My road to proper form

[Marian]

Hello fellow disc enthusiasts!

Today I captured footage of my RHBH drives for the first time. I was reading through this forum full of interesting and incredibly helpful posts over the last weeks and thought that the form experts (and other interested persons) might bless me with a form critique

This is my start to a quest for proper form. To work on it, i was throwing sets of 5 throws: 4x Lat Pure, 1x DD Trespass, all brand new Retro/Prime (it was constantly raining all day long). The videos show the most representative throw of a set in 100%, 40% and 10% speed. Sorry for the lack of perspectives (only have a mobile cam) and sorry for the watermarks, i might buy the software when i get to do this more often.

The first video captured the first drives of today´s practice session:
https://youtu.be/uAJpf-kBO74




The second one shows one of my last throws of the day:
https://youtu.be/GUV-auz2aBs



I would really appreciate your help on my way to proper form and look forward to pleasant discussions in this lovely forum

Best regards,
Marian

 

[slowplastic]

I would say the number one issue is you are shifting in front, rather than setting up the weight shift from behind. Secondly is that you are throwing with a ton of effort/power; you have likely maxed out your current version of form, so throwing this hard is exposing that your "shifting in front" is pulling you straight through your plant, rather than having you end up on the brace leg balanced.

Shifting from behind, will essentially move your lower body forward underneath you. Your pelvis and lower spine will move balanced onto the front leg, so you'll be set up to throw in balance on the plant foot. Right now you are trying to spin to the left around your plant leg, and also are leading the throw with your upper body so you are tipping forward, rather than shifting your body in balance onto the front leg.

I would have a read through here to see if this helps the concept: https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127477

I would also focus on the one leg drill, to show you how to be better set up on the plant leg, rather than pushing yourself overtop and past it.

To embed the youtube video, put just the part after v= of the URL in the tags.

 

[Marian]

Thank you very much slowplastic, your response was really helpful!

Earlier today i read through the suggested links/posts and some other links mentioned there and did the suggested indoor-drills. Also tried some "left butt-empowered" putts (found the concept in one of your other posts) and was hyped to feel the ease it adds to the motion.
Was really motivated and hit the practice field later, targetting three desired improvements:
1. Maintain the orientation of my axis of rotation from reachback to follow-through
2. Brace heel in one spot ("hole in the ground"-reference from HyzerUniBomber)
3. Move the left butt forwards early (as mentioned in SW22´s videos)

This is one of the recorded throws (thanks for the embedding lesson as well )


While non of the three targets is accomplished yet, there were incremental improvements. I was not happy with the 5 throws i recorded, there were other throws feeling much better. On some occasions, the fluid left-butt lead made the throw feel effortless and very controllable. On some throws, i felt some strain in my left knee in the follow through (probably due to not bracing correctly yet.

Next driving practice i´ll probably focus on balancing my brace and fixing my axis of rotation as i feel both of these errors are strongly related.

There is a lot of work left to do but your help provided a great starting point, thanks

 

[slowplastic]

Cool, and please realize that this is all a ton of info and can't be digested all at once. I've gone back to all of SW22's videos numerous times, and often find new info that I just wasn't at the stage of being able to understand yet.

What you're doing in that new video is setting up a bit too backwards. The pelvis is the entire bone structure, while the hips are the tops of each femur in the socket. You are setting up too backwards with the pelvis, you are closed like 30 degrees and walking backwards to the target. What happens is that you cannot turn into the rear hip because you'll be like 90 degrees from the target to do that. You need to stride more laterally to the target, pelvis more parallel to the line you are X-stepping, and turn into the rear hip as you are planting.

There are several door frame drill videos on this youtube channel, but it shows how to turn back as you are planting. Notice how when done correctly the pelvis is turned back maybe as far as yours is during your X-step, but at maximum load instead, and there is way more tension/load in the rear hip.

You are also at maximum reach/turn back well before your plant foot is touching down, the door frame drills will show you how to turn/load later, as you are moving forward still.

 

[Marian]

Thanks a lot, this is insightful. I guess the mistiming of reachback and foot plant is a major factor in that "axis of rotation"-moving-forward-problem.
I also get the point of moving more lateral and maxing the "backwards-facing" at the point of planting.

After planting:
In hypothetic perfect form, does that mean we would rotate our hips against the direction of rotation of our shoulders? Or is it rather a shift of the hips in the direction of the throw, steered by the left hip?

Probably won´t get to throw until next week´s weekend due to an ultimate tournament this weekend. Until then i´ll focus on getting into the right feeling by going through SW22´s indoor drills (especially door frame wall ones).

 

[slowplastic]

After planting:
In hypothetic perfect form, does that mean we would rotate our hips against the direction of rotation of our shoulders? Or is it rather a shift of the hips in the direction of the throw, steered by the left hip?

The hips can rotate independently, so it can get pretty confusing. I will just be a bit simple so I try not to make mistakes with what I say. As you are turning back in the door frame drill, you will load the rear hip, internally rotated. You will glide/drive the pelvis forward and catch your weight on your closed/internally rotated front hip, through the crush the can drill. Your spine/balance should be centered onto your front foot dynamically...so the angle/stride varies depending on your momentum going in to the throw.

The rear leg will slide behind your body to counter the throw, so it acts as a counterweight like in a trebuchet so that your arm has leverage to swing the disc through the hit point. At this point your front leg/hip will start to extend from the pressure and it will rotate open externally to relieve the pressure. This is essentially starting the follow through/release stage, you can't really control this, it just indicates how your balance has been up into this point.

So it's not about getting a rotation of the hips, it's about loading up the rear hip to transfer weight onto the front leg, in dynamic balance, to get to a position that you can swing with leverage. If you open the front hip or try to spin the lower body, you lose the leverage and you are just "moving real fast" instead of being in a powerful position to swing the disc, with added momentum.

 

[sidewinder22]

After planting:
In hypothetic perfect form, does that mean we would rotate our hips against the direction of rotation of our shoulders? Or is it rather a shift of the hips in the direction of the throw, steered by the left hip?

The shoulders should be leveraged from behind the hips - this is much easier to feel with some upward trajectory to the throw and bracing behind the front foot, throw some putters and make sure your right shoulder finishes higher than left and your hand finishes higher as well and on plane with shoulders/spine.

The left/rear hip steers your momentum from behind you/backward targetward before you plant like in Hogan Power Move/Buttwipe Drill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zByUYQnVdY&t=2m36s

 

[Marian]

Renaissance of my old form thread

A couple of years with more disc golf and less ultimate frisbee later and I started to rebuild my form. In the meantime, I had some shoulder issues from unfortunate ultimate catches and poor backhand form. Throughout the years, I followed and soaked in the insights from seabas22, loopghost, etc. There is so much good information out there thanks to you guys, and I am trying to implement this knowledge to acquire a healthy backhand form. My goal is to add a consistent, smooth 100m+ stock backhand hyzer to my game.

This is the current state, one throw from the front and two throws from the side view:


(URL: https://youtu.be/Y3qoczm86GI)

Feel free to comment if you have remarks, I am happily taking advice

I think I am opening my hips / turning my front leg too early.

 

[sidewinder22]

Your footwork is very stompy, choppy and staccato. Needs to be fluid and rhythmic and legato.

Your swing appears to be releasing downward instead of upward.