I can BARELY break 300'

[Plasticsnapsauce]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1itCkbP92iSkPi-KQOGFnjsB_Pxx1ey-j


This is me after playing a round and I'm still trying to focus somewhat on staying effortless. I will also say that my phone was on the ground so I may look a little more horsestanced than I actually am. I might still be horsestancing it up, but I don't think I am. Any input is appreciated.

 

[sidewinder22]

Rear foot pointed 180 degrees away = automatic horsestance - rear foot should be more like 135 degrees, so you can still turn back and forth and leverage a lateral move targetward from it. See Power of Posture, Door Frame Drills, Hershyzer Drills, and Swivel Chair Drill.

Your rear arm is way out away and behind you and causing havoc - keep your left hand in your left pocket if you have to. See One Leg Drill, Swedish Badfish.

Your elbow swoops down and collapsing into the body during the swing. The elbow should rise up some and get pulled out away from the body from centrifugal force. I try to keep my elbow nip high swinging through, yours swings through down by your navel. See Stop Hugging Yourself/One Arm Olympic Hammer Throw.

 

[Putt for D'oh]

This is me after playing a round and I'm still trying to focus somewhat on staying effortless. I will also say that my phone was on the ground so I may look a little more horsestanced than I actually am. I might still be horsestancing it up, but I don't think I am. Any input is appreciated.

For me this starts with early reach back, which leads to rear foot turned away from the target.

For me personally I also step too far with my back leg in the Xstep so even if I plant that rear foot in a good orientation it will spin trying to get my weight in front of it and then end up facing 180 away from the target by the time I plant my brace foot.

The best solution is to better time your forward pump and Xtep. Watch how you pump... Then step so while you are Xstepping with your left foot you are starting to swing the disc back. This starts and early reach back which gets the rear foot turned away more and horse stance is the only conclusion. Pump and step together. Just like we talk about planting the brace foot at maximum reach back, plant the Xstep at the point of maximum forward pump.

 

[Plasticsnapsauce]

In response to Putt for D'oh:

Can you clarify a bit on what you mean exactly by pump? So my understanding of the pump is that right before the reachback hits its apex, My knees will bend a little bit, and that while I'm coming through for the throw, I extend my legs slightly sort of as I'm planting. Is that correct or are you talking about something different?

 

[slowplastic]

In response to Putt for D'oh:

Can you clarify a bit on what you mean exactly by pump? So my understanding of the pump is that right before the reachback hits its apex, My knees will bend a little bit, and that while I'm coming through for the throw, I extend my legs slightly sort of as I'm planting. Is that correct or are you talking about something different?

He's meaning pumping the arm/disc forward as you begin the X-step, in tempo with the stride. If you try it with a hammer you'll feel when to naturally stride around the disc, since the hammer has its own weight that will really fight you if you try to just manipulate it forward and then back.

 

[Putt for D'oh]

Slowplastic nailed it.

This is a pretty common issue and I couldn't find the mark up SW does often with lizzotte, but the first picture here.

Another way to think about it is left-foot with right-arm, right-foot with left-arm just like walking. The way so many new players start is to pump the disc forward with your right arm AS you take your first step with your right foot... then Xstep behind with the left, by the time your feet are in the position of Paige in the top pic the disc is full reachback, body turned away from target and rear foot is so often turned too far away from the target.

Get the arms and feet in sync. The elephant walk and hammer drills SP linked are good, and HUBs windmill really helps.

 

[Plasticsnapsauce]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1q-gnFCP3p6ASEED6oZ9GGE8893kpElW_

This is me today after a round. I'm trying to focus on timing my forward pump with the x-step. This is again something that I thought I was doing before and now I realized that I'm about half a step to fast when I'm not focusing on it.

I've also been focusing on keeping my rear foot facing forwardish which has been very difficult. When I come into my x step I feel like I'm really having to contort my foot to get it straight, or at least thats how it was feeling on this throw.

Earlier today I watched a video about backhand timing and in the video Danny Lindahl was saying that during the x step, you want to try and still keep your and hips perpendicular to the line of play as much as possible, and then to somewhat quickly turn them back and then snap back into the throw as you are planting.

Basically what I take away from that is that I want to somewhat delay my hips turning back so that I can turn them back, feel the torque, and then sort of immediately bounce off of that resistance into the throw, as opposed to turning back early, settling, and then throwing from the turned back position.

It feels like lately I have been turning almost completely backwards on my x step and then throwing from a more turned around position, as opposed to keeping things tighter.

let me know whatcha see and if my rambling seems on point or completely off the mark.

 

[sidewinder22]

Agree with much of what you said. Door Frame and Hershyzer Drills should help turning back late with more lateral/sideways footwork. The rear foot should like 135 degrees pointed away like a skater, not 180 pointed backwards and not 90 completely sideways. In your pre-swings you are still over doing your hips swaying and turning back and forth way too much. Get a heavy sledgehammer and swing it back and forth, your hips won't move like that and out of sync. Need to stay more centered inside your feet to let the arm/disc/hammer swing more back and forth in sync with your hips.

Note in first frame you are pushing off your heel instead of instep and your disc is horizontal, you are manipulating it into that position instead of swinging it. Note how much more forward Feldy is driven off his instep/toes with feet more lateral/sideways and disc is vertical.

Note in second frame your rear arm is way out there all the in front of your body and really twisting your body/spine up - this is killing your momentum(and your back) as your rear arm then has to reverse away from target during swing. Your rear foot is over-turned backwards and front foot follows too backward, so both your femurs are facing away from target/camera. Note Feldy's rear arm is coming forward into the plant and his feet and femurs are facing the camera and lateral to target.

Note where my rear arm is above ^, next to my body.

 

[Plasticsnapsauce]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1YXEVaaxvLG4bxvAb_wLHqZl50QKS7SB8

Ive really been focusing on my feet angle(at least trying to), and on timing my pump right forwards. I've also been trying to get that rubber band feeling of backswing immediately into throwing. Let me know if the timing looks better at all.

I still however find I am getting horsestanced. I am finding it hard to not horsestance out, and I'm not sure exactly how to address this best. My throw just feels weakish when I squeeze my knees together. Any advice on this?

 

[RandyC]

Everything in your body language looks like you are preparing to go backwards right from the get go, which is why your brain is having hard time positioning yourself the right way. You should address the throw like you were about to hit a tennis ball, hockey shot, or any other throwing/swinging/hitting sport. Backswing is the "loading" phase but your focus should be at all times forward. If you freezeframe top pros throwing at any time, their body language says they are going forward. If you freezeframe your throw, there are points that could be interpreted you running away from the target. Hope this makes sense.

 

[sidewinder22]

Record some Door Frame Drills. You are hugging yourself/curling arm around disc. Need to extend the disc/arm away from you and let the door frame and your weight going forward pull your arm wider/turn shoulders further back into plant.

If you did that backswing with a sledgehammer it would pull you backwards away from target as you are leaning over/away from the target behind your rear foot, instead of balanced/leveraged inside the rear foot to leverage your body/weight against the weight of the sledgehammer or disc going back. Your balance is also way behind your heels, easier to see from behind the tee camera view. You are also going way too fast with your feet.

 

[Plasticsnapsauce]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zLen3x8seD1SNufnPkBCh0bjo5wf1JW7

This is me doing the door frame drill using a pole where I normally throw. I realized that I hadn't watched the door frame drill video in a while, and also had not watched all three :doh:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Yuo5CjGzas-uvFS7rPQ_lhpryK-rPYT1

Here is me doing a stand still and an x step shot after doing the door frame drill for a while. I think that my form is improving because of this but any input is always appreciated.

 

[sidewinder22]

Yeah that looked better. In DFD your stance is too inline with the door frame/ hand/disc rounding back behind you. You adjusted over slightly mid-way, but not far enough over to the right tee pad side/inside door frame. Front toe nails should be in straight line to your wrist/door frame, so your disc/arm should be at a wider angle from your stance and shoulders. Looks like your front heel is inline to wrist/door frame.

When you shift your hips/weight forward your front heel should be dropping/tapping the ground, so whole leg/heel and center of gravity drops forward together and kind of bounces back a little. You should be able to tap the ground with the heel/weight, but not stay weighted on ground unless you actually let go of the door frame and let your weightshift fully go that last 1".

 

[Plasticsnapsauce]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1joevg2al5Xip5hJ-NS2LLLA-XiGuJvRt


Alright so here's a few more throws. I can definitely feel the back leg helping the throw now after doing the door frame drill more concertedly. I'm focusing here on trying to keep my reachback wide.

 

[sidewinder22]

Yep, on right track. When you actually go to throw your balance is too far behind your front heel/right tee pad side. Need to stack up more balanced upright on the front leg. You are also pulling with your elbow too much instead of the keeping the elbow in place relative to your shoulder and just hinging the elbow to swing the lower arm/disc by using your body/shoulders turning instead of elbow pulling.

 

[Plasticsnapsauce]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uv5nFFxmLX6YzIY2KNOZx7vITgogDsMR


I haven't been able to get out and throw in a while and I feel like I have maybe gotten sloppy a bit since this, but let me know what you guys can see with this most recent throwing.

 

[sidewinder22]

You are trying to rotate the swing from the rear foot/weight back, instead of shifting all of your weight forward and swinging on the front leg. Raise your rear foot off the ground, let gravity crush the can, then swing.

 

[Plasticsnapsauce]

Well it's been cold where I am so I haven't been able to get out and do fieldwork. I have been playing some rounds here and there with friends and I can say that I am now soundly beating everyone in my friend group. I've been playing with a local club as well and I'm definitely in the bottom 5 people there, but I'm not too worried.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RxaUWVkSWPqdPSFJ-TUFoxqoxnIjqMJt

Here is today's drive. the first two little practice run ups were me trying to feel the brace and I noticed that I was getting unbalanced and coming over my brace. I feel like I corrected this in the actual throw though. I also have been focusing on bringing my plant leg more towards the left side of the tee pad, kind of out in front of me more. As always let me know what you guys see.

 

[slowplastic]

So in general you aren't connecting/leveraging your arm from your body, you are telling your arm when to move forward and back by using your arm muscles rather than feeling when your body is set up to move your arm. In your left in-behind step your body is turned backwards to the teepad rather than being more in balance to load into the hip. And then you are pushing your body into rotation from your back leg rather than moving your balance onto your front leg and then throwing.

To fundamentally feel how these things should be different, I would do the elephant walk drill along with any of these motions to try to feel some leverage in this video. Elephant walk is at 4:40 of the first video. Use a hammer or something heavy. Posting this is helpful for advice even if it seems goofy.

As well the one leg drill will help you set up on the front leg rather than allowing yourself to push "into" the front hip from the rear leg.

 

[Plasticsnapsauce]

I went back and watched all my videos in this thread and I have definitely fixed a lot of smaller issues, but I think I finally see what I am doing wrong. As almost every reply in my thread has stated, I am throwing off the back leg and not setting up on the front leg.

Today I focused soley on this. I did several one leg drills with a heavy dumbbell bar, and I can post that if you guys think necessary. When I went to throw today though I completely stopped trying to throw far, or really "throw" the disc at all. I focused completely on not throwing with my arm and only letting the momentum through the shot carry the disc. After watching the video I think my timing and setup are better now that I have realized this (finally) but I think I may still be fighting some muscle memory from before.

Hopefully I'm starting to move into being able to use the momentum, it's certainly started to feel that way a little bit. I'm sure however that other parts of my form have broken back down but I'm ok with that right now, As I said all I am focusing on here is keeping the throw as effortless as possible and using the momentum from the one leg position.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1DmECzf1t0s9lyTL8H_6TEOVUhY6jPDAn


I really appreciate the continued advice and feedback.