Is turning backwards bad?

You have some intense confirmation bias when watching videos lol. Geesh.

Well in a sense you are not turning at all. You are just facing the otherway.

It is entirely possible to take the worst circumstantial aspect of every professional thrower, put them together, and result with a brand new form. James Conrad often flips his pony tail to one side before lacing a 400’ wooded fairway with a putter. Clearly the causation of 400’ laser putter throws is pony tail rearrangement.

Turning backwards is essential to giving most momentum to the hip twitch form. It allows for even more, faster rotation.

Ive played around with how much I turn rearward and distance readily comes better for me as I turn rearwards in my x step. For control medium range shots I don't turn as much.

I've made some noticeable gains to my distance and consistency with my driving recently! Back when I was stuck in maybe having 330-350 be a 'crush' of a drive, I was notably x-stepping backwards moreso than I am now. My entire approach was more linear along the teepad, with larger x-step foot that was facing backwards, with plant foot less staggered out in front of me. This lead to me having to forcefully rotate my hips as fast as I could to generate distance, and my brace wasn't as strong as it could be.

Recently, I've been taking a page out of Paul McBeth's book, and taking more of an angled approach (probably like 10 o' clock instead of 12' if comparing to a face clock) in in my walkup along the teepad when I go for a straight drive. I also simplified my approach down to 3 steps instead of 4. My x-step is muuuch smaller, just barely going past my initial step, and the angled approach helps my plant foot get much more separation and get much more staggered for my drive. Instead of x-stepping backwards and having to forcefully torque my hips around to generate power, I'm able to brace much better, and can feel the weight against my front hip. My thighs feel noticeably tired and sometimes sore after a day of play as well. Before I would get weird pain in the lower leg/upper ankle of my plant leg, but now that's a non-issue.

With the better brace and weight shift, I wasn't focusing on twisting as fast as possible, but just letting my body's movements play out naturally. Now my 'crushes' are 350-370 and even sometimes 390 on flat ground. I recently broke 400 on flat ground last week, and even had a 390 into headwind yesterday. On slight downhills (maybe no more than 10 feet of elevation difference) I'm getting 430-440 feet.

I’ve been thinking along these lines. I think your angle is allowing you to hold the disc a fraction longer imparting just a little more pop/whip.

I’m trying to do that myself.

My best distance also comes with an angled teepad x step. It allows me to hold on to the disc longer.

Paige talking about the hips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyV8411dObw#t=5m15s