"Simple Keys" to Disc Golf

[keltik1]

I think we need to lock Blake, JR, and iacas in a mountain cabin for the winter and see what they hash out by next spring. I'll also take bets as to who gets killed first.

 

[Ryen]

i SAY THEY all die to an explosion of the cabin november 25th by 2 (looks in my closet) no 3 and half sticks of dynamite at exactly 3 pm and I will be bet 10000 dollars on that .....what are my odds of being exactly right I say you should give me 20 to 1 LOL

 

[iacas]

I think we need to lock Blake, JR, and iacas in a mountain cabin for the winter and see what they hash out by next spring. I'll also take bets as to who gets killed first.

I'd do it. Let me check my calendar. Hmmm... It appears my first free winter is 2047. If we could do a half-winter, though, I can squeeze it in Dec-Jan 2042.

I do appreciate all of the conversation. Thank you very much.

In golf though we have 5 Simple Keys, they're each, when broken down, fairly intricate and they leave plenty of room for the individual quirks or "personality" of each person's golf swing. Nick Price (and I) have a fairly fast tempo golfing, while someone like Fred Couples has a slow tempo. But Nick Price and Fred Couples were both major winners and top ranked golfers because of the things they did have in common - absolute control over 5SK - while finding a tempo that suited them, and even fairly big differences in parts of their golf swing (their backswings are quite different, their posture, follow-throughs, etc.).

Students like 5SK in golf because they realize they only have to do five things (and many already do one or two) to get better. It clarifies things for them, and simplifies things.

Anyway... I'd be killed first, even if it's by offing myself because I'd be without Internet access for too long. Though by 2042 maybe we'll have neural Internet or something.

 

[JR]

I have a guess about the reason why you're doing this and my advice is to keep at it. Don't give up because there are yahoos in the other place don't condemn us based on what they are doing. You are asking so much that answering would entail a books worth of info. Most if not all disc golfers are shocked to see their throws in slow motion because they thought they were doing one thing and then they see what they are really doing. Disc golf is really cool and so are many people in it. Here is some slow motion pivoting from a video that two nobodies made with a world champion with two 3x world champions as spotters and crowd controllers:

So with these kind of people in the game how can you go wrong? So keep at it and i'll reply to some of your points later i got cold from throwing today and am getting shivers. By the way check out the other vids from the same channel and the channel citysmasher1 for Bradley explaining many things well.

Finnish winter is long so you'd get a much longer time window to arrange the schedule :-D

the most given advice here revolves around the most important things all the best players have in common. So we're right with you with the keys and Blake has preached that probably from when this site was created and most seem to have benefited from it so we sure get where you're coming from. There's a video on Youtube with Christian Sandström, the Jenkins siblings and Nate Doss visiting the Swedish top athlete studying center with all sorts of measurements. Avery and Dave did blue suite measurements when they were at the university of Oregon but i don't know about release of the data. Mister Carlsen from Norway did his thesis of top Norwegian players driving and he measured them with 8 computer controlled 280 FPS cameras IIRC. I translated the most important parts in:
http://discgolfreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4019&hilit=thesis

Unfortunately that site doesn't have the thesis any more and i don't know where else Mr. Carlsen released it later. He reads the Norwegian disc golf association site if you need to contact him.

 

[iacas]

I have a guess about the reason why you're doing this and my advice is to keep at it. Don't give up because there are yahoos in the other place don't condemn us based on what they are doing.

Primarily:

1. I'm stuck at home in a chair (doing work) and mildly obsessed with DG, so this is about all I can do to satisfy that right now.
2. My mind works like this. I like to boil things down to the true essentials, leaving room for "personality," and it helps fine-tune my practice and get results the fastest.
3. I'm always reading things like The Talent Code, etc. and find that this way of approaching problems fits in well with that.
4. I'm a golf instructor, and I'm passionate about that, so thinking about other problems improves my skills as an instructor.
5. I hate sucking at things.

The "other" site has actually been pretty decent in this discussion. It might be a bit too high-brow (and believe me, that's a pretty low bar) for many of the "lesser" elements to have joined in, if you know what I mean.

You are asking so much that answering would entail a books worth of info. Most if not all disc golfers are shocked to see their throws in slow motion because they thought they were doing one thing and then they see what they are really doing. Disc golf is really cool and so are many people in it. Here is some slow motion pivoting from a video that two nobodies made with a world champion with two 3x world champions as spotters and crowd controllers.

I've got that video on my desktop right now, actually. And this image, which I just made earlier today:
http://f.cl.ly/items/302U0Q2d1L1t073d250A/Schusterick.jpg

So with these kind of people in the game how can you go wrong? So keep at it and i'll reply to some of your points later i got cold from throwing today and am getting shivers. By the way check out the other vids from the same channel and the channel citysmasher1 for Bradley explaining many things well.

Thanks. I will do that (eventually... as much as I want to not work, you know how it goes... ).

the most given advice here revolves around the most important things all the best players have in common. So we're right with you with the keys and Blake has preached that probably from when this site was created and most seem to have benefited from it so we sure get where you're coming from.

Thanks. I didn't want to shut out the thoughts on the "visual" thing Blake mentioned earlier. I'm not sure what he meant. With a full reach-back players aren't looking at the target the whole time, so that's not what he meant. I'm hoping he comes back and shares some thoughts on that. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's almost the same as "Steady Head" in the golf 5SK - maintaining a constant head height or something. I'm hoping to hear more about it.

There's a video on Youtube with Christian Sandström, the Jenkins siblings and Nate Doss visiting the Swedish top athlete studying center with all sorts of measurements. Avery and Dave did blue suite measurements when they were at the university of Oregon but i don't know about release of the data. Mister Carlsen from Norway did his thesis of top Norwegian players driving and he measured them with 8 computer controlled 280 FPS cameras IIRC. I translated the most important parts in:
http://discgolfreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4019&hilit=thesis

Thank you. It sounds like a great study and I'm really interested in the data. Hopefully this is the start of a trend for more analysis of the throwing motion(s) of the game's best.

 

[JR]

I don't want to dictate the amount of keys you need to get right. One absolute necessity for a good throw is getting a strong enough grip that doesn't allow the disc to slip out early to the side or without pivoting the disc properly.

I know that eye movements have been tracked with sensors placed in a headband. Feldy said that he sees white when he drives and like a golfer doesn't raise his head until the shoulders turning in the follow through turns the head. I'm different in my form. I retain eye sight and do aim visually too. I pick a spot in pre throw planning to which i aim and try to regain eye contact after the reach back as soon as possible with the eyes turned to the right side. I also turn my head to the right with flat shots (not spike hyzers mimicking mirrored golf swings in the angle of the arm movement) in the pause. That way i see the target as early as possible allowing the eyes to focus and see the target clearly enough to aim at it both sideways and height wise. Because the disc needs to move in a straight line (mostly anyway) the legs, hips and shoulders moving in the kinetic chain sequenced differently from bottom to the top rotate a lot to the right the neck gets stressed. I'm a former competition swimmer so strength and mobility of the neck ain't a problem for me. I've been told that throwing like i do is dangerous for people with neck trouble. YMMV. In golf the weight of the head and neck and shoulder muscle mobility limit the head movement range before the head becomes too tightly connected to the torso weight and pulling you away from the necessary angles. Things are different with a flat throw thanks to a lot more free neck movement range. I have a limber neck and my body and head are effectively isolated from each other by an analogue of a ball bearing. So i don't think my head bobs so much that it ruins the angles.

Aiming with Visual cues is just one method that needs to be executed simultaneously with weight of the direction change pressing against the fingers aiming (AKA aiming with the thumb nail at the rip) and the direction of the running and arm pull vector.

I know you asked about much more but seeing as you like to study the details i anticipate objections and follow up questions so lets limit the topics for manageable post lengths for now. Possibly ;-)

 

[iacas]

I know you asked about much more but seeing as you like to study the details i anticipate objections and follow up questions so lets limit the topics for manageable post lengths for now. Possibly ;-)

No length to this response: your visual spotting system wouldn't qualify as a key as it's not a commonality.

A disc slipping out early would probably fall under the "Controlled Torque" Key (or whatever it ends up being called, if it even lasts).

 

[JR]

One Feldy does not exclude it from being usable and common. I have no data on how common visual aiming is though and especially for which line. I'm not willing to limit teaching to just commonalities when there is a better alternative. And adding visual aiming on top of the other methods produces very real benefits.

 

[iacas]

One Feldy does not exclude it from being usable and common. I have no data on how common visual aiming is though and especially for which line. I'm not willing to limit teaching to just commonalities when there is a better alternative. And adding visual aiming on top of the other methods produces very real benefits.

All I'm saying is that people can't see the target line from their reach-back stage. If 99.9%+ of advanced disc golfers acquire visual aim at a certain point in the throwing motion, then I'd include it. Otherwise, it's not a commonality, it's a preference, and thus not a Key.

You can disagree with that if you'd like, and I've got no problem with that. But I could name a bunch of "preferences" in golf too that don't become Keys just because a particular instructor or group of players or whatever happen to like them and have good results. If that's the case it's more of an advanced trick or something than a Key.

But since I really am not sure what you mean by this visual stuff, we might be talking about two very different things for all I know.

 

[JR]

One Feldy does not exclude it from being usable and common. I have no data on how common visual aiming is though and especially for which line. I'm not willing to limit teaching to just commonalities when there is a better alternative. And adding visual aiming on top of the other methods produces very real benefits.

All I'm saying is that people can't see the target line from their reach-back stage. If 99.9%+ of advanced disc golfers acquire visual aim at a certain point in the throwing motion, then I'd include it. Otherwise, it's not a commonality, it's a preference, and thus not a Key.

You can disagree with that if you'd like, and I've got no problem with that. But I could name a bunch of "preferences" in golf too that don't become Keys just because a particular instructor or group of players or whatever happen to like them and have good results. If that's the case it's more of an advanced trick or something than a Key.

But since I really am not sure what you mean by this visual stuff, we might be talking about two very different things for all I know.

Unfortunately i don't know how many top players aim visually. I sure hope the percentage among them is higher than with all disc golfers because it works well. You mentioned your baseball background. They aim visually and disc golf is the same at least to a degree. How close they are to each other i can't say exactly because the last time i've hit a ball with a bat was over 20 years ago. I sure hope visual aiming is a key and not just a trick to improve upon the keys.

From the maximum reach back until eye contact with the aiming point with focused eye sight you aim with the line you're running on. And depending on the form pulling the arm in a straight line at the target (you know the line because you've done a slow pre throw routine placing the arm straight on the line and reaching back on the same line then pulling the arm never deviating). Or with a different form pulling the arm partially simultaneously with the eye aiming in the transition phase from rail to elbow chop aiming (which goes straight at the target).

 

[CE-Leopard]

One of the big keys in ball golf is your setup, your body position at address. We don't really get that in disc golf since our lead-in to the throw is a run-up. So the run-up itself becomes our address position. I would say that footwork and balance before the throw are a big separator between good players and beginners. Good players have a defined X-step with good balance and not a lot of lateral pressure on their feet. The best players throw nearly as well on a wet teepad as they do on a dry one, and that's because they are balanced and light on their feet into the throw.

1. Controlled and balanced X-step approach
2. Throwing motion on plane with intended flight path
3. Weight forward
4. Wrist snap
5. Nose control

In order of occurence, not necessarily importance. The big mistakes I see beginners make are:

1. Poor footwork, leading to falling-over, off balance throws
2. Throws that start low and end high at release, air bouncing the disc
3. Weight back
4. No snap at all, just arm movement
5. No nose angle control, usually nose up

 

[iacas]

One of the big keys in ball golf is your setup, your body position at address.

Setup is not a key, no. I think perhaps you jumped in to the conversation late and skimmed or didn't read the earlier posts. I think my first post talks a bit about why this is not a "Key" (simple version: it's nowhere near a commonality among golfers, nor is it really measurable). It's a preference, and different people will have different setups.

1. Controlled and balanced X-step approach

This is for all BH throws, some of which don't have any steps or approaches. "Balance" would be under "weight forward" (done properly).

2. Throwing motion on plane with intended flight path

Covered in the OAT Key.

3. Weight forward

We agree.

4. Wrist snap

Kind of being discussed...

5. Nose control

Rolled into plane of disc control (nose AND wing).

Here's what I currently have (pulled the list from the DGCR thread):

Key #1 - Level Body
Key #2 - Weight Forward
Key #3 - Accelerating Pivot
Key #4 - Controlled Disc Plane
Key #5 - Controlled Torque

I don't like all of the words, and one or two might not even last, and we may add one or two, but I'm pretty happy with them right now.

Level Body talks about not bouncing up and down - your head, shoulders, arm, etc. will tend to maintain a fairly level position from reach-back to just after release.

Weight Forward is of course not just getting your weight forward but doing it properly.

Accelerating pivot is about the snap but is general enough. I don't particularly care for the wording of current Key #3, but it's talking about effective arm/hip/shoulder motion as well as the disc pivoting around your thumb/index finger.

Controlled disc plane takes into account the wing and nose angle for the desired release angle (hyzer/anhyzer/flat and controlling nose up/down/level).

Controlled Torque isn't the best phrase but it means either delivering no OAT or the desired OAT if for some reason the shot requires it. The arm angle is responsible for this, as is wrist rolling, so those acts go here (as "arm angle matches disc release" and "wrist doesn't roll to add OAT" and things like that).

 

[CE-Leopard]

Alright, sorry for trying to contribute. Sounds like you've got it all figured out.

 

[iacas]

Alright, sorry for trying to contribute. Sounds like you've got it all figured out.

Contributions are welcome, but (to be blunt) you didn't contribute anything because you didn't seem to read any of the earlier posts.

 

[JR]

mikes919 has a definite point that should be included in the keys list in that it is common across all good players that you step lightly, not flat footed and that results in good balance, the ability to reach back far enough for great distance (another commonality among the majority with Uli and Scott Martin being the notable exceptions and Anthon being a halfway mark). A light stepping run also allows proper body positions and timing. Because there are three exceptions limiting their absolute maximum distance in favor of more control, which is more important, it doesn't mean that their conscious choice does not mean it is crucial to reach back far for best distance. Which was the only statistically significant finding in the thesis of Carlsen. It is absolutely crucial to a disc golf throw to step without being flat footed and reaching back far for distance and warrants the title key. I am not proficient in golf so i can't comment on analogies on that side but this is for disc golf right? So if those are one or two keys is a matter of taste and if you can lump one or both under some label with other stuff fine. My only argument is that they are both common enough and influential enough to throwing competitively that the term key should be pondered and debated carefully.

Contrast this: Steve Brinster and lately more and more it would seem Mike Moser seem to breaking key #1 all the time So i posit that even though there may be exceptions among top players to any keys it does not mean that they aren't proficient enough to be able to be top performers thanks to other traits. So that shows how some keys aren't absolutely vital to performing well if you're good enough in other ways to compensate. If there were hard and fast requirements to throwing well which i think you were aiming for there would not be so many different throwing styles.

A different perspective is to think that it is very probable that disc golf has not had enough scientific study with widely available measured data to show the superiority of any form part so training and coaching is much trial and error with methods and individuals varying. So not much has been solidified yet because there is not enough overwhelming evidence about many issues. From that position i'd say developing keys is probably a work in progress for years to come with a moving target and unclear boundaries between keys and what makes the keys keys. And what should be done about the keys training and playing wise. Analysis in disc golf has only one leg over the side of the crib at this point and the results have rarely been shared to the public. Add semantics and bias, personal preferences etc. and you have a good base for an explanation into why so many wildy differing styles exist.

I think Blake has listed some commonalities among top players here earlier. I seem to recall the figure 7 and that he didn't name all of them. No remembrance about in which thread it was. I think that's over a year ago.

 

[iacas]

mikes919 has a definite point that should be included in the keys list in that it is common across all good players that you step lightly, not flat footed and that results in good balance,

FWIW we don't have "balance" in our golf's 5SK because if you maintain a Steady Head and do Weight Forward properly you remain in balance. It's a sub-component of a few Keys, basically, and it strikes me as being similar in disc golf, especially since balance is not entirely accurate in disc golf - you can't freeze at every position and maintain it, unmoving, like in golf. The very act of walking can be described as "falling and catching yourself repeatedly."

But okay, the light-footed stuff I'll talk about shortly...

the ability to reach back far enough for great distance (another commonality among the majority with Uli and Scott Martin being the notable exceptions and Anthon being a halfway mark).

I think that would be included in the key about accelerating pivot (which has a *terrible* name currently). Can less flexible players turn their shoulders and chest 180° away from the target? Or are they better off turning back a bit less? I don't know.

We don't include something like "105° shoulder turn" in golf's 5SK because not everyone is capable of doing this, even though 99% of pros do it, and we talk about how the shoulders work in (again) several of the Keys, including Keys #1 and #4 (golf).

A light stepping run also allows proper body positions and timing. Because there are three exceptions limiting their absolute maximum distance in favor of more control, which is more important, it doesn't mean that their conscious choice does not mean it is crucial to reach back far for best distance. Which was the only statistically significant finding in the thesis of Carlsen. It is absolutely crucial to a disc golf throw to step without being flat footed and reaching back far for distance and warrants the title key. I am not proficient in golf so i can't comment on analogies on that side but this is for disc golf right? So if those are one or two keys is a matter of taste and if you can lump one or both under some label with other stuff fine. My only argument is that they are both common enough and influential enough to throwing competitively that the term key should be pondered and debated carefully.

So which of the five Keys here would you eliminate? Rename and re-purpose? What, given the discussion, would your Keys be (whether there are 3, 4, 5, 8, or 9 or whatever):

Key #1 - Level Body
Key #2 - Weight Forward
Key #3 - Accelerating Pivot
Key #4 - Controlled Disc Plane
Key #5 - Controlled Torque

Contrast this: Steve Brinster and lately more and more it would seem Mike Moser seem to breaking key #1 all the time

If that's the case, I'd probably consider it not a Key. As I've said, Keys have to be achievable, measurable, and an almost absolute commonality among the game's best. If you can easily name two people who aren't doing them, it's likely not a Key.

So i posit that even though there may be exceptions among top players to any keys it does not mean that they aren't proficient enough to be able to be top performers thanks to other traits.

I disagree. Remember, the Keys do not exclude expert disc golfers who have "personality" or "quirks." This guy has all five of the golf Keys despite the backswing you'll see here:

So that shows how some keys aren't absolutely vital to performing well if you're good enough in other ways to compensate.

Then they aren't "Keys" as I've defined them. Keys are absolute requirements and virtually absolute commonalities. Improving a Key should result in improving your motion and consequently your disc golf.

If there were hard and fast requirements to throwing well which i think you were aiming for there would not be so many different throwing styles.

I don't think there are as many different throwing styles as you think, when you break it down to actual Keys. I could show you golf swings that look almost nothing alike and have all sorts of differences, but they absolutely peg each of the 5 Simple Keys to golf. That's what makes them Keys. "Personality" or "quirks" or whatever aren't Keys.

A different perspective is to think that it is very probable that disc golf has not had enough scientific study with widely available measured data to show the superiority of any form part so training and coaching is much trial and error with methods and individuals varying.

If you think golf is somehow united in how it teaches, you really haven't talked to golf instructors much. Golf instruction is a mess. People out there don't even know the basic physics of what causes the ball to fly the way it does. Butch Harmon teaches players to keep the same flex in their back knee throughout their swing despite a) him not doing it himself in his own swing, and b) almost no top players doing it in their swings. And the "evidence" is simply using your eyes to watch, yet he won't do that.

Some of the "measurements" are simply done visually, as I said. Has the shaft passed the lead arm prior to impact in the golf swing? Yes or no? If no, then Key #3 might be successful. If it has, you've failed at Key #3. Same with Key #1: did your head stay relatively steady or not?

So not much has been solidified yet because there is not enough overwhelming evidence about many issues. From that position i'd say developing keys is probably a work in progress for years to come with a moving target and unclear boundaries between keys and what makes the keys keys.

I'd disagree, but at the same time, know that I realize I may be "forcing" the Keys the way I've defined them on to disc golf when really there might only be one Key, or two (I think Keys #4 and #5, and probably #1, are sure things, albeit perhaps with slightly different titles). Maybe there's too much variety in disc golf stances, shots, etc. In golf for example you make the same motion for a 300-yard shot as you do for one that's 120 yards - you just change clubs. That's not quite the same in disc golf.

But I'll also keep pushing on with this approach until I'm convinced it doesn't work.

And what should be done about the keys training and playing wise. Analysis in disc golf has only one leg over the side of the crib at this point and the results have rarely been shared to the public. Add semantics and bias, personal preferences etc. and you have a good base for an explanation into why so many wildy differing styles exist.

Just to be clear again, personal preferences aren't Keys. Jim Furyk has all 5SK in golf as did Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods despite how vastly different their swings looked, the fact that they used different equipment, etc.

I think Blake has listed some commonalities among top players here earlier. I seem to recall the figure 7 and that he didn't name all of them. No remembrance about in which thread it was. I think that's over a year ago.

I'd be very interested in reading that thread if it should come to you sometime! Thanks!

Thanks as always for the discussion. What Keys - with the understanding that they're commonalities to virtually ALL great players - would you have currently? Do you agree with #1, #4, and #5 (allowing for some wiggle room for slightly different titles)?

Thank you.

 

[JR]

If you inserted what a researcher or developer of research methods would say of personal bias, semantics and whatnot you might not be so eager to try to squeeze reality to fit into a box labeled a key. IME few things fit into any kind of box. Reality seems to way shiftier than the boxes people use to help their thinking. Too bad the laws of nature do not seem to swayed by our perceptions and short hand for thinking. The brain can be incredibly slow in some operations so we have a built in weakness to cut corners when it comes to thinking and perceiving with our limited system. If we mulled over for more accuracy our reactions would be so slow that we would have been eaten ages ago. I'm being a bit advocatey :-D now it's a word if it wasn't yesterday because i'm cautious about due process. And i'm not so sure we can jump to conclusions with this little measured results in this sport. If you want to go into science and proveable repeatable things then the keys are force equals mass times acceleration and kinetic energy equals half the mass time the square of velocity. If you don't go into Einstein and later that showed that Newton couldn't explain everything in astrophysics. And people have much more inventions after Einstein. And i'm way out of my league with physics. More on this later but i'm not derailing this into philosophy of science because i don't consider myself to be competent enough in teaching research methods and it is off topic.

 

[JR]

So if i were to hazard a guess as to what could stand up to studying by scientists as a key i am fairly comfortable in naming moving. Standing still needs a pretty stiff wind to get the disc out of your hand but how do you aim the wind? If you don't create it yourself Anything more is subject to debate i'm afraid so at this point i need to leave things for later. I'm not sure even about your definitions for a key being proper to do the job right. And if they aren't i'm not sure if i'm competent enough or informed enough to lay down the criteria. So if we were thinking in terms of practical abstractions that are close enough to work with with caveats then it would be easier to do what you are attempting. I'm not trying to be a brake. A person contradicting and stopping everything. I'm doing this to get practical results out of naming the keys turned into practice and playing. And so far i think we have some disagreements. More on what differences and why i have differing opinions later. The problem is that commenting on everything takes a book. Really way too long posts and more issues pop up than i can address in a day. Or a few.

 

[iacas]

If you inserted what a researcher or developer of research methods would say of personal bias, semantics and whatnot you might not be so eager to try to squeeze reality to fit into a box labeled a key.

Again, perhaps this would be easier to discuss with someone who was familiar with both golf and disc golf, and maybe I'm "forcing" Keys on disc golf when really there aren't very many true commonalities, but until I'm convinced of that I'm going to keep pushing onward with this.

IME few things fit into any kind of box.

Five things do in a golf swing.

Reality seems to way shiftier than the boxes people use to help their thinking. Too bad the laws of nature do not seem to swayed by our perceptions and short hand for thinking. The brain can be incredibly slow in some operations so we have a built in weakness to cut corners when it comes to thinking and perceiving with our limited system.

That really doesn't seem to have much to do with the topic, though, JR. Impact lasts 400 microseconds in the golf swing but we can still comprehend it - quite easily, in fact - as well as the motions that lead up to it, and compensations, and so on. The golf swing involves pieces moving faster than in disc golf and with greater degrees of accuracy.

I'm being a bit advocatey :-D

I know. I appreciate it.

And i'm not so sure we can jump to conclusions with this little measured results in this sport.

Again, "visual" measurements suffice as well. We don't need to understand the intricate physics of what causes a disc to fly, we can be content to know that having 80% of your weight on your front foot is better than having 50% of your weight over each foot at release.

If you want to go into science and proveable repeatable things then the keys are force equals mass times acceleration and kinetic energy equals half the mass time the square of velocity.

No, those aren't the "Keys" as I've defined them a few times. That's just physics. I don't have to know what causes a golf ball to come off the clubface at 1.48 times the speed of the clubhead at the moment of contact, I just have to know that if I did measure that, 1.48 would be pretty darn good for a driver and virtually impossible with, say, a 6-iron.

If you don't go into Einstein and later that showed that Newton couldn't explain everything in astrophysics. And people have much more inventions after Einstein. And i'm way out of my league with physics. More on this later but i'm not derailing this into philosophy of science because i don't consider myself to be competent enough in teaching research methods and it is off topic.

It is, I agree.

So if i were to hazard a guess as to what could stand up to studying by scientists as a key i am fairly comfortable in naming moving. Standing still needs a pretty stiff wind to get the disc out of your hand but how do you aim the wind? If you don't create it yourself Anything more is subject to debate i'm afraid so at this point i need to leave things for later. I'm not sure even about your definitions for a key being proper to do the job right.

That's not even really worth a response. "Movement" is too general. Dancing is moving, but it's not going to make you a better disc golfer.

And if they aren't i'm not sure if i'm competent enough or informed enough to lay down the criteria. So if we were thinking in terms of practical abstractions that are close enough to work with with caveats then it would be easier to do what you are attempting. I'm not trying to be a brake. A person contradicting and stopping everything. I'm doing this to get practical results out of naming the keys turned into practice and playing. And so far i think we have some disagreements. More on what differences and why i have differing opinions later. The problem is that commenting on everything takes a book. Really way too long posts and more issues pop up than i can address in a day. Or a few.

I disagree entirely that "it takes a book." I am not sure you really grasp what I'm striving for, and I'll take the blame for that, at not communicating it clearly.

For example, Key #4 (currently) talks about the disc's plane angle. Obviously the best players are very, very good at controlling not only nose angle but wing angle at release. The poorer players are not. You can measure it visually quite easily using high-speed photography and/or video.

If you improve your control over the disc's wing or nose angle, you'll improve at disc golf. There are several things which either help or hurt your ability to control the disc's plane, and they include the grip, your wrist conditions throughout the throw, and so on. Perhaps to improve on your personal Key #4 you need to work on your wrist angles. Or you grip it too far down in your palm, and spend the rest of your throw trying to compensate for that. Or your shoulders work on a poor angle. Or you roll your wrist. Etc.

But the best players time and time again control the disc's plane (wing/nose angle) while the poorer players do not. That's a Key, pure and simple. Improving your (general "your") control over the disc plane will result in improvement.

Not a book: http://thesandtrap.com/t/55426/introducing-five-simple-keys .

 

[JR]

I do agree that angle control is mandatory for everyone so that qualifies. Movement is absolutely a key to throwing because standing still the disc is not going anywhere so it won't be a throw if there is no movement right? People spin the disc too and there are no exceptions to that other than in a putt that tries to eliminate the spin. Which is very counter productive to scoring. So would spinning the disc classify as a key according to you? Off to sleep now more later because i've not really explained why i'm not convinced your criteria are necessarily useful.