Are we just making things up with nose angle stuff now?

[CoachChris]

For example, you can see how far in front of the index finger Gavin's thumb is. Thumb pressure feels completely different when the thumb is not over the index finger.
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Yes, thumb placement can affect the wobble and release angle if the pressure is uneven between thumb and index but the nose angle is always going to be the orientation of those two pressure points as aligned to the disc release point

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Yes, thumb placement can affect the wobble and release angle if the pressure is uneven between thumb and index but the nose angle is always going to be the orientation of those two pressure points as aligned to the disc release point

Do you think it would be difficult to throw nose down without the thumb (other than palm part) on the disc and without turning the key?

 

[sidewinder22]

You want to direct force out, not up or down. To keep pushing with the thumb it needs to rotate down to keep applying force outward.

 

[CoachChris]

Do you think it would be difficult to throw nose down without the thumb (other than palm part) on the disc and without turning the key?

The "turning the key" is only a feel to help some people properly orient the nose angle release point. As I said before, with those players that hang the disc, there is also a lot of external shoulder rotation going on into release. Observe the orientation of the inside of their elbows. Most have rotated their shoulder about 45°.

 

[ThrowaEnvy]

Yes, thumb placement can affect the wobble and release angle if the pressure is uneven between thumb and index but the nose angle is always going to be the orientation of those two pressure points as aligned to the disc release point

So if one is prone to having the thumb ahead of the index finger, with an indented grip it would explain a nose down pronation?

Also.. turn the key feels wrong, sure it adds easy distance but accuracy suffers.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

The "turning the key" is only a feel to help some people properly orient the nose angle release point. As I said before, with those players that hang the disc, there is also a lot of external shoulder rotation going on into release. Observe the orientation of the inside of their elbows. Most have rotated their shoulder about 45°.

That was meant to be a question more specific to your comment about index and thumb pressure as it pertains to nose angle and how important the thumb part of that equation is in your mind.

I just tried to simplify the question by excluding turn the key.

 

[CoachChris]

So if one is prone to having the thumb ahead of the index finger, with an indented grip it would explain a nose down pronation?

Also.. turn the key feels wrong, sure it adds easy distance but accuracy suffers.

I don't see any nose down pronation but I can imagine that it is possible. The goal is to be able to control the nose, if you can do that with a different feel, that's great.

 

[itlnstln]

You want to direct force out, not up or down. To keep pushing with the thumb it needs to rotate down to keep applying force outward.

Some good, classic content (OG key turn; this is about 10 years old, so some of the concepts might be dated):

 

[Sheep]

Pronate - supinate - pronate - he's jiggling the key.

 

[Sheep]

Some good, classic content (OG key turn; this is about 10 years old, so some of the concepts might be dated):

Omg, the thumb push for power video. hahaha

 

[disc-golf-neil]

with an indented grip

What's this?

 

[ThrowaEnvy]

What's this?

Probably bad wording haha.

 

[RowingBoats]

Probably bad wording haha.View attachment 343548View attachment 343547

Wtf discraft?! Ew

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Probably bad wording haha.View attachment 343548View attachment 343547

Based on the 2nd pic where it's easier to see how deep into the flight plate the thumb is, looks like it's ~medium depth to me. Extra thumb pressure might increase the urge to pronate in that position.

I'm curious to hear if you feel what I'm talking about: press really hard with the thumb, do you feel the outer wing have pressure to be pushed down? That pressures you to give into pronation to relieve the pressure which I'm confident increases risk of nose up if you do pronate (if I turn the key hard I can get to ~-10 nose angle, but if I pronate a medium amount I get ~+20 nose) so it takes less pronation effort to get a bigger impact on the angle from what I've found and is probably part of why it's so easy for most people to accidentally throw nose up.

Then to compare, try moving the thumb to be on the seam where the flight plate meets the rim. Press really hard with the thumb and feel there isn't that same pressure to pronate, which to me means less risk of pronation all else equal (still might have muscle memory to do it though).

On mids it feels like your thumb is really close to the rim when you put it on the seam, but putting it on the seam keeps the pinch point between the thumb and index more consistent feeling between mids and drivers, imo.

For people who prefer to have the thumb deeper into the flight plate, I just think they have to be more careful to not use too much thumb pressure, otherwise they have to put more effort into resisting pronation.

In terms of how far your thumb is in front of your index finger, I don't think it's that far in front but your index finger looks kind of cocked back so it seems like it's further behind than where the index contacts the inner rim. It's 'normal' when the thumb is on top of the index finger for it to partially extend a bit ahead of the index.

When I talk about the thumb being further in front of the index finger when changing grip alignments (Intro grip vs Throw 3 in the vid) this is what I mean:

 

[Brychanus]

Pronate - supinate - pronate - he's jiggling the key.
View attachment 343544

What appears in these 2D images to be pronate-supinate-pronate is actually a lot of external then internal shoulder rotation not strictly pronation/supination.

If it's pronation and not shoulder rotation like Chris mentioned, looks like these images show it's after release? Or are you seeing it during release? If it's after it doesn't matter in that the pronation is not applying any forces on the disc. Of course the follow through does matter and is important though.

Just to kind of back up to a practical point FWIW I found recently useful -

Focusing on the key or pencil (or whatever instrument) end point as described here by Chris and moving it various ways into and out of the peak of the backswing and then all the way through the release has helped me a lot over time. Clubs, hammers, weight plates, paper plates, cups, balls, ropes, etc. are also all interesting to handle from that perspective. If you throw any of them for force and are not used to it do please be careful, but they all contain little bits of motor learning value, probably.

IMHO one of the core issues in this discussion is that isolating parts of the biological motion still occur in the context of other motions. That is part of the pronate-supinate (etc.) pattern in the context of the shoulder rotation pattern. What you may be looking for in each case is whatever action gets you the best endpoint control and force transmission, and of course that occurs in the broader context of what happens earlier in the chain (which is part of we were discussing a bit previously).

Of course, part of why I am here is if we can nudge toward some generalizable framework for talking about not just the individual components of the anatomy, but also the interactions and dependencies in the context of force transmission (which seems like a much harder problem to me, but I may be mistaken).

Wtf discraft?! Ew

Don't you dare try to take my Comets away from me

 

[HyzerRoc]

Met some IT students at the park today measuring peoples throws. They specifically wanted data about the movements of the wrist and used this thing here for their measurements: Motion Capture | Xsens

Im sure capturing some pros with this would make the debate about pronation supination clearer. I requested their data out of interest what actually comes out of it, even though they measure average players, not pros.

 

[isamoor]

I know I'm a few pages late, but that "guess the nose angle" video was great. Thank you so much for putting that together! I still need to spend some more time with pencils and trying out Rathbun's grip. That much nose down off a grip alone is pretty wild.

I'm about 9 months into owning a tech disc. A modest amount of turn the key, some inverted swoop, and sometimes a bonopane grip (I've got the middle finger calluses to handle this one now), and I can usually control my nose angle pretty well. I've always enjoyed playing in the woods, but manipulating River flight paths with nose angles is an extra layer of fun. Yea, timing the key turning can be touchy at first, but honestly so much of disc golf swing is controlling timing...

 

[RowingBoats]

I know I'm a few pages late, but that "guess the nose angle" video was great. Thank you so much for putting that together! I still need to spend some more time with pencils and trying out Rathbun's grip. That much nose down off a grip alone is pretty wild.

I'm about 9 months into owning a tech disc. A modest amount of turn the key, some inverted swoop, and sometimes a bonopane grip (I've got the middle finger calluses to handle this one now), and I can usually control my nose angle pretty well. I've always enjoyed playing in the woods, but manipulating River flight paths with nose angles is an extra layer of fun. Yea, timing the key turning can be touchy at first, but honestly so much of disc golf swing is controlling timing...

I'm really genuinely curious about this. Am I weird and alone in my perception that there is almost no "timing" in the swing?

To me it feels almost impossible to do anything out of order if you have a fairly powerful swing. The swing is one big action to me, not a series of events that I time.

 

[ThrowaEnvy]

I'm really genuinely curious about this. Am I weird and alone in my perception that there is almost no "timing" in the swing?

To me it feels almost impossible to do anything out of order if you have a fairly powerful swing. The swing is one big action to me, not a series of events that I time.

Yes haha. In many ways that may be a gift. Less to think about.

The more I know, the less I realize I know... and it's still very little. Haha. It's all heading the right direction but the more little pieces you put together the easier it is to gain power/distance. I think the proof is when someone gives you a tip, something stupid little, like drag your back foot on the throw, or "nod to the gods" on the reachback. You suddenly get a piece of a piece and you progress.

If you take the puzzle analogy I can probably think of 25 things of the swing to put together. I'm still not sure what it all looks like, I've only got 7 pieces so far haha.

BTW that is my first Comet, big ink and courtesy of DGCR standard advice. It's the only non gyro I bag regularly....

@disc-golf-neil I will put some thought into that, my bicep and shoulder are pretty hooped right now so I can't get enough consistency to test anything, still throwing though. Eyeballing the 145 stratus I've got stashed for my 7yr old nephew haha.

I do find that with that modified birdie grip I get good consistent nose down control on mids and putters, I don't do that much with drivers. The better I grip it the more power transfers, I've never liked the pinch between the thumb and middle finger it doesn't feel grippy enough. When I power grip a driver I move my thumb forwards to the rim and I shake the disc when I grip it to reduce gaps and lock my fingers.

Speaking of pieces of advice, I used to use a much fuller and arcing throw but after reading stuff here I went towards the Straight and Flat Swing Plane, I often pull upwards and didn't turn the key because I thought that was wrong, adapted to a shoulder height to mid chest height stroke. Play lots of shorter woods golf so it worked out, super compact throw and wicked accuracy, Comet kinda deadly. However I still throw my big anhyzers like a Swedish torque monkey trying to force a nuke over. I'm searching for something in between.

This is my driver grip

 

[disc-golf-neil]

I'm really genuinely curious about this. Am I weird and alone in my perception that there is almost no "timing" in the swing?

To me it feels almost impossible to do anything out of order if you have a fairly powerful swing. The swing is one big action to me, not a series of events that I time.

Timing when to coil and reachback was a bit challenging at first, to not do it too soon. After that though everything felt pretty simple with timing because I just wait to feel the brace land then start to pull through and bring the off arm in, so everything is synchronized to that 1 moment / feeling.

But then it was pointed out my off arm was a bit late to come in and I started paying more attention to it and seeing many top pros start to bring it in before the brace lands and that timing feels hard because it feels like jumping the gun to me since the brace hasn't landed. But this is probably not a low hanging fruit optimization since it's not the difference between the off arm being far away from the body and not coming in at all or in the way.

There's probably a handful of other advanced timing optimizations like this that would be making timing hard if deliberated worked on instead of slowly developed over time if someone has intuition for that to gradually happen.