Customer Reviews

Understanding the Golf Swing: The DVD

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I know Manuel and have worked with him on 2 occasions. Being a PGA teaching professional I can tell you that there is a reason why he is voted as a top 20 teacher every year. And that reason is that he requires you to change your way of thinking. I read about him 15 years ago. I bought Earnest Jones's book. I sought out everything I could on Manuel. But until you work with him in person, it's hard to put his method into practice. Because it's a complete change in thinking. Not a physical action that he has stashed in his bag of tricks. That's why you might see poor reviews for his video. He's not trying to show you something new. Most of us already know how to swing the club. He teaches us to think differently.

After my first session with Manuel I walked away knowing I had a lot of work to do between the ears.Even after a couple of competitive rounds I knew it would take some time. I just could not let go of my old way of thinking.

90% of all golfers are convinced that thier target is THE BALL!

The next day I went to the range, and it only took me about 5 swings before I realized that I was as "ballbound" as the students I had been teaching for 10 years. I played some good golf that way. But I always knew there was something that was keeping me from reaching MY next level as a golfer. I never had aspirations of playing on the tour. God blessed me a long time ago with the knowledge and awareness that I was never going to reach that level. I'm not saying you shouldn't have lofty goals. But in my opinion, having overly high expectations is one of the biggest road blocks to reaching your potential as a golfer. As a coach I must help a student realize what it takes to achieve their goals. I must also make sure that they know there are less than 1,000 golfers in the world at any given time that can play this game for a living. That's just a fact. And these 1,000 golfers were most likely born with two things: 1. Complete confidence that the club in their hands is going to send the ball to their intended target. And 2. An uncanny ability to harness their emotions and channel them into peek performance while under pressure. If you asked these guys/girls what they are thinking about when they swing, most of them would say target. But don't be fooled. For the most part, these individuals have done this since they were kids, and swinging to their target never really crossed their minds as the most crucial thing they do to be sucsessful in their profession. It just happnes for them. Believe it not, many of these players do think about "hitting the ball" instead of swinging the club. However, we wouldn't dare trying to change their way of thinking at this point. But if you want an example of a world class player that lost sight of what they are supposed to be doing with the golf club, look no further than David Duval, Ian-Baker-Finch,or Tom Weiskoph. I'm not saying that these guys meltdowns are directly related to swinging vs. hitting. But they didn't just wake up and forget how to swing! Something in their thought process went awry. But I feel confident that fear and lost confidence were at the top of the list.

A good example of Manuel's method would be the action that a small child uses when he/she picks up a club. They see ball, they swing club, however, the ball just gets in the way. The child has no expectation as to what the ball should do. It just goes. Sometimes on the ground. More often times it gets airborne with a little draw! Amazing! A natural swing produces a draw. How many of you ruined your games trying to produce a draw? A draw is actually a straight shot. Most tour players came out of the womb hitting a draw. Now with technology the way it is, they all want to hit a power fade. It flys higher, stops quicker, and will fly almost as far as their draw will hit and roll. Young children don't care where the ball goes. They are just swinging the club with no thought about HOW to do it. Forget HOW for now. At your next practice session, set up an alignment aid to make sure you are lined up at whatever target you choose. Your feet, knees, hips, and shoulders, should be square to the intended line. Then take a practice swing from 3 o'clock to 9 o'clock. Then step up to the ball and endeavor to copy that exact swing and tempo. I don't care if the ball rolls on the ground. But give up complete control and try copy the tempo and timing of the practice swing. But remember! AT THE TOP OF THE SWING, 3 O'CLOCK IN THIS CASE, THINK ABOUT SWINGING THE CLUB TO 9 O'CLOCK. NOT THE BALL!!!!!!. If there is a magic move in the golf swing, this is it.

We as adults have brainwashed ourselves into thinking that our job is to help the ball become airborne. YOUR JOB IS TO SWING THE CLUB!!!! Everything else is a consequence of that action. Until you understand that and take it to the course in a competitive enviroment, you will never understand what Mr de la Torre is trying to get across. It is truely 90% mental 10% physical.

I see a lot of complaints about the video in regards to: "he never tells us how to swing the club". If you have been told about Manuel, or have stumbled upon him because someone told you how good he was, then I would guess that you already know how to "swing the club". THERE IS NO MAGIC MOVE,ACTION, OR BULLET!!!" It is a mental concept. You must hit thousands of balls with a wedge or 9-iron to a 20 or 30 yard target until you are swinging "through" the ball to the target "FROM THE TOP OF THE SWING". On my scorecard before every round I write : STTTFTT " Swing to the target from the top" There is no guiding or manipulation of the club. It basically swings you. This is a very easy concept in theory, but very difficult to practice if you have been programmed most of your golfing career to hit at the ball. Most of us don't realize that we are not swinging to the target. A lot of teaching professionals can't tell if their students are swinging at the ball or at the target. Sure, a teacher will tell you how important it is to HAVE a specific target in mind. Even during pratice. But can they communicate the concept of swinging TOWARDS that target? Just the other day I met with Manuel and we hit wedges to 20 yards for 30 minutes. Just to be sure he knew that I understood what we were trying to do. And he would tell me if I was swinging or hitting before the ball ever hit the ground. And most importantly, Manuel teaches you to "be you own coach" You must recognize that almost all swing faults are a result of "hitting" at the ball. How many of you have read: hit the ball like you were driving a nail with a hammer into the back of the ball? For the rest of your golfing life, if you ever read an article or watch Golf Academy Live and the instructors use the word "Hit". CHANGE THE CHANNEL! or stop reading. YOU do not hit anything! The club does. Your job is to swing the club with your natural ability.

Do yourselves a favor. Spend the 40 bucks and go see him at Milwaukee CC. He is truly an American treasure. You would think that at 84 years old he would be just going through the motions for the money.Nothing could be further from the truth. This gentleman is truly concerned about your progress. And he will work like hell to make sure you understand before the session is over. That's a promise.

Manuel de la Torre has a simple way to approach the golf swing based on Earnest Jones and de la Torre's father. The DVDs are very complete in covering Setup and each of the clubs used from putter to driver. The approach is to visualize the target and swing the club in its direction. The details are also simple. You SWING the clubhead back over your shoulder with your HANDS and swing the ENTIRE club forward with your UPPER ARMS towards the target in an uninterrupted SWING to the end and let the body respond. De la Torre defines the arms as from the shoulder to the elbow and does this only once. So it might be confusing if you miss this critical notion. In the forward swing the hands and forearms simply hold on to the club. Its that simple and It works too. The key is actually allowing your body to respond to this simple swing. The swing controls the body not vice versa. These DVDs would be a bargain at twice the price.

The DVD is a little vague on the actual swing mechanics. As simple as de la Torres principles are, in this DVD he does not tell you what and how the actual swing should be made....at least not clearly enough. "Swing back with the hands and down with the upper arms" is the basic swing, but this physical act is well hidden in the dialogue on the video. I believe reading the book first will help you absorb what the DVD is detailing. Having said that, I'm not sure you actually need the video, but it does cover his concepts in great detail and perhaps someone who gets more from being shown will benefit from the video. The production is adequate, but the voice pickup was not always good and sometimes the voices dropped and were hard to understand.... at least to these old ears

I found it interesting that the DVD was rated either 1 or 5 by other reviewers. I think de la Torre is challenging us to see the power of simplicity. And that too much mechanics might be a bad thing. So that might go to explain the differences in opinion on this one.
 
It appears that de la Torre's concepts have proven themselves over six decades and stand unchanged.  I think de la Torre makes it clear that when golf gets simpler, I'll get better faster and have fewer things to think about when on the course. I have read the book by de la Torre and think the DVD works well as a complement to the book. I encourage others to view the DVD  with an eye to the truth in simplicy that is offered. And by the way the idea that my body is more a follower than an initiator of the action was a real eye-opener for me and my game.

I side with those who rated five!  

 

Some very good reviews of the book and DVD already have been posted here. So I don't see a need to add another, except to say I wholeheartedly agree. But I do want to chime in to make sure people don't decide against purchasing the DVD based on some of the reviews. The DVD really is an essential companion to the book if you want to grasp de la Torre's concepts and put them into practice. I've read the book, have the DVD and am working with a teacher overseas who teaches the Heartland/de la Torre method. Yes, the production values on the DVD aren't great. De la Torre is a soft-spoken old dude who hikes his pants up high, and he is questioned by a guy in an ill-fitting blazer and ployester slacks whom you might expect to see selling house lots in a golf course development. It's a bit reminiscent of an old "Leave it to Beaver" episode. But if you are atempting to grasp de la Torre's method, then the DVD will really help. Some of the demonstrations it offers, with de la Torre directing an LPGA pro, really will help you understand what he is trying to communicate. Although spotty in parts -- both visually and in terms of sound quality -- it certainly is more than acceptable. It's the information we need, and it's there. It's possible that the unhappy reviewer might have rec'd a poor-quality copy and should perhaps ask Amazon to replace it.

The more you understand the golf swing, the more you will appreciate how elegant Manuel's approach to the game is.

Quite simply, one of the best teachers ever.

I highly recommend this DVD. Give the concepts their due time, absorb them, see them, and you will be playing great golf.

Well done Manuel, well done.

This video really helped me. Golf is a mind game and this teaches you how to use visualization to have your body do what is natural to it for a great swing with more accuracy. I learned about the short game and it's a lot simpler than people think. I recommend this video for people who can understand what de la Torre is talking about.

It's too bad that more teaching pros don't use this method. Then again, the concepts are pretty simple to understand, scientifically sound, and when you game invariably improves; there will be no need for endless poor instruction. From a financial standpoint, I can see why teaching pros would hate this school of instruction.

Having played (and struggled with) the game for several years, a good friend of mine who follows the de la Torre principles showed me a much better way to golf. The Earnest Jones method really simplifies what you need to do. Plus, I can save time by not reading all the instructional articles in Golf and Golf Digest magazines, since they invariably contradict one another and wil simply screw your game up and reintroduce bad habits into it.

Considering that the de la Torre method is a fairly significant departure from the preposterously complex methodology of Butch Harmon, David Leadbetter, and such; you really have to disavow the majority of what you have learned about the golf swing to fully understand what de la Torre is teaching you. Fortunately, most of what you have learned up to this point is crap. Ridding yourself of all the baggage that goes with remembering all the extraneous thoughts you have acquired throughout the years will benefit your game far more than you can imagine.

Again, the de la Torre method is really a very different approach than what many golfers have been taught. But having tried many teaching methodologies over the years, only to find my best results following this book, I am happy I took the plunge.

I purchased the DVD after I read Mr. de la torre's excellent book. I found it to be a very acceptable companion to his writings, although I often found myself wanting to change places with the host, so I could ask Mr. de la Torre more clarifying questions. I agree with another customer's review who suggested that I simply travel to Milwaukee and take a lesson from him personally, which I am planning to do.

I would strongly recommend that you read his book at least once before reviewing the DVD; otherwise, you may feel it is overly simplistic and not of much worth. In fact, that is the point of his instruction: golf IS and should be as simple as swinging a club. This concept will no doubt puzzle many golfers who, like me, have read numerous self-help golf books in the past and are now loaded to the gills with countless mental prompts and sacred "dos" and "don'ts" regarding the proper swing mechanics. In my opinion, this book and DVD will come as a welcome relief from the elusive instructions that seem impossible to master for more than a few holes at a time.

I have read his book several times [a quick read in about an hour and a half] and I can tell you that I develop a deeper understanding of his teachings with each read. More significantly, the day after each reading I played the best golf I have ever played! My ball striking became so solid and straight, that the difference was akin to the changes that are seen on the golf infomercials peddling new training aids. And, when I started to slip back to my old ways, I would simply remind myself of Manuel's advise to not think of what body part failed to obey your directions. Instead, you simply remind yourself that you didn't do what you had done before that produced the positive results, and then go back to what you were doing before.

Believe me when I say that this works, and continues to work. The proof of this is demonstrated to me in each successive round I play. The DVD is a decent companion to the book, since it demonstrates his teachings in a visually concrete way. I would have liked more questions asked of Mr. de la torre by the host of the DVD, but it is still a very good complement to his book.

This DVD has content related to a book I already owned and liked. The DVD seemed of somewhat amateurish quality but the content was good enough that I would have accepted the presentation. What I could not accept was the, at times, atrocious audio quality, particularly on the second disk. Manuel de la Torre is hard to impossible to hear on large sections of the DVD. I tend to think this is due to the production though I haven't seen it mentioned in the several reviews I read. If this quality is present on each DVD, I would recommend Amazon cease selling this item. Alternatively, let prospective buyers beware. Only if you are already familiar with the concepts of the golf swing from the companion book will you find this DVD helpful.