Multiple Forms Extravaganza

[Brychanus]

What is this thread about?
For a little while now and after @timothy42b's thread on "Big Questions after Fundamentals Of", I've been learning from multiple people and comparing and contrasting models for form. Some of this has abused my body, but I have learned something from every "experiment." I am nearing the end of the abuses I'm willing to put myself through as I approach 40 slowly but surely and settle into my "good swing/throw" phase of development. But I remain more interested than ever in the bigger picture, so here we go.

I've had several private conversations with many people who I am pleased have passed through this forum in one way or another. Many of them have specific interests and either primary or secondary jobs coaching people. Naturally, as the "coaching" space becomes more visible and saturated, it is bursting at the seams with strong opinions, controversies, big personalities, and all the predictable things that come with a field coming out of its fledging stage and evolving into something bigger.

There's this somewhat interesting concept that people call "good form." For my personal taste and form development philosophy, I usually seek actions that optimize power, efficiency, and safety in roughly equal proportions. That was one philosophy throughout "The Good Swing."

While swing theory encapsulates numerous interesting things and I remain convinced it has a wide domain of use, we throw discs. I have become aware that there are some principles to throwing that do not simultaneously optimize all three dimensions, and there is likely significant variability from player to player along these dimensions. As most athletes know, sometimes, aspects of athletic development put these dimensions at odds with one another. We obviously cannot observe all of that without significant evidence and data.

At this point I have experimented with and discussed data and developing player moves that "asymmetrically" load on power, efficiency, and safety dimensions. They exist. How each of them interact with each player is a much more complicated question. Doesn't mean we can't get started.

Thread Mantras:
-Avoid "it works for me, and therefore thee!"
-Avoid "it does not work for me, and therefore not for thee!"
-Avoid "I understand the One True Form^TM!"
-Avoid "It is inconsistent with my prior beliefs, and therefore it is wrong."
-Do be kind and keep an open mind, as long as your brains don't fall out.
-Do consider data, outside sources, and disc golf-specific or cross-sports concepts.
-Of course, always remember: "When you can balance a tack hammer on your head, you will head off your foes with a balanced attack." -The Sphinx (sorry, I just needed to say "hammer" somewhere).

I'm not a moderator but I started the thread and I request that Rapoport's Rules apply.* Please just discuss (and compare and contrast) mechanics, actions, concepts, and silly memes and I'll do my best to return it in kind. If you are getting hot about something before you type it, I kindly request that you please step away first and decide whether you should type anything at all. On the other hand, I know this is the Internet and DGCR, so if it happens I'll do my best to just kindly look past any outbursts and discuss the mechanics again. I have been getting a lot of practice recently, but let me know if I'm stepping out of line, too.

Thanks & have fun.

Somewhat like Brychanus, my brain dives into weeds obsessively. Unlike him, that doesn't help my throw. But it's the way I'm wired. And sometimes I type too many words.

My first thought on seeing the Jaani video was wondering whether this falls into the deliberate vs associated category. Is it something we should do purposefully? vs something that should happen if we do something else correctly. I'm not distinguishing between consciously and unconsciously. A large number of motions are done consciously and then eventually become habitual. Deliberate elements are different from associated ones, and sometimes it's dangerous to force something deliberately that should just be happening, or that needs a specific precursor to happen.

That was also my reaction to Josh's recent "don't release" thread - do we let the disc rip? vs do we ensure the disc rips. And I think it applies - maybe - to some of the Chris Taylor shoulder adduction scap retraction stuff. At least it is a question we should ask.

A complication is if there are some distinctly different swing patterns, like there apparently are in ball golf, where something needs to be deliberate in one pattern and automatic in another.

(off topic but of interest to nerds - there's an old study by physicists at one of the British universities that described two distinct ball golf swing patterns. I haven't been able to find it but Homer Kelley describes it as hitting (axe handle) vs swinging (rope pull). I have his book but there are no references. Today I found there is a biography of him that talks about his journey, and I need to read that.)

Thanks Timothy, I'm learning from you all the time.

FWIW, what has helped my throwing is @sidewinder22 of course, and also a lot of experiments, frustrations and failures, grit, some "luck," a high degree of openness to experience, and willingness to toss out anything that wasn't working as often as needed. Work on my body and work on my mind. Forgiveness. Patience. Kindness. I am perhaps rare in that I care more about learning mechanics than anything else (and certainly more than putting). I've been willing to watch my drives waver between pretty good to awful over and over while trying on different form "fits" and seeing what I liked. My journey is ongoing and I am sure I'll just keep learning more.

my current opinion is that if you are of the "pelvis is an anchor" camp where your only thought is to stop your forward momentum and keep your center of mass as far behind your plant foot as possible before swinging your arm you're going to probably recruit thighmaster muscles naturally as a result of trying to stop better. The toe touch seems to me like a result of a better/earlier brace keeping you closed for longer.

I see two at the moment (though on a spectrum). The best example is the feeling of the hand and when it is active/passive.

Swingy boys and girls (aka out/in/out or wide rail):
Hand is brought in to the chest passively but if you don't add some speed/effort/acceleration to the hand out of the pocket it comes out early and feels soooooo weak.

Pullers:
Hand is moved forward down the "line" actively and there is no need to focus on an "out" because the late move of the hand to the front of the disc is automatic as you move down the line. Any intentional move "out" here results in an early/weak release.

FWIW: both styles are taught and accepted by various parts of the dg community.

FWIW2: I personally have felt the differences in both and the swing I can do up to about 65mph while I can do the pull up to about 68mph. Certainly not the fastest numbers in the world but I would imagine it would lend some credibility to the feel distinction; especially given my stature and body "type" lol."

Leading by example in comparing and contrasting two extremes, I'm going to start us off right here.

I will talk more about the swing-pull continuum later, but attempted to attack this old problem from a foundational balance, posture, and sequencing perspective.

*You can say this, but consider whether you can say it nicer than Han.

 

[Sheep]

Thread Mantras:
-Avoid "it works for me, and therefore thee!"
-Avoid "it does not work for me, and therefore not for thee!"
-Avoid "I understand the One True Form^TM!"
-Avoid "It is inconsistent with my prior beliefs, and therefore it is wrong."
-Do be kind and keep an open mind, as long as your brains don't fall out.
-Do consider data, outside sources, and disc golf-specific or cross-sports concepts.
-Of course, always remember: "When you can balance a tack hammer on your head, you will head off your foes with a balanced attack." -The Sphinx (sorry, I just needed to say "hammer" somewhere).

I kind of want to go down this list, because I think there is a lot to say with just this that gets us all into trouble here.

Experimentation is king, but if we apply "it worked for me" levels of discussion in coaching, it doesn't have much weight from my book. Mainly because we can skew our results very easily.

There are multiple ways to skin a cat, but some of them are not very efficient or good. And that's something we need to understand in disc golf form. Yeah, you throw the disc 500 feet. That doesn't mean you're doing it efficiently or well. Or really does that apply to the "works for me there for my info is right" situation as well.

Inconsistent with prior beliefs is something we all struggle with and we need to stop poo pooing when someone brings up "new" theories and information and outright dismiss them because they break your paradigm. But as well, with a lot of newer people out there you must also recognize that some with more experience have either already been down that road, or we are countering your information based on lots of previous discussion/research. Again. "it works for me there for...." doesn't apply. As well as multiple ways to throw discs. While it works, doesn't mean it is in the field of "correct." Which we all must understand is variable, but all "good form" his key points regardless of the thrower. And when you start to vary outside that structure, it's not good form. But still more than one way to skin a cat. Some of these various form structures have bad mechanics and have a hard limit. When people talk, they are not necessarily saying you're terrible, but trying to help others identify that that mechanic has been proven poor.

My brain fell out. So. Uhh. Yeah.

Outside/cross sources are some of our greatest area's of information being that there isn't any study in disc golf like we've had in ball golf, baseball, tennis and other sports where the actions are similar despite being different. We can pull so much info from those to learn, as well as disprove bad theories. This goes back onto the whole "works for me" or "bad form" thing. We can identify really bad mechanics because those mechanics have been proven wrong by other sports.

My tack hammer skills were atrocious yesterday. I smacked my finger at least 1 time.
The point of that quote is to remember that its a discussion on the topic and to leave your feelings and assumptions about people at the door providing a balanced argument on the subject matter, not an emotionally skewed one.

/insert hammer time gif

also

/insert hammer time joke gif where they take all of hammers stuff

Leading by example in comparing and contrasting two extremes, I'm going to start us off right here.

I will talk more about the swing-pull continuum later, but attempted to attack this old problem from a foundational balance, posture, and sequencing perspective.

I think we get a bit to nuance in this subject matter with the people who wanna pull and the people who want to swing.

The discussion comes down to the eye of the beholder on a lot of things. It also comes down to the style/build of the person as well.

The key points are hit, but I always looked at this topic as finesse vs muscle.

Example, Ezra. Has a very muscle bound pull style swing.
While simon has a very finesse style swing.

When we break down the swing, were trying to create energy and drive it into that disc. And I think we should also recognize that each method has its ups and downs.
I think you'll gain more with a finesse style swing because you can add the muscle for more power like Paul and Simon, but when you're swing is muscle bound, it's far far far harder to pull it back.

Example driven explanation of this would be a person I used to coach a long time ago. Took him on his first round, sucked bad. Saw him again 3 months later and the dude is ripping 450-500 foot drives. He had excellent muscle/body control, but all he had was "full send" in his vocabulary. no touch, no finesse.
It took about 2 years for me to get him to gain finesse. He never hurt himself because he didn't muscle his shots, but it was a really aggressive power throw, vs a leveraged swing.
I got him into throwing really flippy discs and controlling his game by making him throw things that punished him. Light weight discs, stuff that burns if you dont control it. And his game changed drastically as he ate shit for a while with lack of distance, then suddenly all the control came in. Allowing him to throw really really nasty lines that people just were dumbfounded by because he learned that finesse, but was able to also pump in that power.

Brychanus, for example, is taking things the opposite. Learning finesse, which gives you a better overall golf game and better scores, but it can take time to get the distance. For outright enjoyment of the sport, this is really the best way and the lowest impact way to build a good swing vs just muscling through power play style and then having to reconfigure everything to gain that touch.

I spent 2 years blowing my shoulder out before I learned better myself and figured out this needs to be a dance, not power lifting.

But when we have body control as a dancer, we can then execute powerful moves with grace. VS just looking like were hitting things with a hammer really hard.
(I wanted to say hammer too)

 

[Sheep]

I'll do my best to just kindly look past any outbursts

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

 

[Sheep]

silly memes

I think youre old enough for this to break you.

 

[timothy42b]

I guess the tilted brace is like walking - can't be done in slow motion. So longer motion of COM, more tilt? Less tilt, more requirement for rotational torque?

Two things confuse me right now. (of the many confusions I hold)

One is the lean in the coil back, and that's largely because I've been trying to coil mostly during the transition forward.

The other is the lean in the forward swing, and that's largely because I've been very vertical throwing OLD, mainly because I haven't figured out the coil back. But my distance has increased to where I sometimes outdrive my regular partner (usually outdrives me 30-50 feet). On those drives I lose balance and in fact have fallen all the way down, so I clearly need to figure out this tilted brace.

Hope this is some of where you were going and not totally a derailment.

 

[Brychanus]

I'll weigh in a minute but already before I forget I wanted to clarify in my video above:

I think people often find "center of mass" concepts confusing because, like balance, it is imaginary. I like to think about it, so does someone like sidewinder, etc. But I also think it's very confusing if you aren't used to "looking" for it a lot, and if you define all concepts in reference to it there is risk there too. I think unless someone is already thinking at a high level of abstraction, for practical learning purposes in the real world it is usually clearly more confusing than simple concepts like staying "centered" in the throw or getting "athletically foot to foot" or "athletically resist the ground" and so on. I think it's also fairly clear that the overall body mass stops fairy abruptly when we're talking about high level form, so some of the debates are really whether or not people are talking about center of mass or real body mass.

If you start to look at all the various abstract mathematical ways of talking about throws and actions, you probably don't need to be a kinesiologist or engineer to know we are probably a long way off from the "right" thing(s). That's ok. I'm excited for what comes next.

I guess the tilted brace is like walking - can't be done in slow motion. So longer motion of COM, more tilt? Less tilt, more requirement for rotational torque?

Will start here while in a hurry:

I think lurking around the little tensions I was raising is whether or not the balance really "should" always work like this drill - in natural walking your body does this in a narrower range of motion, which can be enlarged, sped up, slowed down, etc.



If you have a wide-based, horizontal, running X-step you will have something like that tilted balance over each foot (which is how you still get foot to foot athletically, but since you are not purely working vertically against gravity, it would be difficult to truly "freeze" that position fully in balance at an instant in time. I mean something different than bracing to "stop" forward momentum - like literally just freezing a person in space.

If you have a bigger "drift" of the CoM between the X-step and plant, I think there is some tolerance for different absolute postures and sequences, but they do maybe imply different effects and that was part of what I was trying to articulate in Model 1 and Model 2. Either way, by the time you land in the plant, you want the balance moving all the way to the front foot, and the body and pelvis relatively "centered" between the strides.

I'm not entirely sure beyond that. I think there's an interesting space of options to explore.

On leans, tilts etc - I do think there are a lot of options and there is variance out there to be sure. I think the basic idea of "side bend, coil back closing off the front side" gets a lot of work done. If you're centered balance and shift forward, there is a space of acceptable moves in theory.

More "Model 2" thinking- and are we getting data?
I would acknowledge though that part of my "model 2" or variants could involve different balances and sequences, and some of the "stop" concept Kuoksa talks about lives closer to that space. Just something to try out.

Also not sure if it's public knowledge but I have hearsay as of today that in Europe they are acquiring electromyography and related data that challenges the activation sequence ideas in their farthest throwers (including potentially Kuoksa). In that case in a live throw the elbow lead may accelerate earlier than the shoulder, and the role of the hips functions more like a "stop" of forward momentum helping catapult/carry forward the elbow leading into the throw with an emphasis on horizontal abduction (again not in total isolation of other arm and shoulder actions, but counterintuitive in a few ways). So it sorta works like a braced stop, but the net effect of forces and their sequence in a throw may differ. I may not have represented all of that perfectly well but I'll try to follow up out of curiosity.

 

[Brychanus]

Example driven explanation of this would be a person I used to coach a long time ago. Took him on his first round, sucked bad. Saw him again 3 months later and the dude is ripping 450-500 foot drives. He had excellent muscle/body control, but all he had was "full send" in his vocabulary. no touch, no finesse.

Brychanus, for example, is taking things the opposite. Learning finesse, which gives you a better overall golf game and better scores, but it can take time to get the distance. For outright enjoyment of the sport, this is really the best way and the lowest impact way to build a good swing vs just muscling through power play style and then having to reconfigure everything to gain that touch.

I spent 2 years blowing my shoulder out before I learned better myself and figured out this needs to be a dance, not power lifting.

But when we have body control as a dancer, we can then execute powerful moves with grace. VS just looking like were hitting things with a hammer really hard.
(I wanted to say hammer too)

You said a lot there worth expanding, but suddenly I wanted to start with this:

I would ask this to anyone joining this thread, so let's start: how would you define "good form"?


-Learning finesse. Not to get too personal in a mechanics thread but this is true for me. Starting with body mileage and no throwing background means that I exceed my limits easily and frequently, and get slightly hurt often. I've gotten smarter, but the mileage doesn't just disappear overnight. Distance is an important aspect of the game and I am a maximizer, so I'm now in a race against father time. On the other hand, my distance is now good for my background, and I move "safely" enough to try out more aggressive ideas overall, albeit a bit carefully (which even if they are "efficient" I now respect moving well at certain speeds no matter where the power comes from requires at least some level of basic athleticism and coordination).

 

[Casey 1988]

Thread Mantras:
-Avoid "it works for me, and therefore thee!"
-Avoid "it does not work for me, and therefore not for thee!"
-Avoid "I understand the One True Form^TM!"
-Avoid "It is inconsistent with my prior beliefs, and therefore it is wrong."
-Do be kind and keep an open mind, as long as your brains don't fall out.
-Do consider data, outside sources, and disc golf-specific or cross-sports concepts.
-Of course, always remember: "When you can balance a tack hammer on your head, you will head off your foes with a balanced attack." -The Sphinx (sorry, I just needed to say "hammer" somewhere).

This is why with disc golf I have always thought of bowling and how some players use very different technique over others for various bowls, unlike darts were besides darts themselves being very individual for each player, throwing is nearly same for each area a person is aiming for becuse of how most common non electronic style dart board is set up and where line is for each player.

 

[Sheep]

You said a lot there worth expanding, but suddenly I wanted to start with this:

I would ask this to anyone joining this thread, so let's start: how would you define "good form"?

This is where we have to really apply the KISS technique of things.
And this is where a lot of mechanics threads get destroyed as people just make things waaaaaaaay more complicated than necessary.
I like the details too, but, I drive hard on "learn basics" and understanding advanced techniques.
So what really does define a swing.


(thinking this can maybe be broken down in more step style way)

Fair footwork. There is a lot of footwork that isn't great, but gets the load, so "fair footwork"

Brace/weightshift. We know that there needs to be some form of this.

Good body load. Where we are staying balanced and centered and not throwing our weight.

Maintaining good leverage/angles. Don't collapse.

Planar swing. I'm not sure if that's the right word, but a good swing consists of no swooping/airbouncing. But we must understand as well, that we drive the swing from the pocket, not the end of the backswing. Most of your elite players have a high backswing, but when they hit the pocket, it stays planar.

Follow through. This is SO important and over looked.

----

So, if you have fair footwork and you can coil and get a fair body load, brace/weightshift to start the swing, dont collapse, stay centered and make sure to follow through and stay on plane, you should be golfing REALLY well.

The hardest part is to teach people that its a full body movement. This is a dance where our body must work as a big muscle. If you want to get good at throwing, the more muscle groups you can use together properly in sequence/together the more power you have.

This idea of "pulling" is wrong and will always be wrong to me. Because that's not the correct descriptor for the action. It tells peoples brains to yank discs, and we need to stop giving bad commands.



Everything after that is advanced technique.


A majority of peoples form falls apart in one of these things above.
A lot of peoples form falls apart staying centered or throwing some part of their body at the target, such as their head. You can't lead with the head.

 

[Casey 1988]

Follow through. This is SO important and over looked.

Yes, and I have no follow though, in any golf. I have to stop right at the release point, or I Disc golf I grip disc too much or not enough.

In ball/traditional golf I miss ball if I go too far back and too far forward on swing I have ball carry, looking like I am doing a drive as a hit out of lower rough on edges having a very low long drive.

 

[Casey 1988]

This idea of "pulling" is wrong and will always be wrong to me. Because that's not the correct descriptor for the action. It tells peoples brains to yank discs, and we need to stop giving bad commands.

Sliding a disc like on a table is what I was told. Only bad advice was keep the disc low as I had poor grounding issues brought on by angling my disc downward with my wrist and doing a flat drive for a very long time like a, even now my disc comes out lower then most people but due more on fact I am using less tilt then most players especially pro players given the speed I am driving at is much slower.

 

[HyzerRoc]

This idea of "pulling" is wrong and will always be wrong to me. Because that's not the correct descriptor for the action. It tells peoples brains to yank discs, and we need to stop giving bad commands.

I think the way you use the word pulling here has both a meaning as a cue and as a descriptor of a physical action.

It would probably be easier to separate both of these meaning and discuss them separately which is difficult because talking about form is so closely intertwined with coaching.

So to not derail the thread and stay more on topic: would you say it is just a bad cue, or would you also say pulling is not what the arm is doing in what Brychanus proposes as model 2?

 

[Brychanus]

So to not derail the thread and stay more on topic: would you say it is just a bad cue, or would you also say pulling is not what the arm is doing in what Brychanus proposes as model 2?

These are exactly the kinds of questions I hoped my little video would inspire.

 

[Sheep]

would you say it is just a bad cue, or would you also say pulling is not what the arm is doing in what Brychanus proposes as model 2?

I lost everything I typed. Maybe for the better. I went on a tangent about some stuff to make good points and it might have been to much.

Anyways. Pulling is a terrible que. At no point in any proper form swing should you be pulling. Were swinging or driving.

The pulling style que, because this is suddenly becoming a thing again because dead horses get beaten.

The pulling que isn't a pull, its a drive que. And if people spent more time debating and discussing this stuff wouldn't come back. but we all got chips on our shoulders and... yeah.

There is the swing que, out in out. Or the elbow drive que. This is why the door break down que is far better than the pull que and especially the lawn mower que.

Part of coaching is leveling up your skill and knowledge.
And part of coaching and teaching well is understanding what mechanics are in control.

So I look at a lot of the body ques and movements for its root or core.

It "looks" like you're pulling, but you're really dragging your forearm and hand with the elbow.

It's why we get bad instruction like the "double move" and "squish the bug"
Because they see reactions and teach it as the action. You have to find the "core" mechanic and teach backwards from there.

So, to reiterate for a lot of "newer" coaches out there. It's not that you're necessarily wrong in your exploration of ideas, it's this... Which I can describe with this image.



A lot of folk getting into coaching and teaching get some chips on their shoulder because they think they are discovering some new thing, or they are still on their learning journey. But instead of listening sometimes, they want to argue how right their idea's are and how wrong the other person who's been studying it longer is. Were just telling you "you're beating a dead horse, here is why." but with all of us having chips on our shoulders, we struggle to communicate well. And one of the issues with all of that is I eventually get tired of handling some of the people out there with kid gloves and being a mentor good and proper and give you some tough love in return. Then it turns into a bad situation. And it's not helping us.

So what we end up with is newer coaches rushing to publish information, not trying to think and discuss through enough with older more researched coaches to check their info or try and test their idea's in the forum of debate. Talking to just 1 coach or 2 coaches isn't going to give you the best answers. I have the knowledge i personally have from wasting hours and hours and hours watching, researching and talking. Not because I'm some expert. I put in the study and research, then spent the rest of the time testing and re-testing. I'm an engineer, not really an athlete, it makes this stuff easy.

Remember, it's not that my idea's, or seabass, loopghost, whoever's ideas are the definitive. But we do know for certain that there are things that are "good and proper" when it comes to form, and we must endeavor to keep it simple and break it down.

Then on top of that we need to start identifying things properly as "basic form" "Advanced form" and "form theory"


TLDR on the rant. I was trying to make the point that people are re-presenting information that they have not spent enough time studying yet, and it just causes a constant vicious circle of stupidity and doesn't let us go forwards as coaches, because we keep having to debunk stupid things.

 

[Brychanus]

FWIW I currently tend to focus the most on the margins between words, moves, concepts, and feels. Since Sheep is apt to say that most of the basic ideas have either been around forever or recast in various packages, I'm more interested in how parts interact at this point, and how different messages get through to different people. If something goes on my own channel henceforth it will almost always start with a "you may have heard this before, but here's a way that helped me Understand/do it." These days I'm more interested in how things work together as "units" or not, how things like model 1 and 2 differ either in feel or effect even if they are fundamentally the "same" in some ways, etc.

Model 1 and 2 both assume a "stop" of body mass when you are talking about movement North-South along the tee. They just differ in terms of the leverage points and balance and movement of "imaginary" CoM to an extent.

In some sciences people talk about "lumpers and splitters." Lumpers tend to like to group a bunch of things that cluster together into a bin. Splitters cut things into ever-increasing granular details. We learn from both of them.

Model 2 "feels" pullier to me (granted I bet if you ask 10 people to show you a "pull," and you might see as many as 10 different actions). But is it really? Well, I still use most of the same posture and mechanical components. If it were a completely and literally linear move I wouldn't even be able to do it because I am made of meat and bones. Maybe the leverage points are subtly different. The main subjective difference is that the peak of the backswing is "sharper" and exiting it is more abrupt, and the elbow "feels" like it is "catapulting" or "levitating" forward. There seems to more of an emphasis on horizontal abduction that Taylor emphasizes that is kind of building on the catapulting effect in the context of the rest of the move. Otherwise it's a very similar move, so I put it on a continuum with Model 1. It is the move I use when I want to throw a stable Star Firebird 5 feet off the ground 300'+ almost parallel to the ground from a standstill when I have poor footing on a close to flat release angle.

GG is Model 1-y. I think for example Clint Easterly's massive standstill functions more like Model 2, minus some of the gravity-maximizing mechanics and efficiency "tricks" that are in Model 1. His standstills function so well because he's very athletic, has some Jen Allen in his move, and he probably quickly discovered what I "encountered" throwing power standstills on weird footing in the woods. Kuoksa looks a little more Model 2-ish through the hips and legs to me and is clearly using a version of the "tilted spiral" balance, but maxxing out on the horizontal forces plane. Etc.

Would I say those are the "same" move? I guess honestly my answer is that it doesn't matter too much to me at a coarse level of detail. I mostly just view it as variations on a theme, just like when I watch GG, Eagle, and Kuoksa all throw side by side. By the way, almost immediately I had a back leg throwing person come on my channel, ask me "why would there be more than one way to throw?" and after I responded he said there is "one way to throw." When people are that confident anywhere in life, I just ask more questions, so I did. No one is obligated to answer. The intent of this thread was merely to create space to talk about controversial and unsettled topics to avoid the massive echo chamber effect that exists in each closed community. So is my channel, and my conversations with different people, etc.

I would agree that eventually it'd be a nice idea to know what "basic" and "advance" form lines are drawn in the same way that is clearly codified in dances like Waltz. 10 different coaches, 10 different lists probably. But what would they have in common?

 

[OverthrowJosh]

I'll put a vote in the "pull is a viable cue" camp.

pull (verb)
exert force on (someone or something) so as to cause movement toward oneself.
"he pulled them down onto the couch"

From the backswing you are pulling the disc into and through the pocket; which is toward oneself.

It is technically, and I would argue feel wise, correct for some.

Data suggests that scapular retraction and elbow drive happen in long throwers both of which are technically pulling motions.

If you swing/wide rail/out-in-out it may not be technically or feel wise accurate as you could do that with the shoulder protracted the entire time.

 

[Brychanus]

^This is a fine way to say it in IMHO.


Model 2 is more in-out, thus "pullier" under this description.

 

[Jaani]

Data suggests that scapular retraction and elbow drive happen in long throwers, both of which are technically pulling motions.

Yes, it happens. But also, the back leg twists and the rear wrist rotates. And all these things happen in the body at the same time. This, to me, still doesn't mean that we should consciously retract the scapula (or twist and jerk anything else either) because it will happen anyway, and doing it more would be overdoing it. The same as with twisting the back knee, right?

This has been my philosophy for a few years now, as some of you probably know. If something happens anyway, we shouldn't be thinking about doing it, let alone forcing it.

I get the pulling motion, too, nowadays. It can be okay, if we also talk about the follow-through and bracing so that you eventually end up pushing (or letting the disc be pushed) out from your body.

We don't want to rotate open too early, so to cue the hand to swing behind you, not looking at the target, it usually works wonders, at least for me. I still rotate open at the right time, and the disc gets "pulled" until it gets pushed. And yes, the scapula retracts because that is how the arm moves, but it does so without trying to retract it.

 

[Nick Carroll]

Use of the word "pull" can be tricky, and can be good or bad based on a) the context is transmitted, and b) how use of the term is received. The "pulling the lawnmower string" usage is often received badly, because how most people start a lawnmower will involve the elbow coming down, and maybe even the shoulder coming up.

Some people like to use that analogy - Scott Stokely comes to mind - but he tries to contextualize it as a means to find the strongest position of the throwing arm during the swing. But I submit to you most people using the term that way, don't really ensure the elbow is oriented correctly, etc. So I think a lot of people get tripped up with it, so I agree with Sheep that cues like that should really be avoided except for specific use cases by instructors who fully understand how it can mislead people.

But "pull" in and of itself doesn't have to be taught to students in such a manner, and may be learned better when used properly. I personally think of "pull" only in the context of the "in" part of the "out-in-out" description of the swing. You extend your arm, then curl it inward, then extend it again. That curling part is the closest part to a "pull" than I can think of in the disc golf swing, but it's importance is outsized.

That where a "pull" exists is in that first half of the swing that is from the peak of the backswing, to around when the disc comes through the power pocket. You're really pushing at that point, and I think that part just flies under the radar in any typical conversation around the swing.

 

[Sheep]

Yes, it happens. But also, the back leg twists and the rear wrist rotates. And all these things happen in the body at the same time. This, to me, still doesn't mean that we should consciously retract the scapula (or twist and jerk anything else either) because it will happen anyway, and doing it more would be overdoing it. The same as with twisting the back knee, right?

This has been my philosophy for a few years now, as some of you probably know. If something happens anyway, we shouldn't be thinking about doing it, let alone forcing it.

I get the pulling motion, too, nowadays. It can be okay, if we also talk about the follow-through and bracing so that you eventually end up pushing (or letting the disc be pushed) out from your body.

We don't want to rotate open too early, so to cue the hand to swing behind you, not looking at the target, it usually works wonders, at least for me. I still rotate open at the right time, and the disc gets "pulled" until it gets pushed. And yes, the scapula retracts because that is how the arm moves, but it does so without trying to retract it.

Right, a lot of the pulling que's end up leading to bad timing.

Pull with your brace, not your face.
I duno, that sounded cool, but its really true to. if you throw your head, you're pulling the disc with your face, literally.

You have to build "up" the chain from the brace. Is there a way to "pull" the disc. Sure. But its a bad que for the brain. We wanna drive the disc. Are we "pulling" it. sure.
But it's really the victim of other things we are creating, not the victim of active movement.

Also, the scapula has to retract when you follow through, but its not the muscle you should be using to swing. It's part of the fast twitch explosion in the swing.
The whole scapula pull together thing is... so silly.
Actively snap both your scapula muscles together on your back.
Tell me how great that feels. It fking hurts. Those muscles are not very powerful.

More Muscles in Unison = better

fewer muscles to throw = muscling

Were not doing isolated power lifting. Were doing a full body movement. Use as many muscles as possible as wisely as possible.