As Julie Andrews so aptly put it, let’s start at the very begining ... Let’s start with the pendulum and let us observe its swinging motion.

Please make a rope pendulum. All you need is a piece of weight and a piece of string. A doughnut weight, that is designed to be slid down the golf club to add extra weight, is perfect for this. All you have to do is tie one end of a string to it. Make the string about 35 inches in length.

Tie the free end of the string to a stand. If you don’t have one, get a friend to hold the end of the string in his hand. With the weight hanging straight down, let us introduce some swinging motion. Push the weight gently in one direction. Don’t hold onto the weight. Just give it a gentle and smooth push. Observe the swing.

When was the last time you observed a swinging motion carefully? Observe from a distance (otherwise you may get hypnotised ... :-)) and try to feel the motion. Can you see how the weight ACCELERATES as it moves to its lowest point and DECELERATES as it moves towards the ends? Thus the weight is moving the fastest at the bottom of its arc, and moving the slowest at the top. This should also apply to the golf swing. The club should be moving relatively slow at the top, and fast at the bottom. Thus, you should feel that you have a lot of time at the top of the backswing and transition.

Get a putter, and grip it lightly. Relax your shoulders, and let the arms feel heavy. Gently swing the arms and the putter back and forth in a small arc, feeling the motion. Be the pendulum. Feel the Swing.

If you used a stand with your rope pendulum, you would have noticed something. The stand rocks gently back and forth with the swinging motion of the pendulum. The larger the arc of the pendulum, the more the stand will rock. This is what the weight shift should feel like during the golf swing. There’s no need to heave the weight back and forth. It just has to follow the swinging motion.

Try giving the weight varying amounts of push at the start to get it swinging. Give it a small gentle push. Notice how the swinging arc is small. Give it a bigger/faster push. The swinging arc will naturally increase. This also applies to the golf swing. Many people control the length of the backswing by manipulating the club, and consciously "stopping" the backswing. To swing purely, you have to let the Swing control the length of the backswing. Just give it the right amount of momentum at the start of the backswing. Try it with a putter. Hit some various length putts. Don’t try to manipulate the length of the backswing. Just give the club smaller momentum at the start of the backswing for short putts, and give it larger momentum for longer putts. The length of the backswing should naturally correspond to the amount of momentum given, as long as you let it Swing. RELAX and let it happen.

I call this kind of start to the backswing "the momentum injection". It’s a smooth, yet relatively quick burst of energy to get things swinging. It is probably the most difficult part of the swing to learn. Once things start swinging, it is easy. You just have to follow the motion. Try swinging the club with the clubhead two feet in front of the ball (ie. closer to the target). Can you feel how it is much easier to get the Swing started? Alas, we can’t start from this position when we hit the ball. We have to give the Swing some momentum to get things moving from the stationary address position. This will be discussed later in more depth as we build the golf swing.

One more thing to observe with the pendulum. This is very important. Notice how the string is taut throughout the motion. There are a couple of ways to disrupt this. While the the weight is swinging, give a jerky push to the middle part of the string. See what happens? The Swing is disrupted, and the string is no longer taut. This is analogous to any kind of over-acceleration during the golf swing. In their efforts to hit the ball as hard as possible, many golfers over-accelerate a particular body part (be it the torso, shoulder, hands, etc) during the downswing. This will ruin the swing. I am not saying that you should swing slowly. The clubhead should be moving fast through impact. However, the acceleration should be smooth. Notice how the pendulum swings in a circular path. The string close to the center of rotation moves slowly. The string close to the weight moves quickly. However, they are moving at the same RPM. No individual part accelerates independently. Same should apply to the golfswing. There should be no bodypart accelerating independently. The center moves slowly, and the outer parts move quickly.

Another way to disrupt the Swing is to over-swing. Give the weight a hard push at the start so that it reaches a height that is above the centre of the circle (i.e. higher than the stand). Notice how as the weight moves back down, the string becomes floppy. This is analogous to overswinging in the golf swing. Some people can "keep the string taut" with amazingly long backswings (eg. John Daly). This is not overswinging. However, keep the length of the backswing comfortable for YOU, so that you can "keep the string taut".

OK. Now that you’ve seen the pendulum in action, let’s move onto something a little more complex. You may have noticed that the golf swing is made up of more than one lever. Although I like to FEEL that my Swing is like that of a rope pendulum, it is better represented by a "double pendulum" with two levers. The flail is a good example of this.