference is, then you need to search the forum for the answer I no it's around here, and get my OCS training manual.

As for your question, I didn't address hitting the Clubbells on your back in the rule section because if you were to try to cheat your reps with this method, you'd likely not be able to walk away from the event.

It was however addressed under the heading of performance nuance here on the forum. To recap, if you're hitting your back with the Performance Swipes then it means that you're probably swinging them into Back Position rather than lowering them into it. If it's happening on the Technical Swipes then you're not swinging them wide enough to clear the sides of your back.

Practicing the Technical Swipe for OCS requires that you swing the Clubbells quickly into Back Position so that you can actually see the heads come forward through your armpits in the deepest portion of the load. From there the explosion out of Back Loaded Position will be much more effortless than launching them from a vertical hang in Back Position as you would do during a Performance Swipe.

Just to clarify, the main difference between the Performance Swipe and the Technical Swipe is that the Performance is done to cultivate Strength-Endurance and the Technical is done to express Strength-Endurance. This is done by stopping in Order and Back Position during the Performance Swipe and by making the motion as seamless as possible during the Technical Swipe by flowing quickly through order directly to Back Loaded Position (with the heads of the Clubbells poking through the armpits) and then exploding the Clubbells by the elastic "unraveling" of the shoulder straight to the Basic Arm Swing and a DEEP hip fold.

Let me know if that clears things up a bit Casey, looking forward to competing alongside you at an upcoming OCS competition.

In Faith,

[Scott Sonnon]

Doug,
Your thorough responses generously investing your time for the CST Tribe is noticed and appreciated. Just a thank you for all of the hard work and amazingly clear details you share...

[casey]

Wow, thanks Coach Szolek! I had read but not really understood the posts on the Technical and Performance swipes. I think I finally get it now though. Too bad I didn't get to read this before my workout last night, 17 long sets of 12. I assume the OCS version of the Swipe should look like the one demonstrated by Coach Sonnon on the OCS homepage video files?

I don't know if I should post a new thread for this, but I am also curious about the best way to get to the competition venue. I looked it up on a map and it looks like it is very close to Vancouver. Is it easier to fly in from there?

Thanks,
Casey

[Doug Szolek]

Always glad to clarify, Casey (especially when it comes to form).

As for using Coach Sonnon's demo of the Swipe and Mill, I can think of none better, he did create these monsters after all. You may find that you have slight variance in your expression of the technique, if so I wouldn't worry about it too much, this is usually a result of the uniqueness of each individual coupled with your own pre-conditioning.

As for flying the comp. I've always gone through Sea-Tac it's not too long a drive from there.

Looking forward to working with you in Philly :)