Shifting correctly makes bracing easy

[Brychanus]

The brace should form as part of the body dropping as a unit off the rear side. The upper body should be counterrotating the shift as you get coiled up against the drive leg (Ride the Bull, Double Dragon, Open to Closed Drills, Buttwipe etc.). You can learn it by doing it!

All of the top players (and more) have a Ride the Bull move that involves downshifting (if I am using this term consistently with SW and others, including the "compression" that results).

I keep seeing developing players who have no vertical component to their shift with "straight and flat" form, and they keep trying to knife their braces into the ground like a pole vaulter's pole rather than shift and develop The Move smoothly and safely. They often say things like "I finally felt and understand the brace." What they're actually feeling is getting jammed up. I'm a little worried about them. Maybe they haven't ****ed up their knees and hips yet, but I'm watching. Thus, my review and summary here today:

What is "downshifting," and how can I learn to see it?
There are certain persons on the internet claiming that the head doesn't go down or stays on the same level during The Good Swing (pro-level form). This notion is clearly false after an even casual inspection of top players throwing far. When McBeth is used as an example, it is in error. Paul's (1) downshift has became a little smaller in some distance throws since he stretched his form out horizontally, but is still present and (2) as he powers up, he is still clearly using a significant downshift. Your head is part of your body, and your body is seriously disadvantaged and your form has real upper limits if you aren't surrendering to gravity. I will explain.

Even a casual estimate of the downshift force is significant, and necessarily more so if you are more massive. I made a new estimate for Drew Gibson to get a better measure of his vertical impact force as a function of his mass and "drop" height landing in the plant. He reported he weighs 230lbs as weighed on a scale, which surprised me. But then again the guy also has some serious junk in his trunk and puts his time in at the gym.

Now consider his elite form, athletic and quick horizontal acceleration, and powerful body, and you know where a lot of his power comes from.


Paul's significant downshift in days of yore and recently:

Simon's is still there:

Do the really long guys still have one? Why yes, yes they do:

Reflections on the downshift and how to "commit to the fall"
Otherwise, there is one significant part of this that took me a long time to do once, which also made it harder to understand. Many developing players are not "riding down the ramp" or "the halfpipe" or the "Brinsterochrone" curve in a "freefall" supported by the drive leg into the diagonal shift. In the X-hop, the freefall begins before the drive leg hits the ground.

Again: the freefall begins before the drive leg hits the ground.

The drive leg is ideally a balance point that helps you load up torque in the backswing relaxed while still maintaining and building forward momentum/acceleration. This is why SW often treats the X as a hop or gallop or trot. And many players aren't galloping, trotting, or hopping through the move so they never seem to find this part:

Kick the Can is IMO a top tier drill for training this (again, assuming other pre-reqs are in place).

As a case in point and since many people are having an even harder time seeing this as players get taller and longer and more horizontal on tour, even the ultra-horizontal Eagle's "trot" or X-hop used to be more obvious even if you can't see it in his modern form. This is still there but smoothed out and even more compressed. But IMHO it's part of his downshift and how he "falls" into the plant.

 

[drk_evns]

IMO this is the single most difficult part of the throw to learn. Hard to understand until you've felt it. Nicely put.

 

[Sard0nyx]

The brace should form as part of the body dropping as a unit off the rear side. The upper body should be counterrotating the shift as you get coiled up against the drive leg (Ride the Bull, Double Dragon, Open to Closed Drills, Buttwipe etc.). You can learn it by doing it!

All of the top players (and more) have a Ride the Bull move that involves downshifting (if I am using this term consistently with SW and others, including the "compression" that results).

I keep seeing developing players who have no vertical component to their shift with "straight and flat" form, and they keep trying to knife their braces into the ground like a pole vaulter's pole rather than shift and develop The Move smoothly and safely. They often say things like "I finally felt and understand the brace." What they're actually feeling is getting jammed up. I'm a little worried about them. Maybe they haven't ****ed up their knees and hips yet, but I'm watching. Thus, my review and summary here today:

Reflections on the downshift and how to "commit to the fall"
Otherwise, there is one significant part of this that took me a long time to do once, which also made it harder to understand. Many developing players are not "riding down the ramp" or "the halfpipe" or the "Brinsterochrone" curve in a "freefall" supported by the drive leg into the diagonal shift. In the X-hop, the freefall begins before the drive leg hits the ground.

Again: the freefall begins before the drive leg hits the ground.

Interesting thoughts. And you know I've been looking into the vertical portion a little lately. These thoughts remind me of some old Loopghost videos.




I don't know why, but I feel better timing when I swing the disc up instead of from under like a pendulum. And it sort of flattens out a bit so it's not a true circular windmill. I need to experiment with it more since swinging up and around helps keep my elbow up just a little more than it usually does.

Let me know if I'm totally off base or if these videos are what you're talking about.

On a separate note, looks like there's the secret to throwing a Roc at least 360'......

 

[Brychanus]

IMO this is the single most difficult part of the throw to learn. Hard to understand until you've felt it. Nicely put.

Thanks man - I agree and this might have been the single most difficult thing to get my body to do while not hurting myself, and even harder when trying to learn the X-hop/step. From a coaching perspective I'm paying a lot more attention to this now because I agree that once you feel it and start converting it into your throws for the first time it often triggers this literally eye-opening "OH!" experience for a lot of people. If you don't feel it early on even if the movement is rough it's a lot harder to figure out how to integrate it later.

Interesting thoughts. And you know I've been looking into the vertical portion a little lately. These thoughts remind me of some old Loopghost videos.

I don't know why, but I feel better timing when I swing the disc up instead of from under like a pendulum. And it sort of flattens out a bit so it's not a true circular windmill. I need to experiment with it more since swinging up and around helps keep my elbow up just a little more than it usually does.

Let me know if I'm totally off base or if these videos are what you're talking about.

On a separate note, looks like there's the secret to throwing a Roc at least 360'......

I do have something to say about this and as usual it's a posture point. When I do a pendulum swing, it has always been slightly more likely that I swing underhanded and my posture collapses even when my kinetics (muscularly) are functioning ok.

I have the usual "it depends" hunch about this now. I think people differ a bit in terms of how their body likes to swing through a pendulum or forward windmill or reverse windmill with or without a full pump. Some of that is probably learning history, body type, and even other components of their form.

SW just suggested that I use the pendulum as part of my first move in the x-hop to help me mitigate leaning away (which this time worked almost immediately), and then I ended up connecting it to my recently developed forward windmill move. For whatever reason, it seems like this combo gets everything lined up much more powerfully for me by the time I shift and plant. It's also easier to aim in transition thru my x-hop and suddenly felt way more ergonomic and consistent than anything I did before. I think some of that has to do with my body type and joint structure. Some of that also has to do with how I learned the rest of what I've developed even as we discarded various things that didn't work so well for me. Suddenly it felt like my legs were helping my upper body and vice versa throughout the whole sequence, which has never quite happened before. And I'll never be Gurthie, but **** does it feel like I can gravity-shift a house down.

There's wisdom in there, which is keep your feet to the fire, try things out, and see which ones fit best effortlessly. You need to be willing to toss things out like yesterday's news sometimes. Others you need to find that old newspaper in the trashcan and say "hey, maybe that's actually a really good read right now. What if I combine it with that other thing I've gotten much better at?"

In any case I encourage everyone: learn to -safely- harness and be in harmony with gravity.

 

[Brychanus]

Also, last thing on safety & lessons learned. This is a serious caution and benefit of developing effective standstills.

You need to know how to handle forces and move well and get stuff aligned and your hips and legs and body moving fluidly. Take it from my dodgy knees: when I drop my 235lbs. from my even more vertical shift than Gibson, I'm dropping like 500+ lbs. briefly on my relatively wimpier leg and learning to redirect it into the throw.

If my posture and legs and the ground aren't jiving reasonably well to get my leg moving smoothly through the brace process, it's no surprise when I risk knee and hip pain and injury.

A high-level DG BH is an incredibly athletic throwing motion even when it looks smooth. Being in the right kind of physical shape for the moves and moving well are reciprocal parts of the process if you are aiming to build your Good Swing.

 

[RowingBoats]

I agree that the fall/pump can be elusive, but I also think some of these examples are pretty extreme lol. You can generate this feeling and play with it with a putting stroke and I'd probably recommend starting with these less extreme motions.

Yes, 'kicking the can' is more literally applicable to drives, but the concept doesn't require the movement. I don't know, maybe its just me but literally kicking a ball seems like it might demonstrate a lot of weird ideas in someone's mind if they are trying to capture the overall feeling.

Definitely not knocking the drill or ideas posted here, but I can see how this might cause Beto drill level wtfs out of some people playing with it.

 

[Brychanus]

I agree that the fall/pump can be elusive, but I also think some of these examples are pretty extreme lol. You can generate this feeling and play with it with a putting stroke and I'd probably recommend starting with these less extreme motions.

Yes, 'kicking the can' is more literally applicable to drives, but the concept doesn't require the movement. I don't know, maybe its just me but literally kicking a ball seems like it might demonstrate a lot of weird ideas in someone's mind if they are trying to capture the overall feeling.

Definitely not knocking the drill or ideas posted here, but I can see how this might cause Beto drill level wtfs out of some people playing with it.

Yes, I got a little excited about the big guns & gainz there and should clarify a couple things for new/peering eyes.

I agree that starting small and finding the move across putts and drives is important, and everything should be taken in context. Including the Beto drill, where it has been pointed out that something he doesn't talk about is the weight shift and action of the lower body that is part of the power of that drill. I almost ruined my body chasing that drill without understanding the rest.

When talking about Kick the Can specifically, no one should look at that or any other drill as a fix all. I used to do that drill completely wrong too, and drills done poorly make the throw go poorly. The concept it is trying to teach is for people who are trying to optimize their move and force they get using their body mass moving and landing on an optimal braced tilt through the X. If you are not familiar (in concept and in your body) with what I mean, the drill may not be for you. When I mentioned that other pre-reqs should be in place, I mean any of the very many mechanical things that can and often do go wrong before people get to worrying about optimizing an X-hop/step. I spent over 900 posts here before I even got to it (and there again, partly the challenge of online/remote exchange learning).

What Kick the Can can do well if done well (IMO) is exaggerate swinging the body into the move on a braced tilt synced with gravity as a unit with force. Many X moves out there don't have this baked into the motion, which in some circumstances can place power ceilings on the player. No, it is certainly not the only way to learn this. Yes, I agree it can backfire if it triggers the wrong concepts for the individual.

Edit: just to cap it off, I want to reinforce that momentum & gravity & the big forces they can provide are required for big, "effortless" power. But if you don't move those forces through smooth, efficient, safe form you probably will get hurt. Start small and slow.

 

[semisensei]

Brychanus, can you expand on what you mean by, "[some Ams] keep trying to knife their braces into the ground like a pole vaulter's pole rather than shift and develop The Move smoothly and safely. They often say things like "I finally felt and understand the brace." What they're actually feeling is getting jammed up." ?

 

[Brychanus]

Brychanus, can you expand on what you mean by, "[some Ams] keep trying to knife their braces into the ground like a pole vaulter's pole rather than shift and develop The Move smoothly and safely. They often say things like "I finally felt and understand the brace." What they're actually feeling is getting jammed up." ?

I think there are a few flavors, but in general a lot of players with mechanically flat swings (which results in the lack of the right curvature of the swing plane) have:

1. Very little or no side bend, with their shoulders pretty parallel to the ground through the whole throw.
2. Very little or no downshift per above,
3. No "swivel stairs" like action in their x-step, meaning that the front hip is not in a position to continue the move from the rear side in a posture that keeps the hip moving smoothly when they land.

When these things or a few others happen, you'll see a player's head stay pretty parallel to the ground and their head rising when they plant. They are basically trying to max out on vertical shift without downshift.

As a result, they tend to lack smooth, safe pressure flow through their plant instep and then up the chain since they aren't working well with and then resisting gravity when they land. So the outstep or sometimes heel of their foot is more like knifing or jamming into the ground more like a rigid vaulting pole. The natural tendency is then for the body to tilt up like a pole vaulter vaulting over the leg. But the person has put themself in a posture that they brace so firmly they still get swing power, but basically at the risk of their knee and hip.

In these cases, sometimes the front shoulder rises, or sometimes it doesn't when they have figured out how to get the front hip to partially "clear," but are still not doing the complete swivel move.

The better move is still definitely an abrupt shift and strong against the ground in the landing, but it is also smooth, quick, and puts much more of the load into the muscles of the leg than the joints.

 

[Sad2980]

I've been trying to play around with vertical forces in my swing, but I find it hard to do actively. When you talk about vertical forces and dropping during the plant, I picture a sequential move in which I actively squat down on the front leg during the backswing and push up during the forward swing.

This has been pretty hard for me to do with any sort of rhythm and causes me to lean back during the forward swing. My throws typically come out nose up and hyzer when I attempt to incorporate verical forces actively.

Should this be an active move, or should it happen more passively as a consequence of good swing mechanics?

 

[jenb]

Here's a question(s). The OP states "in a backhand, the disc is coming out of your hand with your arm pointing at approximately 10:30 on a clock, assuming that 12:00 is the actual line the disc will fly on."

In bent elbow technique, is it the forearm that's pointed at 10:30 when the disc starts coming out of the hand? Where is the forearm pointed when you feel the hit?

 

[Brychanus]

correcting error above:

When these things or a few others happen, you'll see a player's head stay pretty parallel to the ground and their head rising when they plant. They are basically trying to max out on horizontal shift without downshift.

I've been trying to play around with vertical forces in my swing, but I find it hard to do actively. When you talk about vertical forces and dropping during the plant, I picture a sequential move in which I actively squat down on the front leg during the backswing and push up during the forward swing.

This has been pretty hard for me to do with any sort of rhythm and causes me to lean back during the forward swing. My throws typically come out nose up and hyzer when I attempt to incorporate verical forces actively.

Downshift doesn't need to be enormous (and differs per player), it just needs to be there.

1. Don't squat. Sit or hinge back more like moving to sit in a chair. I think part of the problem learning this is that feels dramatically less powerful to most people at first and then they end up squatting or pushing. Don't fall for this trap! I did too. I can tell you that those muscles are still working plenty based on my next day recovery even though my swings feel much, much easier when I'm throwing.

2. Swivel stairs gets the downshift part right. Tricky part is translating to throws and mastering the same move on flat ground with bigger shifts. One way to help SW mentioned to me a while back: got a downhill slope near you (see slash thru)? That can help translate the move. Door frame drill drop is the same thing and can help you find your "max" loading and shift. IMO one of the tough things here is that as you add momentum, you are taxing the plant leg briefly with more peak force. Wiggins' leg probably feels loaded up and compressed loaded like a spring against the ground here, but is still smoothly getting out of the way going East with his butt helping lead the swing (if North is top of tee).

It's because he's hinging and more "seated" into the move than most developing players. That's also part of why he moves so well from his setup & runup into the move - he sets that posture before he starts moving. It took me weeks to get more comfortably "seated." My body didn't want to in part due to learning history, weakness, and it "feeling" much less powerful at first. But recently it started to noticeably improve that compression and downshift we're talking about.

3. All kinds of other tricks apply. Get individualized input and work on the basics first. One that also helped me was run sideways 10, 50, 100 yards with booty preset. Bit of a trot or gallop or bounce in the move. Land and swing (carefully) at the end.

Here's a question(s). The OP states "in a backhand, the disc is coming out of your hand with your arm pointing at approximately 10:30 on a clock, assuming that 12:00 is the actual line the disc will fly on."

In bent elbow technique, is it the forearm that's pointed at 10:30 when the disc starts coming out of the hand? Where is the forearm pointed when you feel the hit?

The way I think about & see this in form has changed as I've learned more. I'd say "yes, approximately":

IMHO the exact answer depends a lot on body and form details in the 10:00-10:30 range. E.g., I have very wide shoulders and short arms. I model a lot of what I'm doing in my form work now after young Paul McBeth, but my natural leverage point tends to be very similar to Gurthie in the above whether I'm using a hammer, hammerfisting a wall like SW, backfisting my heavy bag, or slashing through something with a disc. Notice that this also has training implications: I tend to get a big stretch in my right pec because of the big angle my shoulder takes, so I make sure I'm very loose and limber at the shoulders before I throw my first shot of the day.

Keep in mind that there's something your arm needs to be doing as it gets to that ~10-10:30 release point, and part of what causes it. The forearm's mass is causing it to deflecting in toward your body, and the arm muscles should be initially relaxed and then resisting that shoulder from collapsing or forearm collapsing into the chest. That's part of why the elbow appears to lead more significantly in an actual drive at some points in the swing entering and exiting the pocket. Getting that resistance and "pounding out" from your center resisting the forearm collapsing in was really difficult for me. I got that to work much more easily on one leg first and am still working on X-hop to make sure I don't ruin that effect when I land.

Should this be an active move, or should it happen more passively as a consequence of good swing mechanics?

If you don't mind me asking, I'm sincerely curious - what do you mean by "active" and "passive"? That will help me think and respond better. People use these words often enough that I've started to ask and people provide interesting answers and sometimes they mean different things.

Here's kind of a general concept you might like, but your answer might change what I say. In a way, I'd say things usually progress from more "conscious/active" to more "unconscious/passive." Eventually "everything should happen more passively as a consequence of good swing mechanics" in the sense that you want motor automaticity- freeswinging & free of mind. Then you can put more intention into any part of the swing goal or parts of the swing.

E.g., I find that I have a lot more control over what happens when I land in the plant now and can change some parts of the swing in real time. But I'm not usually thinking about that at all for most shots since the action is becoming so automatic. Both of those effects are because of all the practice and drills I've done.

 

[Sad2980]

If you don't mind me asking, I'm sincerely curious - what do you mean by "active" and "passive"? That will help me think and respond better. People use these words often enough that I've started to ask and people provide interesting answers and sometimes they mean different things.

Here's kind of a general concept you might like, but your answer might change what I say. In a way, I'd say things usually progress from more "conscious/active" to more "unconscious/passive." Eventually "everything should happen more passively as a consequence of good swing mechanics" in the sense that you want motor automaticity- freeswinging & free of mind. Then you can put more intention into any part of the swing goal or parts of the swing.

E.g., I find that I have a lot more control over what happens when I land in the plant now and can change some parts of the swing in real time. But I'm not usually thinking about that at all for most shots since the action is becoming so automatic. Both of those effects are because of all the practice and drills I've done.

Good question and one I might have difficulty articulating an answer too, lol.

Early in my development I tried to conceptualize the swing as a series of movements performed in sequential order. I.e step here, move the arm and shoulders there, shift weight, etc. I thought of each movement as a conscientious "action" that happened one after the other. My form was really rigid and tight and I was muscling the disc 100% while trying to figure out if I was missing something in the "sequence". SW and others pointed out in form reviews that my thought process was flawed and my swing needed to be more "dynamic".

This feedback coupled with a lot of posts/videos that talk about being loose/whipping lead me to try more pendulum/kinetic chain action in my swing and I've started to think of the movement more as a series of postures and actions (the "active" part) that set up movement through specific points and positions (the "passive" part).

For me the active parts are conscientious movements that I hope will become unconscious movements with practice and the passive parts are the results of good active mechanics.

I might be really off base here and would be interested in what others think. For me these concepts have felt like major barriers and breakthroughs in my swing.