I really wanted to post in the form analysis section a lot of times over the past year but never found the time. I'm glad I finally made it…
After sidewinder's feedback on my post last year,(click here) I worked on keeping my elbow forward. I found out that, to lead with my elbow, it helps me to keep my arm straight at the "reachback". Otherwise the angle between my upper arm and my upper body at the shoulder kept collapsing and I couldn't get a good power pocket...or kept hitting my chest with the disc.
So the last big jump in consistent distance happened after I read "One-Piece Takeaway - Everything Moves Back Together". Keeping the arm straight at the "reachback" (or should I call it backswing now) helped me a lot, but on the other side it felt really awkward. I felt like converting to a Eric Oakley like throwing style. I never filmed it but it felt like our movements matched each other one-on-one. ...and even though Eric is a great player, it just didn't really click for me. It just didn't feel like my movement. Like I said before, it just felt really awkward.
At that time I started experimenting to come back from this straight arm motion to a reachback and tried to get this consistent feeling in, with the wider angle at the shoulder, but it never really happened. So with some time to train, I just made the swing back movement more like I saw it now in a lot of sidewinders videos. Not by swinging the extended arm back in front of me, but let it fall down and swing back that way.
Here are three vids to clarify the arm motion.
1. ...the extended arm in front of me:
2. ...as I tried to come back to an reachback but the issue of collapsing shoulder angle:
3. ...the way I swing back now:
About a week ago I thought of finally posting some form vids here and filmed the throws in my lunch break. Fortunately I had my longest throw on level ground that day, it went over 500ft! The other driver throws went between 400 and 450ft, sideward spread was not over 50ft too, so I felt really good that day...until I watched the throws.
...well, unfortunately I found my x-step on the video so unpleasant that I wanted to try to adjust it first and then discuss it with you.
Here's the recording of my first 500ft+ throw with my 175g Neutron Octane, the other throws looked similar, so I post only this one:
Compared to what I learned here in many threads I turn my hips back way to early. It seems that it doesn't hurt distance this much, so I assume I'm doing some things right, but if there's the chance to improve further I will do it no matter what.
So I came back this week and tried to stay more sideways in my x-step and more on the balls of my feet. Resulted in a little hop, but that's not so bad. What really annoyed me was that it gave me a much faster run-up. I really like to start slow in the x-step and try to explode at the end. Therefore I also have a slower backswing and can control the start of the throw and the release angle of the disc better. So the problem I had with the (at least in feeling) much faster x-step was no angle control, nose-up throws and my discs landing all over the place. So I went to the discs that felt halfway good in throwing, measured them with U-Disc and got you the recordings of that throws. Even these had a sideward spread of over 140ft…
01 - Cosmic Neutron Pilot 177g - 265ft
02 - Big Z Buzzz 178g - 274ft (unfortunately early tree touch)
03 - Prism Pyro 180g - 292ft
04 - Z Mantis -396ft
05 - Titanium Undertaker 168g - 393ft
06 - Proton Relativity 174g - 346ft (nice turnover shot, but way too less height)
07 - Neutron Octane 175g - 416ft
08 - ESP Force 174g - 420ft
The early hip-turn in my first vid is probably not the only thing I could do better there, so please don't hold back. Another question is, what could I do to slow down in the sideway motion, without planting on the whole foot instead of the ball of the foot. Or do I just have to strengthen my feet to slow this motion down...or is the adjustment I made there not the one I needed in the first place, what are your thoughts?
Thank you in advance!
After sidewinder's feedback on my post last year,(click here) I worked on keeping my elbow forward. I found out that, to lead with my elbow, it helps me to keep my arm straight at the "reachback". Otherwise the angle between my upper arm and my upper body at the shoulder kept collapsing and I couldn't get a good power pocket...or kept hitting my chest with the disc.
So the last big jump in consistent distance happened after I read "One-Piece Takeaway - Everything Moves Back Together". Keeping the arm straight at the "reachback" (or should I call it backswing now) helped me a lot, but on the other side it felt really awkward. I felt like converting to a Eric Oakley like throwing style. I never filmed it but it felt like our movements matched each other one-on-one. ...and even though Eric is a great player, it just didn't really click for me. It just didn't feel like my movement. Like I said before, it just felt really awkward.
At that time I started experimenting to come back from this straight arm motion to a reachback and tried to get this consistent feeling in, with the wider angle at the shoulder, but it never really happened. So with some time to train, I just made the swing back movement more like I saw it now in a lot of sidewinders videos. Not by swinging the extended arm back in front of me, but let it fall down and swing back that way.
Here are three vids to clarify the arm motion.
1. ...the extended arm in front of me:
2. ...as I tried to come back to an reachback but the issue of collapsing shoulder angle:
3. ...the way I swing back now:
About a week ago I thought of finally posting some form vids here and filmed the throws in my lunch break. Fortunately I had my longest throw on level ground that day, it went over 500ft! The other driver throws went between 400 and 450ft, sideward spread was not over 50ft too, so I felt really good that day...until I watched the throws.
...well, unfortunately I found my x-step on the video so unpleasant that I wanted to try to adjust it first and then discuss it with you.
Here's the recording of my first 500ft+ throw with my 175g Neutron Octane, the other throws looked similar, so I post only this one:
Compared to what I learned here in many threads I turn my hips back way to early. It seems that it doesn't hurt distance this much, so I assume I'm doing some things right, but if there's the chance to improve further I will do it no matter what.
So I came back this week and tried to stay more sideways in my x-step and more on the balls of my feet. Resulted in a little hop, but that's not so bad. What really annoyed me was that it gave me a much faster run-up. I really like to start slow in the x-step and try to explode at the end. Therefore I also have a slower backswing and can control the start of the throw and the release angle of the disc better. So the problem I had with the (at least in feeling) much faster x-step was no angle control, nose-up throws and my discs landing all over the place. So I went to the discs that felt halfway good in throwing, measured them with U-Disc and got you the recordings of that throws. Even these had a sideward spread of over 140ft…
01 - Cosmic Neutron Pilot 177g - 265ft
04 - Z Mantis -396ft
05 - Titanium Undertaker 168g - 393ft
06 - Proton Relativity 174g - 346ft (nice turnover shot, but way too less height)
07 - Neutron Octane 175g - 416ft
08 - ESP Force 174g - 420ft
The early hip-turn in my first vid is probably not the only thing I could do better there, so please don't hold back. Another question is, what could I do to slow down in the sideway motion, without planting on the whole foot instead of the ball of the foot. Or do I just have to strengthen my feet to slow this motion down...or is the adjustment I made there not the one I needed in the first place, what are your thoughts?
Thank you in advance!