Ross Apr 05, 2020
Hi Anthony
First, No the hips do not slow down. It is not a pull straight down… the arms don’t do anything. The arms/elbows are being pulled down by gravity as the body starts unwinding (from ground up*) at the start of the downswing. The body unwinds at a pace that will hopefully bring the elbows back in front of the body.
One thing that might be affecting your backswing, hampering your downswing, is… on the backswing you might be using your arms/hands to help “lift” or “finish”, so they’re activating themselves to help get you to the top of your backswing. Then they’re kind of “resisting” and “restricting” gravity making it difficult for them to drop. Ideally, the shoulders will control and dominate the arms on the backswing, so there would be no lift with the arms and then they’d be ready to just follow (without resistance) back down.
Keep in mind, the elbows back in front, is an ideal position… to prevent a need to flip because the back (right) elbow got stuck on the downswing.
* This unwinding is like the forward movement when you throw a ball (except no weight shift). The body unwinds from ground up.