I'm 57 years old and I don't want to get hurt while having fun. I throw mainly backhand, but I also throw forehand without hesitation when it's the best shot.
SW22 is the form guy. I'm the "general rule" guy. Here it is in a nutshell. If you're stressing too much and especially if it hurts when you do it, you're doing it wrong. Smooth is far in disc golf. Think a whole lot more about the disc than you do about you. The disc needs to come out smooth and at the proper angle. You need to put as much spin on the disc as you can if you want it to glide and as little spin as you can if you want it to drop out of the sky. Knowing proper form will help you to get the disc out farther, but knowing yourself and your influence on the disc is the key to consistency.
I absolutely agree with the "smooth is far". I think what lead me to strong arming is that it is very difficult to find quality information or easy to understand instructions about good form. I consider it equally important to understand both the how and why of a proper form. This forum has given me the biggest improvement to my understanding in that - thank you all for this!
When I first started playing my form was spontaneous - we were just trying out the game with a group of friends. We didn't receive any training. Some of us had heard some ideas about how to throw and our mental models were influenced quite a lot by them. However, we were completely lacking general understanding about why certain motions were considered good. Also, some of the initial instructional ideas were outright wrong and damaging.
Some examples of incorrect instructions:
- imagine that you are trying to elbow someone
- pull through your core as close to your body as possible (without emphasizing that you should not pull with the arm, but lower body)
- it's like trying to snap a wet towel
At some point we probably also heard pointers in the right direction - use the lower body more, use your feet. However, we did not understand exactly how and where power is generated in the lower body and it did not give the improvement intended. We would try turning back more, take a very wide stride, run up faster. Unfortunately, none of these helped to improve our form and resulting throws.
Then we heard that we should not throw hard and slow down. The result was that throws indeed felt smoother and distance did not seem to suffer almost at all (just slightly). However, we would eventually still become frustrated at our inability to throw further. We would see better players throwing much further with effortless form yet neither they nor us could explain how they do it. Watching pro clinics on youtube did not help either.
Finally, I found this forum and started learning about the theory of how and why certain parts of the throwing motion are good. I took me quite a long time to change or overturn my previous understandings about form.
After I started digging into this forum I also started taking videos of myself and found 10+ things to improve. It has taken a lot of time and effort to change the things engrained in my form and the process is still ongoing. The problem was that initially I did not know how to prioritize the mistakes - what to solve first. As it has turned out - some mistakes were caused by other mistakes. Due to that a lot of time and effort has gone missing here. While my throw distance has not improved yet (it's always been at 100m range), I really feel that I am improving, and it has kept me hooked with the sport to date. I can't wait to get out playing again to try out all the new ideas I have.
That is why I started this thread. My understanding of the throw mechanics has improved quite a lot. However, I feel like I am lacking in understanding of which parts of possible form can be with high risk of injury. It would be good to know that as I am continuing to experiment with improving different parts of my form. Also, this would be beneficial to everyone else reading this forum. I believe it would benefit the sport in general if people taking up disc golf would get injured less, have smooth form and not plateau out at 100m of distance. Keep up the good work, everyone!
