What should I change?

[smyith]

start with your foot work. you're feet are clunky and dragging. you dont use your core much at all. your reachback is...well... what reachback? im not trying to be a dick really. im just blunt.
the video doesn't show your approach but i would say it all starts there from what little ive seen. youre aiming with your shoulders square, thats way all your throws end up to the right. here i noticed another footwork problem. you seem to be trying to cover a big distance with as few steps as possible. then you try and slow yourself down beofore the end of the teepad causing your arm speed to slow. you want to start slow and accelerate through the throw. the speed of your body isnt as crucial as the speed of your arm. overall speed will come with form improvement.
honestly, the people who resist advice and suggestions get left behind. you NEED to start over from scratch. id start attending your local leagues and make friends with people. see if you can get some of the local pros to work with you. not only will that help, but just playing with better people will help. consciously or unconsciously you will pickup good habits. as of now i dont see any good habits.
basically the whole idea is this; if you plateau that means you have lost your basics. in order to get past that plateau you have to return to the basics and get what you lost or didnt have. then in that process, youll notice all of sudden that you far surpassed your plateau.

 

[Lewis]

Prerube, prerube, prerube! Is this summoning spell not working?

One thing I noticed in the Beto videos that I've never noticed before today is the position of his hand relative to the disc when he has it against his chest. He is holding it at the opposite side of the disc from his chest (on the outer wing), not just in front of the disc's nose. That's a big difference from the way I've been pulling the disc past my chest, and is apparently an important ingredient of keeping the disc close to your chest all the way to the right pec. I don't think he actually mentions this in the video, but it is the same way the guy showing the hip drill is holding the disc. Is that relevant?

 

[Lewis]

On the footwork, I'm actually not consciously trying to slow myself down with my footwork. However, I have always had slow, clumsy feet. It's why I'm better at sports like table tennis and suck at sports like soccer. Perhaps I should also wear lighter shoes. In the videos I've made of myself, my footwork does seem bouncy and "clunky," but I can't figure out what to do about it. Maybe I'll just stay on the ground instead of trying a skip step.

The lack of a reachback is probably due as much as anything to poor balance over my feet. When I try to add more reachback (believe me I am aware of that flaw and have tried to improve it), my throws get really chaotic.

And believe me, I play with better people all the time. They just never give me any advice. Recently I asked a 40-something friend I play with about how his son can throw Rocs 400'. He said something about how it is a family secret.

 

[JoshEpoo]

The absolute most critical thing for you to work on is the hammer pound and getting the disc up to the power zone with a relaxed elbow. Your arm should do virtually no work on the throw until the very end of the shot, after the disc has passed the right pec and the forearm starts to swing out. You want a relaxed wrist and elbow going in and a strong wrist and forearm going out. You need to develop the feel of going from really relaxed and loose to generating explosive power. The hammer pound drills help with this and feeling the timing of the weight shift of the disc in your hand.

 

[Lewis]

All of the advice y'all are giving is stuff I've read dozens of times before, but it's apparently not clear to me how to apply it to my own game. It looks like I'm going to have to find a local disc golfer with some teaching ability who can show me in person.

 

[JoshEpoo]

Muscle memory is a hard thing to overcome. Neural patterns get set and you really have to overcome those habits by out thinking them and focusing.

I'm lucky. I live in the same town as Blake and play with a bunch of dudes who adapted this stuff to their game that I could learn from. My home course is the same as Beto's so I've seen him play a bunch and had a chance to play with him. The DGR method works. If you put in the time to read the information and develop an understanding, then work on the drills to develop the feel, there is room for a ton of improvement. It's difficult and you may need someone there to guide you through the process. If you know any local pros who have had to do the step by step rebuild and come out the other side successfully, that would be a great resource.

 

[garublador]

Prerube, prerube, prerube! Is this summoning spell not working?

One thing I noticed in the Beto videos that I've never noticed before today is the position of his hand relative to the disc when he has it against his chest. He is holding it at the opposite side of the disc from his chest (on the outer wing), not just in front of the disc's nose. That's a big difference from the way I've been pulling the disc past my chest, and is apparently an important ingredient of keeping the disc close to your chest all the way to the right pec. I don't think he actually mentions this in the video, but it is the same way the guy showing the hip drill is holding the disc. Is that relevant?

Yes, but probably in a slightly different way than you think. This is something that the hammer pound drill is meant to sort out. One thing you'll probably find when experimenting is that if you reach back a bit farther away from your body and pull into your right pec you'll get a stronger hammer pound than you do if you stay close to your body the whole time. That's what he's doing that gets his hand to look like that. If it doesn't give you a stronger hammer pound, don't sweat it, just do what does add to the hammer pound.

On the footwork, I'm actually not consciously trying to slow myself down with my footwork. However, I have always had slow, clumsy feet. It's why I'm better at sports like table tennis and suck at sports like soccer. Perhaps I should also wear lighter shoes. In the videos I've made of myself, my footwork does seem bouncy and "clunky," but I can't figure out what to do about it. Maybe I'll just stay on the ground instead of trying a skip step.

Building the throw from the hit back will fix this without you even having to worry about it. If you do it right you'll be throwing at least as far as you are now, but will be able to do it with your footwork at the speed of a leisurely stroll. Fast footwork is not required. The hop may or may not be beneficial. Transferring weight from your back foot to your front foot rather than just starting with it on your front is what's important.

If you aren't doing it right you'll notice that your hammer pound, and distance, will be the same when you add a step. If you do it right, your hammer pound will be stronger and your distance will be better. It's usually pretty obvious when you do it right. After that it's just figuring out how to do it right all the time, which will take repetitions.

 

[DangeRuss]

Your footwork does look a little off. I think if you shorten it up or add a hop step you will be fine.

Your reach back and release angles look pretty good to me actually but what do I know.

 

[Lewis]

Your footwork does look a little off. I think if you shorten it up or add a hop step you will be fine.

Your reach back and release angles look pretty good to me actually but what do I know.

Yeah I'm not worried about my release angles, as that's something I've never had a problem with. Those who are criticizing my release angle either stopped watching after the first couple of throws or are thrown off by the viewing angle or poor quality of the video. I've never been a nose-up thrower, and it has always baffled me why so many new players think it's a good idea.

So anyway I've been trying to work on the right-pec drill, trying to pull a straighter line closer to the right side of my chest from a deeper reach-back, and my distance hasn't suffered vs. what you see in the video. I suspect, but haven't verified yet, that I'm actually getting better spin and slightly more distance with the initial adjustments I've made. What is suffering is my accuracy, since I'm unable to add any more reachback without turning my head away and taking my eyes off the target. Taking my eyes off the target tends to make me lose track of where it is, and has me throwing to the right or the left of where I intend to line up. I think this is more about practicing than anything else.

 

[Mr. America]

If everything else is consistent you shouldn't have to look at the target when you throw. It's not gonna move on you. You should be able to get lined up and have a routine that is consistent and makes you throw where you want. I have been trying to keep my eyes on my disc/arm. I think turning my heard more to do that lets me reach back better, and plus I can see what I am doing with the disc and my body.

 

[Lewis]

Don't know if anybody is still interested, but I've been continuing to rework my throw and have had some positive results. I have been working on maintaining a relaxed elbow "going in" and a strong wrist "going out" as JoshEpoo suggested. I've also been trying to apply what I saw in Beto's video about his high elbow, and noticed that Katzch also mentioned it in the video thread he started in the past week.

I notice I'm getting more glide on almost all of my discs, so last week as an experiment, I decided to play a couple of rounds at local courses with Rocs and putters only. Not a big deal, since both layouts are around 4500' for 18 holes, but it's something I had never tried. I took a couple of potential birdie opportunities out of my bag by doing that, but ended up gaining quite a bit of accuracy and control and threw a -4 on Thursday and a -2 today during a rushed round on my lunch break. I didn't expect to fall off much doing this on relatively short courses, but considering both of these rounds are better than my average scores on the two courses, and that I left several strokes out on the course on both days, I'm just short of amazed.

Another surprise is that the change in my driving form gave me an idea to change my putting release, and it's given me MUCH more accuracy and confidence in my putting. So the three or four strokes off my average in the past week may be as much due to my putting practice and adjustment as anything, but discing down has certainly not hurt my success. Until I have to play at a much longer course, I kind of like the idea of carrying about 7 discs (four Rocs and three putters), and scoring as well as or better than I have been.

I've also found I can throw my Rocs farther than I realized. Today I threw my stiffest, most overstable Roc about 270' into a headwind, and threw my "straight-as-an-arrow" Roc at least that far in calm air on a low, straight line.

I'm not convinced I'll ever throw Teebirds over 400', but it's nice to know I've got a decent shot at developing 300' with my Rocs. If I get to that point and can control what I'm doing with them, it will be hard to convince me to add much else to my bag.

 

[CwAlbino]

I've skimmed over most of this thread so I'll try to reword it since you are having a hard time applying it, and maybe add a few things.

The biggest thing you really need to work on is being smoother. You are stiff, clunky, and rigid at all times. Smooth is far, smooth is accurate. Slowing yourself way down to a walk as you go through the X-Step really helps. Make everything really slow, the walk, the reach back, the pull, and then when you get to the pec, hit it. You don't want to be stiff at all until that hit, in which your grip tightens and you get that snap.

Here's a picture of a drive I took last year (not me), his pull is actually just a tad bit low but I think he was pulling a hyzer flip. The footwork is what I want you to look at, as well as the weight transfer on the last one. His body is completely centered until he pulls it forward and hits, slinging it forward.

If you want to get a feel for not strong arming, and letting your body pull the disc through, then you need to try a really long reachback. Here's two pictures of myself, first reachback, second release angle. It was a hyzer around and i'm not aiming in line with the pad but more toward the camera.

Push your reachback
Try turning your back all the way to the target. Make that line from reachback to hit to target, all in a straight line. When you go back for the reachback, push the disc away from your body. Keep pushing until you can't push anymore because your body turn won't allow it. At that point you are probably at the left or right pec, that's when you tighten more and rip it. You can do this when you are walking the X step.

Those two things (smooth, and pushing against the pull) should help get your body/core into it. Staying loose until the hit is what the hammer pound technique tries to teach (I think, I never did the hammer pound technique)

 

[vonDrehle]

Don't know why Lewis but I always thought you were Black .

 

[Lewis]

Don't know why Lewis but I always thought you were Black .

Not even fly for a white guy.

... and the reach back is something I've been working on as well.

 

[Lewis]

To help me visualize where things are wrong, I want to take a frame from the video and break it down. Here's one from my last throw in this video, an instant before the release. Helpful advice is welcome as long as it's polite, and keep in mind I've already changed some things since last month.

 

[Lewis]

And to help with reference here's what I think is the next frame in the video. I figure it's equivalent to the moment where the elusive "hit" ought to be.

 

[New013]

as it has already been said you are very rigid. this comes from a lack of core body strength and flexibility of the mind and body.

fluidity is the key to any sport or endeavor. i am now going to give you some advice that will probably come off a little condescending and weird but trust me; if you follow this advice you will not only improve your game but your life.

the first thing you should do is go buy a copy of the tao te ching. you can find a $10 copy at most bookstores. read this book over and over. i currently still read a passage a day in the morning to provide clarity for my day. don't over-think what you are reading, just take each passage in and move on.

the second thing you should do is begin a regiment of yoga as a daily exercise... this will not only clear your mind but strengthen the core of your body which is the power-plant for disc throwing.

the third thing you should do is begin basic exercises of qi gong and find books on the philosophy of bruce lee. take lee's advice and when you are throwing imagine you are water and that you are not throwing the disc but the disc is flowing from your hands to its destination for which you have already decided its fate before you ever made one movement on the tee.

be water my friend.

 

[Lewis]

No your advice doesn't seem condescending, just surprising, especially in this context. And yes, I'd be happy to practice yoga. I actually tried Bikram Yoga for a few months a couple of years ago but I couldn't handle the heat and humidity, nor the expense. Do you have any other suggestions for where to start? I'm not likely to become a disciple of Bruce Lee, though I have at least a rudimentary exposure to Taoism. What I'm honestly curious about is why you've chosen me and this thread for your evangelism. I wouldn't expect you to choose an "inflexible mind" to share this stuff with.

 

[CwAlbino]

Not even fly for a white guy.

... and the reach back is something I've been working on as well.

What I'm trying to get across isn't just adding in a reachback.

Push your reachback
Try turning your back all the way to the target. Make that line from reachback to hit to target, all in a straight line. When you go back for the reachback, push the disc away from your body. Keep pushing until you can't push anymore because your body turn won't allow it. At that point you are probably at the left or right pec, that's when you tighten more and rip it. You can do this when you are walking the X step.

Right here, at this part of the throw(pic). I want you to try to push it away from your body, like you are trying to reach back farther and farther as your body comes around.

If you are having problems with being rigid on the X Step then get rid of it. Start with your back to the target already and then finish what is left of the step process. It's basically half of the x step, where you've already "x'd"

 

[Lewis]

Here's a new video I recorded yesterday. The throw that "felt" best is at 3:10.