vdubtx
06-16-2014, 01:14 AM
Had my lesson with USBC Gold level coach Susie Minshew today. What an eye opener it was to how much work my game needed.
We started off just getting to know each other and also what I wanted out of the lessons. I told her I was not comfortable with my approach as I had fast feet and also am unbalanced at the line most of the time.
She had me warm up and start throwing shots while she filmed me from various angles. When she was done filming, she put the video into her laptop and we reviewed it. What she saw was that I was putting too much into each shot and not letting the ball do the work. My head moves a lot while in my approach, and at the end, I really put a lot into the ball as I have been told before. Susie showed me video of my face at the end of the downswing in my approach and I was amazed at how much my face was strained.
We really dove into this and looked at my steps, my footwork, and my muscled arm swing. She had me work through several drills where I would get in my stance with my CG(belly button) essentially over the right foot, then a slow walk to the line and slide with my CG over the left knee with my foot pointing straight ahead. I have to tell you, I have never felt so balanced at the line and felt like Chris Barnes posting shots. Took some work to keep myself slow, and need more practice with it, but I think this is going to lead to some great things.
We talked about another topic I brought up and it is the mental aspect. When I miss a shot, I know my mind was just not in it. She gave me a signed copy of a book, "With Winning in Mind" by Lanny Bassham to read. He deals with the Mental Management system and I excited to start this book and see what it does for me.
Another thing we talked about was targeting down lane. She gave some pointers on reflections to use down lane to help in determining if my ball was going where I wanted it to go. Will put to use when I practice more.
Will be seeing Susie again in a few months. Have lots of practicing and some homework to do in the mean time. :cool:
We started off just getting to know each other and also what I wanted out of the lessons. I told her I was not comfortable with my approach as I had fast feet and also am unbalanced at the line most of the time.
She had me warm up and start throwing shots while she filmed me from various angles. When she was done filming, she put the video into her laptop and we reviewed it. What she saw was that I was putting too much into each shot and not letting the ball do the work. My head moves a lot while in my approach, and at the end, I really put a lot into the ball as I have been told before. Susie showed me video of my face at the end of the downswing in my approach and I was amazed at how much my face was strained.
We really dove into this and looked at my steps, my footwork, and my muscled arm swing. She had me work through several drills where I would get in my stance with my CG(belly button) essentially over the right foot, then a slow walk to the line and slide with my CG over the left knee with my foot pointing straight ahead. I have to tell you, I have never felt so balanced at the line and felt like Chris Barnes posting shots. Took some work to keep myself slow, and need more practice with it, but I think this is going to lead to some great things.
We talked about another topic I brought up and it is the mental aspect. When I miss a shot, I know my mind was just not in it. She gave me a signed copy of a book, "With Winning in Mind" by Lanny Bassham to read. He deals with the Mental Management system and I excited to start this book and see what it does for me.
Another thing we talked about was targeting down lane. She gave some pointers on reflections to use down lane to help in determining if my ball was going where I wanted it to go. Will put to use when I practice more.
Will be seeing Susie again in a few months. Have lots of practicing and some homework to do in the mean time. :cool: