I Need a Little More Distance

[slowplastic]

You're still reaching back too high, which is causing you to swoop down towards your chest. It's improved though and the disc looks to be coming out at a less extreme angle.

What is happening too is you aren't shifting your weight, you are rotating in place. You can see your rear foot just spinning there (the whole leg spins), whereas the pro's rear leg moves forward. Try to stay on your rear instep and push forwards (it'll automatically roll onto the ball of the foot and off the toes). Imagine your right (plant) foot is on ice, and you want to push yourself sideways across the ice from your left foot (sliding only on your right foot). And you want to stay balanced and not fall in either direction.

 

[lowesengineer]

I like the visual cue. Seems to be working here in the hotel room. I'll have to give that a try in the field tomorrow. I think when I get the weight shift right it will straighten the plane out. Or are you saying that is just a result of taking the disc back too high?

 

[Putt for D'oh]

I am somehow starting the entire swing by leaning my head forward and that puts the swing on a terrible plane. From that point on it just gets worse. Any drills or something to work on to force me to keep my head behind my weight shift so that the swing plane can maintain some integrity.

I think the drills have already been posted on the front page, it is just translating it into doing the drills and discovering for you how it feels in the throw.
Sidwinder posts this every once in a while and new light bulbs go on every time I watch. Compare to your throw, pull them up in separate tabs and flip back and forth a few times.

Hmmm... queue it up to 1:49 to watch along with your throw.



To start with watch his pendulum pre-throw. See getting that disc to the level he wants and imagining the discs flight path on the slow flat pre-throw. Now just repeat the discs motion/plane.
That single 1/2 step might help you with the weight transfer. MIGHT, but you really need to feel the crush the can from one foot to the other, not enough weight comes off your back foot.
See how he leads with his hip into that 1/2 step. (Hershyzer drill)
Then as the hip is going forward and the front toe touches everything transfers into that front heel/brace (crush the can) and there is a very clear push of the rear foot, specifically watch how it comes off that inside front of the foot/ball/toe.
That proper weight transfer, specifically the hip lead will be a big start to NOT leading with your head. Lead with the hip... as well the lower disc as Slow said, keep the disc level I think a few reciprocal/pendulum to flat pre-throw practice through swings might help.

 

[slowplastic]

I like the visual cue. Seems to be working here in the hotel room. I'll have to give that a try in the field tomorrow. I think when I get the weight shift right it will straighten the plane out. Or are you saying that is just a result of taking the disc back too high?

Well it all goes together, but you need to tell yourself not to reach back so high.

Thinking about shifting into a slide across ice should hopefully get you pushing off the rear instep instead of rotating in place, and that will hopefully get you to stop leading with the front side.

Putt for D'oh's post is more detailed about the same ideas.

 

[lowesengineer]

Gut Check

Thanks for the advice all. You are right, the drills are there, I just need to do them more until the moves are ingrained. At some point they will start showing in the video but I guess I am a little impatient. Is there a pill I can take? Hmmm. Guess not.

Thanks Everyone.

 

[lowesengineer]

Safety Tip

I am traveling this week so I haven't been able to shoot any videos of me making a mockery of solid form. Instead however I have been working diligently in the hotel room in the evening grooving my swing. I encountered something last night that I thought might be valuable to some other idiot out there that might be trying to improve their game as well.

It is very important that you work through your form very slowly especially if you have happened to have a disc in your hand. What appears to be a harmless piece of plastic suddenly becomes a destructive weapon when flying around within the constraints of a hotel room. Thank goodness the new floppy Judge is about as soft as a flour tortilla or there might have been some serious damage.

So having escaped that situation unscathed but having learned a valuable lesson I will continue to work on that weight shift into the front foot, but with a towel or nothing in my hand instead.

The only thing missing were those famous last words, "Hey yall watch this".

 

[IVER]

A suggestion....take a video from the rear and you will see how far your disc is from your rt peck as you pull thru.

 

[esc1]

IMHO I would fix the reach back before working on the weight shift. I would suggest placing a coin on the top center your disc. Then reach back and pull to center slowly until the coin doesn't fall off from your grip angle. Use a slick plastic type disc like Champion and not something grippy like that soft Judge. You can practice this at home in front of a mirror as well.

 

[lowesengineer]

New Video

I can't seem to get to the field these days as the weather won't cooperate in any of the cities that I wind up in each week. I did shoot this at lunch and I am not sure that it can be analyzed, but I hope someone will see something that has improved or if I am just getting further from an improved form. Nice thing is I didn't see any OAT in this video. Of course I'm not sure a towel will have much OAT.

Thanks in advance for taking a look and giving some feedback.

https://youtu.be/UAp8nRoP1xw

 

[slowplastic]

From what I can tell from this video (meaning it's a little hard to say), your swing plane and snap look way better. If you get a clean release with a disc, you should easily get the same distances you had before with very little effort.

Your weight shift is non-existent though. You are rotating in place and keeping your weight on your rear foot. You need to shift into the rear instep/load up the rear hip internally, and shift into that plant foot. Crush the can videos. Your rear foot should be weightless once you are at/approaching disc release.

Basically if this allows you to keep the disc on plane, you will likely see a very drastic improvement compared to before, but you'll be capped out in distance because you are spinning in place. From what I can tell it is definitely in the right direction though, swing plane was the #1 thing to get sorted out.

Also maybe get your rear arm locked down by your left thigh/ribs once you start the forward motion...might as well get that into muscle memory at this point. If you look at most/all the pro's they lock that arm in tight after reachback.

 

[Putt for D'oh]

I find it hard to really come forward off of the rear foot properly snapping a towel... and I do waaaay more towel snapping than throwing, its just what I can do.

I would say look back at this video and compare the towel snaps themselves. I'd be willing to bet the third snap was the loudest best crack. You almost got a brace and hip forward weight transfer into the instep vs. the first two you were starting to spin on the ball/toes of your front foot before any kind of weight transfer started.

Need to really feel the front hip moving toward the target and dig that instep/heel down.

 

[sidewinder22]

^^ Yep, spinning out both feet. Watch the Reciprocating Dingle Arm vid, swing a heavy hammer around instead of a towel. Slow things down. Your rear foot is too backward(30 degrees or so) to load into it. Finish with your feet together.

 

[lowesengineer]

I have had a few breakthrough moments over the past few weeks that I thought would be worth sharing. I broke the holder off my tripod so I can't really get any video until I get that fixed, but want to get some feedback to see that I am not headed down another dead end road.

My tendency when throwing strictly from a standstill was to reach back and lean back outside my rear knee which started the entire throw off to a disastrous conclusion in which my swing plane was completely off causing OAT as well as a nose up angle. Of course the more effort I put into the throw, the further I leaned back and the worse the result.

I tried everything I could think of to make sure I did not lean back to start the throw and then I read something I had read from several of you throw gurus that fixed the problem and resolved the OAT and nose up almost immediately. I know I have read before the theory of moving past the disc instead of reaching back with the disc to get into a full turn of the shoulders.

I decided to add one step into my throw for a while to see if I could get past the issues by throwing similar to how a pitcher would pitch from a stretch. I discovered by holding the disc stationary at my back shoulder at chest height and starting forward with my front cheek that if I held the disc still I would move past where it was and when my front foot landed on my toe, I found myself with a full shoulder turn, back 90 degrees from the target yet I was not leaning back and my head never moved outside of my rear knee nor did I lean at all.

At that point I could just continue moving forward and when my heel hit the ground my shoulders would begin to turn and pull the disc straight toward my right pec. From there I just let the turn continue and just remember to clamp down on the disc at the point it was going to pop from my hand. Immediately I saw the same distance with much less effort.

I also read where sw22 mentioned to go throw some hammers which I had read a dozen times but this time he added a word to the end. Straight. So I went out and threw a hammer. Ha-ha my wife thought I was mad about something and had decided to just throw my hammer all over the yard. What I found was also eye opening. To throw the hammer straight, you actually release the hammer well before the line on which you want it to travel.

So the next thing I discovered was when you keep your lead foot into a closed position and don't allow it to open or to even put it down open, it changes where the hit occurs. The disc does not come out behind your lead shoulder; instead it pops out before the line you are intending to throw as the disc spins around your hand it is now on target. I had to close my stance a bit more to get back on target, but not because the disc was coming out behind my shoulder instead because the disc was spinning around my hand and popping out on a good line to the target.

I have to believe some of this could be wrong so please point out where I may be going astray so I can stop it before I get used to it. Thanks for all your help from all of those that have jumped in with great feedback so far.

Still wish there was a pill that made all this just happen.

 

[sidewinder22]

:thmbup:

 

[lowesengineer]

Can't tell you how much that thumbs up means to me. Now to get some video and see if I can do what I can now say.