CoachChris
Bogey Member
- Joined
- May 17, 2023
- Messages
- 56
If you would like to know more about me, my motives, intentions, knowledge, coaching history, please reach out to me directly at coachchristaylor at gmailHey Everyone,
I came across this thread and felt like I should pass a few things on. First off, Chris Taylor is someone to be wary of. He is not a biomechanist and has no formal background in biomechanics, yet he either overtly presents himself as such or allows others to call him a biomechanist/kinesiologist without correcting or clarifying. This is dishonest and has benefited him by giving heavier weight to the things he says out of a false sense of credibility. With all due respect to someone like everyone's favorite Coach T, people aren't reluctant to critique and question the advice he puts out there. Chris is the total opposite. It's just assumed that he is the legitimate and credentialed expert he presents himself as and nearly everyone just defers to him. Chris is not a credentialed expert or paid coach to the pros like he implies though. In actuality he is an elderly retired gentleman that typically reaches out to young or up and coming players and gets in their world by offering to give his opinions for free. This allows him to build up a group that he can refer to as "his players" or further imply that he is a highly desired coach inside the pro world. Chris is making claims that are based on person theories and his own non-expert interpretation of data but presenting them as proven facts. What he is doing is reckless and irresponsible because he does not have the authority to speak with the certainty he does, and if he is wrong the things he is advocating will hurt people.
Sidewinder posted an excerpt from Sarah Hummel's work which Chris has cited and seems to be one of the inspirations for his insistence that the major driver of the throw is an aggressive active pull with the arm. Hummel's work looked at the throw of one subject, an ultimate player, throwing an ultimate disc, at a little over 50% estimated effort. For someone that is supposed to be an expert to extrapolate or use this work to support for anything related to a full power disc golf throw for the entire population of disc golfers is mind blowing, but it all starts to make sense when you know who Chris actually is and what his background really is.
There's a lot more I could say but I will leave it at this. I've been seeing his name pop up more and more lately, and there seems to be an assumption that because he speaks with authority, knows some biomechanical terms, and gets aggressive if you disagree he must be legit, so I felt it was important for people to have a more clear picture of who they are dealing with before they just to defer to him by default.