Stuck between 320'-340' on golf lines. I would like to add another 40'-50'.

[Jazzbones]

Any thoughts?
172 Z Nuke
169 Star TeeBird
170 Pro Destroyer

 

[sidewinder22]

Stop throwing high speed drivers. Slow down. Don't lean over your rear leg away from the target trying to shift your weight back. Turn your hips and shoulders back instead, your weight will already be on the rear leg 100% and should be kept on the inside of the foot/leg until your weight transfers to the front leg and then begin throwing. Your front shoulder never stops moving forward and goes past your front side foot/hip brace, so there is nothing to leverage it against. You end up releasing momentum around to the right instead everything down the target line. Your followthrough should be balanced on the plant foot with the hips staying behind the front foot, not stepping forward or being thrown forward from the shoulders being ahead of the hips so far.

Lots of stuff in here will help:
http://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65039

 

[ru4por]

Why? You play a lot of courses with an unusual number of 400-500 ft holes? Practice your short game to pick up strokes.

 

[Flip Hyzerman]

Overall form thoughts: You are torquing in order to throw slight-annys to get your distance - it's common, but will not help your distance in the long run. You can identify this yourself by noticing that all your discs are having the same flight pattern and a heavy dump on their fade (especially the Nuke and Destroyer) - this is indicative of not getting your disc 'up to speed' and I'd recommend dropping anything faster than a speed 9-10 at this point.

The fix: Slow down and start throwing hyzer and flat. Work on literally shortening your steps to get power out of your lower body and core instead of through momentum and the run-up. Purposefully shorten your run up; do a small step, get right into a tight controlled X-step, and think of your body as a compact machine with the arm for snapping discs out. Transfer your weight without leaning forward and coming off the teepad at your follow through, generate snap and not torque/momentum/push. Start throwing mids for your practice sessions ... especially ones that will reward good form and stick to a line, as well as punish torque/forced turnovers (I like the Meteor, Buzzz, Warship, Kite and a variety of 'driving' putters for this). Lastly, but importantly, learn to hyzer-flip; your entire concept of disc flight and distance will change when you do, and it's an excellent way of telling if you are getting a disc up to speed and achieving straight/controlled lines.

 

[DiscinFiend]

Why? You play a lot of courses with an unusual number of 400-500 ft holes? Practice your short game to pick up strokes.

Are you being serious? Some people just like be able to throw as far as they can. Some people just want to be able to at least have the chance to park longer holes than they can now. Distance is underrated by many people, mostly those with average or poor distance. When I have the option to run for a 400' ace or try to park a 450' hole I at least have a chance of doing so & people without that distance don't even have that option. Plus the OP asked for advice on his driving form, not what can he do to improve in general. I agree that the esies way to lose strokes is to improve on short game & putting. Gaining distance is hard to achieve but totally worth it in the long run. Would you give the same advice you gave to the OP to a person throwing only 250'? Distance is very important, it's all about your form & run-up. I know a 13 year old kid who's max distance is around 350', should I tell him to just work on his short game?

 

[Jay Dub]

The long distance isn't worth much if you don't have the accuracy.
I beat a lot of younger players that can throw 100'+ farther than me. I would beat them by more strokes but I get tired and out of rhythm from looking for their lost discs on every other hole.
Get your accuracy down then add distance.

 

[sidewinder22]

Jack Nicklaus said something about driving for dough and that he hardly ever practiced putting.

 

[Jay Dub]

His drives were accurate more times than not.

 

[sloppydisc]

I didn't know Jack played disc golf. Interesting....

 

[Jazzbones]

Thanks for the input everybody.

The point is well taken on distance not being everything. Or even half the game for that matter. However, I do indeed play many places where the distance game is big. Unfortunately, coupled with distance, many of the places I play are not only long, but tight as well. This is where I get into ALOT of trouble off the tee. I end up coming out of my shoes (trying to kill it) to eek out every inch. I'm hoping to clean up my form and gain the few extra feet without subconsciously resorting to trying to horse it down the fairway.

That being said, I have kind of known I should disc down. Sometimes you just gotta hear it. And I do feel ya'll on the rushing it up the teepad. I never really feel the balance I think I should feel when I watch someone who knows what they're doing. Here's to looking forward to taking it down a notch, getting fluid and working on balance. I've always kind of had a touch of an anny release on my high speed drivers so that may be the hardest habit to break. The anny flight pattern always just seems to fit my eye the best.

I'm not trying to hang with the big arms. I'm 10years+ over the "never trust anyone over 30" age so I'm just trying to get it to happy spot without hurting (both literally and figuratively) myself in the long term.

As for hyzer flipping, I can flip up a leopard (300'), a buzzz (250'-270') or putters (200'-250') somewhat consistently, but even those get squirrelly for days on end and in any kind of wind forget about it. Flat is where it's at with my slower stuff. If I try to hyzer flip anything faster it will often just crash out. And to say I don't trust the shot in a tunnel is an understatement. But I do respect the hyzer flip and work on it quite a bit.

So, again, thank you all. Back to the drawing board with new thoughts up top.

 

[Druid]

Is slowing down and throwing slower discs supposed to add distance for him, or is it supposed to improve form and possibly add distance sometime in the future? Just a question. Not criticism.

Destroyers and nukes are crazy overstable for your arm speed. Why not try something less beefy but still fairly fast? I bought a Mamba for my buddy to throw and his distance improved pretty quickly. He still has the tendency to try and throw the disc into an anhyzer though, like you're doing. (Really bad idea with a Mamba) It's a tough habit to break, but if you can hyzer flip other discs already, it should be easier for you to adjust.

 

[Jay Dub]

Get a 163 or 167 star Mamba and release it with a little hyzer angle. It's speed 11 but the rim doesn't feel like it.

 

[sidewinder22]

Is slowing down and throwing slower discs supposed to add distance for him, or is it supposed to improve form and possibly add distance sometime in the future? Just a question. Not criticism.

It may be a step backward to move forward. Ultimately it's about efficiency, and the slowing down/working from a standstill with slower discs will clean form and make you more efficient throwing on plane. It's much harder to improve efficiency while moving fast and he can't move much faster than already to increase distance from more forward momentum. Also the throw should start slow so you can change directions and finish fast accelerating through impact. It sounds counter intuitive but a longer/slower swing generally produces more power than a short/fast swing.

 

[Jazzbones]

It may be a step backward to move forward. Ultimately it's about efficiency, and the slowing down/working from a standstill with slower discs will clean form and make you more efficient throwing on plane. It's much harder to improve efficiency while moving fast and he can't move much faster than already to increase distance from more forward momentum. Also the throw should start slow so you can change directions and finish fast accelerating through impact. It sounds counter intuitive but a longer/slower swing generally produces more power than a short/fast swing.

This. It's in (been in) my head. Now just gotta be patient and try to execute a balanced hit without the nagging "go harder" undermining the process.

 

[Druid]

It may be a step backward to move forward. Ultimately it's about efficiency, and the slowing down/working from a standstill with slower discs will clean form and make you more efficient throwing on plane. It's much harder to improve efficiency while moving fast and he can't move much faster than already to increase distance from more forward momentum. Also the throw should start slow so you can change directions and finish fast accelerating through impact. It sounds counter intuitive but a longer/slower swing generally produces more power than a short/fast swing.

That's what I thought. Thanks.

When I read longer/slower, I thought of Will Schuserick, and when I read short/fast, I thought of Steve Rico.

 

[TreeNicker]

Concept of acceleration mechanics

During the course of a disc golf throw or any kind of throw, momentum and energy work inside an acceleration curve which needs to be a build up through out the entire motion. The fluidity of a perfect exponentially increasing build up of energy creates a maximization of disposable power. I'm not much of a disc golf mechanic guru but I have a background with javelin and baseball pitching mechanics. The throw in its entirety is called a Kinect chain which requires a point of origin to start the momentum and travels through multiple phases of muscle movements to eventually release all the energy into the disc. Understanding how energy is transferred allows you the fundamentals of building your own mechanics that work with your strengths. With a X step backhand you will be limited in your power by the amount of energy created with your footwork as well as power created in the X. Energy will then travel through the hips, which if released too early will limit the amount of energy created by your X step. Then the upper body not including the throwing arm needs to also come around and start releasing the energy build up to your arm, which is the very stop of the Kinect chain. The later you can release your arm and let energy build up through the rest of your body the faster your arm will go, which gives you a better chance of creating more revolutions on the implement.

Understanding your self and the fundamentals of mechanics and applying these concepts to your throw with a minimum of 10000 reps of practice, before your body completely automates the process, will get you on your way maximizing your body's efficiency.

 

[Flip Hyzerman]

As for hyzer flipping, I can flip up a leopard (300'), a buzzz (250'-270') or putters (200'-250') somewhat consistently, but even those get squirrelly for days on end and in any kind of wind forget about it.

The tunnel shot is one of the lines a good hyzer-flip excels at; the reason I think you should keep practicing 'flipping' something up is you get immediate feedback. Almost any line can be hit with a hyzer-flip, and it works with everything from the Magic to the Destroyer. If your HF drives are 'squirrelly' - evaluate what the disc is 'telling you'. Practice getting to know the 'turn' of each of your discs by attempting to hyzer-flip them to a straight line; if the disc turns early to the right you are either torquing it instead of snapping it on a hyzer. If the disc never gets to 'flat' and fades out, you need to use less hyzer in order to hit that flat line. If the disc 'flips' up to flat and rides like a laser in a straight distance line, you've found the correct angle/power for that disc.

A Leopard is a great way to gauge your form/snap - especially in Pro or DX. If you throw a Leopard flat with good form and up to speed, it should get moderate distance, turn over, and likely not come back. If the Leopard is going straight for you when thrown flat, you aren't getting it up to speed. Repeat with a similar disc in each speed until you find the highest speeds that you CAN get up to speed and make fly like intended and to the numbers.

Here is what hyzer-flip distance to the extreme looks like at 2:10s from Dave Feldberg, notice the disc flip up, ride straight like a lazer, flex, and then fade out. For hyzer-flip distance shots, there is nothing sweeter than seeing a disc fight back to flat and slowly do that controlled flex; pure distance.

 

[Aim For The Chains]

ballerina leg not transferring weight through swing and throwing planes are way out of line. Disc comes from hyzer to anhyzer in your hand with reachback low to high then high to low and you can see where the disc flight is manipulated nearly every throw-- let em flyyyyy and work on what everyones said above. GL'

 

[BrotherDave]

OP and I are about the same distance wise. One thing that has finally starting to click with me is getting my hips into the throw. I've been throwing w/o any body in the throw for so long, even though my form was smoother than a baby's bottom I was terribly maxed out cuz it was all arm. I've been redoing the Beto drill, just working from the hit back with a standstill and one step with the emphasis on stepping into the throw with my back leg. This has been a big help with locating some semblance of a hit which previously was nebulous and it practically forces me to get my hips involved. So tough not to go too fast too soon though.

 

[Freddy]

http://seattledischeads.weebly.com/misc.html

Watch the first video with Feldberg. I think you may need to lung off your back leg more and pop your hip forward.

Hope this helps!
-Freddy