How To Grip The Club - Full Swing

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This drill is to practice taking a comfortable yet solid fundamental grip.

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So as part of the setup, we look at how your hands are positioned on the club,

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because they're going to have a direct responsibility for how your wrists are

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going to move

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and how the club face is going to appear during impact.

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Those are the two main reasons that we want to grip the club in a specific way.

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And I'm going to talk a little bit quickly about the proper grip,

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and then we're going to get into troubleshooting and things that you might be

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struggling with.

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So the proper grip is any grip that allows freedom of movement of the wrists,

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and when you come into impact, allows that club face to be pretty square.

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So there's a reason why you can have something different like Joe Durant on

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tour,

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who has a very neutral grip, and then you can have someone on tour like Zach

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Johnson,

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who has a very strong grip.

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I'm not here to tell you that one is better than the other,

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but I want you to understand how they relate to both your impact conditions,

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as well as how you release the club, which I'll get to later in this program.

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In order to take a solid or proper grip,

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you're going to start by holding the club way down near the shaft

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so that the club face is pretty vertical.

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This just gives you a constant reference frame,

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but make sure that you can see the indicator on the grip if you have one.

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Most grips will have either a line towards the end of the grip

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or towards the butt end of the grip.

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That just gives you a reference point as long as whoever put the grip on,

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whether it was you or the manufacturer, lined it up with the club face.

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But it gives you a solid reference point so that you can do the same thing when

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you're practicing.

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So what you're going to do when you grip is you're going to make sure that with

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the left hand,

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you grip it mostly in the fingers.

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You also want to make sure that there's no major gaps in the left hand grip.

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So you don't want to grip it so that there's gaps between the fingers or

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between the thumbs.

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You can see that you want your fingers pretty close together

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and you want your thumb almost kissing the first knuckle right here.

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Now whether you do a long or short thumb is slightly debatable

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and we'll probably save it for another video.

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So to check if it's in your fingers, you can do one of a couple things.

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One, I'll just open up my hand and you can see how it would be sitting more or

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less

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across this base knuckle here to the first knuckle of the index finger.

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Also, one other way to check it is you'll see that when I do that,

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it's across the line I just showed you, but the heel of my hand is also on top

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of the club.

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Now that's critical because a lot of golfers will set up with it more on the

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side of the club, like so.

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And what happens when I have this is it takes a lot of muscular effort to hold

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the grip

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as opposed to just having the advantage of my bones being on top of the club

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like so.

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So one other way to make sure that the grip is more or less in your fingers

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and that heel pad is on top is this right here where your thumb connects to

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your wrist.

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It's called the snuff box and it kind of has, you'll feel a couple of tenons on

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each side like so.

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You would want that to be roughly on top of this straight line which would

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position

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the left thumb slightly off to the center which gets the heel of pad on top of

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the club.

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I'm going to give you more ways than you ever wanted to check and make sure

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that the left wrist is in the fingers

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because it's so important for speed and freedom of movement of the wrist.

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So one other way, if you're holding the grip, is if you were to take off every

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single finger

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except for your index finger, you notice how I'm still able to have slight

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control.

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Obviously I don't have very much control because the thumb, the index finger,

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they help.

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Especially with the left hand grip because most of the pressure points are

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going to be down in these fingers

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or most of the grip strength. But this lets me know that my heel pad is on top

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which will allow me to grip it in the fingers.

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One other I guess last fun way that I like to check grip strength or grip

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position

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is if you were to hold the club overhead like you were about to do a pull up or

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a pull down

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your body would naturally grip it in the fingers just like so.

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You would never grip it kind of in the palm like so if you were going to do a

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pull up.

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Your fingers would slide right into position and then you would pull yourself

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over

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or if you were doing a lap pull down you would pull the bar down.

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So that right there would show up as the grip kind of in that same position.

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Now the problem with doing it that way is obviously the club face will have to

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be adjusted

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to your liking. To check your grip strength with the left hand

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I want you to hold that wrist out so that the left wrist is flat and vertical.

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So this would be flat but not vertical. You want to make sure it's flat and

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vertical.

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And what you'll see is a neutral grip is going to have the club face roughly

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25 to 30 degrees pointed to the left or closed.

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You may be thinking that this is what it should be like but what you'll see in

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the impact section

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is that you're going to have your hands ahead of the golf ball when you make

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contact.

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So if the club is vertical like so it's just going to take a bigger adjustment

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in the wrist position

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to get the club face square which you'll learn how to do in the transition and

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release sections.

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So the important thing with the left wrist is making sure that it's in the

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fingers.

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Again you have about five different ways and off the top of my head or checking

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my note sheet

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I remembered one more. One last one if you've got the heel of the hand on top

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of the grip

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and the club the grip is in the fingers you can see how these knuckles have a

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bend in them.

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If I slide this up so that it's right in my palm and I grip it you can see how

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these last couple knuckles will be straight

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and I'll have this gap right here underneath my pinky.

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Remember there should be no gaps when we're doing our full swing grip.

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Now the right hand is not quite as complicated.

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We want to make sure that the left wrist is in the best position but the right

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hand is just going to match the left hand.

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So essentially what you're going to do is you're going to put the thumb, the

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lifeline of your trail thumb

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up against the side of the lead thumb or your right lifeline up against the

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left thumb

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and then you're going to kind of curl your fingers around just like so.

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Now in a neutral grip like so you should see the V's form between your finger

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and your first knuckle

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will be pointed somewhere over here towards the right.

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Now where it's exactly pointed will change based on which eye dominance you are

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and which eye you're actually looking at your hands with

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and that's why I prefer looking with the left wrist flat to actually measure

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grip strength.

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So you've got the left wrist in position, you're going to slide the right hand

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up so that your palms would more or less be facing each other.

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The right hand right thumb would be covering the left thumb and you're going to

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have most of the pressure of your right hand

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in these middle two fingers gripping kind of like so.

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So it will be a little bit more when you open it a little bit more in the palm.

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If it was the left hand it would be there with the right hand it's slightly up

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a little bit higher.

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But the big thing is the V's point in the same direction hands feel like they

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're kind of unified and connected

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and the left wrist is going to dictate how much grip strength there is.

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Last thing is the pressure or where you're actually squeezing.

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With the right hand you want to make sure that you're kind of squeezing with

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the middle two fingers

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with the left hand you're going to make sure that you're squeezing with the

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last three.

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Now when you're squeezing with the middle two of the right hand that is also

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going to apply a little bit of pressure

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from the right thumb up against the left thumb.

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And the reason you want to have the pressure going in this direction and the

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hands off to the side

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is that when you are rotating and pressing up against the shaft you want to

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make sure that that action squares the club face.

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If your hands aren't matching what your body is doing then you're going to have

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to manipulate it

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or make a big adjustment with your wrist in order to get the club face square.

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So I know that was a lot, let's go through very very quickly some steps so you

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can practice it.

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So you take the grip in your right hand so that the club is straight up and

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down.

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You're going to put the hand, the left pump, the butt of the left hand on top,

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grip it with the fingers

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and put the thumb just off to the center.

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Then you're going to take that right hand that was holding the shaft and you're

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going to let it slide up

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so that the index or sorry the lifeline is right up against your thumb

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and you're kind of holding it in the middle two fingers right here.

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And whether you choose to overlap interlock or baseball is entirely up to you.

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The dominant ones on tour are going to be your overlap and your interlock.

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So go with whichever one of the two or three is comfortable or most comfortable

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for you.

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Last little piece is what they call the trigger finger which is this right here

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.

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If the index finger is too much down like this then you're going to miss the

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ability to kind of press

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this pressure point right here up against the shaft which will make it more

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likely for you to flip

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versus cover the wall with the right hand which you'll learn in the release

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section.

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So we'll give you some close ups of the grip that you can look in the note

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section and practice with.

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But this will help you start with a real strong foundation which will allow the

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movements that we're going to do

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be a lot easier.