I bought a 175g Boss when it came out. This was still back when I didn't really understand the relationships between weight, speed, and spin. As with all my high-speed disc purchases, everytime I threw the Boss it faded very quickly, and really was rather useless. I eventually took all the high speed stuff out of my bag.
And then I started throwing at football fields. I've commented about those experiences in a number of other posts. I learned a lot. I eventually realized that if I want to throw high-speed stuff, I can do so, but I need to really bring down the weight.
I don't have a big arm. I might look like I do, because I'm tall, but I don't get very much spin on the disc. And you have to match the weight to the spin, and that relationship is modified by the disc's speed. A higher speed disc will need more spin to make it do what it wants to do. And the higher the weight, the more spin you need also. So a high-speed, high-weight disc needs a lot of spin.
Eventually, on a whim, I bought a 150g Boss. I didn't really think I would be able to throw that either. I just never thought I would have an arm to throw things like Bosses, or Destroyers. It was discouraging. But it turns out that 150g Boss I could throw. Boy could I throw it. And with some practice, I eventually got somewhat consistent. Unfortunately, the more practice I did, the more confidence I got, and eventually that thing would flip over and turn into a roller (and not a very good one). I had to back off from throwing it hard. And that defeated the point.
So then I bought an R-Pro Boss at 162g. I personally love the R-Pro plastic. It is very rubbery (grippy). That's important to me because I don't impart a lot of spin with my wrist. So the extra grip means that when I release, I'm getting a bit more rotation from my fingers sliding off the disc. It makes a difference. And I eventually started really making that R-Pro Boss soar. I was throwing it 350' somewhat consistently. And while it was occasionally wild, it was worthwhile to me to throw it because it gave me so much confidence to throw a disc 350' consistently. I've tried lots of other drivers, including Valkyries, and I've never gotten them to go that far with any consistency.
Then I started turning the 162g Boss over. And then I lost it. So I bought a 165g R-Pro Boss. And that was even better. It did get beat up however, and now I find that it turns over if I put any sort of wobble on it, or if I just try-to-hard and don't give it a solid release. The disc is fairly beat, and it doesn't have as much forgiveness.
I have just recently bought a 167 Pro Boss. It isn't as grippy (to me), not as soft a rubber. But I'm going to give it a try. A year ago, if you had told me "hey, you'll eventually use a Boss as your go-to driver," I wouldn't have believed you. But, the reality is, I dropped that weight way way down, learned to throw better, and slowly raised the weight.
I now buy all my drivers in the 165-168g range. I know I can't get the spin needed to throw these discs at 175g. However, I must now be able to sometimes get the spin needed to throw them at 167g
So if you happen to be one of those people that thinks they don't have an arm for the Boss, you might just try getting an R-Pro at 162g, or even the 150g one, and learn with that.
I'm a big advocate of throwing older, slower plastic. That's done wonders for me. I'm not actually advocate folks go out and buy the high-speed stuff. My favorite discs right now are a 167g Leopard and of course my trust Dart. I've learned more by slowing down the discs and lowering the weights. However, I *do* throw my best distance with that Boss. And it does handle the wind a bit better. (People talk about needing more weight for the wind, but I think there's a small misunderstanding there. Certainly the weight matters into the wind, but I don't think it has anything to do with the wind not-blowing-it-around-as-much.)
Anyway, just thought I'd throw that all in there under How I Learned To Love the Boss. Goodness, good thing I'm self-employed.
Ken
