Posted by: John D (John@Dresslar.com) on Wed Oct 19 00:10:03 2005

Jack: Thanks for your insight. Let me start by saying I just got "The Final Arc" and want to commend your folks for their great communication and quick response; it only took a couple of days to get it (and they corrected my mis-typed zip code to boot).

My question about the bent lead elbow issue is this. Obviously, some folks won't feel comfortable have the arm completely locked straight going from the launch position to contact. After seeing your post, I went back to the video, and noted that John says you can't "bend" that elbow or you'll go linear, and he demonstrated how it occurs. But, it seemed that the culprit was actually have "give" in the elbow that prevented the hands from going slightly away from the torso ("toward the cameraman") and into the CHP. And, in fact, if you look at John's swing, his left elbow does say in a firm, unchanging bent position from launch to contact.

So, my question that was inspired from Chuck's original post is this: to what extent can you have a bent but FIRM and unyielding front elbow? I can see that barrel chested (or buxom!) hitters might need to bend that elbow a little just to avoid the obstruction of their, uh, chest, or just may feel comfortable with a little more bend.

A related question is: exactly what launches the CHP? Is it solely the rotation of the torso which in turn moves the firmly connected lead shoulder/arm/hand in a circular manner, or do you consciously move one of the hands "toward the cameraman" as you're applying the top hand torque at launch? The video was a little vague on that.