The Power of Posture

[Brychanus]

Forgive me if a repost by title, but I didn't find a dedicated one and it might be good to have a fresh discussion anyway. I keep finding more and more synergies between SW22 DG coaching and the waltz in particular, and thought that a general thread helping people with posture concepts and control would be valuable.

Posture control is a basic requirement in the waltz instruction and it is often a main point of emphasis early on. Good instructors understand that you can't get good mechanics, balance, force transferring, partnering, or much of anything working right without it. IMHO in DG, there are very, very few people teaching posture and posture control well despite content pouring out at a higher and higher rate.

They key idea I want to reinforce is that the posture ideally forms an imaginary curved structure from the top of the head down to the toes.

Increasingly as my mechanics get more synced, if I think about form changes as adjustments in one or more major parts of my posture, it helps me to learn faster and get hurt less. It's a two-way street - better mechanics and posture are reciprocal and inseparable. They open the doors to one another.

In particular, I've been aware for some time that a lot of the ground pressure transfer and alignments share similarities to some dance motions, but there are enough differences in the DG backhand posture and as an integrated move that it took a while to find some concepts and feel to yoke it to.

Then this week something new happened to me. I fairly suddenly started getting more kinematic chain efficiency from the ground up, and the result was that remaining breaks in the chain were leaking back into my body higher and higher up the chain with more and more force even when swinging with minimal effort. This was really scary because I've never gotten hurt before when it felt so smooth and effortless - usually I had that subjective feeling of muscling up somewhere or jamming up to accompany it.

In the past day my neck just took a broadside from that quickly improving chain under my head that unfortunately did not include my head. Effortless feeling swing, but a nasty torque force.

You know when that doesn't happen even when I'm moving fast? When I dance.

This is part of learning how to move instead of getting lost in the weeds.

If you are hugging the disc and not yourself and rocking from foot to the top of the head properly, you are also swinging your waltz partner through a natural or reverse turn:

You are also rocking the baby as you stride:

and correctly doing the Hammer X-step, Riding the Bull, Battering ram, Reverse Stride, and so on.

They are all the same in the sense that they are exploiting that powerful, balanced, safe force chain from the top of the head to the tip of the toes, and swinging, compressing, and decompressing that bow-like structure against the ground to lead the swing.

I encourage you all to find and share natural, intuitive motions like this that can help you get more dynamic load and balance. They really can scaffold you out of form hell.

It should all be connected from the top of the head to the tip of the toes from foot to foot when you move. The head should be neutral and well-integrated with the rest. The reason that some pros can take their head less off line to the target is due to flexibility and practice, but they still have the head connected in the balanced force chain. Otherwise they'd be going to the hospital pretty fast.

So here are a few lunchtime consumables and please share your own.

Some OG vids (he gets into it often of course):






Setting the basic posture and hip hinges up for success:




This is one of the better Waltz videos on posture that also includes whole body chain mechanics and ground pressure. Timestamp 25:33 or so is the most relevant but it's all good:




Of course a goodie from Shawn Clement shared elsewhere:




In my case, the similarities to the waltz begin to end where the postures do, and where DG is ultimately about achieving a late, effortless-feeling high-impact force spike whereas smooth dances tend to have lower peak acceleration amplitudes throughout the entire action chain.

Nevertheless, this force bow is your friend. Find it and let it be a guide.

Try to see the same thing in each of these actions in athletic posture:

 

[Sheep]

Excellent post.

This is one of the reasons I've always called it a dance when talking about the swing overall. We have so many mechanics to maintain balance and correlation with to properly get somewhere, that you don't want to go through them like a robot, you want to flow through them to achieve elegance in the swing. This allows you to create the leverage you need vs just muscling it through like a strong man.

There are many disciplines in the past that are very dance oriented. Most of them fighting, but martial arts is a great example. Very difficult sequences of moves, but when executed they look like a dance. But.. The scary part is, they are deadly too.

The disc golf swing is a very complicated motion compared to other sports swings and motions.
Our bodies really like to "flow" when doing stuff though. The better you can make your body flow/dance, the better time you will have getting a good swing.


I will note though, Posture is a very hard thing to teach. And its even harder to identify as well.
But I believe you're right, not enough focus is on it.

 

[Brychanus]

Excellent post.

This is one of the reasons I've always called it a dance when talking about the swing overall. We have so many mechanics to maintain balance and correlation with to properly get somewhere, that you don't want to go through them like a robot, you want to flow through them to achieve elegance in the swing. This allows you to create the leverage you need vs just muscling it through like a strong man.

There are many disciplines in the past that are very dance oriented. Most of them fighting, but martial arts is a great example. Very difficult sequences of moves, but when executed they look like a dance. But.. The scary part is, they are deadly too.

The disc golf swing is a very complicated motion compared to other sports swings and motions.
Our bodies really like to "flow" when doing stuff though. The better you can make your body flow/dance, the better time you will have getting a good swing.


I will note though, Posture is a very hard thing to teach. And its even harder to identify as well.
But I believe you're right, not enough focus is on it.

It's all hard until it's easy, I guess. I just realized there's one other big dimension I struggled with for months that's worth mentioning.

The dance and martial arts didn't help me immediately even though I've done those for years. I think part of it is that even when the mechanics are similar, doing them with different postures and levels and patterns of force is its own beast. That's probably why those explosive swinging sports can help scaffold people. But there's another set of ideas lurking in there.

Someone pointed out in my form rebuild that there was a sudden moment where my body started moving more "athletically" rather than a dance. I didn't fully know what to think about that at the time because there's definitely an athletic demand to competitive dance, martial arts, boxing etc. and I do think the dance-like flow is what you want. But now I understand that there's also this weird thing to throwing where you need your body to turn into this totally weird springy, whippy, slinging system. We say that often, but I had deeper insights recently.

There were parts of that idea in things I'd learned previously without recognizing them, but it was all just different enough before to make it hard to get that fundamental set of actions for DG. I actually just started to find it useful to let the springs start out a little too loose each time I add something, then it's suddenly easier to make them stiff and reflexive. Going from stiff to looser was always harder for me and I think for most people.

I was stuck on some DG stuff for a while before I realized that because I didn't know what it felt like to make my whole body move like masses and pendula coupled by springs, which is what some people mean by "athletically." Imagine how systems like this transfer force:

You can find the springs when you loosen up and bounce around and let your body move like this:

As SW22 got me keen to, that's too "jack in the box" for ideal force transfer, so you can start to compress the springs and get tighter, faster action.

Pros have very tight, quick springs that make them very hard to see because the force transfer is so fast and smooth up the chain. These guys below are using the springs you see in the fighters above who were loosening up - they're just now very stiff and compressed when it's go time:

The most powerful strikes always feel effortless to execute. And there's a challenge for learning - stiff and compressed springs do not mean a stiff, muscled, effortful motion. They mean fine-tuned and fast, facilitating a smooth force transfer.

Anderson Silva is one of the greats, known among other things for his outstanding ability to juke and take a hit. Many people focus on his head and rotations when he jukes, and he indeed does "roll with the punches." But notice that when he actually does take a bit of a hit, his whole body is also working like that same tight spring system - the ground is taking force from a hit because his kinetic chain is so clean and tight. And he laughs it off and usually knocks out his opponent.
https://i.imgur.com/MLjHA5q.jpg

I also think that this whole idea of an internal spring system is very natural for people with strong athletic backgrounds and completely missing from a lot of people without those backgrounds. The athletes don't need to exaggerate some stuff the same way because they've already got it. And you can lose it over time too - I used to have much springier legs when I was boxing more, and they got lazy and out of shape over time.

But on the flip side, now that I'm developing more of that athletic force control and springiness, going back to the dance toolbox is super useful again because I can finally make better use of those posture tools. As the swing's coming along it really does feel much more like a hybrid between the waltz and a clean late force transfer like a good backfist or jab or cross.

Since I mentioned MMA, body type matters there too - I remember there was a nice guy named Frank I used to spar with who was 130 lbs. soaking wet. But he was much faster and longer limbed and had a cleaner kinetic chain for his strikes. He's shaped more like a waltz prototype compared to my water buffalo body. When I fought people like him regardless of their size I preferred to get in close and clinch and use knee and elbow strikes and my CoG - you need to maximize what your body is good at. In DG, that's why I like learning the hop, but dance is starting to help me find the natural sway and flow in strides.



I like how in that knee strike gif above that guy absolutely smashes his poor opponent, then almost looks like he's thinking "Whoa, you ok bro?" as he comes back to the ground. I miss martial arts, but not that part.

 

[Sheep]

It's all hard until it's easy, I guess. I just realized there's one other big dimension I struggled with for months that's worth mentioning.

The dance and martial arts didn't help me immediately even though I've done those for years. I think part of it is that even when the mechanics are similar, doing them with different postures and levels and patterns of force is its own beast. That's probably why those explosive swinging sports can help scaffold people. But there's another set of ideas lurking in there.

Someone pointed out in my form rebuild that there was a sudden moment where my body started moving more "athletically" rather than a dance. I didn't fully know what to think about that at the time because there's definitely an athletic demand to competitive dance, martial arts, boxing etc. and I do think the dance-like flow is what you want. But now I understand that there's also this weird thing to throwing where you need your body to turn into this totally weird springy, whippy, slinging system. We say that often, but I had deeper insights recently.

There were parts of that idea in things I'd learned previously without recognizing them, but it was all just different enough before to make it hard to get that fundamental set of actions for DG. I actually just started to find it useful to let the springs start out a little too loose each time I add something, then it's suddenly easier to make them stiff and reflexive. Going from stiff to looser was always harder for me and I think for most people.

I was stuck on some DG stuff for a while before I realized that because I didn't know what it felt like to make my whole body move like masses and pendula coupled by springs, which is what some people mean by "athletically." Imagine how systems like this transfer force:


You can find the springs when you loosen up and bounce around and let your body move like this:

As SW22 got me keen to, that's too "jack in the box" for ideal force transfer, so you can start to compress the springs and get tighter, faster action.


Pros have very tight, quick springs that make them very hard to see because the force transfer is so fast and smooth up the chain. These guys below are using the springs you see in the fighters above who were loosening up - they're just now very stiff and compressed when it's go time:

The most powerful strikes always feel effortless to execute. And there's a challenge for learning - stiff and compressed springs do not mean a stiff, muscled, effortful motion. They mean fine-tuned and fast, facilitating a smooth force transfer.

Anderson Silva is one of the greats, known among other things for his outstanding ability to juke and take a hit. Many people focus on his head and rotations when he jukes, and he indeed does "roll with the punches." But notice that when he actually does take a bit of a hit, his whole body is also working like that same tight spring system - the ground is taking force from a hit because his kinetic chain is so clean and tight. And he laughs it off and usually knocks out his opponent.
https://i.imgur.com/MLjHA5q.jpg

I also think that this whole idea of an internal spring system is very natural for people with strong athletic backgrounds and completely missing from a lot of people without those backgrounds. The athletes don't need to exaggerate some stuff the same way because they've already got it. And you can lose it over time too - I used to have much springier legs when I was boxing more, and they got lazy and out of shape over time.

But on the flip side, now that I'm developing more of that athletic force control and springiness, going back to the dance toolbox is super useful again because I can finally make better use of those posture tools. As the swing's coming along it really does feel much more like a hybrid between the waltz and a clean late force transfer like a good backfist or jab or cross.

Since I mentioned MMA, body type matters there too - I remember there was a nice guy named Frank I used to spar with who was 130 lbs. soaking wet. But he was much faster and longer limbed and had a cleaner kinetic chain for his strikes. He's shaped more like a waltz prototype compared to my water buffalo body. When I fought people like him regardless of their size I preferred to get in close and clinch and use knee and elbow strikes and my CoG - you need to maximize what your body is good at. In DG, that's why I like learning the hop, but dance is starting to help me find the natural sway and flow in strides.



I like how in that knee strike gif above that guy absolutely smashes his poor opponent, then almost looks like he's thinking "Whoa, you ok bro?" as he comes back to the ground. I miss martial arts, but not that part.

I think what you're talking about here is a great explanation of "fast twitch" muscle action.

It's staying loose enough that when you provide the sauce, the body can act on it, but if you're just stiff the whole time, you cannot really make it work.

This, i think, is why the whip example is good. A whip is sorta fluid until its direct correctly into the chain.
We are looking to direct our body into that kinetic chain also. But if we start out as stiff as a 2x4, we will stay as stiff as a 2x4.
We want to wind all that energy up into one quick burst of power. Vs trying to power our way though it.

I think this is another reason why we maybe dont focus enough on follow through.

But if you're posture isn't correct, which is what this is about, you can never set your power into that chain 100%, which is what you need for effortless throwing.

The biggest cleanest gains i get from students is forcing them to slow down, and suddenly they are throwing 50 foot further, because they are more relaxed and the chain works better. And their posture doesn't suffer from it either.
It's far easier to stay fluid and move when you're not wound up tight.

Which is also why dancing is such a great example.
Like lets take skating for example.
If you're gonna do a triple axle, you're not coming in stiff, youre setting your body up to spring, then push into the jump. You cannot really jump before you jump i guess.
Maybe thats a poor example.
But in that whole chain of events, you have to drive your posture into the brace for the jump to execute, otherwise you fall over.
I think maybe that correlates a bit better with balance and posture.

Ehh, thinking out loud here.

 

[Jukeshoe]

Tennis background here...after SW22 pointed out a Federer backhand as an example of good posture, I found a one-handed backhand was a useful sort of "reference point" for getting my foot planted, maintaining shoulder and chest posture, and following through with the arm.

There's sort of point of contact/explosive move with the racquet head whipping through the pocket, that is coupled with a driving "up" of the legs, for lack of better terminology.

I'm in my 40s and far from athletic, so thinking in terms of something like tennis (vs. say, MMA) makes it seem more accessible to someone like me.

(But it's not too far removed from that spinning backhand punch, as far as an athletic move goes, I guess...)

Note: Federer's "holding his beer upright" in the trailing hand.

 

[Brychanus]

Tennis background here...

 

[TiltedFlipCurves]

Tough to loosen up when the fairways are narrow so I live in the wrong area to play good disc golf. :|

 

[Jukeshoe]

Exactly. :thmbup:

 

[Sheep]

It's not as common of a technique now, but the older ball golf swing is defined by the classic C shape finish.

 

[SocraDeez]

Power of Posture

Posture is not static/stiff. Posture is dynamic/reactive. That's its power.

The spine should wiggle and flow in your swing just as it wiggles and flows while you walk. For anybody reading: don't get caught up in idolatry of some static ideal of spine extension VS flexion or anterior VS posterior tilt etc. etc. etc.

Here's some back wiggle from Dylan Cease, your 2022 AL Cy Young runner-up:



Some screenshots from going frame by frame. No markups/not very sexy, but this is about the scope of my photo/video editing abilities.

Weight/pressure on back leg:

Weight shift as back leg drops/releases/relaxes:

Initial frontside plant. Can't quite see ground reaction in the lower spine yet.

Booty pop. Gotta have a relatively "soft" hip on the plant side to get that pop in the opposite buttcheek. Extend the collision by using your hips.

This is the big picture idea for this post: posture is reactive.

Most everything already said well in the OP above aligns with this big picture idea. But I still hate this video:

Setting the basic posture and hip hinges up for success:

 

[Brychanus]

Power of Posture

Posture is not static/stiff. Posture is dynamic/reactive. That's its power.

...

Most everything already said well in the OP above aligns with this big picture idea. But I still hate this video:

I agree. If I could, I'd redact it in favor of other concepts.

 

[SocraDeez]

Gotta have a relatively "soft" hip on the plant side to get that pop in the opposite buttcheek. Extend the collision by using your hips.

Apologies. Misspoke on the bolded here. Booty pop is in the buttcheek of the leg planting. Check out the greatest triple jump of all time by Jonathan Edwards here:



Don't worry, here's some more cutting edge forensic video analysis for you.

About to strike the ground:

Initial plant. Can't quite see ground reaction in spine/pelvis/butt yet:

Boom. Booty pop.

Use your hips to pop your booty when your leg strikes the ground. Leg is stiff-ish. Hip is soft-ish. This "extends" the collision and allows you to transfer the most energy up the chain.

Get it?

 

[Brychanus]

Gibson breaking down his own form:

 

[seedlings]

Yet another way of presenting posture advice. I don't know this channel, it just showed up in my feed, but sound posture instruction:

 

[Sheep]

Yet another way of presenting posture advice. I don't know this channel, it just showed up in my feed, but sound posture instruction:

We talked about him in the other thread. His name is Clint.
He's played for like 10 months.

He's done power lifting, so he knows muscle groups and how they work and how to target them, but doesn't know anything about DG coaching/form.

 

[seedlings]

Aah, ok. It's like a memo went out to all 'experts' about opportunities if they migrate to disc golf.

 

[Sheep]

Aah, ok. It's like a memo went out to all 'experts' about opportunities if they migrate to disc golf.

Good lord,
It feels that way sometimes.

As I tell people. I could sit here and just smack out content. Tons and tons of content.

I'm more concerned with being as correct as I can be if I'm going to put out a video than just fall victim to the dunning kruger effect and think I know it all when I don't really know shit.

 

[Clint Easterly]

Aah, ok. It's like a memo went out to all 'experts' about opportunities if they migrate to disc golf.

You just went from "sound advice" to dogging me because a grumpy old man told you to. Coaches like this who try to "defend" their spot on the totem pole by shitting on anyone new who comes around should be ashamed of themselves. Open your eyes. If someone is frantically going post to post to prevent someone else's success, it should tell you everything you need to know about them.

 

[Sheep]

You just went from "sound advice" to dogging me because a grumpy old man told you to. Coaches like this who try to "defend" their spot on the totem pole by shitting on anyone new who comes around should be ashamed of themselves. Open your eyes. If someone is frantically going post to post to prevent someone else's success, it should tell you everything you need to know about them.

Dunning–Kruger effect - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This has been your issue for ages from talking with you in discord.

I know you're not an idiot by any means, but the reason I poke is because you're giving advice as an expert when you're a newbie still.

The Disc golf coaching world is becoming crammed with tons and tons of bad information from people who've been playing a really limited amount of time and are getting people hurt and injured with their bad advice. Thinking you know and actually knowing are so far at opposite ends of the spectrum with disc golf form that its really easy to fall into the trap of "I got this" when you aint got shit.

As well. Seedlings and I do not get along whatsoever.

But you're rolling into a world of extremely experienced people as a newbie trying to act as an expert. This is my main complaint with Josh at OT. He presents himself as someone who is as knowledgeable and experienced as Sidewinder, but has the actual skill level of a first year student. The leveraged sent back to you is because this is what you have been doing for a long time in discord, and now you're doing it in video format.

And I'm not going to stop you from making video's whatsoever.
But when they are brought up, I'm going to point out that your actual experience with the game is beer league level.

 

[Clint Easterly]

Dunning–Kruger effect - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This has been your issue for ages from talking with you in discord.

I know you're not an idiot by any means, but the reason I poke is because you're giving advice as an expert when you're a newbie still.

The Disc golf coaching world is becoming crammed with tons and tons of bad information from people who've been playing a really limited amount of time and are getting people hurt and injured with their bad advice. Thinking you know and actually knowing are so far at opposite ends of the spectrum with disc golf form that its really easy to fall into the trap of "I got this" when you aint got shit.

As well. Seedlings and I do not get along whatsoever.

But you're rolling into a world of extremely experienced people as a newbie trying to act as an expert. This is my main complaint with Josh at OT. He presents himself as someone who is as knowledgeable and experienced as Sidewinder, but has the actual skill level of a first year student. The leveraged sent back to you is because this is what you have been doing for a long time in discord, and now you're doing it in video format.

And I'm not going to stop you from making video's whatsoever.
But when they are brought up, I'm going to point out that your actual experience with the game is beer league level.

Judging your tone in this vs how you normally respond I sense a small level of respect so I appreciate that.

The thing you fail to mention is that I have been a powerlifting coach for 10 years. There are multiple facets to coaching, and knowing the exact most efficient biomechanics is just one of them. Being able to explain those simply and actually get people to DO what you want them to do is another, and has a great carryover from other sports.

I have been doing that for years and I think it's where YOU miss the mark. You MIGHT understand the disc golf swing better than me, but I've watched your videos and I can explain it to a layman better than you. That's why people like Josh and I have value in this "world of extremely experienced people". If you want to make a difference, HELP the people who communicate better than you understand better, don't shit on them at every opportunity.

I'm not coaching people to be coaches or understand tilted spirals, that's your thing.... I'm coaching them to throw far, and it's working.