Reid's Journey to Backhand Mastery

[UhhNegative]

Had some great throws today that felt very different. I was focusing on turning my hip more inward during the reachback and really crushing the can BEFORE my shoulders come forward. It felt like I had a ton more room to swing and I was throwing just about far as normal but more effortless. I still have a tendency to overturn the shoulders, but they felt timed a lot better.

I didn't want to get too excited about this success, but now I can say that I finally say that I know what it feels like to get my weight on the front foot before the swing AND what it feels like to shift the weight from behind. Well, really the two are intrinsically linked. It even carried over to my putting. Now I can feel the weight shift forward and then I can swing. It's like I have to relearn how to time everything now because I was always too eager with the "stroke" of my drives and putts. My putting is absolutely atrocious, but yesterday I put a drive inside the circle of a 350' uphill hole with a Pipeline on a beautiful flat to turnover shot. Only other time I've parked it was with a DDx on a really lucky line.

 

[UhhNegative]

So... the more I played disc golf, then less comfortable I felt. Nothing was clicking and playing was just making me really mad. So, I locked all of my discs in a closet for a couple weeks (it was initially going to be forever) and then I started playing putter rounds at my local course. But now, I'm really starting to get it. Just by focusing on keeping my shoulders turned back until my plant foot hit I am throwing so much further now and much more accurately. It doesn't always click, I have tons more practice to do. I haven't measured any shots and I've only been throwing putters. But most importantly, disc golf is fun again! If I feel the need I will post up video for analysis, I will, just thought I'd update.

 

[UhhNegative]

Took some videos today. Really was not having a good day throwing. Everything was feeling uncomfortable again and I'm not sure why. Looks like my upper half is opening too soon and I'm rounding still quite a bit.

 

[sidewinder22]

Yep rounding/hugging yourself and dropping your elbow. Do the Door Frame Drill with your stance either between or outside the frames so your arm/disc is out to the side and has a straight line to target with your body out of the way. Let your shoulders turn back and widen up your upper arm angle really far. Pretend you have table going through your spine at nipple height and the table tilts with your spine tilt and you have to keep your elbow and lower arm/disc swinging above the table.

 

[billyjacko]

Nate Doss is great to watch for the wide pull as well.

 

[UhhNegative]

Thanks guys. I suspect when I had my couple good days of throwing that I was keeping my arm much wider but now I have reverted to my bad habits. More work to do. The pullthrough is always going to be a little wonky for me because I physically cannot hold the disc on a plane through the entire shot, but I think as long I can keep a consistent position at the end of the throw I should be ok.

 

[HyzerUniBomber]

Anybody have an idea on the type of straps that would be make-able that would lock the elbow in the right place? I recall mcBeth was wearing something in an instagram from a while back during a form session - but it appears to be gone.

 

[UhhNegative]

Anybody have an idea on the type of straps that would be make-able that would lock the elbow in the right place? I recall mcBeth was wearing something in an instagram from a while back during a form session - but it appears to be gone.

Heck, I'd like some straps to FIX my elbow. I literally have about 10 degrees of rotation in my left wrist. I'm surprised that I can even throw reasonably well haha. I remember seeing McBeth using something like that but it looked pretty sophisticated.

 

[sidewinder22]

Arm should feel pulled out wide like this one arm Olympic hammer throw and only bending the elbow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQYGzTlVetQ#t=7m

 

[UhhNegative]

Yeah for me it usually feels like I am pulling the arm closer and I think that's because I'm so damn eager to pull with shoulder. Thus me pulling the shot left a lot. At the same time, my best feeling throws are the ones where I feel the most pull on my shoulder.

Will practice drills today.

 

[billyjacko]

Will practice drills today.

One thing I did is stand over a painted line on the line I wanted to pull on. It gives you a nice visual where to hit the top of the reach back. Kind of like the board in the closed shoulder drill.

 

[UhhNegative]

So I've got a couple tournaments coming up and I finally decided to bite the bullet and actually practice putting consistently. 1 hour a day every day. Actually quite easy to do and I'm finally feeling motivated to get better.
It's always been the weakest part of my game and it's time to fix that (along with my backhand, lol). So I took a couple videos and might post them up, but essentially my problem is putting too high and/or nose down. It just feels so unnatural to finish at the basket instead of above it. And then when I conciously think about releasing low it usually comes out nose down and kind of flops out instead of a crisp release. I can tilt my wrist up a bit and it helps with the nose down but it just feels really awkward. I'm trying to retrain my putt to be flatter. I'm a push putter for reference with a stance similar to Ricky. Anyone have any good videos to help with putting form, particularly this problem of releasing too high? I've seen the Dave Feldberg clinic.

 

[HyzerUniBomber]

Pretty clearly there's countless ways to putt successfully. Ricky vs Anthon is miles apart in terms of mechanics, and they both are incredible putters.

The biggest issue when releasing too high is to extend the disc forward toward the heart of the chains from the bottom of the down swing. Doesn't really matter how it gets to the bottom of the down swing other than you want to keep it smooth and controlled - they key is to get the whole system ejecting forward and flying the disc as flat as you feel comfortable at chain height.

Adding lob or nose up/down means another variable to control - doesn't mean that it's bad: Simon putts with the disc floating very nose up. It just means you have to control it.

I've had success with getting the feel for how much force it takes to keep a disc flat and on target by flipping it upside down and attempting to keep the disc in the air until it gets to where the pole meets the ground. From 25 feet that's a good indicator of what a confident speed should be getting you - and when you flip it right side up, that same speed will keep the disc chain high and relatively flat.

Extending your entire arm, fingers toward the pole will help with dialing in aim left to right and height.

 

[UhhNegative]

Pretty clearly there's countless ways to putt successfully. Ricky vs Anthon is miles apart in terms of mechanics, and they both are incredible putters.

The biggest issue when releasing too high is to extend the disc forward toward the heart of the chains from the bottom of the down swing. Doesn't really matter how it gets to the bottom of the down swing other than you want to keep it smooth and controlled - they key is to get the whole system ejecting forward and flying the disc as flat as you feel comfortable at chain height.

Adding lob or nose up/down means another variable to control - doesn't mean that it's bad: Simon putts with the disc floating very nose up. It just means you have to control it.

I've had success with getting the feel for how much force it takes to keep a disc flat and on target by flipping it upside down and attempting to keep the disc in the air until it gets to where the pole meets the ground. From 25 feet that's a good indicator of what a confident speed should be getting you - and when you flip it right side up, that same speed will keep the disc chain high and relatively flat.

Extending your entire arm, fingers toward the pole will help with dialing in aim left to right and height.

Yeah certainly there's lots of ways to be successful. For my sake I pretty much have to stick with a push putt as I'm not able to really put a lot on the wrist because of the limited mobility I have in it. I think I just really struggle with extending the disc towards the chains from the bottom instead of extending the disc upward. It results in my 25 foot putting being much better than my 15 foot putting oddly enough. I hit the top band far too often inside the circle. I don't have too much trouble with left/right or even distance. It's usually just up/down that gets me because of inconsistent release trajectory. Similar to my problems with rounding I have to somewhat guess when to release the disc because if I hold on too long it's going over the basket.

 

[deyo7]

Yeah certainly there's lots of ways to be successful. For my sake I pretty much have to stick with a push putt as I'm not able to really put a lot on the wrist because of the limited mobility I have in it. I think I just really struggle with extending the disc towards the chains from the bottom instead of extending the disc upward. It results in my 25 foot putting being much better than my 15 foot putting oddly enough. I hit the top band far too often inside the circle. I don't have too much trouble with left/right or even distance. It's usually just up/down that gets me because of inconsistent release trajectory. Similar to my problems with rounding I have to somewhat guess when to release the disc because if I hold on too long it's going over the basket.

I spin putt so I don't know if it translates at all or if the following will even be relevant but I was doink-ing the top band a lot inside circle and seemingly better at farther distance also. Then I tried to stand more upright with a concerted effort to put my chest up/out. Seemed I could get a better forward moving weight transfer that way and it made me way less inconsistent up and down - I think I was leaning over too much and probably with an inconsistent bend or something. It was amazing what a little adjustment like putting my chest out made. If relevant, cheers.

 

[billyjacko]

My putting style is very similar to Ricky's, and the cue I use for getting the disc in the basket is thinking of my head going into the basket. I stay on my rear toes with almost all my weight on that leg. As soon as my down swing starts I start trying to 'swing' my head into the target. This gets my weight into a position ready to go targetward off the rear leg as soon as the disc starts towards the basket. If you get that timing along with the final pop of the hand wrist just right, you shouldn't have to worry about loft inside 25' as the disc should never really reach above chain height. I've started exclusively practicing 20-25 footers and my inside the circle % has gone way up, and it's also helped outside. If you know the trajectory for everything inside 25', it makes the slight variation on longer putts easier.

The push putt is really something that needs to be dialed in to be consistent (my issue tends to be allowing my weight to drift right)

A lot of my improvements came after watching this slow mo footage of Ricky. Notice how he leads the throw with his head and everything gallows straight to the target. https://youtu.be/6Z-ENNGkJBo

 

[UhhNegative]

Hmm he leans forward more than I even thought. I think my upper body tends to come up much further so that I'm more or less upright. I'll have to experiment with leaning forward a little more.

 

[billyjacko]

Hmm he leans forward more than I even thought. I think my upper body tends to come up much further so that I'm more or less upright. I'll have to experiment with leaning forward a little more.

It takes some getting used to because you'll want to fall while your putting. I use the fall to the left (for you right) after I release, but have gotten my balance to where I end up upright on one leg. .

 

[UhhNegative]

It takes some getting used to because you'll want to fall while your putting. I use the fall to the left (for you right) after I release, but have gotten my balance to where I end up upright on one leg. .

Yeah I typically do fall to the right when I do get my weight shift correct. It's a work in progress.

So today I went out for a casual round with my girlfriend and decided I was going to work on keeping my elbow high. The weird thing is that to do that I actually have to have the disc on an anhyzer angle at peak reachback just because of how my wrist flexibility is. By the time the disc reaches release it more or less automatically goes back to flat. It's wonky but it'll have to do. My throwing felt really solid, a lot more speed with keeping my elbow up. Ended up birdieing a 350' uphill hole that has a tight gap through the woods. I was still rounding and that's going to be a challenge to undo, but I made forward progress today. Here's a video from 17's tee. I missed the line by a couple feet but this was a mako3 at about 65% on a slight anny. I still see the apparent rounding but honestly my elbow positioning looks a lot better to me.

 

[sidewinder22]

I was going to work on keeping my elbow high. The weird thing is that to do that I actually have to have the disc on an anhyzer angle at peak reachback just because of how my wrist flexibility is. By the time the disc reaches release it more or less automatically goes back to flat. It's wonky but it'll have to do. My throwing felt really solid, a lot more speed with keeping my elbow up. Ended up birdieing a 350' uphill hole that has a tight gap through the woods. I was still rounding and that's going to be a challenge to undo, but I made forward progress today. Here's a video from 17's tee. I missed the line by a couple feet but this was a mako3 at about 65% on a slight anny. I still see the apparent rounding but honestly my elbow positioning looks a lot better to me.

It's not your wrist, your shoulder is high = anhyzer/roller. Brinster is throwing a roller and you have a steeper shoulder/spine tilt telegraphing roller or anhyzer. Brinster maintains his tilted spiral into the finish. You changed your spine and shoulder plane to finish hyzer which you will not see any pro do. The four guys to the right are throwing a right to left anhyzer hole. The two on the ends are throwing a hyzer-flip turnover and can see the shoulders match the plane from reachback to follow through, and the middle two are starting on hyzer and flipping a more stable disc over changing the tilted spiral to anhyzer which is ok to do. You just can't go from anhyzer reachback to hyzer follow through, the leverage for the tilted spiral doesn't work that way. You need to get deeper into the from behind you, butt more facing the target into the plant. You are also moving down the teepad in a left to right anhyzer direction which would be ok for a hyzer flip if your shoulders were tilted on hyzer. A pure hyzer going right to left down the tee pad is going to feel quite weird for you and very wide with even wider upper arm angle and like you can't generate power from it, but you have to try it. Rewatch vids in post #8 especially Tilted Spiral.