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I guess I'm not getting it for waiting for the weight shift. In terms of loading the plant foot and de-loading the rear foot, I seem to be about the same timing as, say, Ezra. As far as rising into the plant, I notice that he maintains a bent front knee throughout the throw, while I am straightening my leg during the throw. This results in the "rising" motion that you noted. Looking at other pros, they seem to lack most of this rising motion, or at least only straighten the front leg after the disc has left their hand.
Do you link waiting for the weight shift and the rising into the throw? How would I go about delaying more or maintaining the bent leg during the throw?
The attached image shows the moment when yours and Ezra's X-step comes down (your first comparison frame is slightly too early). Notice how Ezra's hips are still squared towards the target while yours are already facing away. Your hop is relatively large which might be reinforcing this issue.
You are a bit too backward on the x-step (Ezra's pelvis is still slightly closed, not square).
I think you are stepping too leftward and not landing on your front leg properly which causes you to rise, and/or you are pushing too late off the rear foot.
Make your right foot kick inward toward right tee before going to the left/outside.
Make your right shoulder swing lower/fall when it starts going forward like a battering ram.
I don't have an update for form fixes right now, but I wanted to give a point of reference for people who are curious for speed vs distance.
There is a baseball training academy near where I work and they were kind enough to put me on their gun for a good 30-40 throws. They had both a Pocket Radar as well as a higher-end radar gun they normally used for analysis. The reading from those two radar systems usually never varied more than 1-2 mph. They were also kind enough to film during the test. Below are a few side and back throw examples from the session.
When I threw, I was very consistent in the 67-68 mph range. I had one throw at 69 mph. I also had a few throws in the 62-65 mph range. Those lower-speed throws I could feel it was slower coming out of my hand, well before they said the speed.
Below is a short summary of where I am, distance-wise, and what my results from getting on a radar gun today were.
Average Throw: 67-68 mph
Top Throw: 69 mph
Low Throw: 62 mph (could feel the disc slip out early)
Field Distances (UDisc/Google Maps) on flat field and low wind (<5 mph)
Average Throws: 430-475' (Destroyers)
425-440' (Valkyrie/Escape)
400-425' (Teebird)
340-360' (Mako3/RocX3)
Top Throws: 500-515' (one out of every 20 throws or so, must get angle and height perfect)
Some rounding and funky posture/balance. Your left arm goes out to counter balance the rest of you too far over your toes in more quad dominant position and everything gets screwy.
Ezra can relax the left arm as he is balanced/leveraged/standing on the rear foot in more hip depth/buttwipe/glute/hammy dominant position. Hip hinge vs squat.
Okay, so I've also tried to slow down a bit on whole movement, really stepping through the x-step rather than letting my momentum carry me over the x-step foot. Video below. First two throws were UDisc'd at ~470'. The last throw was a bit different, with me trying to keep my left arm elbow closer to my body. I've tried this a few times, but it seems to result in a slower, not faster, release.
Overall, it feels pretty good this way. The throws in the video were probably 80-90% effort, but quite controllable. At the end of the session I gave a few 100% rips, with the best throw going 510' on a rope. Okay, it wasn't quite on a rope, but it did hyzer-flip to S-turn, only taking up 30-40' of fairway width and ~15' height the entire way. It was easy to tell it was a faster throw than my others, likely by a good 3-4 mph. It's a shame I didn't get it on video.
Shameless bump. By slowing down, I was hoping to better align my CoG during the run-up and x-step. Below is a comparison of the slowed-down version and my previous session on the radar gun.
To my eye, it looks a bit better, with my hips not turning back so early, but I'd like to get other's feedback on that or anything else you see.
I replayed my most recent video a lot. Look at the frames on the first throw (around 5 seconds in) where my foot opens up towards the target as I release. Specifically, look at the few frames at the end of that foot rotation. You can see the entire shoe compress a bit as my weight settles back down on it. It seems that when my foot opens up, I'm actually losing contact with the ground completely and going "airborn" for a second. That, combined with my CoG rising into the swing, makes me thinking I'm bracing so hard I'm pushing myself off the ground during the throw. Have you seen this before?
Since I have the distinct honor of being featured in the Reverse stride and it is quickly un****ing my legs, I noticed this:
A hypothesis that rear of tee may confirm or refute:
Your tilted axis is off because of how you enter the plant. I suspect rear of tee is going to show a similar problem to post 87, maybe to a different degree.
It is possible that you got your posture into a position that mitigates the off-arm counterbalancing wide out due in transition over the drive step. However, I think that flattened your swing out rather than getting into the ideal spiral. You're coming in at slightly too harsh of an angle & your rear leg counterbalances east of the brace when you plant. I think when you plant your leading hip is slightly ahead of a true Hershyzer or can crush, so your posting up action doesn't quite get you the maximum leverage and pop upward off the ground at the end like you see in the Jarvis clip SW22 posted. It's because the swing is too flat toward the target.
It's been a while since my last post, but here's the latest. The throws here are on really flat trajectories due to disc stability. I've also altered how I hold the disc when x-stepping by holding it vertically with my hand on top.
I've also included a full-stop clip of when I aborted a throw from my foot clipping my heel (right before the last throw). Maybe this can give insight onto my momentum and weight transfer?
I don't see any change on main throwing mechanics from earlier - i.e. no change in how much my "spiral" is tilting. Is it possible that release angle changes how "tilted" you are when throwing? Most of these throws were very flat, whereas most pros, I think, release on a good bit of hyzer. When I've seen them throw anny, I seem to remember the tilt "inverting" and facing the other way.
I'm confident I see a pattern. After spending almost a month trying to understand this better and struggle through it myself I'll try to help (with a healthy dose of "check it in the field and get a second opinion").
Lots of us around here have problems in the drive phase. Your aborted swing and the completed ones all show a similar pattern on the rear side during your drive phase. I think you took a step toward getting the Figure 8, but missed a little piece while trying to correct it. This is subtle and was hard for me to understand at first without intervention. I got it very wrong especially when trying to x-step. I'm working hard on it myself now so I'll try to explain it thoroughly.
I think you're drifting your weight forward and dropping into the plant, but you land a bit behind the front leg (explaining why you seem to rise and recoil a bit less than optimal (like Post 93) because your Figure 8 and load into the rear hip are just a bit off.
Compare you to Ezra when your rear shin angles are roughly vertical:
You are flat in the hips and your overrotate through the upper body to stay balanced over the rear leg. But why?
I think when you worked on letting the rear knee go back, you let the leverage creep back out behind you too early with the rear foot pointed slightly too far back for the sake of letting that knee get back. However, if you watch Ezra closely, notice that the drive knee actually is oriented more toward the camera than yours as he strides forward, then that knee starts to point back away from the target later than yours after his drive foot hits the ground. His weight is still moving forward and dropping to the plant, but the leverage he's getting into the drive leg in transition is more lateral directly toward the target. Yours is more about getting the knee away from the target with a more pronounced butt lead.
Since his rear leg and leverage are a little more lateral to the target, the rear leg allows his backswing to load into the rear hip, which rocks and cocks more than yours while his body is still dropping laterally toward the target. With your current leg action, if you tried to rock into the rear hip as much as he does there, you would fall out of balance away from the camera because your hip doesn't have leverage in the correct direction against your leg (more lateral toward the target with the pelvis more parallel to the line you take moving along the tee). That's why your backswing looks the way it does - it's trying to keep you in balance against leverage moving somewhat in the wrong direction.
In an exhausting last couple weeks working on my drive leg, I believe there's definitely only one ideal drive leg move in the context of a given player & their given form. It's a small sweet spot between too closed off and too open, and letting the leg help you drift and drop your weight forward with just enough time and leverage to support the backswing.
I'd suggest go back to Swivel stairs and pay super close attention to how your rear hip likes to cock up and away as you swing back, and also how your rear foot helps your weight move forward and down to drop into the plant. That rear Figure 8 action will probably naturally occur or you'll fall down the stairs. Then, see if you can take that same sensation back to the field. Let the rear foot toes stay a bit more oriented toward the target, let the rock load that rear hip with the backswing, and meanwhile just drift the weight forward and drop down into the plant over the rear leg.
If you get this right I bet you can find less effort in the throw and the gateway to more power. The correct drift, drive, and drop is a huge aspect of easy power. I totally underestimated it and am not finding it easy at throwing speed, but it's worth figuring it out.
