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Ok, I think I get that. More like the Can Can/Elephant drill so that the lower body starts the process and the backswing follows.
A couple realizations I've had recently while working on my form that I think/hope are correct.
1. The upper and lower body are like dance partners and the lower body needs to be the lead and the upper needs to follow.
2. The correct tilt is important and one of the things it fixes (for me) is getting my elbow more up. If you hold the disc in the pocket and then tilt down, it brings up the elbow in relation to the chest.
There are many things that happen in a sequence, but others that happen simultaneously and it can make cause and effect really confusing. The more your swing evolves the more it feels like walking or swimming through the motion - equal and opposite actions happening in a flow, many of which at the same time.
A swing thought I found very helpful to learn about backswing patience and load it is in terms of momentum, gravity, and setting up the sling effect. The backswing heave should be helping lift & momentarily hold your mass off the ground, braced against the rear leg. Part of the backswing heave is also stretching you out relaxed so the muscles contract stronger & faster when you land in the plant.
Here, she's rocking back and notice how she lets the weight of the axe carry her up and away from the target getting a bit stretched by the weight of the axe & arms. Then she rocks directly into the plant and releases the built-up tension:
And see how her rear leg loads and unloads as the backswing slows/stretches her out before rocking forward:
You want to get the patience to let that whole rear side load up as a unit brace up and allowing the stretch around the body patiently, then drop into the plant.
Clement has a lot of great videos on heavy momentum and the backswing. Here's one you might like, the lumberjack drill he uses is great and you can take it and apply to your DG backswing.
1) I'm over-rotating on the backswing again instead of just tilting.
2) I switched to a pre-swing without holding the disc which feels better, but need to tighten it up.
Not sure if it is improved mechanically, but I have been a lot more consistent lately.
Overall it's looking better mechanically. Still some drive side woes. You've got that "itchy rear leg" thing going on - it wants to get too involved and start its action early, pushing your rear hip and body forward.
Practice this little move here against the rear foot. You want to feel like your rear foot is anchored like a pitcher on the rubber. I can tell that's hard for you to achieve in the backswing when you start balanced on the front leg right now, so in the next throws after that, try keeping the rear foot planted at the address rather than letting its toes dangle. Then, you want to swing the body back against that rear side together patiently and then let yourself drift and drop forward from the peak of the backswing.
It really feels kind of like levitating or floating into the backswing and like you have a ton of time when it's working correctly. You also need to get your body over the idea that it needs to work hard on the drive side - I still find it surprising how little work it feels I'm putting in when everything's in sync.
Practice this little move here against the rear foot. You want to feel like your rear foot is anchored like a pitcher on the rubber. I can tell that's hard for you to achieve in the backswing when you start balanced on the front leg right now, so in the next throws after that, try keeping the rear foot planted at the address rather than letting its toes dangle. Then, you want to swing the body back against that rear side together patiently and then let yourself drift and drop forward from the peak of the backswing.
It really feels kind of like levitating or floating into the backswing and like you have a ton of time when it's working correctly. You also need to get your body over the idea that it needs to work hard on the drive side - I still find it surprising how little work it feels I'm putting in when everything's in sync.
I've found both legs hard and the "correct" language for it is tricky as you've seen.
In your case I'd mention that you want to feel tension into the ground in the back leg in the backswing, but it's not like a shove or effortful move coming out of it. Let the backswing make you feel like it's building tension into the rear foot thru the leg into the ground, and let that tension naturally resolve as your body drifts forward using gravity into the plant.
In your case I'd mention that you want to feel tension into the ground in the back leg in the backswing, but it's not like a shove or effortful move coming out of it. Let the backswing make you feel like it's building tension into the rear foot thru the leg into the ground, and let that tension naturally resolve as your body drifts forward using gravity into the plant.
Struggled with this yesterday afternoon and some today. Posting this just for reference but for these throws I didn't quite figure it out (and off arm is all over the place).
However, I read this great post from Flashblastx this morning so I was working on that before throwing and I think I actually got it in some later throws, but didn't have time to record because I had a meeting to get to.
Wanted to post this for anyone following my progress. I realized the door frame drill is everything, if it doesn't make sense you need to move around in every which way around the frame till you feel like by dropping your weight you would rip that thing off the wall. Then transfer that feeling to the disc.
Sounds tough but it's not too bad, the biggest thing is pay attention to where your feet are when you have the most leverage, where is your hand, how far apart are your feet, how far are your feet from the wall, would you ever throw the door frame into you? The swing/throw/pull takes place in front of you.
Rear leg appears already posted up too early in the backswing. So you can't get that levitate effect properly-should feel like you slightly sit back into the rear leg then post up on it as the backswing keeps moving back. Watch how it looks from this rear view, the sit-like move is more obvious in a stagger and deeper stance but your leg needs to do it no matter what stance you use:
Rear leg appears already posted up too early in the backswing. So you can't get that levitate effect properly-should feel like you slightly sit back into the rear leg then post up on it as the backswing keeps moving back. Watch how it looks from this rear view, the sit-like move is more obvious in a stagger and deeper stance but your leg needs to do it no matter what stance you use:
Hmm... ok I see that in the video, but when I try it then it feels like I'm back to my "itchy rear leg" syndrome again? It is hard for me to post up without pushing off if that makes sense.
Played one of the local monthly tournaments today and got first place in Rec with a -3 which was a personal best for me. Wanted to tell everyone who has helped me in this form journey so far THANK YOU for all your help. Really appreciate the feedback provided here.
I don't usually comment here because I'm not knowledgable.
But this I did notice.
Your warmup swing and your actual throw were on totally different planes. Check out your followthrough on the warmup swing - high and supinated. Your actual throw followthrough was low and pronated.
Your warmup swing and your actual throw were on totally different planes. Check out your followthrough on the warmup swing - high and supinated. Your actual throw followthrough was low and pronated.
However, I blew my right knee out during a run-up throw and since then have been throwing only standstills since it is easier on my knees. I'm 51 and have bad knees (3 surgeries on left knee and many injuries on right)
This definitely makes a little more sense out of how your legs like to move.
Your sequencing is looking better to me than in previous weeks. I still see some fundamental posture/momentum stuff. I haven't written a DGCR mini-dissertation in a while so you will suffer me now. But it'll be fun and you can refer back to it later. Ready?
First, I still don't think you're really getting the weight of your arm/disc heaving and pulling you into the backswing like this:
When I say "heave it", I mean ****ing HEAVE IT. Swing your arm/disc until it feels like 50 lbs. When you do the backswing, your rear leg will need to form a very sturdy structure to resist you flying off balance away from the target. Frustratingly, this isn't just about the speed you're swinging it - it's about using your sequence to swing it into forward pump, then back with some serious OOMPH. That's why SW22 focuses so much on sequence and rhythm. You also gotta learn how to OOMPH it.
Look at this guy throwing a big goddamn Danish long axe. Holy ****. HEAVE it back, letting it lift your front side away from the target and loading you into a nicely braced rear leg before shifting forward.
In the recent practice swing and throw, you're still getting a little bit of shoulder collapse/hugging yourself and are not quite getting stacked on the front leg. These are related to each other and tend to happen to me when I put a lot of focus somewhere else like the rear side and then need to clean up the front side again. But let me try out a couple new visuals on you before I make suggestions to see if they help.
I'm loathe to add yet another swing concept involving angles, but this abstract visual of you practice swinging vs. Simon is striking:
Ignore the exact angles - that little "power box" is just emphasizing aspects of the upper body and conveys swinging with a closed shoulder, hugging the disc, chest trapping, and swinging through the CoG with correct tilt and side bend together. Notice how his CoG appears perfectly centered in that box. Simon's got all that **** on lockdown. But the reason he gets such a potent power box also involves the legs and stacking I'm talking about. Tying it together for you, I think big fish to fry are:
1. The lack of backswing heave in correct tilt means your body can't coil/cock back properly.
2. Landing out of leverage/not fully in athletic dynamic posture dropping stacked on front leg means your box continues to collapse/crumple when you land, and you are more likely to hug your body instead of the disc because there's nothing for the box to rest on (it would be more likely to if you had Simon's plant mechanics). Notice how your box is more crumped toward the bottom - you aren't creating the space over your legs that Simon is.
You can see this unfolding clearly in your throw vs. Simon:
That little dashed line is showing where I think your pressure is aiming. Compare to Simon, who is more stacked over the plant foot and resisting the ground, which is also why his foot releases more completely and toward the target whereas yours gets kinda loose yet stuck and doesn't really turn toward the target even when you're almost all the way into the follow through.
Suggestions for Frying these Fish:
1. Swinging Up: Keep learning to heave with tilt and drop into the front leg & swing with closed shoulder. OLD throws are uniquely good at this. In your case, I think practicing this little hop and drop into the plant might help get you stacked more.
I'm serious, hop and drop. It helps. I even mix it into my plyo workouts now. Try it with more or less initial bend in the knee and get used to leading with your ass.
I have another specific suggestion for how you practice OLD throws. When I work on these in the field, I sometimes start on extreme (like 45-degree) hyzer with max weight Comets, take some warmup swings until I'm loose yet heavy, then just ****ing rip them on power hyzerflips. The better I drop stacked into the front leg and the better I HEAVE, the farther it goes. It doesn't feel effortful, but it does feel momentous and very powerful and now they go 300'+ when I'm warmed up. This is part of fixing things to "swing upward" like SW22 said. IMO it also is initially easier to get the shoulder closed and swinging forward this way.
Knee stuff: For people like you and me with balky knees, it is just as much about convincing the knees it's ok to do it as much as it is about the motion itself. YMMV, but I've gotten much better about spacing out throw practice so my knees feel as fresh as possible when I want to do drive work - this mitigates how much they unconsciously compensate. Real throws always involve more force overall than the drills even if you're OOMPHing both, and our brains unconsciously like to prevent pain and discomfort.
2. Loading, tilt, side bend, and shift: Maybe you knew it was coming. It is inevitable - Door Frame Drill(s) for overall loading, tilt, side bend. There's just something about getting your body into positions and movements to try and rip a house down with your full weight that min/max the effort and force like nothing else. As we've seen in a number of recent threads, this can really help you sus out (a) if there are remaining sequence issues and (b) how your body fundamentally wants to move and shift with force. Even when I was developing a better OLD it didn't help my tilt/side bend/shift completely. DFD can. The feedback of the immovable object helps you develop unstoppable force. It's also a great flexibility drill if done correctly and frequently.
Motivation/general observation: Based on perusing critiques here, almost everyone has trouble with tilts and bends and shifting in ideal leverage. I didn't make steady progress on this until I decided to stop everything else I was doing and do DFD over and over and over again with feedback for a few weeks. Compare my throw a month ago to yesterday. I don't know about you, but I much prefer yesterday's. I really did nothing but DFD (including feedback to drill better) and round or two a week. More to do but DFD is a revelation - and I needed to add big OOMPH in the drill for it to change my throw.
If you put these two together, it should help you keep that power box with a big HEAVE in the backswing, and also start cleaning up the fundamental tilt and shift issues that are making your box crumple when you land.
Your sequencing is looking better to me than in previous weeks. I still see some fundamental posture/momentum stuff. I haven't written a DGCR mini-dissertation in a while so you will suffer me now. But it'll be fun and you can refer back to it later. Ready?
Wow, really appreciate the detailed feedback! It is pouring rain right now but I'm still tempted to go out and try this stuff, but I will take your advice and work on those drills with these thoughts in mind. I'm sure I'll have more questions and thoughts as I work through it.
Wow, really appreciate the detailed feedback! It is pouring rain right now but I'm still tempted to go out and try this stuff, but I will take your advice and work on those drills with these thoughts in mind. I'm sure I'll have more questions and thoughts as I work through it.
YW! Could also be a good excuse to throw up you doing a DFD inside against a frame. I bet it will reveal a lot about the tilt/shift issues. When I show it to people in person it's crazy how quickly it shows them.
