Positioning yourself for a hook is something that is really important to master, and exceptionally important for your safety.
Here is how you position yourself to make a SAFE hook.
How Do I Best Position Myself to Make a Hook
Transcription:
How do I best position myself, doing a hook, so that I'm not riding into the swing. Okay. So, I think you have to be really aware of the rules here. Because so often people are coming into hook, and they riding directly over the line the ball traveling.
So, if the man in front is here, they position themselves directly behind the ball. You've got to be directly behind the man, for it to be a legal hook if you hooking forwards. Okay.
And if you on the right hand side of the ball, then get your mallet onto the nearside and hook there, and put your mallet across, and play a near side backhand at the mans mallet. Okay.
Don't just hang your mallet there. Because so often you hang it there, and the better players will just avoid your mallet and still come out with the ball. You've got to time that, as much as you time hitting the ball.
So, you watching them come at the ball and you play this little nearside backhand at his mallet. If you're directly behind, get your mallet out at an angle. So, it's really blocking the path of that mallet traveling, in whatever arc it's traveling.
But you've got to be directly behind the other horse, not where the ball's traveling. And guys, it really, really is important because it's so dangerous to put yourself in that position.
To a point that one of the teams that I coached, the guy who owned the team did just that. And his horse got hit on the back of the head with the downswing of the mallet of the guy ahead. Who didn't even know he was there, stunned the horse.
He went into the ground, broke his neck. And in one from one minute to the next, it was a really fit guy. He now is in a wheelchair for the rest of his life and can move his left arm and things. And he's made an amazing recovery, but it changed his whole life.
So, I'm telling you, don't go where the line of the ball is. It is hugely dangerous for you. And even if you don't end up in a world of hurt like that, your horse gets hit. And you know, my thumb has got a very nice little lump on it here from getting too close, and getting the mallet on it.
That mallet coming down really breaks you. Okay. So, get directly behind the horse, or on the right-hand side of the ball, with your mallet on the nearside,
