disc-golf-neil
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So the original advice of trajectory-aligned-reachback was never meant to be taken as being precise but more just "kinda aligned" and don't worry about if it's really aligned or not?
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Brychanus
* Ace Member *
Coaching point:
Usually when I get a comment like that from SW it's because I'm confused and/or overthinking it.
General advice since I know him/his style well: SW usually gives his coaching points just to change exactly and only what he wants you to tweak given whatever else is going on. Usually when he ignores what you said it is intentional. My dance instructor got through to me the same way.
In this case, enough else about what you were doing will probably work better if you do exactly (or close to exactly) what he said.
Since you and I apparently have a similar curiosity quotient and tendency to "look at our finger rather than the moon," I'd suggest you take it as "trajectory-aligned" as precisely as you can, grind it a bit, and see where you're at. It's related to your lack of ideal coil and weight shift.
Special bonus just for you - your potential confusion: I promise I'm not just trying to frustrate you and remember that I start as a skeptic, not a blind consumer of any advice. What I think you think a "wide rail" is really is just not coiling properly on the rear side as you shift forward, and potentially not noticing the continuum of out-in-out reachback/backswing patterns relative to the rest of the posture and intended shot power. This is why SW likes to ask (sometimes rhetorically, I think) "what's the difference between a wide rail and an out-in-out backswing pattern?" It is also why I think this is not just a conceptual problem, but a body problem - you don't know what it is unless you've done it at least once - super annoying, right?
Puzzle (with a hint at the end!): SocraDeez used to do this to me, so I'll try it out on you. Is Paul using a "wide rail" here, or is that just part of how he uses an out-in-out pattern as he shifts past/leaves the disc behind? How hard to you think he is throwing relative to his max power? Do you think his reachback is "directly away" from the trajectory? What about the next shot? Why did I pick this camera angle? Why is it impossible to understand how his upper body functions without also understanding how his lower body functions here? Why do you need to notice how he moves off the rear leg to understand how his backswing works? Hint: it has to do with how the move works only between his drive step and his plant step, and relationship between the backswing and launch trajectory at a given power level.
What happens when he tones the power down a bit? What do the balance, hips, and legs have in common? Why am I showing you this right after the prior clip? What do you see that is different in how you move off the drive step? Why other than his absurd ape index does this account for Paul's incredible power at low effort?
Last part of the experiment: where would you expect his backswing to be relative to the rest of his body and plant at absolute maximum power, and why would it approach something quite like directly away from the trajectory? Why am I focusing you on these questions and not the fact that he's moving something like 20 degrees down the tee relative to the shot trajectory?
Hint: you're doing it wrong if you're trying to answer these questions in your head or at your keyboard right now. Try the coaching points! Sometimes you just can't "know" it in words first even if I can write them down. The words make sense later. Sidewinder is trying to trick your overactive cerebrum by getting you to do the right thing without thinking so much about it.
Bonus 2 - can you taste the "boom sauce?" By the way, since you're one of these 500'-hopefuls, just wanted to chime in that it's never an exact prediction, but I wouldn't be surprised if you can do it given your profile. You have the "boom sauce" potential. Expectations: doing it repeatably on command is usually a significant and steep climb. Stick w/ it!
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disc-golf-neil
Birdie Member
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2023
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Coaching point:
Usually when I get a comment like that from SW it's because I'm confused and/or overthinking it.
General advice since I know him/his style well: SW usually gives his coaching points just to change exactly and only what he wants you to tweak given whatever else is going on. Usually when he ignores what you said it is intentional. My dance instructor got through to me the same way.
In this case, enough else about what you were doing will probably work better if you do exactly (or close to exactly) what he said.
Since you and I apparently have a similar curiosity quotient and tendency to "look at our finger rather than the moon," I'd suggest you take it as "trajectory-aligned" as precisely as you can, grind it a bit, and see where you're at. It's related to your lack of ideal coil and weight shift.
Special bonus just for you - your potential confusion: I promise I'm not just trying to frustrate you and remember that I start as a skeptic, not a blind consumer of any advice. What I think you think a "wide rail" is really is just not coiling properly on the rear side as you shift forward, and potentially not noticing the continuum of out-in-out reachback/backswing patterns relative to the rest of the posture and shot power. This is why SW likes to ask (rhetorically, I think) "what's the difference between a wide rail and an out-in-out backswing pattern?" It is also why I think this is not just a conceptual problem, but a body problem - you don't know what it is unless you've done it at least once - super annoying, right?
Puzzle (with a hint at the end!): SocraDeez used to do this to me, so I'll try it out on you. Is Paul using a "wide rail" here, or is that just part of how he uses an out-in-out pattern as he shifts past/leaves the disc behind? How hard to you think he is throwing relative to his max power? Do you think his reachback is "directly away" from the trajectory? What about the next shot? Why did I pick this camera angle? Why is it impossible to understand how his upper body functions without also understanding how his lower body functions here? Why do you need to notice how he moves off the rear leg to understand how his backswing works? Hint: it has to do with how the move works only between his drive step and his plant step, and relationship between the backswing and launch trajectory at a given power level.
What happens when he tones the power down a bit? What do the balance, hips, and legs have in common? Why am I showing you this right after the prior clip? What do you see that is different in how you move off the drive step? Why other than his absurd ape index does this account for Paul's incredible power at low effort?
Last part of the experiment: where would you expect his backswing to be relative to the rest of his body and plant at absolute maximum power, and why would it approach something quite like directly away from the trajectory? Why am I focusing you on these questions and not the fact that he's moving something like 20 degrees down the tee relative to the shot trajectory?
Hint: you're doing it wrong if you're trying to answer these questions in your head or at your keyboard right now. Try the coaching points! Sometimes you just can't "know" it in words first even if I can write them down. The words make sense later. Sidewinder is trying to trick your overactive cerebrum by getting you to do the right thing without thinking so much about it.
Bonus 2 - can you taste the "boom sauce?"By the way, since you're one of these 500'-hopefuls, just wanted to chime in that it's never an exact prediction, but I wouldn't be surprised if you can do it given your profile. You have the "boom sauce" potential. Expectations: doing it repeatably on command is usually a significant and steep climb. Stick w/ it!
I often initially think the terms are clear but then later on it starts seeming like they are very loaded with more nuance and I wish there was a mega post of definitions that include base definition plus the nuance of how the prominent people here use the term so I can double check I haven't accidentally diverged from the intended meanings.
I thought the 'wide' in wide-narrow-wide was a reference to 'wide rail' and that wide-narrow-wide was synonymous with out-in-out, but it's confusing when SW22 told me to reach back less wide and more inline and that that would be a true wide rail.
I can and will blindly test something on the course / field and try to adhere to it strictly for a while to give it a chance and see what happens and I did already try that and then asked clarifying questions after. I understand the benefits of doing this "just try it this" without any more info, but, usually I can conduct more thorough and high quality tests if I go out with more info because I'm playing for long enough (multiple throws on every hole + field warmup) to do the initial test and then more nuanced testing after which is where I want to try to learn and apply more nuanced aspects.
As for the Paul gifs, it's hard to see with the moving camera.. but this is what I see.
Here his reachback is NOT aligned with trajectory because, I think, of it being a less powerful shot so there's fewer degrees of torso rotation (with same shoulder angle) which makes the reach back aligned more to the right which is the exact question I asked. Degrees of torso rotation changes where there reachback is pointing all else equal.
His elbow isn't fully extended, but if it was, it would be inline with his upper arm which is where I drew the reachback angle line from.
In the pink shirt gif the reachback seems more aligned with the trajectory because of it being more powerful and therefore having more degrees of torso rotation which is aligning it. It looks like 70-75% effort comfort power level to me but idk if I've ever seen his 95% effort.
The simple thought to me to implement what I think was the intention of the advice would be to just not overexaggerate a wide shoulder angle on reach back too much on power drives and to reachback closer to a 90 degree shoulder angle and to work on a nice deep coil which will happen to roughly align the reachback with the trajectory on most drives.
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Brychanus
* Ace Member *
Gotcha!
I'm going to summarize my lengthy reply:
1. In too many words (sorry), I will try to help you see why viewing the final part of the move/its force as "sideways" will drastically simplify how you think about/do all of this, and why the perpendicular plant foot idea is really just a beautiful thing.
2. Your upshots can just become the "downscaled" version of whatever you do for power drives, and yes, you can derive more and more variations. Some people use more variations than others.
3. I think I can't avoid talking about "swing vs. pull" anymore (it's a "throw"!) and I will try to integrate that into the story.
Terminology
I agree about clarity in terms, which was one reason I worked on Fundamentals. I also agree that we could probably clarify some of your questions in that piece w.r.t. Wide Rail. I'd like to have some kind of consensus on whether or not that term is even useful, or should be replaced with something more meaningful (like the more fundamental pattern in the posture context we discussed). I think Sidewinder would say something to the effect that the appearance of a "wide rail" goes away in a power shot in an out-in-out (or "wide-narrow-wide") pattern because of the shift extending longer along the tee, and the backswing elongating in exact proportion to the shift. That's part of what I was getting at in my thought experiment above. In other words, SW sees & would argue that the smaller move is really just the bigger out-in-out or wide-narrow-wide move, and the smaller shift and shortened backswing explains all the rest. As long as the posture is sufficiently intact relative to and including that pattern, you have the goods! I'll wait for SW to weigh in there since he might choose to answer.
Some significant things about the move that confuse the hell out of people
Now I think I'm starting to understand why you are asking what you are asking here and in the main forum, which is also telling me why SW and I are saying something that seems not to agree with something you perceive to be different. As no coincidence, IMO this is exactly part of the swing/pull debate/confusion that comes up over and over. I guess I'd rather deal with it here first because you're one of the few people that seems to have the taste and attention to detail to talk about it. Let me try - I have more answers to the other parts you just mentioned, but I think this is the biggest piece that people all struggle with:
1. Look at the McBeth upshot again. I think you are focused on the orientation and direction of the upper arm. This time, look again at the disc, which you may notice ever so briefly and slightly comes back more directly at the camera and away from the trajectory line before the shift completes (just like a full power shot). Now watch the elbow, which moves away from and then tracks back forward on the trajectory line, and which is what is following the disc back into the backswing and then forward into the release point. If he was doing seabas22 Inside Swing drill against the wall, he wouldn't quite be able to do it because his elbow needs to swing slightly through the wall. One lesson is to make sure you watch the connecting leverage points (joints), not just the levers. One thing that is also confusing about Paul is that he has so much control over everything that you will also see other variations that make it harder to understand what's happening. That's why I cherry-picked those two shots for my thought experiment.
2. Overall, the above is part of the main fact of posture where the elbow leads the shoulder into the backswing, then follows it into the release point. The problem is that people seem to perceive two very different things going on to describe exactly the same action - and depending on who you ask, it implies two very different models about how the backhand works. One model has the elbow leading directly toward the target horizontally with a deep pocket and humeral abduction, and in the extreme version all the action out of the pocket is a linear sequence toward the target, and does not have a major centrifugal component of the arm "pounding out the hammer" from the deep pocket/chest. The other model (Sidewinder's is the most developed) is explicitly saying that once you are balanced on the front leg, the entire move is a centrifugal move in a sequence of whipped levers (in maximum leverage relative to one another), which is why you get frequent comparisons to hammer throws, baseball, golf, and so on in DGCR. The first model is one that some people call a "pull." The second is much more like a "swing" of the arm/disc out "from your center."
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Brychanus
* Ace Member *
Concepts and their Context
SW's model would not say that the Lawnmower "pull" is incorrect - indeed, he has entire drills based on it, and I would personally call most of what you learn in Load the Bow and Door Frame Drills is very "pull"-like in the elongation/backswing/reachback phase. It's also why SW might point out that the Backhand power move looks more and more like a "pull" with bigger and bigger shifts. But as the body shifts to the front leg, it's a "swing."
That is also why Sidewinder made images like these, I think. Notice that Wide-Narrow-Wide describes the pro move on the left. The "narrow" part is a consequence of how the posture shapes and then "swings" and redirects the arm and disc coming out of the backswing. Ideally yours would do the same as the player on the left even if you reach back "straight from the trajectory" - it's your posture as you move accounting for the rest of the pattern.
In his model, too much "pull" once you are on the plant leg causes the elbow and shoulder to be slightly out of posture pulling ahead of the hip sequence, minimally meaning you left leverage on the table if the whole move is a leverage maximizing game.
And images like this are showing that the move is "sideways" in the context of a curvilinear move. Notice the orientation of the arm and disc relative to the plant foot. It's just that people might fundamentally disagree about why the rest of the path including into follow through looks curvilinear.
View attachment 335194
FWIW, all of this is why I say it's a "throw," and call it a "swull" continuum (slightly cheekily I admit). Sometimes (most of the time?), the above is a distinction without a difference and not worth arguing about.
Other times, sure, we can describe fundamentally different actions, and it's maybe possible for variations in kind and degree. McBeth looks like a premium example of a swing, and literally says he built it that way (baseball swing). Wiggins is closest to what I might call a "pull," where it looks like his move has evolved to involve a pronounced horizontal move and different sequencing and acceleration than McBeth. But everyone argued about the details and in the end when what I suggest you focus on is that they are both doing is committing their leverage "sideways"-ish relative to and once they shift into the plant with impeccable weight shifts even if details of the sequence and posture differ. Keep in mind too that even pros are exhibiting some "imperfect" shot to shot variation in their motion that is often "good enough" to get the job done. But this single image should be burned somewhere in your brain:
View attachment 335195
If I made sense or missed the mark, please let me know. I want to boil it down to a shorter version at some point soon.
Holy cow that was a lot of words.
SW's model would not say that the Lawnmower "pull" is incorrect - indeed, he has entire drills based on it, and I would personally call most of what you learn in Load the Bow and Door Frame Drills is very "pull"-like in the elongation/backswing/reachback phase. It's also why SW might point out that the Backhand power move looks more and more like a "pull" with bigger and bigger shifts. But as the body shifts to the front leg, it's a "swing."
That is also why Sidewinder made images like these, I think. Notice that Wide-Narrow-Wide describes the pro move on the left. The "narrow" part is a consequence of how the posture shapes and then "swings" and redirects the arm and disc coming out of the backswing. Ideally yours would do the same as the player on the left even if you reach back "straight from the trajectory" - it's your posture as you move accounting for the rest of the pattern.
In his model, too much "pull" once you are on the plant leg causes the elbow and shoulder to be slightly out of posture pulling ahead of the hip sequence, minimally meaning you left leverage on the table if the whole move is a leverage maximizing game.
And images like this are showing that the move is "sideways" in the context of a curvilinear move. Notice the orientation of the arm and disc relative to the plant foot. It's just that people might fundamentally disagree about why the rest of the path including into follow through looks curvilinear.
View attachment 335194
FWIW, all of this is why I say it's a "throw," and call it a "swull" continuum (slightly cheekily I admit). Sometimes (most of the time?), the above is a distinction without a difference and not worth arguing about.
Other times, sure, we can describe fundamentally different actions, and it's maybe possible for variations in kind and degree. McBeth looks like a premium example of a swing, and literally says he built it that way (baseball swing). Wiggins is closest to what I might call a "pull," where it looks like his move has evolved to involve a pronounced horizontal move and different sequencing and acceleration than McBeth. But everyone argued about the details and in the end when what I suggest you focus on is that they are both doing is committing their leverage "sideways"-ish relative to and once they shift into the plant with impeccable weight shifts even if details of the sequence and posture differ. Keep in mind too that even pros are exhibiting some "imperfect" shot to shot variation in their motion that is often "good enough" to get the job done. But this single image should be burned somewhere in your brain:
If I made sense or missed the mark, please let me know. I want to boil it down to a shorter version at some point soon.
Holy cow that was a lot of words.
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disc-golf-neil
Birdie Member
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2023
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Thanks, this helps a lot because I've seen all these pictures but not cohesively together in a narrative.Concepts and their Context
SW's model would not say that the Lawnmower "pull" is incorrect - indeed, he has entire drills based on it, and I would personally call most of what you learn in Load the Bow and Door Frame Drills is very "pull"-like in the elongation/backswing/reachback phase. It's also why SW might point out that the Backhand power move looks more and more like a "pull" with bigger and bigger shifts. But as the body shifts to the front leg, it's a "swing."
That is also why Sidewinder made images like these, I think. Notice that Wide-Narrow-Wide describes the pro move on the left. The "narrow" part is a consequence of how the posture shapes and then "swings" and redirects the arm and disc coming out of the backswing. Ideally yours would do the same as the player on the left even if you reach back "straight from the trajectory" - it's your posture as you move accounting for the rest of the pattern.
In his model, too much "pull" once you are on the plant leg causes the elbow and shoulder to be slightly out of posture pulling ahead of the hip sequence, minimally meaning you left leverage on the table if the whole move is a leverage maximizing game.
And images like this are showing that the move is "sideways" in the context of a curvilinear move. Notice the orientation of the arm and disc relative to the plant foot. It's just that people might fundamentally disagree about why the rest of the path including into follow through looks curvilinear.
View attachment 335194
FWIW, all of this is why I say it's a "throw," and call it a "swull" continuum (slightly cheekily I admit). Sometimes (most of the time?), the above is a distinction without a difference and not worth arguing about.
Other times, sure, we can describe fundamentally different actions, and it's maybe possible for variations in kind and degree. McBeth looks like a premium example of a swing, and literally says he built it that way (baseball swing). Wiggins is closest to what I might call a "pull," where it looks like his move has evolved to involve a pronounced horizontal move and different sequencing and acceleration than McBeth. But everyone argued about the details and in the end when what I suggest you focus on is that they are both doing is committing their leverage "sideways"-ish relative to and once they shift into the plant with impeccable weight shifts even if details of the sequence and posture differ. Keep in mind too that even pros are exhibiting some "imperfect" shot to shot variation in their motion that is often "good enough" to get the job done. But this single image should be burned somewhere in your brain:
View attachment 335195
If I made sense or missed the mark, please let me know. I want to boil it down to a shorter version at some point soon.
Holy cow that was a lot of words.
The reason I drew that reach back line on Paul's upper arm is because my first exposure to that was SW's image where it's drawn along Simon's arm so I extrapolated the line onto a non-extended elbow arm. Part of the confusion is I also don't know how general vs specific some advice is or if it's a proxy for something else or not a proxy but a direct deep concept.
I think I see what you're saying for Paul's softer throw, it sounds like you're saying the disc is moving along the trajectory line, but what about the top down wide-narrow-wide picture which shows the reachback / disc is not on the trajectory line?
What makes things harder overall is that I've probably experimented too much and not long enough on each experiment because I'm trying to widely sample a lot and hope for some aha's or something prominent to stick out to then drill down on the right path instead of drilling down on something longer term that ends up being suboptimal and has to be undone / largely revamped later on. So I've tried exaggerating a wide reach back to exaggerate more out in out, exaggerating more linear pull through like Wiggins to see if it helps me get a deeper power pocket, etc. I've thrown close to my max distance with each and my power is steadily improving either way it seems, so it's hard to track what's working best.
In that image of Evelina(?) and Simon, I'll try to focus more on that. It makes me think of a "flinging open dingle arm". Is a sideways motion cue what you advice to try to do this? The other image "push thumb 90 out" suggests more of an outward rather than sideways motion to it, however, when rotating and pushing out I guess that's where it turns into sideways.
Also, I don't think I've ever reached a deep power pocket and I know you can throw 700 ft without it, but I want to see what it feels like at least a few times, hah, maybe I won't like the form as much and not commit to it or maybe I'll like it better. I tried driving / pulling in a straight line more to get there but it doesn't seem to be working, maybe I'm not actually implementing it due to muscle memory, but when I mime it with a disc slowly a deep pocket for some reason feels a lot more natural if you also wrist curl. Does anyone with a deep pocket that you know of go into it without a curled wrist?
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Brychanus
* Ace Member *
YW. Right, the "deep concept" is commiting the primary force of the move at the release point "sideways" (and perpendicular to the plant foot angle, for the most part). Yes, there is variation around that theme, and bodies vary, but IMHO this is a very powerful simplifying concept. Any time I've gone astray it pulls me back. When I 'Look to the moon' it's the apex of the shot. Let the disc take over from there. So more or less when you tee off, you're trying to figure out where you land in the plant relative to the shot apex. That's part of the idea behind Finish & address which you'll see a lot of pros use.
Good Q.
Short answer: It's about how the action of the arm/shoulders/core relate to the lower body as you shift your weight into the plant.
That's part of why I think SW wanted you to try the "straight back from trajectory" reachback- based on how your body naturally wants to shift its weight down the tee, he was trying to get the disc "directly away" from the trajectory because he predicted that your body would naturally (potentially) go wide-narrow-wide like the pro pick on its own. Basically a lot of his coaching points are trying to nudge peoples' bodies into that pattern based on where they currently are without micromanaging it. So I wasn't trying to be dismissive about your questions, but that's why I've learned just to do my best to implement literally what he says. If it doesn't work after a bit maybe there's another problem and it's time to try something else.
Yes, I see you doing this and it's part of why I gave you the advice to settle in and grind a single thing once your coach points it out. Psychologists call this "exploring vs. exploiting" in learning and decision making. It all depends on what you're trying to maximize. If it's long term rewards (here, those would be good form & consistency/power), it's good to explore. However, when you find something that's working you should exploit it.
I'm not as developed an athlete as you, but usually -if the coach is good- exploring what they said for a bit is good with significantly less exploring on your own. Imagine wandering out into a forest without a map and compass. Sure, you might make it to the food and water. Or you might die in the wilderness. Depends on you and the woods. I've found that my own progress improved when I tried to dutifully do exactly what SW said. Many times I have had trouble doing it. But I usually stick with it 2-3 weeks until it "sticks" or completely fails, then the cycle repeats.
Interestingly, exploring has its benefits. For example, since I've "explored" almost all of SW's drill set, I think he can get through to me much faster for any given change conceptually and I can usually try it out right away rather than fumbling around for hours or days. That also means I 'bounce back' to old things that work better now that other things are more developed. I also am getting much faster at predicting what he's going to tell me to do, but I've learned to say less about it until he says it. The rest is just noise. And sometimes I'm still wrong and that's when the learning is about to accelerate again. But interestingly, no matter what he teaches me, it takes between 2-3 weeks before the learning stabilizes, just like every other motor skill I've ever tried to learn. And everyone has an Achilles' heel, I believe - mine is probably that my body/brain just do not want to commit my full mAss into the move sideways, so I am always battling with that and it helps explain patterns in where my form regresses fastest. With my first tournament coming up in two weeks I plan to stick with the recent & last change he just gave me and get as good as I can at those to my body's capacity, then see where I'm at. All of these insights and decisions result from learning from a lot of mistakes while becoming a smarter student.
Your own learning trajectory will differ from mine and I suspect you're going to learn a few things much faster, but I'd just caution your "explore" space if you're also getting coaching input. There's science to back that up.
Yes, a flinging open dingle arm attached at the shoulder, which is guided by your whole posture and move down the tee might be what I'd tell you in particular. Mine started to work better after using a lot of club drills like WeckMethod.
Your ourward/sideways Q is good. I would say (1) yes, the overall move commits the force sideways. You always need to filter the move from that main concept. You can think of the move into the release to function more like a basketball push pass where the thumb is thrown/leveraged toward the target. Other people use more of a windmill forward so the back of their hand is moving a little more directly toward the target. I work the most on using the first one because it works better in the context of the rest of my form, and adds additional leverage and late acceleration. Sidewinder pointed it out to me a long time ago, and I still work on it. Yours might end up a little different based on your overall move and how your arm works in general. But remember- commit the force of the overall move sideways.
Playing with "pull" concepts (broadly speaking) did help me figure out how to reconcile "dingle arm" with "pull," and gradually made it easier for me to find the "deep pocket." Then I went back to working on the arm leverage as mentioned above. But for you, I'm trying to gently nudge you to realize that (1) playing with the "straight back" relative to trajectory and (2) let your shift/posture help create the curvilinear path and "deep pocket" is going to be on the agenda either way.
Driving in a straight line or "pulling" the way most people mean usually doesn't go very well unless the rest of their posture control is already good, which is why I wrote what I wrote in that lengthy piece before.
Wrist curl can be ok as long as you get leverage at the end of the move. I used to have what I call "floppy wrist syndrome" so it's possible to muck it up (again, clubs, hammers, etc. were the way to go there). Maybe look at Kyle Klein for a more straight-wristed example - his tends to remain laser straight.
disc-golf-neil
Birdie Member
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And to clarify I'm not debating / questioning because I don't believe it's good advice or because I don't want to try it out. I just want to make sure I understand it enough to give it high quality tries and to know where it's applicable or not and to be able to become more self sufficient when analyzing my own form and pro form and if I see something that seems like a discrepancy to be able to find out where it's coming from.
Clearly, I was missing some understanding as you helped clarify when looking at Paul's softer drive.
Funny story, I was testing this IN a tournament and accidentally aced, my first ace ever (March 9). It was a 235 foot straight, flat, open hole. I usually do something closer to Paul's soft drive with less coiling and less elbow extension to try to park it in front of the basket because there is OB beyond. But this time, I tried aligning the reachback to the target (the basket in this case), but in order to align my reachback as I previously understood it, while planting 90 degrees and with 90 deg shoulder angle, I had to torso rotate 90 degrees during my coil and also ended up extending my elbow more to make the straight line. Of course this was a lot more coiling and arm extension than I normally would do for that distance, so that's why I overpowered it and aced it even though I tried to pull through slow.
It was pretty awesome of course, but immediately made me feel like I was missing something and shouldn't be trying to do it like that on softer drives and so logically drives with extra power would be off in a different way. The way I was trying to implement it was only matching the desired goal at a certain range of power where it happened to be a good fit. Hence why I came back for more clarification.
Anyways, I'll dedicate my first ace to you and SW for all the time you put in to helping us here!
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Brychanus
* Ace Member *
Well, I tend to think healthy skepticism is a good thing, but knowing the right amount is hard in some domains. I just always remember one of my Profs. James Herbert who taught a Science and Pseudoscience in Psychology course. The main point is that you need a balance between skepticism and credulity that makes progress. That's why I just decided to learn as much as I possibly could here (with esp. SW's profound patience), and listen elsewhere. When I learned that there were a handful of incredibly contentious opinions in DG BH form, I started to look for data, quickly finding almost none other than visual evidence, but then lots of data about adjacent sports. Trouble is that those data don't directly answer all of the most contentious things we could talk about. That's ok IMO as long as you keep learning, and I do think there are a handful of heuristics that are absolutely better than others. Just doesn't look or work precisely the same way on everyone, and that's ok. And it might turn out that there are a couple main "species" in form worth noting, we'll see (or not if studies like Dr. Kwon's with Chris Taylor never finish, and we would need many, many more scientists in this area for certain kinds of progress).
I'll meet your form-hunger story with my own: I came here literally immediately after I was just visualizing Paul, felt as light and quick and coordinated as ever, threw a 9 speed abt. 400' literally effortlessly, then couldn't reproduce it. My recent form is starting to "feel" closer to that more often. The effects usually lag the visual form change and feel (for me). I can also no go back to that same hole and more and more reliably drop the disc where I want it on control drives. Will I "get there" and make that 400' with accuracy easy peasy closer to every time? Who knows. That's the goal for me for now. I'll keep plugging along. Strange journey.
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disc-golf-neil
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Sweet. A big reason I want to hit 500 is just so 400 feels easier and more controllable / consistent. That's more important than the 500 itself.
Edit: simplified the below to just the main question on the topic of controlling launch angle.
Say you are going to throw two shots, both 20 degrees hyzer, same speed, and in the same initial direction but were only going to change launch angle from 5 degrees to 15 degrees. What mechanically are you changing to control that? I have decent control over launch angle but I'm not sure anymore if what I think I'm doing to control it is what is actually happen / should happen.
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Brychanus
* Ace Member *
Can talk thru the rest when out of car, but wanted to say-
I absolutely agree that throwing 500 is a great way to throw 400 with low effort and control. Somehow sidewinders instruction has made that lower number much more accessible to me with only marginally more effort than say 300', more similar to that "magic" shot I told you about. I just always start to run into physical issues faster trying to push much past that, so I can't quite tell how much I will get from strictly form, or if my conditioning program will pay off and get me more without breaking me down. As the weather improves I'll work on raw distance again probably 1x per week and see how it goes. Anyway, just pointing out that you should always set your own goals and you can only know if you can get there by trying. If you run into hard limits, deal with them at the time. More in a bit!
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Brychanus
* Ace Member *
IMHO there's more than one way to do this. The reason I've liked learning SW's "posture theory" is because once you learn the "idealized" move (i.e., flat ground, choose your favorite launch angle/nose angle etc., let the disc take over), you just adjust the posture and everything else stays relatively the same (in terms of how the parts of the body relate to one another). His "Ride the Bull" move from Turbo Encabulator is that entire idea in a nutshell. If you watch/do that drill, he's using a relatively low "backswing" and the elbow leads targetward and "up" relative to the ground - but part of that is because his entire body is shifting with tilt like a skiier. In an image:
Jarvis there is a lower launch angle I believe than KJUSA, but if observed in real time you'd see that the elbow leads "up" because it's connected to their shoulder, which is connected to the rest of the body & posture. When standing with your arms extended along your sides, if we call that 0 degrees of shoulder flexion then 90 degrees of shoulder flexion with internal rotation to create a power pocket position generally brings the arm chest high. Reducing shoulder flexion below 90 will get you a bit below the chest (lowering the elbow a bit but not collapsing of course).
Mostly there with you, though I think if you mess with it further you'll find ways to manipulate higher shoulder flexion angles and still come through low with the reachback. If you go too extreme, you will have a comically high release launch angle. If you go too low, you won't be able to create space for the pocket. Most people are somewhere in between - and remember that you can control your launch angles by "fixing" the arm/shoulder unit into a single backswing style and just adjusting your own posture. Simon is one of my favorite examples for someone who has some compromise between shoulder flexion and humeral abduction with a kind of medium backswing, which is probably one of the reasons his move looks "swingier" overall than say Wiggins'. FWIW I found messing around with this a bit gradually took stress off my shoulder while adding more control & smooth power (plus changing the overall arm action pattern w/ SW's input).
Yellow line is Simon's imaginary balance ("tilted axis") down to his plant foot. Green arrows are showing that the leading elbow is basically just carrying thru the move set up by shifting his balance like a pendulum into the plant. This is the basic thing that confuses almost everyone and is hard to "see" in modern form. But if you stare at enough Feldberg and then enough old vs. modern Simon you see what I'm talking about. Efficient. Honestly it's a shame people other than SW don't really talk about any of this as a fundamental. Turbo Encabulator/Double Dragon heavily recruit what I'm talking about.
Also worth mentioning that you might try all kinds of other things for upshots, but in my case it has always been easier to treat driving form as one posture problem from a learning perspective.
I suspect part of your first problem is the same thing I pointed out about your lack of coil in the rear side. Once you learn a proper balanced coil on the rear side, everything makes a lot more sense, and you tend to have less of those issues you're describing because your body can take over more naturally (well, that's the hope). I do think it's very good advice as SW often advises to start with a low-ish backswing that comes through your center of mass somewhere between the belly button and sternum, at least while learning. There are some mechanical benefits to learning that way even if you modify it later.
Klein is doing a version of what I described above - because he is controlling his posture and leverage sequence to "smash sideways" in that tilted axis, he can just change that overall balance to get the lower ceiling shot. That happens now in my own form (which I only bring up because I know exactly how I learned it). My elbow can look like it's going "up" and my reachback can start "low," but because I'm doing a version of "riding the bull" what's really happening is I'm shifting the whole body unit into the plant, and the elbow is kind of launching out on that trajectory. It took my the better part of a year to learn how to do it. Drills & clubs etc helped, still working to optimize. E.g., this was visualizing a low ceiling tunnel shot. FWIW my current favorite course is littered with a bunch of holes with 300'-350' low ceiling tunnel shots in the woods, and I throw more or less like this for those shots. Something like 20 deg. hyzerflips, 15 deg launch angle, let the disc flip almost the entire way before dropping dead on the fairway (more often than it used to, anyway).
Notice how since my form is pretty vertical (maybe the most vertical of anyone I've seen on this forum at least) my elbow is coming way "up" relative to the ground/probably some learned shoulder flexion as my move has developed, but a lot of that is explained by the fact that I come into the plant with some overall tilt and my arm is just "carrying thru" the momentum of everything that preceded it. It's a big part of why I get a big spike in acceleration out of the pocket even when the rest of the move coming into the plant still needs tweaking.
Last- extremes (e.g., crazy spike hyzer), etc. - yes, you can additionally change the arm etc to achieve those angles. It got way easier for me to power those shots and control them after developing more posture control. There are a couple holes where I always just spike past the obstacles, and my reachback and posture both become more extreme to get more power relative to the very high apex. I think I got better at that just by tons of focus on controlling the overall shift mechanics and backswing moving toward/through/then out from my "center."
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disc-golf-neil
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In the moment, how would you translate this bigger picture understanding into a simple cue(s) for yourself to make an adjustment, e.g., "I want to throw that same shot but slightly higher, I'm going to do a little bit of ___ to adjust" or if you were going to give a cue to an intermediate level player to make that adjustment--of course it could change based on their style but is there a decently generalizable cue?
I normally use the cue about reachback height to match the intended launch angle and imagining maintaining that plane on the pull through. But the more I play the more I'm just focusing Y part of my X, Y coordinate aim point and not thinking thinking about much else which automatically seems to help align the whole system pretty well to aim at that height, but, this might just be because I've already developed muscle memory and thought about what I mechanically want to do in the past. So, if I were to try to give a cue to someone to make that height adjustment, giving the "focus on the Y coordinate aim" is great, but I'd at least want to add one small mechanical adjustment cue as well to that.
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Brychanus
* Ace Member *
TL;DR:
Aim everything with some kind of pump.
Summary: Solve a few problems at once:
1. Use a pump to aim and move thru the release point on intended trajectory.
2. Pump should always be connected to your posture.
3. If not using a fully extended pump, control of your posture into the shift/direction of elbow lead works.
4. Develop a practice pump routine to always aim before you setup for the shot.
That's not long enough, tell me more
Full pendulum pumps are becoming rare these days. In my form one benefit of learning the full pump as part of my whole posture is that I literally just use the extended pump to control the intended trajectory. I can take the full pump away and do a more subtle pump more with my elbow like Tattar, Jenkins, Doss, modern McBeth, Lizotte, Ulibarri talks about it, etc. I typically tend to use a full pendulum pump for now and it teaches the body a lot about rhythm and momentum and in my case it's starting to work better than ever, but they all clearly work if your posture is good enough.
Regardless of pump style, you'll see a lot of pros use a "slash through" like in Finish & Address. That's what Paul is doing here, exactly through the release point and on the trajectory he intends to throw.
It's important to notice that his throwing posture is preserved in the entire practice swing through the release point and into the follow through.
Since I'm aggressively working on fixing my X-step again, I'm also fond of doing a little shuffle X-step like Simon now and find that it's directly related to my angle control. I get to practice my evolving move thru the hips (where most players are deficient and I still need work), the plant, and the practice committing through the release point (which is another major failure point in most developing players' swings). I had just changed a ton with SW's input in the past two weeks and this little habit is probably what kept me on the fairway on most tee shots the first time I took it back out for a spin lol
Another benefit to all this is you have 2 opportunities to "abort" if something goes wrong: once in the practice swing. If you don't like it, reset. Twice when you start to tee off since you might detect when you're about to get off rhythm or balance.
disc-golf-neil
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Great explanation, yeah I really like the little pump, especially as a timing sync as well. I really liked Isaac's also when I first saw it when I was only a few weeks in and had some success trying it, probably because at that time it helped me prevent an early reach back and robustly ingrains the line just before the throw. I ended up not sticking with it for some reason, probably because I saw how rare it was and figured I'd try the other more common subtle pumps.TL;DR:
Aim everything with some kind of pump.
Summary: Solve a few problems at once:
1. Use a pump to aim and move thru the release point on intended trajectory.
2. Pump should always be connected to your posture.
3. If not using a fully extended pump, control of your posture into the shift/direction of elbow lead works.
4. Develop a practice pump routine to always aim before you setup for the shot.
That's not long enough, tell me more
Full pendulum pumps are becoming rare these days. In my form one benefit of learning the full pump as part of my whole posture is that I literally just use the extended pump to control the intended trajectory. I can take the full pump away and do a more subtle pump more with my elbow like Tattar, Jenkins, Doss, modern McBeth, Lizotte, Ulibarri talks about it, etc. I typically tend to use a full pendulum pump for now and it teaches the body a lot about rhythm and momentum and in my case it's starting to work better than ever, but they all clearly work if your posture is good enough.
Regardless of pump style, you'll see a lot of pros use a "slash through" like in Finish & Address. That's what Paul is doing here, exactly through the release point and on the trajectory he intends to throw.
It's important to notice that his throwing posture is preserved in the entire practice swing through the release point and into the follow through.
View attachment 335267
Since I'm aggressively working on fixing my X-step again, I'm also fond of doing a little shuffle X-step like Simon now and find that it's directly related to my angle control. I get to practice my evolving move thru the hips (where most players are deficient and I still need work), the plant, and the practice committing through the release point (which is another major failure point in most developing players' swings). I had just changed a ton with SW's input in the past two weeks and this little habit is probably what kept me on the fairway on most tee shots the first time I took it back out for a spin lol
Another benefit to all this is you have 2 opportunities to "abort" if something goes wrong: once in the practice swing. If you don't like it, reset. Twice when you start to tee off since you might detect when you're about to get off rhythm or balance.
I ran into a pro today (Connor Rock) and asked him this question, he said he uses reachback height as a cue for launch angle so it's probably decently common among pros if the first I've asked that question happened to be in that category.
Aborting is a good point, trying some new form stuff sometimes it messes me up and I end up aborting and it probably happens because my pump ends up being mistimed while focusing too much attention on the form change which automatically makes me stop without having to think about it.
disc-golf-neil
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Also, @Brychanus, do you think this elbow position is too low?
I tried practicing keeping it higher today but of course it reverted when I threw hard, need more reps to get the muscle memory, but it didn't feel as good or powerful. Could just be because I'm not used to it, but wondering if it's something I should focus on or if it's within the normal range of variance in players stock position
I tried practicing keeping it higher today but of course it reverted when I threw hard, need more reps to get the muscle memory, but it didn't feel as good or powerful. Could just be because I'm not used to it, but wondering if it's something I should focus on or if it's within the normal range of variance in players stock position
Brychanus
* Ace Member *
Thanks for sharing Rock's tip- yeah, try both on and see what you like esp. for launch height (and lmk!). Sometimes the posture adjusts with the reachback height well enough on its own. Mine has also adapted over time especially after throwing at the extremely high launch angles since I like to go "over the top" of stuff when I can.
Aborting is a good psych trick because of reinforces to the brain/body that it wasn't correct. It's usually good to put it whatever you're working on the most. E.g., mine is currently at exactly when my X-step hits the ground. If I can tell I'm off balance or sequence or whatever in any way, I abort and reset. Then it gets easier to fix it right away, gives me more control over my body in transition, and the move gets better faster with each rep. If you do this, try not to have too many "abort codes" or it just confuses the body - just focus on whatever you're working on.
Brychanus
* Ace Member *
Could be alright in terms of height. Will be a little easier to tell in live throw, but I think if we saw that you're sawing off a bit of the move in the end and leaving the trailing side behind a bit.
Brychanus
* Ace Member *
Oh and come to think of it I think throwing in extremely uphill holes and spike hyzers on a very low reachback taught me a lot about "throwing upward nose down" and it was easier to recruit my core and weight shift that way. Bringing it down to lower launch angles was its own challenge but it helped my body understand what it should feel like. So maybe literally get out there and heave some spike hyzers for a couple days with a lower reach back.
disc-golf-neil
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I actually like spike hyzers and don't have an issue with throwing pretty steep ones, it's fun. I'm just confusing myself thinking about how a low reaching back has helped me throw higher launch angles by pulling through on that plane (resulting in a bit lower of an elbow position) but then I saw my elbow was down like the picture I shared even for just a ~15 degree launch and seeing pros able to throw high launch angles without dropping the elbow, like that Hailey King spike hyzer over trees she is close to, armpit area looks like almost 90 degrees. However, on the course 15 deg is really high compared to the most common shots in wooded courses.
Linking it again in case you wanted to re-watch since I edited it out when trying to trim down my old post but you were already commenting on it mid edit, lol.
23:03 and 24:38
Checked a recent throw at the stock launch angle I throw on the course (mostly wooded) and elbow looks a bit low for how low of a launch angle it is. Also reachback exaggerated wide b/c I was trying SW's recommendation to keep the off arm elbow from being so high. Not the best quality vid unfortunately either:
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