Kristin Tattar's mechanics

[Brychanus]

I have been learning a lot from KT's form and in light of her recent dominance I thought this was as good a time and place as any to put it.

Kristin Tattar is good at disc golf. For people without exceptional physical characteristics, I think you can learn a lot about driving mechanics from her. She's somewhere around 5'5''-5'6'' per some sources. Her arms look maybe a little long but not astounding. Her legs are stout and powerful looking rather than long, wiry levers.

One of the reasons I like her throws is that they involve a controlled pump, minimalistic hop-n-drop into the plant, and appear incredibly reproducible. She has very good rhythm and is a case where it appears she is able to get some impressive late acceleration heading into the release. Like young McBeth, most players can probably learn a version of her minimalistic form.

From a learning perspective, she is also very interesting to me because she tends to use the same form for drives and various upshots rather than "scaling" the mechanics like some players do. She is more likely to downtempo a little bit or change the disc choice than to change how far she "loads the bow." In that respect her consistency is less surprising - she is mastering one tool and using it well.

Distance:
KT herself says she has (converting to ex-Colony units):

8 spd ~ 360-377'
(presumably driver) max ~400-425'
So perhaps 60mph - max low 60s mph ejection speed when she's digging for it.

Reddit source.



Form:
Feeling the leverage & disc weight in the left hand and micro-pump before teeing off:

Saint pro hyzerflip gap shot ~360':

Hyzerflip viewed from SE:

Closer to "flat" (still slightly Hyzer to flex through a farther gap):

Pure Hyzer line:

Downtempo upshot form - the bow still appears "fully loaded":
Edit: Chris Woj and Ellestar suggested that from this distance it may still have been more of a full throw. KT does usually still appear to like to get "fully loaded" and downtempo to me on shorter shots, but this may not necessarily be the best example.

Hyzerflip angle from the 2nd shot above. Remind you of anything?:

Pre-elbow surgery:


KT "ride the halfpipe" more vertically than many players to generate power out of her narrow x-step. Almost every player I ever see on the form critique forums here can learn something from this:

Form quirks, curiosities, and lessons:
1. Another case of a stout player hopping and using the vertical force to great effect. I doubt if KT tried to throw like Hailey King that it would work out so hot for her.

2. Her backswing loops forward from a relatively high peak backswing. She has a sweet windmill into the release point. But about six months ago I was curious if the way she swings her arm out of that with a pronounced elbow lead was a little hard on the elbow. Then she needed surgery. I don't know if it's coincidence and of course overuse is always a variable. I'm still curious about this.

3. Could KT throw farther with mechanics changes? There's a possibility she could get a little bit more behind her drives. Compare the drop off the rear leg & foot of PP vs KT here. Maybe KT could get a little more power for free into her swing based on her posture dropping in off the rear side. Or it could just be her hip & leg anatomy - perhaps KT is just more IR dominant (pigeon-toed) than PP. In any case, PP might be getting more quick leverage through the hips with somewhat tighter action swinging "inside" her posture than KT.

4. Perhaps related to (2), KT's x-step is about as close to true "crow hop" as you can get while still being an x-step. This was interesting to me since I started looking at Ulibarri's form again last week and messed around with a true crow hop. Theoretically the reason the x-step exists are probably many, but part of it is about building up torque while accelerating in balance into the plant. However, you do not want that to be at the expense of a quick move in balance off the rear foot getting pulled taut in the backswing. KT is a good case study for this concept.


Conclusion
I'd have some questions about the above, but I would encourage anyone to consider & learn from what she's doing. Approaching my 40s and feeling it while always on the grind, I've been paying attention to players who are killing it in the woods with excellent gap games with good power and control for their body type.

 

[timothy42b]

2. Her backswing loops forward from a relatively high peak backswing. She has a sweet windmill into the release point. But about six months ago I was curious if the way she swings her arm out of that with a pronounced elbow lead was a little hard on the elbow. Then she needed surgery. I don't know if it's coincidence and of course overuse is always a variable. I'm still curious about this.

I've only seen the one slow-mo that you shared. The backswing is high, but if I'm seeing it correctly, it's completely on a flat plane. From the peak of the backswing her forward bend remains fixed and the plane of her throw is perpendicular to the axis of her spine and flat.

It seems to me the plane of disc travel for a lot of throwers is more parallel to the horizontal. Hers is not.

 

[Brychanus]

Not sure if this is what you are saying, but I admittedly don't really see anything as flat anymore. I do think it is "trapped" by her chest & relative to the posture & spine. Depending on what you mean by about the above we might be talking about the same thing.

Here's what I mean by windmill. Thought I'd clarify since there's a lot of backswing chatter coming up the last few days. I didn't fully grasp this until I changed my pump style last month.

Looks like (right to left) the backswing is (1) coming through her center, then (2) loose here as she's shifting over the drive leg. Then (3) as she gets pulled taut against the shift, the windmill carries it along the motion that started earlier in (2) to appear "high", and finally as she shifts and gets compressed it swings back toward her center, but is on a somewhat high arm slot.

Curious about the distinction you're making about "more parallel to the horizontal" if you can pull any example. For instance to cue me in, are you talking about the arm line relative to her posture (compare her thigh and upper arm at the pocket to Paige's for instance) as she swings through the pocket?

 

[sidewinder22]

I suppose we can label 3 types of hops.

1. Crow Hop. This is the most forward/targetward facing approach and requires a bounce on the trail foot to start turning back into backswing. Old Ulibarri and Mike Moser.

2. Side Shuffle Hop. This is done more sideways approaching and the knees do not crossover. Tattar and Climo.

3. X Hop. Similar to the side shuffle, but a little more turned back so the trail knee crosses behind lead knee. Brinster and McBeth.

 

[timothy42b]

Curious about the distinction you're making about "more parallel to the horizontal" if you can pull any example. For instance to cue me in, are you talking about the arm line relative to her posture (compare her thigh and upper arm at the pocket to Paige's for instance) as she swings through the pocket?

I went frame by frame on your clip and now I don't see it quite the same. Apologies.

I might still be right but only for the portion of the swing from pocket (fully bent arm) to hit.

By horizontal I meant disc motion parallel to ground. I'll look for an example. It does seem to me that a lot of swings have the disc moving fairly level throughout the swing, which I have trouble seeing as a pendulum.

 

[Brychanus]

I went frame by frame on your clip and now I don't see it quite the same. Apologies.

I might still be right but only for the portion of the swing from pocket (fully bent arm) to hit.

By horizontal I meant disc motion parallel to ground. I'll look for an example. It does seem to me that a lot of swings have the disc moving fairly level throughout the swing, which I have trouble seeing as a pendulum.

No need to apologize, I think there are a lot of reasons that the pendulum metaphor & mechanics can get really confusing.

For Tattar specifically, watch what happens to the disc right as it goes into the pocket, then right as it exits the pocket. Then look at it exiting the pocket into the release - even though her angle does approach pretty flat/near horizontal to the ground, she's usually actually releasing on like 10-20 degrees Hyzer after completing the "loop" or "windmill" out of the pocket. Can you see it? The disc is "deweighted" in the backswing, then kinda yoked into alignment with her arm motion as her arm starts to resist and leverage the momentum back out of the pocket. It's a slick momentum trick.

I find it helpful to look at SW's BH forward windmill here then look at what KT is doing. You'll notice that it's still probably hard to see the connection.

IMO and probably SW's, this is a feature of a lot of top throwers, but it actually gets much harder to see in the X-step because of the way the body is moving relative to the disc and how tension builds in transition during the "windmill" or pendulum. And I think different bodies can get away with different versions of it.

For example, I'm also doing a version of it here (my move off the drive side still sucks a bit there so ignore that). In the practice pump there, I am doing my forward windmill. Then when I carry it into x-step, it looks pretty different. But that's because of the way my arm is building tension while my posture is moving past it - the arm is still doing the same move mechanically. It looks different because it builds a lot of potential elastic tension as you carry the momentum in the little pendulum or loop, but only if enough other things are working well. At first it was harder to aim since my old pump was so busted, but it's a clearly more powerful move and pretty accurate after a month working on it. Even though I prefer a lower arm slot than her I found KT really interesting to look at as a result.

 

[Brychanus]

I suppose we can label 3 types of hops.

1. Crow Hop. This is the most forward/targetward facing approach and requires a bounce on the trail foot to start turning back into backswing. Old Ulibarri and Mike Moser.

2. Side Shuffle Hop. This is done more sideways approaching and the knees do not crossover. Tattar and Climo.

3. X Hop. Similar to the side shuffle, but a little more turned back so the trail knee crosses behind lead knee. Brinster and McBeth.

I like this a lot and it helps me simplify how to think about templates for the move.

Gallery:

If there's a high-level crow-hopping female I'm not thinking of I'd like to add her.

Couple observations:

1. Crow hop seems like a good learning aid and plenty effective if you're in balance and rhythm. Again - Ulibarri had a 1035 rating with it. Theoretically, it's probably leaving the most torque force on the table thru the hips, but you can get plenty of horizontal and vertical force in there. I can now personally attest that it's easier to learn some things immediately since it is really hard to cheat some aspects of balance moving off the rear leg. Just because it's not popular these days doesn't mean it should be ignored.

2. Side Shuffle Hop. Incrementally more torque through the hips with still good vertical and horizontal force potential. Probably slightly less ideal from an efficiency/peak power perspective but clearly this move can be used to good effect. Possibly also slightly easier to tempo as long as the mechanics are good enough. Maybe a good candidate for players with certain physical types or injury limitations as well. You can still mess this move up just like an X-hop, so take the time to learn to do it well.

3. X-hop*: It's the bees' knees in modern DG. Why? It probably exists because you can get peak torque, horizontal, and vertical forces in one package. It maximizes the "double helix" component of the swing unwinding against the ground as seen in golf finish position. If you develop the move well, you can do it with excellent tempo & scaling control while in balance. Hard to master and finding the sweet spot(s) for any given player seems to take some creativity & hard work. This is a big reason PP and McBeth have impressive peak power.

*"X-hop" vs. "X-step": We've talked about this often, but I keep understanding more about it that seems relevant here. I want to point out why SW teaches the X-step as a X-"hop" or "gallop" even though it might not always look like one. I think unless you are at the upper end of Eagle or Buhr body types, you are going to benefit from more vertical force component and probably want to work with it first either way. GG is basically just using his big hop to "make his legs longer" to make up for shorter stature and get clearance through his x-hop to load the hips. Notice that the height he hops would basically make up for the difference between his and Eagle's legs. Notice that GG's "X-hop" is also very minimally crossing over because he stays so far in the vertical. Notice that Eagle also gets a vertical component in transition off the drive leg too, it's just less pronounced because he's mostly horizontal. You'll understand it better if you try crow hopping and side shuffle hopping more vertically first. So that's why I like calling what Eagle does a "hidden hop" - it's there, but it's so subtle it's hard to see until you feel it yourself.

 

[Brychanus]

Wow, the subconscious is powerful. Relabeled to say "X-hop" lol.

 

[Sewer bill]

It's wierd to see GG almost doing an x step even if it's still mostly hop, he used to click his feet together like some kind of country music line dancing move.

 

[seedlings]

Does Kristin's upper body stay more upright than it "should"?

 

[BogeyNoMore]

Kristin's got her own mechanics??

You never know when your ride will crap out between tour stops (most likely, in the middle of BFE). Having your own pit crew's gotta make tour life easier.

I wonder if Lat 64 picks up the tab for that?

#TeamKristin

 

[Brychanus]

Does KristinÂ's upper body stay more upright than it Â"shouldÂ"?

This is an interesting question and here's how I'm currently thinking about it.

I think Kristin is still swinging "inside" her posture like the others (would be easier to see at true 90 to tee), but her posture is modified based on her drive leg move. I think you can see a similar effect between PP and Tattar as in Robinson vs. McBeth.

Notice how much more space is created in PP and McBeth between the pump and body compared to the Side Shuffle Hoppers. I think it is because they are all swinging inside posture, but the X-hoppers get a space advantage due to their arm countering the mass of the leg. If you think about the mass of the drive leg swinging back deeper North and especially East in a full X-hop, the throwing arm and posture naturally allow more spacing between the body (center of gravity). This is because their posture and pumps need to be in a position to be out more ahead (North and West) of the body to counter the rear leg and stay in balance while maintaining momentum toward the target. Think of that bigger space as potential power building up that is available for swing force once the disc starts coming out of the backswing toward the body.

A little hard to show in any stillframe but compare the spacing of the x-hop in 3D as the leg swing in for PP and McBeth and the posture and pump size & space:

The neat thing is I think that means that when PP and McBeth swing back into the pocket and "resist collapse", they get a larger redirection force as their arm swings back out of the pocket than do Tattar and Robinson. That plus the torque they get in an X-hop vs. shuffle hop is probably a significant power boost. Those two things are intimately linked in top form.

Anecdotally since I'm still working hard on this, when my move is more like a Side Shuffle Hop, it can still generate power in balance when I find the inside posture swing, but I get a noticeably larger force when I find that X-Hop sweet spot even if the knee just barely crosses behind. I think it's because the body is enjoying that torque force plus the additional force provided by the countering between the throwing arm and drive leg and the space & "free" redirection force it provides. I think there may also be an advantage in how the mAss leads the swing in the x-Hop since you get a little more redirection force in the Buttwipe part of the move. More slingin' force through your Ass, if you will.

I am still finding it harder to find the ideal X-Hop than a Side Shuffle Hop but I think it's likely worth the work to learn the X-Hop sweet spot from an efficiency & peak power standpoint. One reason I'm liking looking at KT in particular is because if you take the move she does and make it just a bitmore like PP or McBeth's (and the rest is going well of course), you're in really good shape. As a stout player it's helpful to realize that you can just make your legs "longer" by hopping in various ways. Playing with each of these other moves can help you find the posture and clearance for an X-hop.

All this makes me wonder if someone like KT (or Isaac) has been through all this and decided for one reason or another to go with a Side Shuffle Hop over an X-Hop. Kinda wish I'd thought of it at the time KT did the Reddit AMA.

 

[sidewinder22]

GG is very upright in his hop and does more a windmill backswing(vs pendulum), then gets tilted going into the plant. Pretty sure that gives him more momentum into the throw.

 

[Brychanus]

GG is very upright in his hop and does more a windmill backswing(vs pendulum), then gets tilted going into the plant. Pretty sure that gives him more momentum into the throw.

I was looking at him a lot again this month. I remember you also noticed that Simon (at least in modern times) has developed a bit of a tilt or lean but his drive leg move still lets him accelerate through it. Maybe not exactly the same mechanism, but similar & interesting.

What you're saying about GG also seems related to that enormous separation he gets in the hips in the x-hop. I mean look at this. It's like he hopped all the way over his X, nearly skipping the move and bringing the tilt directly into the plant. Like what the hell, man.

It always seemed to me like the guy has special hips (& of course athleticism) that help him pull it off.

His move reminds me maybe the most of the BH version of Zelezny's Javelin.

Something I am still curious about with backswings (pendulum or windmill) is whether the absolute height at the peak of the backswing does contribute swing force. Intuitively dropping the mass of the arm from higher would add some power due to gravity. But maybe that's a small enough fish to fry compared to other things for most players since they have so many posture issues otherwise that it's usually not worth a big fuss.

 

[Brychanus]

In my form we're now trying to clean up my balance & tilted swing axis & SW went after my head again. When that heavy sucker gets too eager and swings out ahead of the hit it's bad news.

In genearl, one habit I've always found hard to completely kick is getting my head a little disconnected from my body or rushing my attention to look too early for the target & taking my head off my "stack" in the backswing and/or when I land to swing, which contributes to overall posture issues. Working on this with drills like Ride the Bull and Double Dragon are very helpful. Of course, sometimes converting the lesson into form is tricky so I went back to thinking about seabas head modules & form models & KT.

In general, pros will tend to take their head back all the way with the disc when "fully loading" the bow. The idea is that regardless of where your head is specifically, you never want to spoil the balance of your head in facilitating the tilted axis.

In that case, another lesson in KT's form is how well she integrates her head and posture to swinging on a tilted axis and "trap the disc with her chest." This concept helps & its relationship to head balance helps me simplify a few things at once for me.

One way I like to look for this is framing the disc as a triangle from the shoulder line or projecting out from the chest. If the player is in center balance, notice the disc (or really mass of disc + hand) is "trapped" near or at the midline relative to the chest during the backswing and swing.

By keeping the eyes and head with the disc from backswing to swing centered over this triangle (dashed line), it is easier to maintain both chest trapping and get the head fully stacked into the drive leg during the backswing and plant leg during the swing. If you look for some of the little parts of my swing that are out of whack from backswing to swing, using the head and "triangle" trapping to help yoke the posture together is a great tool.

Sometimes there is variability in how open the upper arm angle is heading into the hit so the disc exits the "trap" earlier, but at least from backswing into the pocket I think this is a helpful heuristic. You can look for and find examples all over the place.

 

[blayed]

KT is a complete player but I feel like despite having solid BH mechanics where she really shines is putting and sidearm. I feel like she is a sidearm main thrower who learned a great BH (kinda like Ricky).

 

[JeanLoveseat]

I've been struggling with the X Step for a year now (taking too large of a cross step and getting turned around backwards) - I can walk through it slowly with decent results but any attempt to add even a small amount of momentum always ends up with me being backwards. I've started trying to hop a bit more this season and it hasn't clicked yet, but the Drive Leg Moves graphic in this thread is very much a lightbulb moment as I think what I need to be trying is a Side Shuffle Hop. I've never realized til now that you can have a walk up where the knees just come together and you don't officially X Step, so thanks for putting that together!

 

[Brychanus]

I've been struggling with the X Step for a year now (taking too large of a cross step and getting turned around backwards) - I can walk through it slowly with decent results but any attempt to add even a small amount of momentum always ends up with me being backwards. I've started trying to hop a bit more this season and it hasn't clicked yet, but the Drive Leg Moves graphic in this thread is very much a lightbulb moment as I think what I need to be trying is a Side Shuffle Hop. I've never realized til now that you can have a walk up where the knees just come together and you don't officially X Step, so thanks for putting that together!

Of course it depends where the rest of your form is, but at a certain point messing around with the true crow hop and side shuffle vs. X recently became more instructive for me. I was having a hell of a time figuring out how to get my body to "ride down the curved ramp" relaxed in remotely good posture has been a battle.

After reading and tinkering and thinking more this month, I'm in a new phase of awe at the X. The "best" X-hop for any player is a pretty elusive thing because even minor problems can spoil the entire swing and drop the power drastically. So I like the idea of crow hopping and shuffling a bit as a learning aid even if the ultimate goal is the X. It changed how my body understood what it was for. Once I started feeling the force move more smoothly in the vertical I could better tell what I was trying to harness in the X.

I was thinking more about how to persuade people about this. Here's an oversimplification, but some more thinking about why conceptualizing it as a hop in general is very useful I wrote in a form thread:


******
IMHO you need to sort out the above axis/head balance/shift from behind first before working about X-hop. But I wanted to do some basic physics & attempt to answer your question about the hop:

Drew likes to stay stacked pretty upright and you can see the small hop here.
https://youtu.be/s_UV7kIE1Pk?t=364

There is an illusion here and I will attempt to disspell it. The first trick is that you need to notice how high off the ground his head is in the x-hop, and how low it is relative to its initial peak as he lands to swing.

I'm going to oversimplify some things but I want to explain why this matters for "ground reaction force" when you land in the plant and customizing form. Drew's head drops maybe 8 or 10" (which is roughly how far his body drops since that's what supports his head). For the example's sake, let's say he weighs 180 lbs and drops 10". Because gravity is acting on him, the vertical force component is about 2032 Newtons at impact, or roughly 455 lbs. Now image 455lbs of force swinging a 175g disc, and add whatever acceleration he's also bringing in horizontally (probably adding another few hundred pounds). Then there is the action generating torque against the ground in the Figure 8 pattern. With form as good as Gibson's, you would throw the disc very far. Without it, you just go wild off balance and risk hurting yourself. In underdeveloped form, most of the force either just gets expelled into the ground or your body instead of the disc. In a way, that's exactly what the measure of "bad form" is.

Most of the "art" in form work is figuring out the ratio of vertical and horizontal that is ideal in the context of the rest of the form & player profile.

In fact, this is why I and people like SW like to say being bigger/more massive isn't necessarily a disadvantage. If I drop the same ~10" as Gibson at my 235 lbs, I generate 596 lbs of vertical force at impact, which is easier for me than generating horizontal force for several reasons. In a way, that's one of the biggest "advantages" (in a very short list of them) that I theoretically have over Drew. My body is also shaped in a way that coming in more vertically makes it easier to swing the force out from my body with shorter levers. So I finally have just accepted that as true and currently am working on harnessing and converting as much of that potential force as I can before worrying much about the horizontal force. The question in the end is how much of that force Drew and I can get it into the disc (form, levers, youth, health, effort, in perhaps roughly that order etc).

So last, here's a deep idea about the X-hop that most people miss and I couldn't get for a long time. You need to learn to realize that the hop starts as he's leaving the ground, and is continuing after his drive leg hits the ground. His body is still "falling," getting more acceleration as he drifts over the drive leg building up torque. This is "riding down the halfpipe" and it really does feel like it. This is the neat trick of the drive leg that many (most?) players struggle with and fail to learn and why it's hard to hone. That's why I like to share this gif so often. Same thing, world record:

Now watch Ezra mash and watch the move over the drive side. It's a little more subtle, but watch his light footwork and for the little X-hop. Watch how much lower his head is in the swing than his X-hop. It functions exactly the same way as Gibson's, which is the same as Gurthie's, etc. Think of it as a little "gallop" or "giddyup" as SW likes to say. That's much closer to how the move works and why so many people fail to get it. They don't realize that it's an X-hop because superficially it doesn't look like a "hop" at first and almost looks just like walking in the really horizontal players. A walk slightly more vertical is a hop - a gallop. I failed to fully grasp this for too long. Don't make my conceptual mistake.


***



NECROLINK!
This whole thread has a few dead gifs but is a goldmine:

https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138294

 

[RowingBoats]

Not gonna lie I got like halfway through the gifs and forgot what we were talking about.

 

[Brychanus]

While on my interplayer hop binge of the week: notice that in some older versions of Eagle's form you could also see more of the gallop, bounce, or hop even when he was moving very horizontally. It got more or less low to the ground over the years so the hopping part has often been harder to see.