<300 ft working on form again

[NotActuallyChris]

Continuing from 10 months ago


Took several months off because shoulder soreness (from forehanding). Been practicing without progress until recently, finally feel like I am getting a feel for throwing with the hips. It is throwing everything else off, but I think its finally going in a good direction?

These are 60% throws, focusing on pulling with hips.


After review, I thought I was pulling and not yet shifting from behind fully, but I think it'll just take a few sessions and heading in a good direction?

Next practice session: Trying to focus on swinging not pulling but mixing with trying to brace, wow everything feels all over the place. I think its going well but would be grateful for feedback. (Other than rounding, anything else really stick out as very off?)



The truth about pulling and bow and arrow videos really helped me visualize where I _think_ I was furthest off. Yet something still feels off. Long ago, I was temporarily throwing further and in particular, I could kind of punch down my left arm like the pros do and I really felt it power up my throw, like a spring. Even though I feel myself throwing with my butt more, and (as of today) swinging, the left arm pushing down still feels... like nothing changes.

 

[sidewinder22]

Posture and balance. You are setting up in anterior pelvic tilt and note how your pelvis tips upward in the stride as you lean back.

 

[NotActuallyChris]

Wow. I never would have noticed that pelvic angle. More great stuff to work on, thank you. A few questions:

1. From the "Understanding..." golf video -- pelvic tilt being neutral at impact -- is that at release? And is that something that should be intentionally improved, or happens naturally from setup / stride / and other improvements?

2. (Separately) I watched your elephant walk drill and thinking about my shoulder collapse issue, is my timing completely off and worth focusing on now? I plant way better than I used to (and it feels better) but I seem to plant and initiate swing at about the same time. Watching your video and then re-watching pros it seems like its a series of three things: plant, THEN back arm drops / posts, THEN swing. In my head it explains my pull / shoulder collapse, like I'm swinging too early.


Lastly: You've helped me (and others) a lot -- can I hit you up on Venmo or something?

 

[sidewinder22]

1. Correct, impact = release. Just starting in better posture and balance really helps relax the back and engage the core.

2. Correct, the elephant walk really helps exaggerate the swing sequence.

Sure, send tips to seabas22 at yahoo.com PayPal, or Venmo Andrew Gregos.

 

[NotActuallyChris]

Ok just a progress update, not much to see yet one new question: I think my front foot touching the ground initiates my front leg / hip turning too early, i'd previously thought I was unintentionally doing that before touching down.I wonder if my reachback timing (early) is affecting this?. Thinking of Simon's throw, its like I can visualize him still kind of reaching back and turning his front-foot / hip back as he approaches his plant.

I grouped a few throws into a single video for my reference although minus my question above, where the mechanics are off is fairly apparent to me. Focused on one mechanic per throw, so the rest were as or more off than usual.

Throws 1-4: Left-punch timing. Its not right yet, but its headed in the right direction. It's adding power again -- I'm doing 60-70% throws and hitting ~280 which is my usual max.
Throw 5: Focused on elbow up (suggestion from prior thread)
Throw 6: Focused on dropping weight / pulling with butt



I do not know why my instinct has become walking across the tee pad diagonally, like I"m setting up for an anhyzer. If I don't focus real hard on this, i revert to it immediately.


I have to admit though, as ****ty as my form overall looks, I am pretty excited. I used to focus on making my form look right. Now every point I list above, and every drill suggested, I can really feel it. Striving for how it feels is so much more productive. Just getting each one into place, then to feeling natural, then combined together is going to take some time. It is really hard to be patient right now because I've never been so optimistic about improving before.


My list of focus points, focusing on just one each throw:
- Keeping elbow up
- Turning back and relaxing arm, rather than actively reaching past back foot
- Slowing reachback depending on feedback (question above)
- Uhh walking in a straight line
- left punch and timing (elephant wallk)
- Throwing with hips / swinging not pulling / shifting from behind
- Addressing anterior pelvic tilt

 

[NotActuallyChris]

I think I have my answer. I am actively turning my shoulders back, using my left arm to do so even. When I "fix my timing" by locking my reachback to my back foot, it felt off but also more powerful. I think I was, at times, inadvertantly using my hips to turn back my shoulder. But I think sw22 laid out in others threads what I am looking for, here:

Need to keep your rear foot firmly planted/braced against the ground so your backswing can windup up torque against it.

and here

...you are trying to use your left arm to help turn your shoulders back instead of the hips turning the shoulders back

...that the motion is: back foot plants, hips begin turn back which turns the shoulders back. In this way, the amount of "reach back" is naturally linked to the stride and connected to that back foot, which I suppose helps your positioning align for proper unloading into your plant foot. Larger stride produces larger reach back naturally. It makes a _lot_ of sense but then I am pretty good at making up BS and then practicing it. I am also good at missing extremely obvious mechanics.

 

[NotActuallyChris]

At the risk of just making **** up... that also makes my front foot opening bit (just prior to plant) look like it might be a reaction to my stride going across (right to left, from behind) the tee-pad. I am trying (and somewhat succeeding) at throwing straight, while my back leg is pushing me like I am throwing (aiming) left. My front-leg opening is, perhaps, correcting to align with my aim while my hip and upper front leg are somewhat aligned with the direction my lower leg is pushing them (leftish).

IDK if that even makes sense, but in my head the connection between walking straight, turning the hips with the back leg ("torquing against it"), that Simon's longer throws turn his front leg inwards almost as he's going into the plant (that's him torquing against it), then as he plants its basically just unwinding... it seem's very straight forward suddenly, if that is what is happening.

 

[sidewinder22]

Sounds like you are getting it.

The left arm in throws definitely looked better with more spine flexion and core engaged, the later throws your left arm is dragging and going back into anterior pelvic tilt and back extension.

Your left foot is kind of pigeon toed in and restricting your pelvis/shoulders from turning further back. Need to turn your rear foot further back and make the rear hip move targetward while rotating counter-clockwise/butt wipe/hogan power move. You are trying to shift too late off the rear foot and not turned back enough and end up humping the goat pushing your rear hip into the swing path and extending your spine. And your front foot plants soft/rolling over instead of landing more toes first and more suddenly shifting into the heel.

Your right shoulder is collapsing, elbow not leading, and arm is rolling over, so you are in a weak position at the hit. If you push your hand against the wall your shoulder should be in a very strong position more internally rotated like top of bench press or pushup, so your weight can push into the wall through the shoulder.

https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=133543

 

[NotActuallyChris]

Todays' field work (sixth session since starting up again) focused primarily on left arm punch, secondarily on right elbow up and out. With most of my mechanics I can absolutely not make progress on more than one at a time[\b] I have realized -- e.g. if I think about my front foot, my left arm stops punching. So, I guess just do a few sessions until the mechanic begins to settle (3 seems about right).

First throw demonstrates struggles w/ right arm collapsing, and how my body movement across teepad is getting in way (I believe).



Observations:

- Left punch timing isn't quite right (a bit early I believe), but it is adding power.
- I think (hope) if the punch feeling becomes ingrained, I might naturally fix the timing as better timing -> more power -> dopamine -> brain hangs on to it
- I cannot keep right shoulder from collapsing. I can in practice throws, stand-stills w/o disc, and other drills like you posted. I think its partially the walking across teepad (right to left) movement playing a role -- like my body is getting in the way of the swing, then when I pull my arm with my body it overwhelms my shoulder since the directions aren't lining up.

That in mind, I might somewhat skip focusing on right arm / shoulder height and instead focus on getting that walk up (etc) straight and _then_ focus on right shoulder height. This is the tricky part changing broken form, everything is related.

make the rear hip move targetward while rotating counter-clockwise/butt wipe/hogan power move.

(Will include this in "make my run up straighter" session, then do right shoulder collapse)

And your front foot plants soft/rolling over instead of landing more toes first and more suddenly shifting into the heel.

I think it is a mix of my right leg outstretching a tad too much, and my COGS not being balanced over my front leg at plant. I played with this a little and shortening my stance + slightly delaying my reach back ever so slightly felt more balanced. But I next thought whoa don't mess with that just yet. So I'll put that on the list. Screenshot is what I'm aiming for.

and not turned back enough

I usually only do this for a full throw (I'm holding back a little). Is that wrong?

The ordered list:
- Left arm punch (1-2 more sessions)
- Straight walk up / rear hip towards target
- Anterior pelvic tilt
- Right arm / shoulder higher
- Fixing front-foot balance / getting weight more over front-foot at plant
- reach back timing (later, shoulders turn head back)
- Turning all the way back

I'm pretty happy with hip engagement so far. There's much room for improvement, but its gone from being a new feeling to feeling like how the hell did I throw before this? Hopefully addressing the numerous other issues above will yield more progress here as well.

 

[NotActuallyChris]

I think it is a mix of my right leg outstretching a tad too much

I uh, correcting myself a bit. I think my right leg is doing that naturally, and compensating for my COGS being a bit too far back instead of more balanced. So when I say fix that, I don't mean just move my leg but move my whole COGS a bit and see if it naturally moves to a more appropriate location. I expect being more balanced on front leg will make my initial plant closer to your suggestion (toe to heel plant, rather than this weird side roll thing that is happening now)

 

[sidewinder22]

I don't think of the left arm as a punch, except as maybe like an upper cut into the finish. Think of it more as collecting your hips and moving them forward pinning them into the brace to fulcrum leverage against it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpp7ZFLHK90&t=8m44s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvvF6eW-by8#t=6m26s

Note how your right knee(and CoG) is out more over your toes, instead of pushing your knee back toward the ankle creating hip rotation pushing/clearing the front hip back which should help create space for your shoulder to swing forward closed. So your hips should get pushed back toward right tee and your shoulder swing forward out toward left tee.

https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139973

 

[NotActuallyChris]

Note how your right knee(and CoG) is out more over your toes, instead of pushing your knee back toward the ankle creating hip rotation pushing/clearing the front hip back which should help create space for your shoulder to swing forward closed.

I tried to get a feel for this today. It felt ok setting up, but akward moving into the x step. I need to play with it some more, and perhaps intentionally stick my front foot forward (left, looking down teepad) just slightly. Not sure yet. Maybe sitting further back and focusing on pelvic tilt will be a good thing to try next.


Overall today's session was disappointing. 2/3 through (throw 3 onwards) I switched to trying to focus on left arm timing since the CoG wasn't going anywhere. It felt more natural by the end, although I can't pair it with my brace / hip engagement yet -- so when left arm timing and pull through feel good, I'm not getting any power from my hips. Yet my (last) throw was relatively far, ~290 with a stable mid and on target, despite being mostly arms.

My phone / mac is making up its own mind about when to slow down / speed up, these may be too annoying to watch. Posting for my reference. Need to figure out how to adjust speed.



Although I say disapointing, perhaps I should be happy because I tucked my left arm on almost every throw, and the (arm, not hip) timing is slightly better. That is an improvement, even if minor. Baby steps. I also had some of my best throws ever (parked a few holes), although that's not what I am trying to do.

Oh last thing. Comparing to other pros, I seem to be turning my shoulders too soon. . I wonder if that is playing a role w/ the shoulder collapse as well.

For next session:
- Keep focus on the left arm tuck timing, so it can set in
- Try not reaching out so wide (its happening unintentionally)
- Play with moving CoG back
- Play with delaying shoulder turn (this will throw me off, might need dedicated sessions)

 

[sidewinder22]

You are getting into some weird posture trying to hit positions statically that don't really exist, instead of getting there dynamically. You are trying to create a wide reachback to the left tee side while not really loading anything. A true wide reachback has nothing to due with keeping the disc left or right, but maintaining a wide shoulder angle while creating stretch from your center which should be more straight back inline to the trajectory. If you turn your shoulders back enough you can maintain a wide shoulder angle with the disc completely behind your body.

Doing the Door Frame Drills and Bow and Arrow you need to feel how align your stance and your posture to create a straight line force using/leveraging your weight/CoG in a more relaxed state and effortless. Your feet should be much closer inline doing these drills.

Note how far to the left your arm/disc are compared to your rear foot. My shoulder/arm/disc are loaded back right over the rear instep. Hard to tell from camera angle, but you also need to turn your rear foot further back away from target, you are too pigeon toed and keeping your rear knee flexed restricting your hip.

 

[NotActuallyChris]

Alright, a few more sessions and a bit of bow and arrow drill (used an detached broom, while my wife made fun of me).

Including a video but my main question is about positioning and stance in the bow and arrow drill. First the video -- I focused on turning back more. I can barely tell, but it felt quite different. I could definitely feel the torque, and how my body wanted to unwind at the end. It led me to visualize how Will and Ezra seeem to almost run into themselves turning backwards, then kind of stop forward motion while they unwind. I could feel that, and also feel how my CoG / alignment issues blocked me from taking advantage of it. So probably worth practicing to keep the feeling up, but I know my CoG (etc) issue is all that really matters at this point.



It was difficult to time it with my brace so I'm over running it a bit. But I probably don't care, I think fixing CoG (below) probably is where I need to focus, then circle back to everything else unless y'all think otherwise.

(This was session 9, fwiw)

Ok on to the important stuff. I took a few videos while squeezing myself in and paying attention to the back foot / right arm positioning. I think the first one (last video I took) I got as close as I could, but really couldn't get myself into a dynamic position pulling with my hip. The second one I could so I'm wondering if its still too far off / wide, and how you might adjust.

 

[NotActuallyChris]

Related to posture / balance -- I took a capture form that throw where going into the plant, my arm is just being tugged straight by my body. Compared to Eagle and Paul at about the same position, their hips / butt seem to be far ahead of mine.

Is this also something?

 

[sidewinder22]

You might need a longer broom stick, or you are striding front foot too far and putting way too much pressure on it. Get your butt closer to the wall(Hershyzer) instead of your front foot, front leg should feel more like it's hanging or hovering just above the ground with very little if any weight pressure on it. You aren't getting your shoulders turned back behind your head, right shoulder behind chin, left shoulder closer to target than head and right shoulder. Like you noted above Paul and Eagle have a much greater linear separation of right hip and right shoulder. Don't look down at your feet, keep your head more neutral, look at your hand/thumb/disc at the top of backswing.

Note sure what you mean about squeezing yourself in? The backswing/bow arrow drill should be expanding and elongating yourself. My left arm is hanging relaxed closer to target than my body, your left arm is behind your body further away from target. Side view would probably show this better especially the difference in the shoulder turn and width of stance. You should have very little if any weight pressure on the front foot, so the rear foot is leveraging your mass forward and dropping your CoG/shoulder lower into the hand plane.

In your actual throw you start the x-step with a shoulder/upper arm angle greater than 180 degrees and then collapse your shoulder/upper arm angle into the top of the backswing and hug yourself going forward. You are kind of throwing your elbow/disc back further instead of unfolding with elbow/disc staying in place as body moves forward. You want to start with your shoulder/upper arm angle closer to 120 degrees(shoulder protracted forward so elbow leads in front of wrist/disc, your shoulder is retracted and elbow not leading in front of wrist to target) and feel it get wider to the top of the backswing.

 

[NotActuallyChris]

Surprisingly difficult to find a spot where I can get this angle.

- First feels most balanced
- Second is exaggerating butt
- third is exaggerating left shoulder

In all three I can pick up my first foot -- I'm not using it, but feel a strong tension to plant it if that makes sense.

Note sure what you mean about squeezing yourself in?

Because I am (now) used to standing so wide -- when looking down the tee pad how wide my right foot and right arm are. I'm closing up the stance and moving my right arm closer to the back foot, or my back foot closer to the broom if that makes sense.

In your actual throw you... then collapse your shoulder/upper arm angle into the top of the backswing

If I stand-still slowly, its very easy for me to maintain the angle. It's when I do the x step that it collapses and also rounds more in my back swing. That's why I was saying I think my center of gravity or direction or stance or something like that is conflicting with how I am trying to swing and they aren't compatible. I figure if I can figure out how I should be balancing / weight shifting / closing up / this broom thing, it would setup a better foundation to fix that.

You are kind of throwing your elbow/disc back further...

This is exaggerated a bit in this throw from me turning back more than usual -- my focus at that last moment where my arm seems to extend out is actually all on my left side, imaging myself turning more than usual. I don't actually consciously extend my arm back at all if that makes sense, but may be doing something unintentionally. I consciously turn about half waythen my focus shifts to my left side while my right relaxes. I'm not sure if I actually consciouslly use my right arm at all beyond the first half of the back swing. I uh... I'm actually trying to think if I even actively pull at all. I don't think I do.

 

[NotActuallyChris]

Er, couldn't get GIF working

 

[sidewinder22]

Looks like your spine is extended and pelvis tilted uphill and not getting your butt to lead ahead of your front foot. Note how narrow my front foot strides and knee bends so it's not taking any weight pressure, and note how my spine is flexed so the butt can lead more relaxed.

You want to feel your rear hip higher than right hip striding, so right hip/leg hangs/swings from the left hip. Also looks like you are trying to keep your head/eyes too forward instead of letting them turn back and relax with the shoulder.

 

[NotActuallyChris]

Wow, putting my back into flexion feels better on two fronts:

- able to pull with hips more relaxed
- right shoulder feels like it wants to collapse less. Maybe this is one of the culprits. Yay.

I can feel its not quite there yet (video, image). The right hip higher is giving me trouble (its what I'm looking at when I look down, trying to figure it out).




If its helpful, in the video I am focusing on turning my left hip / shoulder by pushing with my left leg, which is a different feeling for me.


Also -- you've got a great throwing motion (your door frame drill)! Your balance at follow through made me do a double take as I expected you to swing around earlier than you did. Very cool.