Spin vs Speed

[Nick Carroll]

I'm totally with you on cleaning up the language and terminology in disc golf. That said, I do think some battles will be hard fought. Such terms like stability, reachback/reachout, wide rail, pullthrough/pull, griplock - the biggest offenders - have such strong institutional usage. I'm pretty sure "pull" in and of itself is older than disc golf, and comes from prior usage for explaining how to toss a frisbee. I think, until such day as these terms have become deprecated in usage, it's best to sort of "asterisk" them. Tons of the pros learned how to throw at the highest echelons because and despite those terms, and they're just baked in at all levels. Where and when possible we should keep mainstreaming terms like backswing and swing, throw, curl and extension, straight, release point, etc. That way the old words have a common disapproval over time.

 

[Sheep]

I'm totally with you on cleaning up the language and terminology in disc golf. That said, I do think some battles will be hard fought. Such terms like stability, reachback/reachout, wide rail, pullthrough/pull, griplock - the biggest offenders - have such strong institutional usage. I'm pretty sure "pull" in and of itself is older than disc golf, and comes from prior usage for explaining how to toss a frisbee. I think, until such day as these terms have become deprecated in usage, it's best to sort of "asterisk" them. Tons of the pros learned how to throw at the highest echelons because and despite those terms, and they're just baked in at all levels. Where and when possible we should keep mainstreaming terms like backswing and swing, throw, curl and extension, straight, release point, etc. That way the old words have a common disapproval over time.

A bunch of us are working really hard to eliminate them, such as reach back.

I started it a number of years ago and Danny picked up on it, Josh is no longer saying reach back as a few others are not saying it.

It's a tough ride as you gotta really work hard to keep it up. And making video's is fun to, because you'll screw a whole take up when your brain says the wrong term, cause its hard to change while speaking sometimes.

 

[Brychanus]

I wonder where Josh got it. Michael Strauss talks about it so it's been probably been around a long time. (though I think he uses it to reduce power in upshots, so same thing you are saying.) But I kind of assumed "fan grip and don't let it pivot out" is the same as "backload." Maybe not.

I agree on the OT Techdisc thing. I would have thrown through that doorway once then found a racketball court somewhere. Or pickleball. Or maybe a bathroom.

There was also this variant of a modified power grip McBeth talked about here where the rear vs. front fingers split the roles of two grips. A little different than some other modified power or fan grips. Not sure where he loaded the pressure himself.

 

[Nick Carroll]

A bunch of us are working really hard to eliminate them, such as reach back.

I started it a number of years ago and Danny picked up on it, Josh is no longer saying reach back as a few others are not saying it.

It's a tough ride as you gotta really work hard to keep it up. And making video's is fun to, because you'll screw a whole take up when your brain says the wrong term, cause its hard to change while speaking sometimes.

Yeah one thing I've noticed is people are generally teaching "reachback" and "pull" less, but they might still accidentally throw those terms out in the middle of talking about the more accurate terms. Like training form, takes a lot of "reps" to eliminate bad terminology.

 

[BogeyNoMore]

There was also this variant of a modified power grip McBeth talked about here where the rear vs. front fingers split the roles of two grips. A little different than some other modified power or fan grips. Not sure where he loaded the pressure himself.

That's quite a young (1X) Paul.

 

[Brychanus]

Yeah one thing I've noticed is people are generally teaching "reachback" and "pull" less, but they might still accidentally throw those terms out in the middle of talking about the more accurate terms. Like training form, takes a lot of "reps" to eliminate bad terminology.

I have a feeling we're going to hear more about "pulling" again soon.

When I talk to different people who use that word they are often describing or showing different actions.

These are not conclusions, just observations.

 

[Brychanus]

That's quite a young Paul.

Vintage and before he added some gainz.

I hope he heals well. I didn't get to see most of the "McBeast" era as it was happening, but having watched some rounds from the past decade, the tour just isn't the same without that "big bad" energy. Might never be quite like that again, but I'm rooting for Paul to do something special every time he's out there.

 

[Nick Carroll]

I have a feeling we're going to hear more about "pulling" again soon.

When I talk to different people who use that word they are often describing or showing different actions.

These are not conclusions, just observations.

I know I'm one of the victims of that term. That and reachback. Taught me pretty effectively how to ruin my form. I've always been impressed at the people who learned good form despite the wonky terminology.

 

[ChrisinFL]

The issue I take isn't with that it is or is not, it's that someone is making content acting like it is, when it is not.
It's clickbait essentially at that point, You're lying to people by presenting the information in a false way even if its information, you're just doing it so poorly that it's not good. I'm not saying skewing the data, but just taking really piss poor data sets, which still is data, and then presenting it poorly without explanation.

And yes, if you were someone with Josh's following, but produced video's like I would produce, people would watch them. Cause people LOVE to nerd out on things. But nobody is going to just get excited to check me out on a 30 minute video nerding out on mental concepts and stuff, or even theory on this or that. I don't have the following, so I'm going to have a really bad retention rate. nobody is going to watch the video.

Then on top of that as the other things in here. I could make the most baller level video's about disc golf. Nobody is going to respect me in "that" community even if my information presented is the current gold standard. Because I don't have subscribers. And if they do watch my content, they will steal it and not credit it. Disc golf channels are really bad at crediting others with proof of concept where they got it from, or doing any research whatsoever.


That turns it into a "cool kids club" which I'm 100% against. You CAN spend time talking to others quite easily. I don't spend all day in here, maybe like 20 minutes every other day? Depends on my schedule and I'm able to converse with many coaches at one time.
I off hand talk with other coaches all the time in discord or instagram as well and we explore concepts as time for each of us permits.
The issue comes from some of us in a critical manor of not exploring the topic long enough. Some of its a "oh looks like 1 person told him something, here comes the video where we miss these critical things on this topic."
Because, in the end, it's about getting out content, which ... is what is a big downer. It's not about accurate data, it's about a youtube channel that just happens to do some coaching stuff.



OAT cause massive instability in flight, but this comes into play differently. This is why the term "stable" needs to leave the vocabulary for descriptions of disc flight.

A stable flight will allow the disc to fly as intented.

An unstable flight will give unstable results with it not performing.

A disc without off axis torque on plane spinning will give you a stable flight.

But we in turn, like idiots, continue to use "stable" to mean "straight"

JUST FUCKING SAY STRAIGHT.
Or NEUTRAL.
Whatever.
Sorry, some of this shit triggers me in such weird ways. haha

It's language, lets build better language to promote proper understanding of what is ACTUALLY happening.

This is why Im building the wind tunnel. To promote proper understanding of individuals who want to argue the dumbest shit when they dont even understand basic aerodynamics.

I agree - terms stable and understable used way too much, and often not correctly, too. Frustrating.

 

[CoachChris]

Tech Disc, David Wiggins and I are going to try to do some real world testing of their sim at USDGC. It won't be real science because it won't be in a controlled environment but it may give us an idea if their sim is anywhere in the ballpark of reality.

 

[Sheep]

I have a feeling we're going to hear more about "pulling" again soon.

When I talk to different people who use that word they are often describing or showing different actions.

These are not conclusions, just observations.

One of the issues with it is, there is sort of a point where you do "pull" but not in the sense that people think.

The swing will drive the disc into the chest, but you gotta pull it into the pocket somewhat as well.

But when you just say "reach back and pull" people litterally reach back and try and rip the disc with their arm pulling it. and..
Yeah.

It's complicated.
I try and elimiate pull unless i'm teaching more advanced stuff then I'll bring in how to use the pull mechanic.

Before that I teach it as a swing mechanic. You need to swing the disc in first before you learn to add to the kinetic chain with the pull.

 

[Sheep]

Tech Disc, David Wiggins and I are going to try to do some real world testing of their sim at USDGC. It won't be real science because it won't be in a controlled environment but it may give us an idea if their sim is anywhere in the ballpark of reality.

Yeah, but with you there, there is gonna be more credibility to it than just some random youtubers.

Because part of overall issue is we dont really have a way to insert any level of "control" into study with disc golf either.
So it's up to people who know how to properly work with data.

Because if were trying to do some level of study, we need to be paying attention to the swing the player has and the data and making notes on the swing quality and some other factors to go along with the data.

The largest issue I have with this is the same as people trying to get better with a speed gun.
They focus on the result, not the journey.

So in turn they make bad form by trying to play with numbers.
Nobody out there buying one of these going "how can I properly change the data on this using good technique?"
They all just trying to rip harder cause numbers. weeeeee.

 

[Nick Carroll]

One of the issues with it is, there is sort of a point where you do "pull" but not in the sense that people think.

The swing will drive the disc into the chest, but you gotta pull it into the pocket somewhat as well.

But when you just say "reach back and pull" people litterally reach back and try and rip the disc with their arm pulling it. and..
Yeah.

It's complicated.
I try and elimiate pull unless i'm teaching more advanced stuff then I'll bring in how to use the pull mechanic.

Before that I teach it as a swing mechanic. You need to swing the disc in first before you learn to add to the kinetic chain with the pull.

And I'll just give an example from personal experience regarding the "pull" mechanic. I learned earlier on to pull like I was pulling a lawnmower. Well, that effectively brought my elbow down. So I spent years throwing with the elbow down. Also not understanding why I had so much wobble when I throw. Well the 2 are linked. If you externally rotate your upper arm at the shoulder, to pull like a lawnmower, the elbow drops, and that brings the disc off plane. It doesn't even "feel wrong" because it's a natural thing to do if you're trying to pull a lawnmower string. But throwing a disc is categorically different.

 

[Sheep]

And I'll just give an example from personal experience regarding the "pull" mechanic. I learned earlier on to pull like I was pulling a lawnmower. Well, that effectively brought my elbow down. So I spent years throwing with the elbow down. Also not understanding why I had so much wobble when I throw. Well the 2 are linked. If you externally rotate your upper arm at the shoulder, to pull like a lawnmower, the elbow drops, and that brings the disc off plane. It doesn't even "feel wrong" because it's a natural thing to do if you're trying to pull a lawnmower string. But throwing a disc is categorically different.
View attachment 318898

It's fixable, but its literally hours into a net doing slower throws.

The most annoying part of disc golf and something that separates us from the elites is that if you're ever trying to throw far, you'll almost always fail.

Our silly brains when stressed lean on most easy to replicate mechanics. So when we say "throw far" in our head, we put our body under stress and these bad mechanics come back.

The pull word in general is really what gets people, just like the word "throw."
When we start the lawnmower, we don't just rip with our arm, we rip with our body. But that's cause we are thinking in our head were starting the lawn mower, not pulling the cord. and we know we have to pull with force, so we use our body. But when we also pull the lawnmower cord, we are not fixated on throwing an object.
So when our brain fixates on that disc, and we give it bad commands like "pull" our brain goes "okay, it's light, it doesn't require effort, should be easy, just pull the arm."

The hardest part of disc golf is being willing to suck and score low to be a good player.

And the point of that is learning to focus purely on mechanics and clean throws.
Bringing it back into the topic, of spin and speed.

Learning to just casually throw, getting the mechanics correct and going.

I think to some extent there is some correlation of spin and speed. To achieve certain distances you need both.
For casual throwing, a good disc choice and good spin to keep the disc going well in the air and you're throwing a casual 300-350 with little effort.

The problem then comes learning to build UP to that 400, 450, 500 range without just outright destroying tons of form work by trying to umpf it to hard and then reverting to bad mechanics.

Which also drives into the 2 base methods of teaching disc golf.
Huck hard, dial back.
Start smooth, build up.

Most of us in here are start smooth build up teachers. Which is also a far safer method of teaching mechanics and maintaining body health.

The old school teaching was "huck hard" But not really any ever dial back. haha. cause they were doing it way different, and you probably fell into this somehwhat being an older golfer.

 

[drk_evns]

One of the issues with it is, there is sort of a point where you do "pull" but not in the sense that people think.

The swing will drive the disc into the chest, but you gotta pull it into the pocket somewhat as well.

But when you just say "reach back and pull" people litterally reach back and try and rip the disc with their arm pulling it. and..
Yeah.

It's complicated.
I try and elimiate pull unless i'm teaching more advanced stuff then I'll bring in how to use the pull mechanic.

Before that I teach it as a swing mechanic. You need to swing the disc in first before you learn to add to the kinetic chain with the pull.

What might this advanced pull you're teaching be?

 

[Sheep]

What might this advanced pull you're teaching be?

A really poorly worded way of talking about it. hahaha.

It's not really "advanced" But you gotta have the basic mechanics down before adding into the swing.
otherwise all your'e going to do is the muslced pull throw vs a swing with juuuj added.

 

[drk_evns]

I don't know that pull is ever appropriate. There is a way to add power with your arm later in the throw, but I don't see it as a pull.

 

[Sheep]

I don't know that pull is ever appropriate. There is a way to add power with your arm later in the throw, but I don't see it as a pull.

Yeah, wording is a bit tough on it.

I'd best say it as "assist it in getting deep in to the pocket." vs letting it swing in and out.

 

[Nick Carroll]

Maybe the word "pull" is a good cue (or at least not a bad one) for some people, for that first part of the throw. The "out-in-out" or "wide-narrow-wide" part where the "out-in" or "wide-narrow" portion is, bringing the disc into the power pocket. I think it sets other people up for failure because they're pulling in such a way that isn't representative of a throw.

 

[timothy42b]

Would you use the word swing maybe?

It seems to me the Beato drill is really a push.
The More Snap drill is probably horizontal adduction. That might be called a pull.
The Hammer Pound? No clue.