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

[disc-golf-neil]

I think it's the focus on too discrete a step. If you start with a standstill, for instance, that's a group of motions that need to be understood together for the throw to work. From there, you can step and brace, and so on.

Let's take coiling, for example. There's a ton of (good) videos on coiling. In isolation, practicing coiling might not help much if you can't then tie it to the uncoil and throw. There's a movement there that needs to be done as a cohesive unit for the parts to work and make sense. What might be better (or at least different) in this example is starting from a coiled position in a stand still (or even one-step) throw and getting a basic throw locked in, then adding the next movement group to the throw, say, a run-up. As you add these groups, then there's potentially some work to tie those groups together. It could be easier, then, when I have developed strong muscle memory of a standstill and add the run-up/brace/coil group

To be clear, I'm just musing here, and different students are different, and so coaching styles need to be different

I mostly agree with that because you just described breaking it into chunks to isolate then combine it back together which is basically what I was saying.

But I do think you can probably build up some coiling muscle memory in more isolation. Imagine if every day in your house you stood in the typical closed stance, put your elbow and shoulder up to 90 degrees, then just could to full coil without moving the arm. If you did that 100x a day for weeks, I bet it's going to have an impact on your form even when done in isolation like that. You would probably help you not jump the gun on the reach back since you arm is getting used to not extending the elbow during the coil, for example.

But you can isolate even more, a ton of people would probably benefit just from standing in front of an elevated basket, net, or in the field, in a gently coil and power pocket position, and focus exclusively on very low effort throws (not thinking about the whole throw intentionally) focusing instead on pronating into the hit, supinating into the hit, and then just maintaining supination (disc perpendicular to chest) into the hit. A bunch of reps of that over weeks, and I bet people will start to actually learn how to intentionally control their wrist a bit more at least. This is what I would've done if I needed to but I already had good wrist control from racket sports so I didn't have to break it down this small. But people who cannot stop pronating into the hit and throwing nose up need to learn how to control their wrist, and just trying to NOT pronate is possibly harder than feeling the difference between pronating, supinating, and then not doing either. After all, the exaggeration of not pronating is the opposite.

People literally cannot feel individual motions in their body happening because it is too tied up in a one motion feeling but as a form problem, until they work on isolating that movement to develop fine grain control of it directly. Lots of people who pronate habitually into the hit probably barely have the ability to feel what their wrist is doing because they've not trained that awareness in the context of the disc golf throw.

If you've been in physical therapy you've probably encountered something like this before where they try to get you to change something and you keep adjusting one or two additional things because it's all blurred as one motion and they have to keep stopping you and teach you how to make the 1 adjustment to your posture or whatever. You literally learn how to move something you've practically never independently moved previously.

 

[itlnstln]

I mostly agree with that because you just described breaking it into chunks to isolate then combine it back together which is basically what I was saying.

But I do think you can probably build up some coiling muscle memory in more isolation. Imagine if every day in your house you stood in the typical closed stance, put your elbow and shoulder up to 90 degrees, then just could to full coil without moving the arm. If you did that 100x a day for weeks, I bet it's going to have an impact on your form even when done in isolation like that. You would probably help you not jump the gun on the reach back since you arm is getting used to not extending the elbow during the coil, for example.

But you can isolate even more, a ton of people would probably benefit just from standing in front of an elevated basket, net, or in the field, in a gently coil and power pocket position, and focus exclusively on very low effort throws (not thinking about the whole throw intentionally) focusing instead on pronating into the hit, supinating into the hit, and then just maintaining supination (disc perpendicular to chest) into the hit. A bunch of reps of that over weeks, and I bet people will start to actually learn how to intentionally control their wrist a bit more at least. This is what I would've done if I needed to but I already had good wrist control from racket sports so I didn't have to break it down this small. But people who cannot stop pronating into the hit and throwing nose up need to learn how to control their wrist, and just trying to NOT pronate is possibly harder than feeling the difference between pronating, supinating, and then not doing either. After all, the exaggeration of not pronating is the opposite.

People literally cannot feel individual motions in their body happening because it is too tied up in a one motion feeling but as a form problem, until they work on isolating that movement to develop fine grain control of it directly. Lots of people who pronate habitually into the hit probably barely have the ability to feel what their wrist is doing because they've not trained that awareness in the context of the disc golf throw.

I think we're mostly agreeing here just getting to in different ways. In addition to the timing thing I'm thinking of a couple of other concepts/examples:

1. What if poor coiling technique is actually poor uncoiling technique? IOW, I don't yet understand the basics of properly throwing a backhand, therefore, I don't know how to get into the proper starting position let alone what that feels like.

2. To extend this, poor uncoiling technique leads to people running up backwards and other bad footwork symptoms

To your point, there's always fine-tuning. For example, I know I get "long" with the swing sometimes, and that cause nose-up. I think what I see in a lot of content, though, is that we take a fine-tuning approach to broader issues. We're training to symptoms, not problems. Don't fix the coil or the bad footwork, fix the throw first

 

[disc-golf-neil]

I think we're mostly agreeing here just getting to in different ways. In addition to the timing thing I'm thinking of a couple of other concepts/examples:

1. What if poor coiling technique is actually poor uncoiling technique? IOW, I don't yet understand the basics of properly throwing a backhand, therefore, I don't know how to get into the proper starting position let alone what that feels like.

2. To extend this, poor uncoiling technique leads to people running up backwards and other bad footwork symptoms

To your point, there's always fine-tuning. For example, I know I get "long" with the swing sometimes, and that cause nose-up. I think what I see in a lot of content, though, is that we take a fine-tuning approach to broader issues. We're training to symptoms, not problems. Don't fix the coil or the bad footwork, fix the throw first

I think #2 is usually poor coiling technique, they turn backwards instead of coiling so of course they now have to run up backwards. Of course the uncoiling part is going to be weird if you never really coiled, you are more spinning around instead of uncoiling.

But you can have amazing coiling technique and then mess something up while uncoiling, for sure.

 

[Sheep]

The problem that I have with applying "sequence" and "timing" to an athletic movement is that is can (unintentionally, even) suggest that these are discrete steps or movements that are separate from one another. The run up should flow into the brace while the body coils, the brace provides a strong foundation for the upper body to uncoil to and swing the arm through. They have to be performed as a single unit. If you're thinking about timing these events then you're not performing the throw as a single athletic motion.

Now... I know that's not intuitive to everyone, so coaches such as yourself need to work with less-than-athletic folks that don't have that intuition, so we need frameworks to present information through. My thoughts here are an observation of how we talk about things vs. the actual biomechanics

Even with the intuition, there is a series of events that must occur in a somewhat specific order to guarantee success with the motion.

We want them to flow and not be mechanical. And I think you're looking at it from a more mechanical level?

I look at it as a this leads to that flow like your describing.

We can't just do them out of order and find great success is what I'm getting at. Rhythm in timing is more accurate. Like music or a dance. I don't look at it as a mechanical movement of steps. You gotta find your own flow, but you still have to hit the steps of the dance.

 

[Sheep]

I think we're mostly agreeing here just getting to in different ways. In addition to the timing thing I'm thinking of a couple of other concepts/examples:

1. What if poor coiling technique is actually poor uncoiling technique? IOW, I don't yet understand the basics of properly throwing a backhand, therefore, I don't know how to get into the proper starting position let alone what that feels like.

2. To extend this, poor uncoiling technique leads to people running up backwards and other bad footwork symptoms

To your point, there's always fine-tuning. For example, I know I get "long" with the swing sometimes, and that cause nose-up. I think what I see in a lot of content, though, is that we take a fine-tuning approach to broader issues. We're training to symptoms, not problems. Don't fix the coil or the bad footwork, fix the throw first

This is why gimmicks are bad and bandaids are bad.

Disc golf, just like everything else, is about setting up for success.

There are a lot of factors in the setup that must be hit for the results to be successful.

This is all technique. Grip, posture and so much more.

Pronating at the hit is usually a symptom of another few problems. So, to fix it, the current band aid is "turn the key." well. That doesn't "fix" the root issue of the technique. It's just a bandaid.

So, I think what your comments really help solidify is we must make sure to differentiate between "bandaids/gimmicks" and "proper technique."

Because a lot of these things are gimmicks that cover up bad technique. It's not something that is fixing root causes, its fixing the effects of bad technique, not the actual cause of the problem. This is.. how you get worse and worse swing as you continue to apply so many bandaids everything is broken.

And one of the other things I've noticed with disc golf is the more you try and fix the results vs fix the root cause, the more and more you will destroy your muscle memory and form overall. It compounds really quickly.

But, we also must understand as well, that some people just don't care and they wanna throw that way. And that's fine. If you want to go the "its stupid but it works" route, then go that way.


"It works for me" is not an applicable answer to the discussion when it comes to this sorta thing. Especially when whoever is recommending it cant actually explain "why" it works.
So by constantly recommending gimmicks to help others, you're not actually furthering coaching and helping people get better. You're slapping a bandaid on it because you don't know how to actually fix it. Then when people are trying to get better, you're not actually providing help at that point, just confusion. "so and so is saying this, but this guy suggested something that just immediately fixes it." Then a month later that person could be hurt from that, because they didn't fix the root issue that caused all the problems, and now they have blown their shoulder out or busted up their elbow.

I don't wanna gatekeep people from the discussion, but I also understand from experience that hubris is a huge driving factor in a lot of newer form people who are excited to add into the discussion. And pounding your fist on the table and demanding others listen to you when you've not even played golf for a year, but are going to tell everyone how something works? Come on now. Dunning kruger is a real deal. I suffered from it at one point as well, all of us did. It's important for newcomers to listen and understand they might be stuck in that learning loop and they need to step back and listen more. It's not that any of us older folk are not open to new idea's, but a lot of the things being brought up are all 20 year old topics that were beaten to death years ago.

I mean, this whole turn the key thing came from a random video and everyone is like "oooooh, that's a thing" and made video's on it and it became popular. The video is posted in here and if you have actual experience teaching disc golf, you can see why they said "turn the key" and it had absolutely nothing to do with nose angle. she wasn't throwing with a nose up problem, she was limp wrist hyzer throwing.

I duno, this has been an amusing thread at this point.
But I learned a few things in here.

But still stands, if you wanna throw nose down, you gotta fix your technique, not bandaid it.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Pronating at the hit is usually a symptom of another few problems. So, to fix it, the current band aid is "turn the key." well. That doesn't "fix" the root issue of the technique. It's just a bandaid.

Provide an example of a root issue that when fixed helps someone who doesn't have good control of their wrist stop pronating into the hit, despite having muscle memory to pronate into the hit.

I'm not saying it's impossible, things are interconnected and changing 1 thing often has side effects.

 

[Kennets]

Get ready for some BRO science

After a round that consisted of me throwing nose up and not being able to get anywhere, I went to the field to try out "stuff". (Pour the tea, turning the key, grip etc).

Im gonna post some average numbers, just to see what stuff did for me. (Didn't count throws that I threw into the ground etc)

3 rounds of (3 mids and 3 fairways) my normal (nose up) throw :

Mids averaged around 269

Fairways around 320

THIS is where I switched my grip, I did "usual" grip alignment. "Monkey grip" (watch photos below) where I curled the index finger after aligning it. It felt horrible in my hand, but i instantly got a much more nose down throw. After 3 rounds of throws (I hit the mids much better this rouns)

Mids: 317

Fairways : 368 ish.

Pour the tea : this did nothing for me, other than confuse me. I think that ulnar deviation happens "naturally" with a loose wrist or I might just have ingrained that into my throw.

Turn the key: out of a dozen of throws, I maybe had one that didn't feel awful. Seems like it works better with a high launch/distance line angle, that a low hyzer flip, at least for me. And I felt like it were a recipe for disaster, that I might would hurt myself.

Briefcasing into a turn the key/pour the tea: again, if I have a loose wrist, the motion happens naturally and I were able to throw nearly as far with that, as with the "new grip".


In conclusion: as someone that struggles with nose up issues and is completely average at throwing a disc I got this to say:

Mental cues are great, but for me, it's a distraction, at least regarding "turn the key and pour the tea". I think it add more complicity to the throw, when I am WAY better off with fundamental changes. Ulnar deviation might have its place somewhere, but I'm not sure if that's from a loose wrist or other mechanics?

Just a effing grip change yielded me 40 feets more on my fairway drivers.

Imagine if I got my swing plane sorted?

I know this is bro science, I just had to put it out somewhere..

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Get ready for some BRO science

After a round that consisted of me throwing nose up and not being able to get anywhere, I went to the field to try out "stuff". (Pour the tea, turning the key, grip etc).

Im gonna post some average numbers, just to see what stuff did for me. (Didn't count throws that I threw into the ground etc)

3 rounds of (3 mids and 3 fairways) my normal (nose up) throw :

Mids averaged around 269

Fairways around 320

THIS is where I switched my grip, I did a Kevin Jones grenade grip and then just curled my Index finger around like a usual grip. It felt horrible in my hand, but i instantly got a much more nose down throw. After 3 rounds of throws (I hit the mids much better this round)

Mids: 317

Fairways : 368 ish.

Pour the tea : this did nothing for me, other than confuse me. I think that ulnar deviation happens "naturally" with a loose wrist or I might just have ingrained that into my throw.

Turn the key: out of a dozen of throws, I maybe had one that didn't feel awful. Seems like it works better with a high launch/distance line angle, that a low hyzer flip, at least for me. And I felt like it were a recipe for disaster, that I might would hurt myself.

Briefcasing into a turn the key/pour the tea: again, if I have a loose wrist, the motion happens naturally and I were able to throw nearly as far with that, as with the "new grip".


In conclusion: as someone that struggles with nose up issues and is completely average at throwing a disc I got this to say:

Mental cues are great, but for me, it's a distraction, at least regarding "turn the key and pour the tea". I think it add more complicity to the throw, when I am WAY better off with fundamental changes. Ulnar deviation might have its place somewhere, but I'm not sure if that's from a loose wrist or other mechanics?

Just a effing grip change yielded me 40 feets more on my fairway drivers.

Imagine if I got my swing plane sorted?

I know this is bro science, I just had to put it out somewhere..

you threw Kevin jones grenade grip without the disc upside down? Not following what you did there.

 

[Kennets]

you threw Kevin jones grenade grip without the disc upside down? Not following what you did there.

I'm an idiot, not sure why or how I thought of a "grenade".. I just aligned it like this.. gonna rephrase that.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Turn the key: out of a dozen of throws, I maybe had one that didn't feel awful. Seems like it works better with a high launch/distance line angle, that a low hyzer flip, at least for me. And I felt like it were a recipe for disaster, that I might would hurt myself.

This isn't a good way to try turning the key if you actually want to try it out.

I agree you should work on the throw plane more first though.

Skipping practicing any turn the key on softer throws and just trying to throw far in the field with it is definitely a recipe for disaster. Certain techniques or changes are easier to try doing on harder throws right away but definitely not turn the key. That's why I frequently caution it's an advanced technique even though sheep constantly straw man's me as constantly recommending it without caveats or warnings.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

I'm an idiot, not sure why or how I thought of a "grenade".. I just aligned it like this.. gonna rephrase that.

That's the "bonapane" grip. It's commonly recommended for nose up throwers as a way to help get the nose down. It's also well known to not feel good, lol.

This is why when I show aligning my grip though it always starts between the index and middle finger before I wrap the index finger around to make sure that alignment is preserved and I don't cheat it by re-aligning the disc so that my index finger can wrap around more easily.

 

[Kennets]

This isn't a good way to try turning the key if you actually want to try it out.

I agree you should work on the launch plane more first though.

Skipping practicing any turn the key on softer throws and just trying to throw far in the field with it is definitely a recipe for disaster. Certain techniques or changes are easier to try doing on harder throws right away but definitely not turn the key. That's why I frequently caution it's an advanced technique even though sheep constantly straw man's me as constantly recommending it without caveats or warnings.

I agree, in hindsight it were a stupid idea. As with all changes, one gotta start with low effort throws.

That's the "bonapane" grip. It's commonly recommended for nose up throwers as a way to help get the nose down. It's also well known to not feel good, lol.

This is why when I show aligning my grip though it always starts between the index and middle finger before I wrap the index finger around to make sure that alignment is preserved and I don't cheat it by re-aligning the disc so that my index finger can wrap around more easily.

I couldn't remember the name and actually thought of writing "bonaparte ".. that were the exact same thing I did. I think I've been realigning it too, to get a feeling of the index finger being more curled in the rim, resulting in a grip the led to more nose up angle..

English you know.. it's hard at times

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Also, as I've mentioned before, the position of the thumb and it's pressure can make it very easy for thumb pressure to encourage pronation, so that bonapane grip how you have it probably discourages pronation aided by thumb pressure based on how your thumb is.

Funny enough, I could argue the bonapane grip here acts as a bandaid for not actually learning how to control the wrist (initially at least). It just puts the grip in a position that makes it easier to not accidentally pronate. It could be helpful though over the longer term, maybe after throwing like this for a while your wrist gets used to not pronating and then you can switch back. But if you don't actually make the connection to wrist control, then switching back to a more regular grip most likely result in immediately reverting to pronating again.

That's why I recommend trying putting your thumb on the seam where the flight plate meets the rim in a normal grip, thumb pressure on that spot is more directly over your index finger and the thumb pressure is therefore supported by the index finger and then doesn't pressure you to pronate as much, but it still requires enough wrist control to not pronate.

 

[Kennets]

I'm not throwing with a bonapane grip, it's just to align it in the hand, I wrap my index finger around like shown in picture 2..

The first picture were just to show how I aligned it, before gripping it "normally"

 

[disc-golf-neil]

I'm not throwing with a bonapane grip, it's just to align it in the hand, I wrap my index finger around like shown in picture 2..

The first picture were just to show how I aligned it, before gripping it "normally"

Ohh, so what was your grip before then if it wasn't aligned between the index and middle finger?

 

[Kennets]

Good question. I think it's slightly left of the middle of the palm in a line with the index finger. Seems like that would lead to a more nose up throw, for me at least

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Good question. I think it's slightly left of the middle of the palm in a line with the index finger. Seems like that would lead to a more nose up throw, for me at least

Can you share a pic of each with the rim pointed at the camera can see the palm? Curious to see how different it looks.

 

[Kennets]

The grips or the where the rim touches the hand? I'm confused lol

 

[disc-golf-neil]

The grips or the where the rim touches the hand? I'm confused lol

Something like this so I can see how it is different in the palm. No pic does it justice tho compared to a vid so you can see how it is before and after closing the hand.

 

[Kennets]

First grip is what gave me a better nose angle. I usually grip with a modified power grip.. I've never really settled on a grip, since everything feels incorrect for me. I can't get a solid tuck with the index finger and I wonder if that makes it weaker as a pivot point?