My progress a few days in...[updated]

As I mentioned in an introductory post, I began the program with (what I considered) a serviceable swing. It was great when it worked but that was always a crap shoot. One aspect of my swing I never liked was the 3/4 backswing I took. I got plenty of power from it but always suspected it was a symptom of further problems and that I'd been kicking the can for years. I started watching @Tom Saguto after finding one of his videos regarding possible benefits from a short backswing, went down the rabbit hole, and now I'm here.

Until a week or so ago, I knew nothing about S&T, or even general golf swing theory. I learned to play as a kid, had a general feel for my swing, and have just operated on instinct for decades. I've occasionally filmed my swing over the years so I had a pretty good idea of what it looked like. Watching the S&T videos, I started to think "my swing looks somewhat like that. This might not be too tough a fix. A few tweaks here and there and I'll be on top of my game!" As you may have anticipated, I was very, very, wrong.

I set up a net at my house and have been practicing the drills (Chapter 2 only, as suggested by damn near everyone here) a bit every day. The past few days had me questioning the wisdom of reinventing my swing. It wasn't THAT bad. Have I ruined what I had? Should I have left it alone? Because now - even if I walk away from the program - every time I step over the ball I'd be in a mental battle between my old swing with what I know to be good information on S&T.

That was my thinking yesterday but am happy to report that I made some meaningful progress this evening. It's not that my swing has gotten much better but, more importantly, I'm beginning to understand why (watching every video in Chapter 2 at least a half dozen times certainly helped).

The epiphany came at about a minute into in Lesson 2.6, where Tom describes how the left shoulder may try to shift down toward the ball but "simply gives up" when there is weight on the trail leg. That's when the lightbulb went off: that sounded exactly like what I've been doing all these years and likely explains the 3/4 backswing. Moreover, filming my practice today, I remarked that - even if the shot was far from crispy - I actually have a smoother, more complete backswing. I never had that!

I still think a lot of what was "correct" in my old swing is pretty close to S&T (minus tilt) so there's hope that the battle will not be too protracted. Time will tell.

Can't wait to get the tilt/turn/extend down so I can move on to the next chapters.