Courses are closed due to rain, but their ranges still have balls scattered on them, so been doing the Orange Whip and poaching range sessions for the drills Trevor prescribed.
The idea is to repeat until it's burned into body memory. The 10% speed full swing is still difficult. The 10% speed half swing drill I like. Still, after repeating hundreds of times, it gets boring. Then, it's time to surrender the desire to quit, reset to zero and stay with it. Repeat as necessary. Eventually, new insights emerge.
The main event of the golf swing happens between the 3 and 9 o'clock positions (swinger point of view) of the half swing drill. Everything else is set up.
After a while, the brain starts to become antsy and uncomfortable, the mind also wanting to understand the half swing and the bits leading up to it. Poking around the tube, discover that I've stumbled upon what is known as the sequencing problem.
It's fascinating. Chain all the bits correctly (in sequence and timing) and the ball is smashed. Better yet, there's a feel to it that matches that outcome. From that reference feel, I can now tell when something is awry. For now, not exactly what's off sequence, but at least can feel when it's off. Don't need to see where the ball goes as that's just symptom of the cause. This is terrific news.
Doing Trevor's drills at 10% speed, I crave hitting it hard, and far. Do the Dalai Lama and surrender that.
As the body learns, decided to dive deeper into this sequencing problem and better understand it. As usual, it goes back to the grip, the stance on the ground, and various mechanics of properly setting up the parts of the back swing back down down to 3 o'clock, which is where the drill picks up. It's much easier to grok working backwards from impact.
Did a mod of Trevor's drill and call it the half-slap. From 3 o'clock with wrist cocked, to impact position, then extending through. That's where it happens. Move from cock to impact position, including pushing up and pivoting with the left leg, stop, repeat. Eventually feeling builds up wanting to smash it, so only then do that with focus on really accelerating and extending through the hit.
The rest of the swing, the parts leading up to the starting point of the drill, gets worked out in reverse, so it'll all play together when sequenced forward in the full swing. By working backwards, I can now see why left wrist should be flat to the plane at the top of back swing, and why proper grip matters.
The biggest insight so far is that the hit starts from about half way down the swing, not the top. The first part of the downswing is just getting all that mass moving and synchronized, using the ground, rotation and gravity, in preparation for the hit. That's why wrist cock is maintained until the hit can execute near the end of the whole sequence. Starting the downswing by pulling the club down into a swing is incorrect. Aha.
I remember months ago watching sequencing videos by Paul Kopp on the Tube. At the time wondered wtf. Now I get it.