LivingPolo.com

Justo del Carril describes the different elements we will need to play polo.

Tips to help you improve on your game

Once you become a skillful rider, the most important element you have to learn in polo is the correct grip. Without a perfect grip, you will always try to compensate during the swing.

This tendency to compensate will make you grip the mallet tighter than you should, you will hit the ground more often than not and you will not be able to rotate your shoulder fully.

This in time will provoke pain in your wrist, elbow and shoulder, which will lead to thoughts of the like of “this is not for me, I’m not in shape, or I’m not strong enough for this sport”. The simple truth is that your grip is wrong.

More information at http://www.polotips.com/

Tips to help you improve on your game

A key element to achieve a good back shot is to bend your wrist enough so the tip of the grip is looking downward, towards the ball. Your arm will get in the perfect position to initiate the downswing.

To make it easier to incorporate, we could say that you should look over your shoulder, not straight down. To achieve this, your chin should touch the shoulder when you look down.

More information at http://www.polotips.com/

Tips to help you improve on your game

We do this because we want to see the ball’s flight even before we hit it. More often than not we will mishit.

A good drill is to keep the head down until the right shoulder touches the chin. This will help you to look at the ball at impact, making sure that you hit it below instead of topping it.

More information at http://www.polotips.com/

Tips to help you improve on your game

The reason why many players can’t achieve a good reverse shot is because they lower their torso before rotating it.
It is very important to rotate the torso first. Think about pointing your thumb backwards before moving down your torso to hit the ball.
Another good thought is to try to touch your left shoulder with your mallet’s hand.

Once you rotated the torso you will feel a natural downswing, with more free space to impact the ball.

More information at http://www.polotips.com/