~400' BH and ~325' FH Help

[Putt for D'oh]

Set up totally upright on front leg/hip, not behind it! This should FEEL EXTREMELY WEIRD to you, really really upright, or maybe even feel over the top in the setup/pump! You can't be over the top if you can maintain upright balance forever in that position. I could stand in that position relaxed all day in setup and pick up the rear foot, in your setup your leg and core muscles will be tight and burning out fast or start collapsing or you will fall off balance in that seated posture behind your hip especially if you pick up your rear foot.

Wow... I have been doing the one leg sooooo wrong, thinking about the goal and setup and balance totally wrong. This is a giant light bulb post for me.

 

[slowplastic]

This might actually get me doing things right, I'm sure there will be tweaks but this might actually be right. Unless I can sneak a few throws in today I won't be able to test it out until next week sometime which is too bad. But going through the arcs and this balance with a disc I feel like the disc wants to have a little "pop" out when it feels like my arm is extended targetward...rather than a load of the wrist/forearm back while I begin the arc outward and sling out, like it has always been before. This pop feeling kind of tugs at my fingers targetward and at the same time I can feel the flight plate pull away from my thumb, directly away. I think this is the thumb push feeling and the talked about feeling that the fingers push the disc? Just want to confirm if these things can be felt in the arcs even at slow speed?

Also to put the balance simply, it almost feels like I'm walking even though I'm moving sideways and going into a rotation. When you walk you are on your hips in balance, and your foot leaves the ground heel first and extends. Even though I am leaving my back foot laterally, when it releases it rotates to top of foot downward and heel forward/foot extended right away, so it feels like I just took a walking step and I have a long time to push/leverage.

 

[sidewinder22]

Wow... I have been doing the one leg sooooo wrong, thinking about the goal and setup and balance totally wrong. This is a giant light bulb post for me.

This is why I keep telling people to video them doing these drills. If it ain't working, guarantee you are doing it wrong. It's so easy to see how far off posture and balance are in them.

 

[sidewinder22]

This pop feeling kind of tugs at my fingers targetward and at the same time I can feel the flight plate pull away from my thumb, directly away. I think this is the thumb push feeling and the talked about feeling that the fingers push the disc? Just want to confirm if these things can be felt in the arcs even at slow speed?

Also to put the balance simply, it almost feels like I'm walking even though I'm moving sideways and going into a rotation. When you walk you are on your hips in balance, and your foot leaves the ground heel first and extends. Even though I am leaving my back foot laterally, when it releases it rotates to top of foot downward and heel forward/foot extended right away, so it feels like I just took a walking step and I have a long time to push/leverage.

I prefer to think in terms of leverage/levers rather than arcs. The only arc I care about is the disc going wide away in backswing, narrow close to my CoG, then extending levers wide away from CoG like a big hockey stick. The body is a series of levers, that you can actually see. The arc is an imaginary line. The arc does not create leverage, the arc is the byproduct of leverage - those levers coupling together to make one huge extended lever/catapult. You don't need to bend the elbow or wrist much to pop it something fierce.

I'm popping it in SLOW MOTION DRILL and popping it any swing length in perpetually longer swing drill, the pop gets perpetually bigger as you make the swing on the front/one leg longer, like Long Toss Drill in baseball. If you can SWING in SLOW MOTION you are IN BALANCE!:

 

[slowplastic]

Got to throw for a bit in swirling winds today. I can tell this is closer to the right way to do it but my balance is too far back. Especially looking at the video now frame by frame I can see I'm not committing to getting into the same position with head directly over front leg like I was in the drills indoors to really feel that last outward pop when I was in good balance.

So what I'm seeing is head/spine/shoulder just not committed to being over the front leg. You can especially see that in the one leg videos...the second one is closer than the first and the rear leg motion is better with how it counters and swings up...but I'm still not far enough forward even in that one.

Also, I can see in the standstill my backswing isn't the hip clear back and shift forward all in one continual move that it should be.

Am I disconnecting my arm during the backswing or at some point? Or is the swing path just a symptom of me not being far forward enough during the swing so my spine isn't balanced?

https://vimeo.com/296728231

https://vimeo.com/296727431

https://vimeo.com/296727898

 

[sidewinder22]

Yeah, much closer. Your weight is still leaving your front foot in One Leg and spinning back and forth too much. Front foot should stay firmly weighted to the ground and not move until after release and momentum pulls the foot into pivot.

Turn back, don't try to shift laterally back. Turning back in backswing with arm/disc heavy will create G-force back moving/pulling you back/not really shifting weight back, let momentum work for you. Also recommend keeping your rear hand on your rear thigh in backswing to help maintain leverage post on rear side in backswing, you are doing something funny with it back and forth.

Your pumps look stiff and hugging yourself like a bent in half hockey stick instead of one big hockey stick. Need to let your arm/disc weight fully go swing abandoned to the target, tugging through the shoulder socket. In those pre-swings your shoulders are turned too open/square to target so your upper arm is like 90 degrees instead of 180 with shoulders inline to target, everything tugging through to target with both shoulders/counterweighted. Your arm/disc weight would be tugging to the right when you let go the disc's weight.

Loosen up the shoulder in pump and backswing, let the arm/disc hang deadweight like a heavy wet towel straight down from the socket/shoulders completely vertical(reciprocating dingle arm) and use your body to swing the arm/disc like a big hockey stick or wet towel. When you initiate the backswing from a pump, starting with your hips turning away from target, the arm/disc should still be lagging/pulling targetward, so the hips will pull the arm/disc away from the shoulder socket and widen the angle going into the backswing. Should feel like one big lever through both shoulders.

You can also try doing a windmill backswing in One Leg Drill or just doing the Windmill. Note how my chest never turns open to target. Shoulder/arm/disc stay in straight line to target all the way around the big arc.

 

[slowplastic]

Cool, as much as I feel aspects regressed once I tried to throw compared to doing the drills/balance, this definitely highlighted some different things for me too.

Your pumps look stiff and hugging yourself like a bent in half hockey stick instead of one big hockey stick. Need to let your arm/disc weight fully go swing abandoned to the target, tugging through the shoulder socket. In those pre-swings your shoulders are turned too open/square to target so your upper arm is like 90 degrees instead of 180 with shoulders inline to target, everything tugging through to target with both shoulders/counterweighted. Your arm/disc weight would be tugging to the right when you let go the disc's weight.

So I can really feel the difference with this setup. I was kind of letting my torso rotate to 45ish, trying to keep my upper arm wider than 90 or feel like that arm frame is along for the ride with the torso rotation/clearing, and add power once the arm feels like it's nearing straight extension/the hit. This feels very different from what you're describing, which is almost keeping the shoulders in line and letting the arm continue to pendulum farther and farther forward so the shoulder angle keeps opening. This feels much more extended and almost more linear in some ways, but it goes with having the rear leg extend back to counterweight the movement widening. Does that sound right?

I think this concept is also why my head turns slightly ahead of my torso/spine rotation in my throws too. Lots of throwers have a little variety in head balance, but I have noticed that my head moves slightly ahead and I think that's because I'm anticipating/enabling that torso rotation and keeping the arm with it, rather than having the arm continue to extend. For example McBeth is on one end of looking/turning targetward slightly, and Danny Lindahl would be on the extreme end of head staying back until it has to move, although that is definitely not something I want to copy.

When you say that I'm hugging myself like a bent hockey stick...you're referring to my right shoulder angle collapsing, right? If that's the case I understand and feel the difference with what you're saying.

Does your shoulder socket feel that extended/loose even in the forward swing? If so, when swinging something heavy I guess you have to have a fairly steep hyzer angle to maintain that feeling, otherwise raising the angle increases arm tension unless your swing pace is way faster?

 

[sidewinder22]

Yep to all that, except head turning forward is physically impossible to be a problem. Head tilt or lag can be, otherwise the issue is early turning or over-rotating from the ground up.

 

[slowplastic]

Closer again. I think I'm still not quite forward targetward enough in the one leg, like my nose is over my foot instead of my whole head. But my swing plane looks improved with this balance on one leg! So one day I will have a flat arm path, it's possible for me.

So here's a one leg throw, and an X-step with a tilted camera slightly. I wanted to show the X-step for how things still fall apart when I have more momentum, but this is after I remembered to really turn butt back to target and land closed...feels so much better and gives me some easy velocity. Putters are getting out there on speed instead of glide it feels like.

I'm feeling like I'm trying to get forward to the front leg but also kind of tilted over my toes or hip, so I feel like my front hip is more closed/internally rotated. I think I need to keep going that direction more and trust to get more and more forward. I also feel like I'm planting so close to my body but it's definitely not as narrow looking as it feels. So I either have to plant even more narrow seeming or commit to leaning/getting farther forward. I also threw some slower paced shots after that felt a little easier to try to maintain that loose arm feel with. The faster I move the more I feel like I need to help my arm get to the right places, which is what leads to a lot of problems for me.

I think this is better for letting my shoulder continue to open to the hit, instead of opening my torso?

Also, my nose angle issues were much much better today. Getting farther forward has helped.

https://vimeo.com/297227753

https://vimeo.com/297227840

 

[slowplastic]

Assessing more video and trying to feel how to get to my end/resulting balance but during the throwing motion so I am actually continually balanced....

...would it be fair to try to balance my middle chest/sternum over my knee, and then my left shoulder feels like it comes over my instep through the swing? I feel like aiming for chest over knee makes me get forward and in balance during the whole swing, as that's where I end up after release. It feels like a much more intuitive way for me to imagine my balance and get forward without feeling like I'm aiming for a moving target and hoping I don't tip over.

Does that make sense? Or does it only work for a certain pace/stride width? Or is it not at all how it should feel?

 

[sidewinder22]

hmmm...

OLD - Flat footed. Your rear heel is basically starting already on the ground. Heel should be straight up and on weightless/swively on very tippy toes like ballerina. That should force you start more upright balanced and less flat footed/collapsed on front foot/leg. Do some One Leg Crush the Can Drills.

X - I think you are so flat footed from being strapped in a snowboard. Balance is tipped way back outside your rear foot, your balance/leverage is cooked before you start the x-step as you take off on the right foot leaning back instead of forward. You are striding your feet dorsiflexed and picking them up off the ground(crouching/collapsing hip/knee/ankle airborne), instead of your feet pushing you off the ground with plantar flexion and the foot gets pulled up off the ground from your momentum pulling it and should land extended/plantar flexed with straighter leg about to squat. When you plantar flex push off the ground you should be able stride with the foot/leg fully extended and hanging from the hip like deadweight and then swing it more underneath you.

You are missing your feet/calfs as levers/springs:

 

[slowplastic]

Thanks, I'll try to practice these motions to ingrain it a bit...it will take practice for me. I really see what you're meaning and can feel how I pull up on my lead leg and contract everything.

Yeah...it's tricky since the activity I've done longest means I feel totally natural balancing at 50MPH over my heels or landing from drops with my weight outside of my stance because you have to account for nosediving in powder and you just trust the flex of your tail to hold you. Plus my idea of jumping over things is flat feet and load up all my mass outside my stance for that snap, then use thighs. I mean I know how to jump on ground...but I'm just really comfortable distributing my weight all the way across my feet because that's the safest way to have heel/toe control/adjustment ability on a snowboard, so that feels safe to me in general.

Even on a bike your balance point can get way back past the rear axle so I'm used to just chucking my mass way outside of my feet to drop stuff or keep the front end up...feels comfortable when you're used to it.

Frustrating because I have "good" balance for those sports, but disc golf is harder than I thought. Plus usually once you have good balance/technique in those sports the next goal is to do them in the weirdest or most contorted ways, which is so different from trying to keep my body together constantly.

 

[sidewinder22]

you just trust the flex of your tail to hold you.

Frustrating because I have "good" balance for those sports, but disc golf is harder than I thought.

This explains of lot what I see in your throw, always behind your heels because you are used to having a tail and longer flat lever on the ground.

It's just a matter of practicing(a lot) your balance on one leg both ways, front leg balance on forward swing, and back leg balance in backswing. Practice your backswing by winding up like a lefty submarine pitcher in slow motion and holding your balance as long as possible. When I started learning BH and figured out to basically mirror my RH sub pitch, I couldn't believe the difference I had in learned balance or not learned how to balance winding up on the left leg. It's still not as good, probably never will be, but it's a hell of lot better than it was.

 

[slowplastic]

This explains of lot what I see in your throw, always behind your heels because you are used to having a tail and longer flat lever on the ground.

It's just a matter of practicing(a lot) your balance on one leg both ways, front leg balance on forward swing, and back leg balance in backswing. Practice your backswing by winding up like a lefty submarine pitcher in slow motion and holding your balance as long as possible. When I started learning BH and figured out to basically mirror my RH sub pitch, I couldn't believe the difference I had in learned balance or not learned how to balance winding up on the left leg. It's still not as good, probably never will be, but it's a hell of lot better than it was.

Yeah, just needing to be flat footed so you can pressure to either heel or toe instantly with minimal movement, or even have some torque/twist the through the waist of the board so partial contact with one edge on one part of the board but flatter near the other end...just have to be comfortable with flat feet and trusting flex to save you and absorb the impacts your ankles are unable to because they are held pretty in place.

The lefty pitch is good advice. I was swinging in a batting or golf arc lefty and that helped a lot, but finally seeing how different the two handed vs. one handed swing release is I'll turn that practice into one handed lefty FH/pitch motion.

I can tell I'm so much closer than before but I see this setup and stride is messing with me. When I get up higher I can land so much narrower and be in balance. Even if I were to get my torso farther forward with what I'm currently doing it would just be a bandaid and likely a long slosh forward rather than upright and efficient. I can plant with a WAY narrower/straighter leg even walking through my steps slowly on my tippy toes. It'll just take some practice but this is a great explanation and direction to focus on.

 

[slowplastic]

Haven't thrown much lately, getting colder. This is a slight improvement but still the same issues I know. The one leg hop drill really helps me feel how to be balanced on the front leg and I really do think that I'm getting farther forward to the front leg than before. Less lunge.

One of my main problems is I am too comfortable on my heels, as you know. If I try to get up on my back foot's tippy toes during X-step then I feel like my whole body is then just centered over the toes or something and it pushes me to drift leftward. If I try to set up over the foot then I go down onto my heel.

I also end up a bit too much behind my plant heel I think. It's slowly getting closer to balance, but I realize I'm still not far enough forward to just effortlessly pivot through, instead my foot kind of releases more effortlessly while swinging because my toes aren't weighted much.

Any tips/drills/positions to help me feel how to balance over my rear foot and toes? Or should I just keep trying to balance in lefty pitching type swing and it's a slow learn?

Also is my back arm coming around with my torso weird, as in I should have it come forward sooner than I do and then recoil with the arm release?

https://vimeo.com/299543366

https://vimeo.com/299543425

 

[sidewinder22]

Elbow your hips forward like Lizotte:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpp7ZFLHK90&t=9m40s

 

[RandyC]

Pick up a hockey stick and wind it up as a lefty. Then try to imitate your disc golf swing while holding the stick with both hands. I bet it would feel really akward to shoot from that position. I like to think that if you are able to swing a bat, tennis racket or a hockey stick you are able to sling a disc from that position.

I mean every single thread here where people are having positional problems they would never try and do any other athletic endevour from those positions. Kids learn disc golf really fast just because they are not trying to do something that is against their natural insticts. There is this belief going that throwing a disc requires a completely new set of skills and a totally different way of generating force than every other sport skill in the world. IMO SW22 and HUBs hammer and brick drills pretty much says otherwise. It´s not like they have found a supersecret way of throwing a brick. This wasnt supposed to be a rant

 

[slowplastic]

Pick up a hockey stick and wind it up as a lefty. Then try to imitate your disc golf swing while holding the stick with both hands. I bet it would feel really akward to shoot from that position. I like to think that if you are able to swing a bat, tennis racket or a hockey stick you are able to sling a disc from that position.

I mean every single thread here where people are having positional problems they would never try and do any other athletic endevour from those positions. Kids learn disc golf really fast just because they are not trying to do something that is against their natural insticts. There is this belief going that throwing a disc requires a completely new set of skills and a totally different way of generating force than every other sport skill in the world. IMO SW22 and HUBs hammer and brick drills pretty much says otherwise. It´s not like they have found a supersecret way of throwing a brick. This wasnt supposed to be a rant

Yeah I understand what you're getting at for sure. It's getting less nice out for throwing a lot of shots and/or with power so I'll try to work on my balance fundamentals more.

I've tried doing the lefty baseball swing and golf swing and it's helped me gradually feel like I can set up a bit more forward, although it's felt like small adjustments to get "better" rather than have it click. I'd never tried the lefty slapshot feel, especially since my slapshot righty was inconsistent depending on the year. But I have to say, it gets me to set up chest down/tilted and way more forward over my leg very naturally. That's interesting, I think the "go for it" feel of a slapshot setup makes me ok with getting forward. I feel like my chest is balanced way better yet more aggressively.

 

[RandyC]

Sometimes when I find myself reverting to old form (The Shusterick way). I just envision that I am holding a hockey stick and it instantly stops me from over rotating and collapsing my arm. The only difference to my slapshot and disc golf throw is that with the disc I make a pit stop in the middle of my chest.

 

[slowplastic]

Do you feel pretty leaned/tilted even when approaching a flatter release?

I'm pretty interested in how far forward this got me instantly.