"Simple Keys" to Disc Golf

[keltik1]

I think these two are gonna break the server.

 

[JR]

Plonked Parks unless he's giving false advice from now on. That kid has very little relevant to contribute. Poodle humping my leg ad nauseum perpetually grows old especially when usually his posts to others are pretty useless too. Why not try to find similar company? Re DGCR go find it and how about expanding your horizons? Why not hump a cop's leg or the military, gangsters etc? Or if that gets old how about finding a useful goal for your life?

 

[Parks]

Poodle humping my leg ad nauseum perpetually grows old especially when usually his posts to others are pretty useless too.

Leopard carried the torch for me on this for a while. I'll leave it to him since he does it in a more lighthearted manner.

 

[Widdershins]

In truth I just could not bring myself to read most of this thread but nonetheless, now that the intensely scientific micro-management of throwing form in pursuit of maximum distance has died down I would offer the following formula. NOT, mind you NOT in the hopes that a player can throw a disc over the moon but rather that a player can develop accuracy and consistency, my simple keys would be:

Smooth
Balanced
Flat
Full follow through
Practiced

This, combined with a good tournament head and a putter which avoids the dirt may not satisfy the sophisticated audience which frequents this site but could well win a myriad of PDGA sanctioned tournaments.

 

[Simeon1]

Hello to everybody, and Peace!
First I want to thank you Mr Iacas for your research and efforts with this project. Keep going.

This is a project that needs the judge, leader or however you name him. He will make a logical conclusion from all the data we will provide him. That is not anything dramatic. If the judge rejects some information he is given to without close study, he will lose the recpect from us and this thread will die. After that somebody else will, hopefully, continue this interesting research.
At the moment I trust Iacas is striving honestly for an unbiased list based on facts.

Beside that, Iacas, in the following example you "forgot" to mention you don't have the final list. Thus you asked for more troubles and we others had to read still more debate. Some people can read between lines what is your actual meaning but that is not self evident, as you see.

You have already made mistakes in the keys list

I don't even have a Keys list!?!

To have a preliminary plan or model is normal process when resarching. Further studies and open-minded discussion will guide it to some direction.

Now, let's go to an actual case concerning the research on the Simple Keys list:
Someone, (there might be some others beside JR), tells that after the first steps you have to push with your left foot (rhbh) when throwing or before throwing. Now. what the the judge will do? He will go and find 20 other pro players, who can confirm that without pushing he will lose distance. In addition the judge will check if he is able to find DG instructors from youtube who are teaching: foot push, hips, shoulders and so on. If the judge is not able to have these findings, he can not but reject the foot push theory as being unreliable. That is part of his work. He just have to proceed that way.

I have got some positive words about the work JR has been doing, of cource, but on an other time.

-Timo

 

[JR]

I'm siding with iacas on that whichever person is trying to apply any research methods to any study should follow the data and do measurements. I would trust data instead of the judge or the top pros. If none of the pros do something optimally but it is a known physics phenomenon and it can be applied in practice for measurable differences in using the idea or not that data should be used as a basis for conclusions. Each pros might not know or be able to or have chosen to use all the same ideas. Whether it falls under a key by any definition is another matter.

 

[treehugger87]

I was thinking about a similar set of keys to the game but in a simpler way. At this point I'm just starting to understand and impliment the more specific, technical parts of form. I do realize that the nuances, technical aspects and physics of form are what ultimately let you attain the goals of driving 450'+ and being a consistent putter within so many feet of the basket and being accurate consistently. At the same time I'm wondering what the ends are that these means are trying to achieve, such as what is the workable distance of a successful, well-rounded disc golfer (all around, not just tournament play or casual rounds). I'm not necessarily talking about the extremes either. We all know about the freaks of the disc golf world who can hit ridiculous distances consistently and who never miss a putt, but what are the "simple keys" for a player that is consistently doing well? I'm getting at something like this:

-Consistent putter within __'
-Has a workable golf distance of ___'-___'
-Etc.

I know I'm leaving a lot out, but what should be added to this list of "simple keys" for a well-rounded, successful disc golfer?

 

[iacas]

-Consistent putter within __'
-Has a workable golf distance of ___'-___'
-Etc.

Those are good ideas, but that's not the way "Keys" were defined in this particular instance. Sounds like a good starting list for a different thread, though.

 

[rhatton2]

Very old thread bump but i found this interesting at the time and still do.

A few suggestions for this that as far as I can see are common to all good backhand drives no matter the different style.

1. Closed shoulder through to the power pocket ( I can't think of any form that doesn't have this although the amount they open through the Hit varies)
2. Hand on the outside of the disc until maximum distance forward achieved. (again this seems to be standard across all forms allowing for the strongest leveraging of the backside of the disc to the front)
3. Weight stays inside the feet and shifts from back foot to front. Much bad form is people going too far over the back on reachback or finishing too far forward on release. all pros that I can think off keep their weight centered inside the feet and move it fluidly back to front.
4. Strong brace against front right side leading to no.5
5. Squeeze betweeen the knees - illustrated position here -

6. Some form of active wrist extension through the Hit.

I'm sure something else to do with the thumb pushing through the hit but high enough speed video so far just isn't available to tell this satisfactorily.

 

[rhatton2]

I would say all of those are in some way measurable, not sure how but they should be, they should all be achievable and coachable to any level of player and improve their game as a result.

I think this is what Iacas was originally looking for, but could be very wrong.

 

[PMantle1]

 

[iacas]

I would say all of those are in some way measurable, not sure how but they should be, they should all be achievable and coachable to any level of player and improve their game as a result.

I think this is what Iacas was originally looking for, but could be very wrong.

In looking at them quickly they seem like a good list. Pretty busy these days with some other things (mostly golf related), so I regretfully can't get into them a BUNCH right now, but I'll try to remember to get back here and discuss it.

 

[HyzerUniBomber1]

Hey Guys,

Jason here from HeavyDisc. Rich suggested I jump into the mix... I'm gonna ramble.

One thing I think could be added to a previous key, not sure exactly which one - would be proper posture & balance. I feel like you should be able to take each key above, and without the right posture & balance, they'd be worthless.

I might as well jump down the rabbit hole immediately and say that it might be worth getting really specific with what style of throwing we're talking about.

Wide rail vs a straight pull? I'd argue that out of the box, wide-rail has more potential for distance. By remapping the arc to a motion that focuses more on holding to the latest possible time, you get that effortless distance. Adding a hip -> core -> right pec -> loaded wrist -> extension -> shoulder pull -> wrist extension to the rail may be beyond my timing ability. If I could do it as well as I can throw a straight back pull through, I think it would be an enormous throw.

Typically though, when I try to add to the mix any real power input (in any form) - I screw up balance and posture and lose the magic. With the rail, it seems to be very easy to just hold on long enough for the magic. Magnifying it is going to take much work.

If I just do a straight pull through, I feel like it's relatively simple to time the elbow extension to shoulder involvement to get a pretty solid meat and potatoes throw.

Here's a couple standstills w/ the straight pull followed by a slow motion wide pull.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI0Rlle5ARY

 

[JR]

Welcome hyzer. In your video the straight pulls have the reach back position to the right of where it should be. for a straight pul that is. The disc would move through your torso if it were moving in a straight line. OTOH that to the right reach back getting to a straight line pull from the center of the torso forward adds a little more rotational weight shift like in a 360 throw so there is more distance potential there and you realize it many do not. Because they tend to arc the throw around the body not getting close to the body as the disc passes the torso.

In the rail throw you could try what kind of difference it makes if you did not bring the disc from wide off the body to close to the body at the center of the torso but later around the right pec area when the elbow leads the throw a lot. You might get a lot of snao that way because you could get more plyometric loading and unloading going on adding to the final acceleration aka snap.

I am not sure of what you mean by loaded wrist> extension. Do you mean straightening of the elbow by extension here? It would make sense.

Timing is hard and i would not be surprised if you got better results by timing right pec position> hip twist which is preceded by rear leg push instead of what you suggested. Which is the opposite regarding the timing of the torso twisting to the right from the hips prior to the disc getting to the right pec. If you switch those around you will delay the onset of the real power generation aka acceleration. And in physics power equals mass times acceleration. so the more acceleration you have while getting to great speed and being able to hold on to the disc for a great disc pivot the better off you are. Here people have immense variance becuase of lack of tewchnique and muscle imbalances. some may have stronger body parts in one place and be marred by a weak part that is a totally different combo to the next player. Some may not have any strong parts in their bodies and others may be men of steel everywhere.

rhatton2 made a good point about being knock kneed. You don't see that in too many new to moderately good players.

 

[rhatton2]

This isn't quite what Iacas was looking for I think.

The idea and the part that really interests me about this is the commonalities across ALL forms.

It's along the same lines as the annoyance i've written about elsewhere of people constantly saying "yeah, but, what about him? he does it like this and he does it like that" when you are trying to teach a motion to people - everyone seems more able to spot what people are doing differently than what they are doing the same.

What we are trying to find are the keys that are there for all forms, those that we can pick out and say "yeah, ok well forget about all those other idiosyncrasies - they ALL do this from Feldberg to Schusterick to Mcbeth to Kallstrom and Sandstrom.

Why does this idea excite me and why has it been lurking at the back of my mind for a couple of years since Iacas' original post? Because I believe the commonalities are there and if we can draw them out and pinpoint them they can become the grass roots of good coaching, give players these fundamentals and they can build their own idiosyncrasies (hell we can help to coach these idiosyncrasies by for example getting them to try the curved rail line as opposed to the straight pull - both though still have the same basic idea at heart, back edge to front in shortest time possible)

Disc golf coaching is by and large out in the wild awful. Really truly terrible. We've all heard the appalling advice given to others, very often by very experienced players,(we've probably all stepped in before to say actually, um that's not quite right, to then get battered down with "what do you know his rating is 10 points higher than yours?") who think they do one thing but are actually doing something totally different. DGR/Blake/Dan/Bradley/JHERN/JR and all the others fortunately opened my eyes many years ago, but I (like pretty much everyone else reading this thread) am in the minority of addicted idiots willing to spend the time searching for the holy grail of good form.

There have been so many brilliant instructional articles and threads over the years on this forum and in the last few months over at (whispers it quietly) DGCR and Reddit, the problem or the problem as I see it is they have all been a bit disjointed and to pull out the gems from the discussions takes one hell of a lot of reading and often reading of the same things again and again to find the one priceless bit and then practising it to death on the field. The vast majority aren't sensible/bored/addicted/stupid (delete as appropriate) enough to do all this reading and watching and often fruitless practising when you haven't quite grasped the concept correctly.

I think from all the good work done by everyone here and expanded on elsewhere we have the building blocks for good form for all that should be coachable to everyone (that wants to learn) if we can focus on the keys that should be in everyones actions it should be possible to create the form "bible" as it were.

It's about time

 

[JR]

Blake did write a list of commonalities years ago somewhere. Don't recall what exactly he put in there. But here are some commonalities. Everyone takes steps in the longest throws. The plant step lands prior to the arm moving forward from the farthest position of the each back. Because even Feldy does at least at times bend and straighten his elbow a little i'd say that bending the elbow and arguably leading with the elbow is common to all top players Feldy being the gray area. Everyone accelerates until the end. Everyone has a follow through. Everyone pushes with the rear leg. Actively not leaving the weight shift to only momentum. The grip is loose enough to allow the disc to pivot and hard enough to avoid slips toward the left -hopefully So each point is different to what rhatton2 wrote on Oct 29. And it is hardly a comprehensive list.

 

[rhatton2]

Blake did write a list of commonalities years ago somewhere. Don't recall what exactly he put in there. But here are some commonalities. Everyone takes steps in the longest throws. The plant step lands prior to the arm moving forward from the farthest position of the each back. Because even Feldy does at least at times bend and straighten his elbow a little i'd say that bending the elbow and arguably leading with the elbow is common to all top players Feldy being the gray area. Everyone accelerates until the end. Everyone has a follow through. Everyone pushes with the rear leg. Actively not leaving the weight shift to only momentum. The grip is loose enough to allow the disc to pivot and hard enough to avoid slips toward the left -hopefully So each point is different to what rhatton2 wrote on Oct 29. And it is hardly a comprehensive list.

1. Everyone takes steps in the longest throws.
True but those steps are not all the same - many different variations on a theme, I'll leave that one for Iacas but I'm not sure that's what he's going for. I feel that's noa a key but a subset of a greater key, possibly to do with weight shift. Here you might have to decide whether you are teaching a Brinster Hop or a traditional Xstep so two different styles both producing the same result the result is a greater more dynamic weight shift that a standstill can generate.

2. The plant step lands prior to the arm moving forward from the farthest position of the reach back
this is an element of timing and torquing up the core, possibly a key, it seems to be across all forms - certainly something that I try to teach and Sidewinder (seabass22) definitely picks up on a lot, measurable, repeatable. Good point.

3. The elbow bend, not so sure, yes all forms bend a bit but there are huge variations in this, I would say this is more down to individual style than a Key. Put McBeth and Feldberg together and this isn't something you'd pick up as a commonality you could instill in all forms. You would have to decide you are teaching the McBeth form or the Feldberg form. The key in all forms is the hand staying outside for as long as possible and the elbow doesn't need to bend to facilitate this.

4. Everyone accelerates to the end - yes, but this isn't a key in itself its a by product of other motions done correctly.( I realise you could argue this for anything, but you are looking for the keys that produce that acceleration not the acceleration itself.)

5. Everyone pushes with the rear leg. Actively not leaving the weight shift to only momentum. Quite possibly a key, think this was discussed on page one of the thread. Teachable, measurable, common across all forms

6. The grip is loose enough to allow the disc to pivot and hard enough to avoid slips toward the left -hopefully Blakes thread on the myth of the disc pivot suggests that it is less of a loose pivot and more of an active pulling/pushing through that produces the full hit, this is why I want you to get me some top down high quality slow mo footage to show this

This is an interesting idea as it is trying to drill deeper than the base but not quite deeper enough to say that everyones moves/breathes/lives whilst throwing -they can be taken as granted . You must have had it time and again JR where you have been trying to explain a concept to someone and they have turned round to you and said "yeah but what about X they do it like this" It's really frustrating as you know you have lost the person straight away, they are more interested in what X does than in what you have to say/show them, suddenly in their eyes you are a bad teacher as you are not telling them what they know.

The idea of these keys is to get below that to find a lower level of commonalities that are there in all forms, and can be pulled out and coached without any argument as to whether or not they are useful in this form.

I think... :?

 

[HyzerUniBomber1]

Welcome hyzer. In your video the straight pulls have the reach back position to the right of where it should be. for a straight pul that is. The disc would move through your torso if it were moving in a straight line. OTOH that to the right reach back getting to a straight line pull from the center of the torso forward adds a little more rotational weight shift like in a 360 throw so there is more distance potential there and you realize it many do not. Because they tend to arc the throw around the body not getting close to the body as the disc passes the torso.

Thanks JR, been reading here since day 1 - which was about 400 days ago. Appreciate your input.

I definitely noted that I was coming back a little more rotational than linear. It's been something I've been working back and forth for a couple months. I liken it to a baseball player coming into the swing with a step, but wanting to twist hard, driving off the back toes, into the hips with the torsion driving the elbow through like a freight train.

The trouble is that I over-did the momentum and wrote the last entire blog post about it
http://heavydisc.blogspot.com/2014/11/slow-down-and-throw-far.html

It's what you already know, but I'll recap: more force/speed in my hand than my grip could tolerate. Using the wider pull, or my basterdized version of it, the redirection of the disc slows it down enough that I get all the same momentum, but saved up for that last pull from 12:00 to 3:00.

I am not sure of what you mean by loaded wrist> extension. Do you mean straightening of the elbow by extension here? It would make sense.

I've been using the drill of sliding the backswing into the right pec in a way that drives the elbow forward and then the redirection happens as the disc shifts it's weight towards the forearm. I call that a "loaded wrist" because the tendons are pulled tight, sort of loading the gun. Extending the forearm from right pec around the arc as the wrist unloads is the extension.

About 1:20 in I started doing this drill, "elbow smack / hand smack" to promote loading the wrist and unloading during extension.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b13Js1KRzYs

Timing is hard ...

We could write a book called that. This goes back to the innumerable shifting puzzle pieces that comprise the system. At some point, it would be nice, as Rich says - to have a core building block set that creates a very reproduceable movement that requires very little input: disc angle. We know the limit of the system, which is "are you holding the disc at the 3-4:00 position?" and those core blocks can be used/ignored as needed to approach the limit, but not surpass it.

Ideally, we take 100% of our use-able momentum into the turn where we are still holding to the hit.

There's so much feel and personal awareness required which only comes from throwing regularly and monitoring your release.

Guys, it really does excite me that there's other people who obsess about this like I do. I throw so much it's borderline stupid. Not for power, but because I love watching a disc fly.

Look forward to more conversation.

 

[HyzerUniBomber1]

So I've tried in the last month to help a few guys out. Open level guys:
Guy 1: Ridiculous FH, rough BH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXkoB7m_AbU
Guy 2: Issues with balance/bracing, amazing upshots and putting.
Guy 3: pretty much the same issues.

So from a purely greedy stand-point I'd love to come up with a building block style course that would almost be too easy to screw up, because IT IS REALLY HARD TEACHING PLAYERS! Muscle memory is like an evil plague! I had to physically hold a heel to stop the reverse pivot, and he knew to not do it... muscles just say "do it".

Like, the elbow smack drill - if you want to smack me standing next to you, you HAVE to put the disc into the right pec. To do it balanced and with some force, you HAVE to get up on your toes and drive from the back foot.

My concern with the keys, is that even if we argued the semantics till we were blue in the face - took pictures of each key in action, labeled them, measured them. In real life, in a field with a player or ourselves, these systems are dynamic and fluid. I knew as I was trying to learn to brace, that I should be "like this" but I could not for the life of me, figure out how to get into the "like this" position or throw from it once I was IN IT.

They are like dance moves and what happened in step 1 affects greatly step 2 (and 3 and down the line).

Long ramble to say, I would love to see what you guys could come up with in terms of complimentary drills that reinforce good motion.

 

[JR]

There is too much to learn when you are new and for most with decent basics in one session. So i tend to give a dumbed down version to new people and details of one or two things to experienced people. Because trying to change many things at a time is hard and often counter productive. Because memory is so ingrained with many it is better to drill details at slow speed or in front of a mirror or a video camera seeing yourself in real time so that you can see changes and make the changes to get to the correct positions and timings. In stopping the motions to the part of the throw you are trying to improve. Once you nail the pose note how it feels or how it feels to get there and repeat. Then adding speed try to keep the feel the same. If you manage it the pose should be correct. Do not trust it though verify it visually. Once you have enough successful reps try to do a full throw and verify it went as planned. If not slow it down until it does.

Dan Beto wrote of trying to punch the elbow through an imaginary veneer plate. The trouble is the elbow locking up and overstretching the tendons in a real throw if you push the elbow as far as it will go. An inch or so short of the physical limit of maximum elbow forward position is when the elbow must start straightening. At the very latest or you can injure yourself permanently and it hurts. You will know it if you overdo the elbow push forward. I almost dropped to my knees.

In my opinion iacas tried to make a silver bullet trying to skip over too many necessary things to reduce a complex movement into an easy concept with too few things to teach. I am opposed to his number of keys he wants to find because his arbitrarily too small number of keys is less than what goes on. He may not be far off though in commonalities. But details count and i will not accept less than reality for a thought exercise because it would mean not giving enough info to be successful to the player being taught. Ymmv. We have not seen eye to eye on this with iacas before. I will not censor info for his peace of mine when i teach people.