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Both your arms are dragging too far behind your body. Your rear arm on the backswing going behind your back is not helping, you are trying to use your left arm to turn back instead of it happening from the ground up through the hips. I also don't think the x-step is helping with any of this, just adding more moving parts to the fundamentals.
The arm should be using just enough muscle to guide the disc in/out of power pocket/your center. The arm should follow/react to the movement of the body.
Note how low your elbow goes and the shoulder is externally rotated and disc is wing up. Your thumb has no real leverage or load/coil in the power pocket to eject the disc back out.
Note how Simon has internally rotated shoulder in the power pocket and disc is wing down, the arm/disc is internally loaded/rotated to spring/uncoil/eject back out with the thumb able to push against the disc outward.
Worked on arm angle, humerus rotation, left arm, etc, but was really struggling. Frustrated, took a break. 10+ sessions, mixed results. After practice, thought / re-reading here, I decided the CoG issue was likely limiting my ability to fix my low / dragging elbow too much to focus on anything else.
Posted video is first in a while where I see progress. Focal point was leading w/ (left) hip to get my weight further back. It seemed to improve everything else. Still a long way to go, but CoG is yielding fruit. Will continue focusing there.
Unlearning bad habits is hard. Unlearning bad muscle memory, etc, harder.
Plan / Analysis:
- Keep improving CoG axis 1: CoG is almost correct the looking down teepad. Key signs are I am not drifting as far left, and my right knee at plant is not as bent over.
- Improve CoG axis 2: CoG is too far back when looking from side. Key signs are dragging arms, plant foot being toe up, and a big upward follow through step (I think unused energy built up in the weight transfer). Will try delaying reach back w/o messing up my other CoG axis.
If those go well, can go back to focusing on the arm stuff and I bet it still stick much better. Separately, casual course round scoring is improved by several strokes. Able to hit ~350 when needed but not with the form in the video. Playing casually is fun again
You aren't getting your feet underneath you properly. Looks like your rear foot slips out to the right without really moving forward and your front foot spins out with your posture not being aligned to it.
You need to turn everything further back away shifting into the plant and finish standing on front leg. I would scrap the x-step for a bit and work on the following.
Interesting. As to the forward motion off the back foot I see what you mean, although I'm doing about as slow a hip throw as I can which may play a factor? But for the back foot slipping to the side -- I definitely noticed Schusterick doing that in a lot of throws. I'm not trying to mimic him but what is the key difference in my back foot motion from his (or is it just the forward pushing aspect?)
Moved to Portland. Brought the net in the car rather than packing because what's more important when moving a family than form practice. :| I spent time trying to find and hit your suggested forward movement. I think I understand but it pushed me into something else. After some stand still work, I managed to really get a feel for driving the swing with the hips.
It takes all of my focus, and I noticed my left arm was regressing, so I spend some cycles on that too:
My hips lose a little when I focus on the left arm, but I notice I my right arm is likely to drop out of position. So when I focus on left arm, I also focus on keeping right arm high and forget about the hips.
Lastly, this throw my arm work is terrible, but after doing a 25% wind up I generated a ton of power. I see a bunch of wrong but not exactly sure what I did right in this throw.
Still need to focus on the topics from your last suggestion. But this feels like progress again so I just went with it for now, since new feelings are always so hard to keep around. A ways to go still, but so many of the flaws and ways seem more obvious now. Excited that it feels more powerful than ever, while still having numerous very obvious things to fix. Hopefully that means I can continue making lots of progress by spending 30 minutes every other day using the net, as its much easier to consistently commit to that.
Added a more pronounced "nod to the gods" and fuller reach back, while trying to get left arm in proper position. Wanted to see if this affected finishing balance and back leg forward motion per your suggestion a couple back.
I think a little more progress. Observations:
- Maybe gone from too little of a nod to slightly too much.
- Nod helps with balance, but weight a bit too far back (right in this video)
- Still rounding but straightening / butt wipe drill focus might help. Also more inside out
- Other timing: need to delay reach back a bit more. Probably will help with points above.
- Finally managed to focus on left arm and hip at same time, without fully derailing each other. Still, each needs independent focus as (in this shot) both are slightly off, relative to when they get dedicated focus.
I went to Portland open this weekend, was really impressed with Cole Redalen's form. Very slow throw for his amount of power. I noticed CoG wise his right knee is very bent. I found fixing that in myself involved putting my hips further back, which helped engage them more and was one of my biggest improvements so far. Still, curious what you think about his form? (at 30s)
Ok, took a minute but I see what you mean w/ movement. When I plant my back leg, it turns me slightly. Once I really _really_ focused on direction back leg push off towards target, I could also feel my hip pulling my arm better. Yet the humerus prematurely rotating externally plagues me, there's too much muscle memory / bad habits around it.
I spent time focusing on just the straightened back leg, and the humerus. Only with a really wide rail could I get any traction on it. I think its improving, but was more focused on getting that back leg straight.
- Focused on: Back leg straight, humerus rotation / elbow up (hence wide rail)
- Did not focus yet: Simon inside out move,
- Back leg straighter is better, I think. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Humerus rotation / elbow up is better, but still rounding and needs more focus
- Inside out (Simon video) is not improved (I did not try, yet) -- but I think I see what you mean better now.
- I also think I see what you mean w/ not balanced on either leg. I think I'm still not on the front leg enough.
Probably that's enough priorities for now. Tons of content and threads to focus on. Would love to get on a course and put more effort into these throws, but scared its just gonna all fall apart again.
3 months, a (shorter) move, busy job later, back in a consistent routine. Regressed for a bit (arggghhhhhh) but back on track. Worked on replicating hips / plant in a stand still. 8/10 throws form stand still, I"ll mix in a few walk ups towards the end.
1. I think what I see is -- better butt wipe in stand still, and hips not cocking as much when I re-add run up. So maybe going back and forth to get them fully cocked in the x-step is a good thing to practice? Or stay focused on stand-still?
2. Elbow up (etc) is still my Achilles heel. In my stand stills I"more exaggerating the lean down, I think its helping. Thoughts or other suggestions?
Same old frustration, regression (back < 300), hit a wall, take a break, pick it up, here we go again. Was actually getting worse and extremely frustrated by my collapsing arm. Then I said **** it, I give up. Just gonna strong arm it and find my way back to 300 and call it... but when I actively use my arm basically _everything_ else seems to improve a bit...
(Pardon the flourescent light flashing :\)
These were my first throws trying this... plenty of room for tuning. Raining quite a bit here in Portland, but hoping to work on this in a field a bit to ensure its not a mirage. Certainly found it easy to finish more balanced, although the way my plant heel comes up maybe I need to get a bit more on the front foot before I declare an improvement there.
Took me about all this time to really understand start to understand the very clear points you're making. I think I am an idiot when it comes to sports, lol.
1. Struggling to get hips back, a _little_ progress. In other videos, can clearly see how drifting my hips forward is crowding my swing plan, and _part_ of my "achilles" heel of my dropping arm / rounding. When I try to "sit" back more, I get way off balance. I know its just a matter of feeling it, and finding the right positions.
2. Very intentionally focusing on keeping the elbow up -- really by keeping the shoulder "out" is how it feels. IDK what it is, but I can clearly see it "drop" around peak reach back. Its rather dramatically helped in the last 3 sessions, I was going nowhere until recently.
These are all "half" swings, I don't think there's any point in an xstep or power anymore, I gotta figure out how to position my damn hips in the right place.
Practicing more than ever, just killing myself in the garage with the repetition and tedium, probably 30+ sessions since last post for this miniscule progress. Skipping on playing real rounds or other more interesting activities to throw into a net, in the garage. The further I go, the more impressed I am with the pros who I know went through this too, or something like it, or more. Regretting I did not know how to take it more seriously when I started - ah well, better late than never. Lately, all of my energy is here. I try not to throw too hard or too much each day, so I can ideally practice 4 times a week. I'm 40 now, its been 10 years since my first post. I hover above 300 a bit, then drop hard back to the 275 range. Yet somehow I feel closer. Parts of the throw look better. It certainly _feels_ better.
Practiced leading with more of a butt drop, and keeping my shoulder / humerus from externally rotating at reach back. The latter still has work and feels a bit awkward. But going between Beto drills and reach back, I think its headed in a better direction. At this point, doing ~4 sessions a week. My body feels fine, though I worry about injury at this rate (I feel its the only thing that will stop me now). Try to limit reps to each session, very easy to get to 50+ throws, when I think ~30 including warmup is a better target (given 4x sessions a week).
Planning on focusing on a few things:
1. Establish more lean -- I think I am slightly not leaned enough.. (unposted) videos where I lean, it looks more correct, so just gonna roll with it a few sessions and see where it goes. Maybe it helps with my arm; maybe its actually getting my butt back. We'll see.
2. Fix reach back: Its better in this video, but still reaching back / turning early. Need to get the disc more lined up and left in place, and let my arm unroll as you mentioned in prior video.
3. Grip. With camera behind + slowmo, I notice my thumbs slides to the VERY tip of the disc on nearly every throw at peak reach back. Its likely the culprit of some of my "off" swings where disc comes out early and such. Hilarious I never noticed this.
4. Left arm: Time to clean it up. Need to get it inside and then consistently extend and get the timing aligned.
Things I don't understand:
1. Plant foot is 10/10 times coming toe up which seems wrong. Plant and brace seem better than prior videos overall, but this doesn't seem right. I wonder if leaning will affect it.
2. Direction of hip movement: I think I"m still drifting my hips "away from the wall" (right to left, from behind). I focused on this quite a bit, but it never felt right. My list above is an attempt to focus on things I am a little more sure I can fix / will help then re-visit. But at least, looking back at last years post I can see its better than before at least.
3. Back bend. I think my (mid) back is bent, peak reach back seems like it should be firmer, like throwing arm is dragging a bit, and same at follow throughs, not sure if I need to stiffen it up a bit, or adjust my posture otherwise, etc. Def. something a little off, but similar to above, think I should focus on things I understand a bit better.
Another thousand throws, give or take. Lots of stuff tried. After some focus on hip back, which I've framed as my biggest issue (based partially on sidewinders comments, I hope I understand them), I achieved some improvement in two ways.
* First throw: Visualizing pulling straight back (with body)
* Second / Third: (How it feels) moving just my hips
The second / third are interesting in that the entirety of the throw felt hip driven, I other than the initial weight shift, I dont do anything and the hips whip everything around. Caught me off guard, and a little surprised I get so much momentum during / after the throw from them. Arm is totally weightless. Not trying to throw hard, aiming for 50% effort or less, but that is about as slow as I can get it right now without losing the feeling. IF its right, can train it and slow it down more I hope.
I have spent probably 80% of my last thousand throws on various ways of keeping the right arm / elbow up. Outside of artificially slow swings, I can't do it. It always collapses as either my body moves forward, as I pull, etc. Hence I kind of shifted focus from my prior points back to the hips / getting weight back. Yet, when reviewing the last couple months (since last post), I found this throw (and a few like it):
Where I get slightly better arm position. I think what I was focusing on there is, not just the delayed reach back, but leaving it in place. When I go back and watch the hip throws above, it does look like I'm pushing my arm back. I suspect I'm putting some tension, weight, positioning, inertia into my arm. So I wonder if I can replicate my hip movements, without pushing the arm back during my mini weight shift. Hmmm.
I don't think your rear leg is feeling the loading/unloading/bracing of the backswing on the correct swing path.
I think you are right but also can't quite grasp it from the gif. I do have one of those balls and tried to replicate that motion to better understand, maybe I can record a video of that for feedback. Otherwise, and depending on feedback on any of the nonsense I've blabbered about above, some thoughts:
* Try pairing the hip movement with more delayed / left in place disc
* Try a wider stance, and / or capturing more of the outward placed foot without taking the hip off course (as I had ~a year ago, where SW22 posted the Simon form explanation in response). This is based on some pro videos, but also that when I reach "out", I always yank the disc right (hyzer line). Yet, perhaps I'm aiming incorrectly, i.e. by stepping sideways, reaching out, and compensating my aim, maybe that is the more correct position
Brychanus, I'm reading some of your material, appreciate the pushing the limits video / post especially. I'm probably practicing too much currently. My body is holding up so far but don't want to risk it. Only other note here is, had a physician friend point out recently that my joints are hyper mobile (while looking at my hands). Perhaps that plays into my shoulder dropping, maybe coupled w/ my wingspan, not sure. Seems more like an advantage to those pros that have those traits, so maybe grasping at straws.
