Weight Transfer Analysis The secret to distance is weight transfer. This is where lots of distance can be added to your swing without adding effort. This is mainly a men's problem where arms are mainly used to generate power. Effortless distance is created by channeling the energy of your body to the ball. This energy is created by the forward (lateral) movement of your body through the down swing. This forward movement of your body should begin just before you start hand motion of the down swing and continue until just before impact of the ball. The extreme of this is the reverse pivot where the body actually moves backwards through the downswing. If your weigth is on your back foot after your swing you need to spend some time with the Weigth Tranfer Analysis. To get this distance back in your swing the "Weight Transfer" template is the solution. Open the video in MotionCAD using the "Weight Transfer" template, and move the vertical line to the forward edge of your body.

Casting and Power Release Timing One of the most common problems with women golfers is casting. When a you are casting it seems that you can not get any distance no matter how much strength you put into the swing. In simpe terms Casting is when you straighten the wrists to early in the down swing. This forces you to apply strength to a long stick with a heavy weight on the end of it (Club), wasting much of the generated power. By releasing your wrists later in the swing you increase total body energy by internalizing it, allowing your body to rotate faster. When you finally release the wrists and the power you built up in your body, a whip action transfers body energy to the ball more effectively. To check for and correct this fault use the "Casting" template where you can analyze and get help on the timing of your wrist release adding distance to you shot without adding strength.

Self Comparison = Swing Development One of the most important analysis capabilities of the MotionCoach system is to enable self-comparison. With this, you compare yourself at different periods of your swing development. Because improving a golf swing is an evolution (not a revolution) the importance of self-comparison is two fold: It provides a historical, allowing you to monitor swing development over extended periods. It keeps you from returning to old bad habits that have been changed with MotionCoach. As a golfer you video yourself to capture your swing when things are working well, possibly at the end of a season. Then when you have problems with your swing you have a reference to return to for comparison. To make a model of your swing, you will need to video a background to create the blue screened video . The simplest way to create this video is to set up the camera on a tripod, start the video capture then walk into the video and swing. This way lighting and background are a close as possible to the part of the video with the swing. The extraction video-processing engine allows the background and the process video to be the same.

Motion comparison, and Model feedback The most overall and complete of the analysis technique of MotionCoach. This is the best place to start serious analysis of your swing to determine a range of swing faults. From this analysis you make a list of faults and form and a mental picture of the correct motion. From this point forward you can use the templates to correct specific problems. With this technique, the model (or goal) swing is slightly overlapped with the student golfer and is made semi-transparent . In this case, your review the swing in slow motion or frame-by-frame. This provides tempo and position development feedback all at the same time. The you visualize your motion but clearly sees the differences between your and the goal swing. This visualization reinforces the changes recommended by MotionCoach and accelerates the reprogramming of “muscle memory”.

Swing Sequence As seen in many magazines, swing sequences give you an idea of the how the motion of the swing develops over time. MotionCoach can quickly produce swing sequences with MotionCAD; to do this, open the video in MotionCAD. Move the video to the start position of the swing, and take a picture . The picture tool automatically advances the video to the next frame so you are ready to take the next picture. MotionCAD also automatically places the following pictures next to first, continue the process until the swing has been broken down into single pictures . Best yet, once your sequence is done, simply press the print button and you have magazine quality result, to show a golf instructor, a friend, a school coach, a university scout,  anyone .

Focus on Position Rob Douglas: Springfield Golf and Country Club Many times you want to focus on just one part of a swing, this tends to be grip or hand/club angle or arm position either just before or just after ball impact.   This typically occurs after a general swing fault has been found and you are working on the solution of the problem. In the picture above there is a focus on the arm and head position jus t after ball impact. This technique is most effective when the computer is available at the practice session. This allows fast feedback helping you to identify the feeling of the correct motion. Video shoot set up: Position the camera to give you clear view of the problem. Second zoom in so that the problem area is larger in the picture ignoring other parts of the swing.    Processing tool required: None, but it is an option to re-enforce the visualization of the optimal movement. In this case you could match the size of the golfer and model by expanding the size of the model in the blending engine configuration. MotionCAD required: Yes, but to show quickly the student what they had done in the last swing use the video player component . MotionCAD procedure: When the video is captured open the video in MotionCAD . Move the video position to the point in time of the motion. This will allow you to see their position at that that time. Next open a second video object, of a model performing the motion correctly. Move this video to the same time point as the your video. This allows clear comparison of the two movements. Hint! For additional effect position lock the two videos together, so both videos will be synchronized if you want to show the movement development. Technique Extension: An addition to the technique is use an extracted video (blue screened).  Doing this allows you to make transparent pictures. A transparent picture is one where the blue background is made clear allowing you to put you and the model much closer together. The picture at the top of this page is an example. How to create an transparent bitmap  in MotionCAD? 1. Click on the bitmap to select it. 2. Click on the bitmap property sheet, as shown below on the "Bitmap" entry 3. Choose the transparent color, for an extracted video it is blue. 4. Click OK, where the bitmap was blue it is now clear.

Quickly Launch Videos into MotionCAD and Templates One simple click of a button. A button on the gallery is called MotionCAD, (See button above). To view a video in MotionCAD simply select the video you want in the gallery, and press the "MotionCAD" button. Another way is from the Gallery, right mouse button (other mouse button) click on the video you want to view. This will display a popup list of menu options, just like explorer. One of these options will be "View in MotionCAD". Selecting this item has the same effect as the MotionCAD button. MotionCoach will transfer some file information for MotionCAD so you know what file you are looking at.

Convinced that MotionCoach swing analysis is your answer?

Did we mention there are more analysis templates and Pro Swing videos available online from the MotionCoach CustomersCare users Web site. These videos and templates cover, putting, chipping, sand, ball flight, camera setup, computer configuration, ... Also more templates are being created by Professional golf instructors across the country, and the best part, they are free!