Compiling board posts into a coherent article

[Blake_T1]

bcsst:

thanks for sharing your experiences.

drledford:

looks like you got your breakthrough.

here's the hard part.

it will take 20,000 correctly performed reps to integrate it into muscle memory and become natural. 20k is the magic number generally referenced with things like a basketball player retooling their shot mechanics, a quarterback changing their throwing mechanics etc for the motion to become subconscious.

using masterbeato as a reference point again, it took him about 4 months to be able to "hit it all the time," and he was keeping up a similar (although slightly toned down) practice regimen to what he used to learn it.

usually it's when your mind is still alert and your body is slightly tired that your body will actually slow down and shed its previous muscle memory allowing you to make changes at a and work at a pace that suits your body. however, if you wait until the point of exhaustion both physically and mentally, you won't be able to do anything well after that point.

 

[racer93]

bcsst:

thanks for sharing your experiences.

drledford:

looks like you got your breakthrough.

here's the hard part.

it will take 20,000 correctly performed reps to integrate it into muscle memory and become natural. 20k is the magic number generally referenced with things like a basketball player retooling their shot mechanics, a quarterback changing their throwing mechanics etc for the motion to become subconscious.

using masterbeato as a reference point again, it took him about 4 months to be able to "hit it all the time," and he was keeping up a similar (although slightly toned down) practice regimen to what he used to learn it.

usually it's when your mind is still alert and your body is slightly tired that your body will actually slow down and shed its previous muscle memory allowing you to make changes at a and work at a pace that suits your body. however, if you wait until the point of exhaustion both physically and mentally, you won't be able to do anything well after that point.

Oh, I am under no illusion that this will be easy to keep up or that it will take no more practice. I'm as determined as anyone to get this down and to become that skinny little 500' thrower... :lol:

Today was really windy, so I couldn't get an accurate representation, but I was throwing some around 400', but a lot were getting beat by the wind. I was getting mixed results in the feel, but probably 4/10 had a really good feel. By the end of the session today, my hands were really tired and could barely grip the disc hard.

Again, I really feel that if you were to sticky your post I quoted in my above post, I think many more people will understand what is needed to get to that level. Right now, I think it's somewhat mysterious. Those previously involved in high level sports will understand it right away, but others will need it.

Just my $0.02.

 

[t i m]

Blake,
I can take a stab at streamlining the existing advice. It may take a few days, but I think I've got the background and writing skills to bring it together. I just don't want to duplicate the work someone else is doing if it's already in progress. So if someone is halfway through some massive compilation right now, please let me know.

Thanks for all your advice. I got engaged recently and have been out of the disc golf scene (and the boards) the past 7-8 months. Missing it and want to start back in with a real focus on improved form, and many of the ideas in these threads are incredibly exciting. I'd definitely describe myself as part of the group that is "hitting it halfway," getting negligible distance improvements when moving from Teebirds to Bosses, but topping out with both at the distances you mention.

Figure this summer is my last chance to really get these principles figured out, as I doubt married life, starting in the fall, will allow the same freedom of schedule. So it's now or never to get the fundamentals down to really compete at a pro level. I want to be one of those guys who has such solid game and muscle memory that they can play once a month and still shoot 1000+ rated golf, and I know it's possible.

Anyway, I'll see what I can pull together, again, assuming it's not already well under way from another board member.

 

[scoopa]

I really don't want you to get burned out Blake! I am writing about timing as I see it right now. dreldford98 got the first paragraph and it has helped him, so that is a good sign. I know there are a few things that haven't clicked for me on the personal level, but it will.

Maybe there isn't a magical way to learn snap. Just like there isn't a magical way to be the best 3-point shooter. It takes dedication. You have to want it bad.

Out of probably 50 or so locals that come to the weekly singles 2 have it(at least 460'. They barely look like they are trying). Another 10 half hit it(~400), and have been half hitting it for as long as I've been out there. The rest are in the good fundamentals\"disc to the moon group"(max 350'). I'm in the middle group most of the time, but have stuck my feet in the magical waters a few times. What a rush, I might add, to be able to do that. Going from 250' to throwing as far as the top 10% in my town. Thanks to the guys here.

My wife thinks I am bonkers. All I have talked about for the past year is form, and now this mysterious force called snap! :lol: But, she sees the improvement. It's not every day you go out, have an epiphany at the end of the round, walk up to the teepad, and throw 50' further. I'm getting it. I worked all through the winter, before and after work, threw away rounds, got told "Why are you throwing like that? You threw better the other way." countless times. I simply was not happy with kissing 300 - 350 sometimes. I do that on a HORRIBLE day now.

Don't let it burn you out Blake. You are INVALUABLE to this community. You know that or you wouldn't be still here. There has been a recent upsurge in people starting to understand, and I know that is what brought you back to posting.

Thank you.

 

[scoopa]

Figure this summer is my last chance to really get these principles figured out, as I doubt married life, starting in the fall, will allow the same freedom of schedule. So it's now or never to get the fundamentals down to really compete at a pro level. I want to be one of those guys who has such solid game and muscle memory that they can play once a month and still shoot 1000+ rated golf, and I know it's possible.

Hey now! Marriage doesn't have to be a cage! :lol:

"hey sweetie, I'm going to go and throw in the field for a few hours, when I get back how does margaritas and a massage sound?"

 

[t i m]

Blake -- Real quick, can you post links to the main threads that contain info you think are essential to include in a bigger article. Since I haven't been exhaustively following some of these discussions and am working backwards, I don't want to miss anything.

I know these are needed for sure:

(the current thread)
Hitting It Halfway
Maxing out @ 300'

What else?

 

[TheLastBoyScout]

Tim, give it a shot.

The best thing about a collaborative effort, is that someone may be able to write and explain a topic in their own words better than another person can, but that other person does a better job on a different topic.

having several versions to pick and choose from would help build a better rounded document.



as far as timing, i always tell people:

This
Important
Motion
Is Something
No One
Gets

It has to be earned. You have to practice.

If i could sell timing in a bottle, i would be on my yatch and not on here posting :wink:

 

[scoopa]

Whew, my brain is tired. The wife was sick today so I had a lot of spare time on my hands. Rough draft, some rambling.

rewording. trying to be more coherent with what I am trying to convey.

 

[Parks]

*insert wrist knife opening video.*

I read this as "knife wrist opening video," which is for the people that are so frustrated that they kill themselves.

 

[scoopa]

I read this as "knife wrist opening video," which is for the people that are so frustrated that they kill themselves.

No one said timing was easy :lol:

 

[TheLastBoyScout]

Yeah. Cut your tendons. It would be real hard to get snap when can't grip a disc :shock:

 

[Parks]

You don't cut your tendons.

Remember kiddies, down the streets, not across!

 

[mark12b]

btw, it was Bradley Walker, USAnarchy, and peppermack seemed to have garnered the most benefit from my recent posts.

emiller and mrscoopa are definitely heading down the right track as well.

i have to tell ya, i'm feeling it too. i think. :lol: i got a practice throwing area set up in my basement, did the stationary-pull to feel the weight of the disc, did the pen thing to help visualize the pull line and see how much wrist-flick is really needed to make it go straight (and yes i noticed the strongest results at full arm extension, but thought that was a flaw in my form lol), practiced some of jhern's loose-arm-fling feeling, started working from the hit back with actual discs, etc., and really focused on slip vs. rip....

man, for me *that* was the key. slip vs. rip. how do i keep it from slipping forward. gotta lock that pivot point and do a hard-to describe little move. bingo! i'm feeling something totally different now, a strong "fling" factor around the lock point. i can see how the different motions and positions are there to let you (a) execute this little move, (b) direct its energy forward, and (c) amplify it. i can do (a) from a standstill but it's pretty wild still. when i work on (b) i can feel slip creeping in. i can totally feel how you need "grip strength" to resist the rip, but not a "strong grip" that clenches the disc the whole time.

i haven't really had a chance to try this new feeling outdoors yet but when i do i'll post back. (to the 300ft thread, which i think i may have busted out of)

 

[Blake_T1]

Tim,

it's basically the 4 threads i've started that have had posts since april 1st (they are all on the first page worth of threads) and then the 300' and 400' threads.

the main reason i brought up people taking a stab at it individually rather than collaboratively is that the people who are currently the ones getting it will learn a whole lot more as they try to arrange things into the way they think best explains it. your thoughts will become very clear the more you try to put it into words that other people will understand.

 

[scoopa]

Can't sleep.

Not hitting it VS Hitting Half VS Hitting It ALL

Not Hitting:
You aren't hitting it at all when you don't have the timing necessary to pause the elbow, releasing the forearm. You also do not accelerate when you reach the right pec area(the first point of contact).

If you can't do the above, you need to work on basic form.

Half Hitting:
IF you can pause the elbow, accelerate into the hit(after the disc reaches right pec area), and PASSIVELY release the wrist you are hitting some of it. Passive hitting - caused by inertia only. You get some of the benefits of wrist extension, but you've missed the second contact point, and the chance to add the REAL power.

Hitting it ALL:
Now, IF you can pause the elbow, accelerate into the hit(after the disc reaches right pec area), and ACTIVELY accelerate\open the wrist you are hitting all\most of it. When you feel the wrist opening via inertia this is the second point of contact. This is your cue to release the club\head of the bat\ open the wrist. Snap the wrist. This is where I visualize opening my knife which requires a quick wrist flick to the right. Whereas before my motion was forward. This ABRUPT change of motion in another direction causes the wrist to violently uncoil.

To summarize:
The two points of contact(points of acceleration) are: 1. The right-pec area. 2. When the wrist is starting to uncoil on its on.
You accelerate to the hit(contact 1), and through the hit,(contact 2). That's Slapping Vs. Driving. Slip Vs. Rip. Hitting Half Vs. Hitting Most.

 

[discraft]

This has been a good task for me to understand things better.

I think a new thread for BLAKE_T would be :What I have learned from DGR.When something clicks for you feed your knowledge to him.


ROUGH DRAFT 2 (It takes me a long time to get a final revision)
Slip vs. Rip : The point of contact and the drive

98% of disc golfers have slip on nearly all of their drives (except for on grip locks).People that max out ~400' still throw this way, with lots of slip. The disc slips out on pretty much every throw but they have practiced their timing and positions allowing a slipped throw to come out straight. This is why you see some guys who peak at 380' straight but can grip lock 450'. When they grip locked it they actually hit it.

In baseball (and golf), there are hitters that SLAP the ball and hitters that DRIVE the ball. A hit that is "slapped" is where the ball bounces off of the bat (or club) after contact. These generally don't have home run power. a hit that is "driven" is where the bat makes contact with the ball and then the hitter releases his wrists, causing a huge acceleration of the bat (or club) head and the bat head will fling the ball off the bat. Basically, a slap has very little force imparted on it .The bat redirects the ball. a drive has high levels of force imparted on it. The bat stops the ball and then pushes the ball. This is the same for golf.

The only time when arm speed is of any importance is AFTER the point of contact.

The point of contact in a disc golf throw occurs when the disc enters the power zone, which is
when the disc reaches the right edge of the body. The disc should be close to the body. The wrist is usually curled and the elbow is at its maximum amount of bend here .This is the point of contact. The arm/disc must accelerate immediately after the point of contact. The release of the bat head is the tug that follows, uncoiling the elbow and launching the disc. This is how you drive a disc (throw with snap).

430' with a Teebird is big snap.
430' with a Destroyer is not big snap

What happens with the disc/arm during the final 12" of the throw is exactly the same for everyone throwing 500'.

THE POWER OF THE THROW HAPPENS AS THE DISC PASSES YOUR BODY AND BEYOND. To throw really far, you must throw really hard. Knowing when/how to deliver force is the key of this. Most players decelerate entering (and through) the power zone and the end result is a slip (even if it goes straight and decently far). Hitting it requires acceleration through the power zone. As you get closer to the rip, your hand (and the disc) must be moving FASTER than it was at every point before that. You have a better chance of hitting it if you enter the power zone at 30mph and reach the rip at 40mph than you would if you entered the power zone at 60mph and reached the rip at 50mph.

The difference between the wrist in half-hitting vs. full-hitting is:

With half-hitters, the wrist extends because the inertia/momentum of the disc forces the wrist open. It's basically a half-slip.

With full-hitters, the wrist extends actively and accelerates the leading edge of the disc to a VERY high velocity in a very short period of time.

What you are looking for is to transfer the force caused by the change in velocity of the part of the disc that becomes the lead edge as it whips around via wrist extension (the angular velocity is huge).It basically goes from like 0 to 100mph in like 4" of wrist movement.
Basically, your goal should be to exert force on the disc. If done correctly, spin will happen.

Remember that this feeling is part of a process. At first you feel the disc pulling against the fingers, the second stage in the process is to feel the fingers pulling back against the disc and slinging it forward. The lock leaves during the pivot and the last thing you should feel is a slingshot off the index finger.

The difficulty in timing occurs because:
-the forearm/elbow must be relaxed at the beginning of the extension but should be firm/strong near the end of the extension.
-the wrist/hand must be relaxed at the beginning of the extension but should be firm/strong near the end of the extension (and subsequent release of the disc).


Something to be known about this is that if your form is missing the basic few fundamentals, working on snap is rather moot since you'll be blocking yourself from getting it and it will basically be an exercise in frustration.

Before attempting to work snap you should:
1. have a sound, fundamental grip (wrist down, etc.)
2. be able to throw with shoulder rotation (not everyone does)
3. have a pull line that keeps the disc close to the body.
4. have no problems with getting your weight forward (unless you are content only throwing
hyzers).
5. be able to throw without "strong arming" the disc.
6. be able to throw without jamming your pivot (aka allowing for yourself to clear the hip).
7. be able to throw without significant OAT.

Without those 7 things, you probably aren't getting 350'. without those 7 things, you will be unable to hit the positions/timing needed to adequately learn/understand snap.

You have to learn to walk before you can run.

 

[JR]

There are two types of active wrist snapping. The first one is somewhat similar to half hitting or allowing the wrist to open purely passively from prior movement of other body parts. The wrist bends back from hand shaking position as the elbow is being straightened and most of the the plyometric loading of tendons and muscles happens on the upper side of the wrist if the palm was laying on a table. Plyometric loading can be seen in physics terms to be a coil that is being pulled longer thus given more energy potential. When the wrist is being straightened to hand shaking position or to the right of it for hyper spin RHBH the stored energy of bending the tendons and muscles in the wrist and forearm are released. The wrist will whip forward much faster than you could do with just the passive extension incidental opening plus active muscle power driven opening of the wrist.

The other way is shown by Marty Peters at http://discraft.com/vid/html/dg16.html from 3:20 onward. Here you must fight the passive bending of the wrist to the left of the hand shaking position or what Marty called "breaking the wrist". Unless you tense up all the muscles and tendons during the elbow straightening the wrist will give and bend back. In order to load the tendons and muscles all around the wrist harder than with the first way you need to actively fight the bending with a lot of effort. You probably can't keep the wrist totally straight at first or at all but the attempt helps. The more you fight the wrist bend harder the wrist will fling out to the right once you start to snap the wrist to the right of the hand shaking position. Actively turning the wrist with muscles. This truly creates hyper spin.

Mister Carlsen measured throwers getting up to 600' in Valkyrie era and the best thrower increased spin by about 40 % from wrist opening and disc pivot. Back to front speed increases were impressive as well. You do need to actively open the wrist to get all the distance you can get. Giving you the free lunch of added accuracy and consistency as well.

I have high speed video footage of myself throwing and the shock waves traveling back and forth between the wrist and the elbow are nasty. My forearm increased in diameter by about half at worst. Tendon bounce from properly hard acceleration, timing, body positions and late enough acceleration is hard on the arm. Not everyone can do full power wrist snap safely at first. Warming up fully before you even start to train is a very good idea. The wrist straight to snapped to the right version is harder on the arm because more tendons and muscles are being strained, more power is required to keep the wrist in place, more power is being generated and released in a faster motion and the motion is to an unusual hand position with wrist to the right. This can tear the tendons and muscles easily. Not having any wrist tension allowing the wrist to flap freely far right did hurt the founder of this site bad.

Because going from wrist straight to right is an unusual motion it is necessary to have a lot of flexibility to give yourself a wider margin of error in missing the stopping of the wrist. Which is needed to avoid hurting and quite possibly tearing tendons on the lower side of the wrist. I recommend to start every practice session at less than full power and less than full wrist extension to see how limber you are then. There are a lot of variations between days. If you have lifted a lot of weights prior to snapping your range of motion is limited by stiffer and shorter than normal muscles and tendons. You can easily hurt yourself then.

While passive and active opening or snapping of the wrist simultaneously is essential it is only the first part of the complex subject of wrist onward snapping. Where due to the complexity of required knowledge and stringent timing and muscle power requirements only a few succeed. Especially if they don't have the necessary knowledge, experience from other sports, muscle power, quickness and timing. It should be obvious that learning big snap takes a lot of practice. And don't forget hitting the weights including tendon strengthening and finger squeezing power especially for the index finger, thumb and middle finger. Big snap is earned. Sorry there's no replacement for exercise so there's no silver bullet or shortcut. Failing at any stage can easily limit you to little or no snap permanently. On the other hand knowing everything but not being strong or quick enough to pull this off will also hinder you.

Alright guys should I write more about wrist stopping, timing, which fingers to squeeze, when, how hard, disc pivot and whatnot? Because I think this would be stepping on Bradley Walker's territory of expertise and I don't want to make him feel passed by if he wants to contribute. Brad and Blake should I follow up about those or other topics?

 

[scoopa]

the main reason i brought up people taking a stab at it individually rather than collaboratively is that the people who are currently the ones getting it will learn a whole lot more as they try to arrange things into the way they think best explains it. your thoughts will become very clear the more you try to put it into words that other people will understand.

This is really helping me Blake. It is making me go over everything to do with snap. Some of which I read almost a year ago, before I had the slightest clue, so it is fresh on the mind again.

I also have figured out why I have weak days. The reason is I still strong arm it when I am trying to throw hard. I accelerate a little too early. Rereading Brad's Snap 2009 thread reminded me to Loft the disc to the apex. It's a lesson I have slowly been learning. The better I learn it the farther I throw. I do it ALL the time at D under 350', it's when I try to go for gold I slip up sometimes!

Also, a point I completely missed(me, really? no way! :lol was the hammer throwing concept. I was rushing the wrist snap there too. When I read that I was a little embarrassed The point is to keep the hand on the far side of the disc as long as possible and to RESIST the bending of the wrist.

The most gratifying thing is even though I am a stubborn s.o.b. all the drills here prevailed and I did the things correctly when I was relaxed. Now, that I have better understanding, maybe I can capitalize a little more!

 

[JR]

Nobody replied to my question so I haven't done anything in case somebody was making a write up on the topics I asked about in my prior post. Now I can't for a while because my finger hurts from too hard pinching and too many throws in too little time. So should I cook something up when I can?

 

[scoopa]

Nobody replied to my question so I haven't done anything in case somebody was making a write up on the topics I asked about in my prior post. Now I can't for a while because my finger hurts from too hard pinching and too many throws in too little time. So should I cook something up when I can?

YES! Go for it man.

If for one love to read about technique, especially from one as knowledgeable as yourself. Not to mention I like the way you write. As many explanations as possible is what helps this stuff click. We may all speak English, but we don't all think on the same wavelength.

As of right now I am still discovering. I write as stuff clicks. But, I am not the best at explaining what I feel or know.