Overloaded and looking to start over, but where?

[Resting27]

Ok guys. I've made a couple of false starts in attempting to reboot my form and I'm wanting to try again but have a few issues/questions.

First, I've watched and read every video/article I can find. Whether it's heavy/loop/hyzeruni, or sidewinder or lindahl or Blake etc etc, I've read it and watched it. Probably a dozen times each. I've done some field work. I've taken some video. For whatever reason, I feel like I'm the idiot who is sitting in his desk after class wondering what the heck the teacher just said and why the rest of the kids are gonna graduate and I'll be repeating this grade over again. The reason I'm wanting to hit reset again is that I'm constantly going back and forth trying to fix various aspects of my form to the point where I have a million things going on inside my head and can't keep it all straight.

I'm throwing drivers between 270-320 and inconsistent with accuracy. I never feel like I ever got the elbow out front thing down and was wondering if anyone can point me to a starting point. Like, if you were going to blow the whole thing up and just start over. What would you recommend doing tomorrow? Sorry for the rant/whine but I really do appreciate all the time and effort this crew puts into fixing folks' form and want to finally get this deal fixed and start throwing plastic the way it was meant to be thrown.

 

[slowplastic]

I would focus on the one leg drill, and swinging something heavy. The throw isn't about getting your arm/disc moving real fast, and it isn't about forward momentum.

It's about getting your spine to your front leg so you can rotate in balance, and having some counterweight, as in your rear leg and rear arm, on the opposite side of your spine so that you can swing through THE HIT POINT with weight/leverage provided. It's about getting to that position on the front leg and being able to swing actively through the hit.

The one leg drill is pretty self correcting. You can't throw yourself forward past the foot, you can't push yourself overtop with your rear leg, and if you spin out like crazy without counterweight you'll feel like you're going to fall.

If you try to backhand slap something with your right arm and just have your left arm tucked in it's tough...then do the same motion, backhand your right arm and swing your left arm out the opposite way a bit. You should feel the leverage difference when your opposite arm moves the opposite direction.

Swinging something heavy will help show you if you are just yanking with your arm or using your body. And anticipating swinging something heavy through a wall or object out where the disc release would be will help you set up your body to anticipate swinging hard. That powerful swing through an object will launch a disc fast, it's not about being rocket speed from reachback forward.

 

[UhhNegative]

Ok guys. I've made a couple of false starts in attempting to reboot my form and I'm wanting to try again but have a few issues/questions.

First, I've watched and read every video/article I can find. Whether it's heavy/loop/hyzeruni, or sidewinder or lindahl or Blake etc etc, I've read it and watched it. Probably a dozen times each. I've done some field work. I've taken some video. For whatever reason, I feel like I'm the idiot who is sitting in his desk after class wondering what the heck the teacher just said and why the rest of the kids are gonna graduate and I'll be repeating this grade over again. The reason I'm wanting to hit reset again is that I'm constantly going back and forth trying to fix various aspects of my form to the point where I have a million things going on inside my head and can't keep it all straight.

I'm throwing drivers between 270-320 and inconsistent with accuracy. I never feel like I ever got the elbow out front thing down and was wondering if anyone can point me to a starting point. Like, if you were going to blow the whole thing up and just start over. What would you recommend doing tomorrow? Sorry for the rant/whine but I really do appreciate all the time and effort this crew puts into fixing folks' form and want to finally get this deal fixed and start throwing plastic the way it was meant to be thrown.

Join the club! The water is fine. But for real, I struggle with the same thing. Trying to think about and work on too many things at once. I'm naturally a thinker and not as much of a doer, but this sport is all about body awareness and building that up. I think what I'm realizing now is that you have to go to the field with one aspect in mind and video yourself. Still broken? Keep trying until the video shows that you fixed the issue, then ingrain that aspect into your throw by doing a bunch more practice after you've "fixed" it. Will probably take a LOT of sessions to really get it down. I was throwing OK distance left handed before I decided to switch to right handed, but I'm in this for the long haul. Only way to lose is if you quit (and I've tried that too, lol).

With the elbow out front, it feels so wrong but you have to almost lock that upper arm angle in at a 90, at least until it becomes more engrained. You don't even really need to even change the elbow angle either during the reachback (for practice) until the forearm releases, ala Beto drill. Still feels so awkward to me.

 

[sidewinder22]

Have you read Blake_T's "maxing out at 300'" and Brad Walker's "Snap 2009"?

 

[Resting27]

I would focus on the one leg drill, and swinging something heavy. The throw isn't about getting your arm/disc moving real fast, and it isn't about forward momentum.

It's about getting your spine to your front leg so you can rotate in balance, and having some counterweight, as in your rear leg and rear arm, on the opposite side of your spine so that you can swing through THE HIT POINT with weight/leverage provided. It's about getting to that position on the front leg and being able to swing actively through the hit.

The one leg drill is pretty self correcting. You can't throw yourself forward past the foot, you can't push yourself overtop with your rear leg, and if you spin out like crazy without counterweight you'll feel like you're going to fall.

If you try to backhand slap something with your right arm and just have your left arm tucked in it's tough...then do the same motion, backhand your right arm and swing your left arm out the opposite way a bit. You should feel the leverage difference when your opposite arm moves the opposite direction.

Swinging something heavy will help show you if you are just yanking with your arm or using your body. And anticipating swinging something heavy through a wall or object out where the disc release would be will help you set up your body to anticipate swinging hard. That powerful swing through an object will launch a disc fast, it's not about being rocket speed from reachback forward.

So I took a hammer and did my version of the pendulum. Was able to feel it moving back and forth as I rotated my hips slightly and shifted weight back and forth. My disconnect with that is that I'm pulling the disc on a straight line as opposed to swinging it down on an arc. How does that pendulum feel stick around once I'm pulling the disc? How am I collapsing the disc into the right pec without using my arm muscles to position it and then losing the connected feel? Hope that makes sense.

 

[Resting27]

Have you read Blake_T's "maxing out at 300'" and Brad Walker's "Snap 2009"?

I feel like I probably have but am not sure. I've definitely read Blake's secret technique and watched brad's closed shoulder snap drill and snap videos. Never fully was able to grasp what was supposed to be happening in the closed shoulder snap drill honestly. Hard to know if I was ever accomplishing what it was meant to teach.

 

[sidewinder22]

IMO the snap 2009 and dan beto threads are required reading to better understand the videos. There's a lot great info in them.
https://www.dgcoursereview.com/dgr/forums/viewforum.php?f=2&sid=2b3d67e7ed6e744f04cdb4d16b91950d

 

[sidewinder22]

So I took a hammer and did my version of the pendulum. Was able to feel it moving back and forth as I rotated my hips slightly and shifted weight back and forth. My disconnect with that is that I'm pulling the disc on a straight line as opposed to swinging it down on an arc. How does that pendulum feel stick around once I'm pulling the disc? How am I collapsing the disc into the right pec without using my arm muscles to position it and then losing the connected feel? Hope that makes sense.

If you keep your upper arm taut/wide/elbow forward and lower arm loose, lag will bend your elbow bringing the disc into your chest as you rotate your body. Then the lower arm/disc will whip out/release away from you after slowing your body rotation.

 

[slowplastic]

Yeah the arm should feel taut and like you are preparing to smash through an object just outside your stance/in front of your front foot. You should feel the upper arm and torso move as a unit, and be preparing to smash through that object with the end of the hammer which would be the nose of the disc...and this should feel very connected to the upper arm. It is really hard to feel this from a static reachback, and to keep a solid arm and torso unit in that case. It's easiest in a pendulum like reachback so everything is like a unit and you don't get the arm to shoulder disconnect by trying to swing the arm/hammer back intentionally. The torso should move things back almost as one.

For me the elbow bend and getting the elbow out front wasn't achieved by thinking about the elbow bend itself...it happened by anticipating smashing through that object so my arm had to be solid and in position along the way to the object. If I just tried to get the arm moving fast from the reachback then all sorts of collapses and things happened. Just to be clear when I say arm is solid/tight/as a unit I don't mean it is tense, but I mean that the whole thing feels the weight of the hammer and links it to my torso...I don't just feel my arm manipulating the hammer by its own strength. Kind of like when you swing the hammer on a pendulum with gravity you can feel the arc it wants.

 

[Resting27]

well sidewinder, I''m pretty sure I had never read through the maxing out @ 300ft thread which I'm still working through now.

Question about the one-legged drill and the evolution of the various drills people have come up with.

I was doing the one-legged drill off my front porch yesterday with judges and they were flying straight and going between 220-240. Definitely felt like they were "uncoiling" but I'm not sure I was adding the power at the right time or super successful in using a strong grip at the right time. Is that basically what I should be repeating? I'm nervous about doing a drill too much if all I'm doing is drilling in the wrong form. (which of course I have by playing for years and never getting past a pseudo accurate version of rounding and maxing out around 300-325.) Additionally, as I'm reading through the archived thread, there's other drills like the snapping of the towel and the one where you start right pec and turn 180 from the target while maintaining the right pec position. Are those useful as well? Useful for teaching something different? Is the one legged drill a catch-all drill for now until I've got it down? Is the 220-240 with putters a sign I'm probably getting what I need to out of the drill or is it way short still?

Also, stupid question, but what sized towel? I really struggle to get any snap at all on the towel drill so I'm sure I'm doing it wrong.

Also, is there an archive of the various diagrams people were referring to in that thread? Most of the links are now broken.

 

[slowplastic]

^Some stuff in those old threads is helpful, but I also find a lot of it more academic and theoretical from the time rather than more practical with some of the drills SW22 has come up with now. However I will say that the more I have figured stuff out, the more I see what they were getting at with some things in those old DGR threads...but I really feel they focus too much on the disc and hit and arm rather than the entire body positioning and athletic shift and balance. If your body isn't in the right balance there is no way your arm will do the right thing. Also the better your balance, the more consistent your shots will be. I don't like towel drills...there are thousands of ways to snap a towel and most of them don't result in a good disc velocity. However I would prefer to do a dry swing with a towel or something in my hand than nothing if I'm walking through my form, for some resistance. Typically 8-10" length I think works well for me, I often just fold a towel from my disc bag in half and pinch the corner.

Post a video of your one leg throws. IMO the most important thing is your balance in it, rather than just being able to throw far from it. As you said it's a drill, the goal isn't to throw super far from one foot, although with proper form you can do that...but it's to show you how to balance your spine on the front leg and use your rear leg and arm to counterbalance yourself during the swing.

Think of drills as a way to see or feel something new, once you've felt it then you can try to incorporate it into your full throw from either a standstill or walk up. If you're not feeling what it is supposed to show you, then you have to examine how you are doing the drill more.

 

[Resting27]

Thanks slowplastic. Appreciate you taking the time. Here's my one legged drill. I can do more from different angles if needed.

https://youtu.be/ER3wpAKhnjI

 

[slowplastic]

I can spot some things, SW22 will likely be able to be a bit more thorough when it comes to drill analysis.

You're still trying to go over the top, watch how in the side view at the beginning of the one leg drill, slow motion, you can see SW22's first move is lateral to the target with his lower spine. This sets up the weight shift and counterweight. The rear leg will counter the throw by swinging upwards, then gets pulled around the leg/spine axis. You are trying to start the throw by looking with your head/shoulders/upper body, and you end up tipped forward with leg balancing you scorpion kick style to not fall over rather than pivoting around the axis in balance.

If your hip cleared up more then it would be easier to pivot around the plant leg. I believe SW also recommends lifting your toes a little in your shoe at or after release to promote follow through. Definitely do not try to leverage your toes into the ground to try to prevent poor balance. This drill is meant to expose poor balance.

The door frame drill should also show you how to lead with the lower body into the plant.

Also, do you have any nose up issues? Hard to tell from that zoomed in side view and post in the way if the disc gets back to nose down on release.

 

[Resting27]

Still haven't gotten the aha moment yet. I know I'm "toe-braking" and not putting much weight on my heel. With all my weight on the front foot in this drill, I'm not sure how to change what I'm doing. I definitely noticed that I'm looking backwards as my beginning move. I feel like in order to get my weight on the heel, I'd have to lean backwards but that seems wrong...

As to the nose up/down issue, I honestly go back and forth. This round of the drill, I was having pretty flat flights and nothing was stalling out if that's what you're asking.

 

[slowplastic]

It's ok to put some weight on the back foot to set yourself up. Use the rear foot to balance, just do not actively drive off of it. It will be easier to let yourself put as much weight as you need on the rear foot, don't think of it as being fully restrictive, as you do need a few inch lateral move of your spine.

Yeah that head turn early is likely a sign of upper body initiating everything, rather than hips starting the motions. Have you played regular golf much? That's a situation where it's a very pendulum like arc, and you need to use your hips to turn your upper body out of the way and that gets the backswing with the club happening.

Watch your rear foot, it doesn't move in your one leg drill because you are rotating the upper body. SW initiates the backswing by turning the hips, so you can see the rotation in the rear foot to drop the heel as a result. Not trying to load into the rear foot, but the hip turn affects the rear foot.

 

[sidewinder22]

Yeah, you aren't quite set up on your front leg only there, looks like there is some weight pressure on the rear foot/toes preventing you from turning further back, and your rear foot actually moves backward about an inch when you start the backswing there.

You are also very static/still starting. I highly recommend swinging back and forth into the backswing and throw and feel your swing connection to the ground/body. You should take a full pre-swing on the front leg like I demonstrate in the beginning and then work into the backswing and notice my rear foot turns backward to keep the weight pressure away from the rear foot, but maintains balance on front leg.