Somebody Fix Me?

[JR]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb7hqpMjsSg&feature=related <---watch their off arms. They are all actively thrusting their hands down and straightening their elbows. Like cracking a whip. You can see the energy travel from their left hand into the disc.

This is a great point, and a great video to illustrate. Thanks for posting this Aaron, I'll be working on this angle myself (my off arm is not being very useful at the moment).

Also check out the Skellefteå area style from Sweden and occasional throws of Steve Rico where he swings his off arm so that his finger tips are by his navel when the body is turning. There's a video of the Skellefteå type of thing on the Latitude 64 video about their driver Mirus on youtube I think. Or maybe it was their home site. Featuring Linus Åström.

[Bradley Walker]

this position is the key. Do not focus on *just* the elbow. Look at the entire position.

A good exercise would be to put yourself into this position in freeze frame. Now, does you throw have anything to do with this position? No, not really. You never achieve this position. This is the true power position.

THIS POSITION IS NEARLY UNIVERSAL AMONG GOOD PLAYERS.

Your throw is pure arm whip. Your arm whips around your body rotation (very nicely I might add). You can throw like that, but the distance potential will top out early. The "big snap" come from loading the elbow into this position over the top of the lead leg. Your elbow is never getting cocked to a great extent. Your hit over your left pec instead of starting at your right pec.

The rotation of the swing must transfer from the rear of the body to the lead leg. For the finish of the throw, you are actually rotating around the front knee, not your center. That is why the rear leg is very nearly off the ground.

This rotary weight transfer is part of the power coming into the hit zone. The weight shift from the land leg in the X step to the front leg is part of the "snap load" of the body. Firing the rotation to the front "center of rotation" puts you into the "braced" position shown by these pictures.

Your collapsing lead leg shows your rotation is to far to the rear. Blake calls that "weight back" but I believe this is *slightly* misleading because it is not just about weight, it is about the center of rotation.

You never make any effort to get into this position. If you did achieve this position in your throw, you lead leg would appear flexed or bent.

PS: this is my biggest flaw myself. It has been immensely hard to work on. Mimicking this position shown in these pictures (even make that Avery face HE HE), and trying to throw back through this position is the only thing that has worked.

In fact, it is apparent that this bent elbow, elbow forward position is so important, I now understand "true" bent elbow throwing simply *starts* from this position and simply coils and uncoils the body back away from and back into this position. Everything else is not bent elbow.

[Bradley Walker]

Blake and I agree, most people are focused on bullshit.

This is not bullshit. It is the heart of the matter, as they say... if you can get into this freeze frame position and work back from there building as much rotational power as you can into it, you will create late arm acceleration...

[JR]

The disc at the left pec position is covered in the DVD by Feldy and Climo. In the power bar the left pec position should be fairly loose at about two thirds power quickly accelerating to full power very shortly thereafter. Accelerating fast once the disc is by the right pec or just past it.

According to my current understanding the idea of having some muscle tension in the arm when the disc is at the left pec is starting the loading of the arm muscles plyometrically. Full loading occurs once the elbow is fully out toward the target and the disc is by the right pec to slightly beyond. Depending on the thrower. The taller the person the closer to the target the disc is at elbow full forward position. The tendon bounce starts from elbow forward position in the beginning of the elbow chop. The muscles start to fire fast opening the elbow helped by the tendons returning from stretched to neutral. If I understand anything.

[TarHeelSam]

Wow. Thanks so much to everyone for your input... I'm trying my best to make sense of all of this information, it's just really overwhelming. I've now read that super-long thread of the "after the right pec drill" (thanks BU), and I'm trying to apply it to what I'm being told here. I think what I'm getting as being the main issues are along the path of needing to close my wrist (although I thought you weren't supposed to do that), needing to release the disc later in my delivery ( I can see that I'm letting it go at the left pec, I just need to learn how to change that... it feels so natural the way I'm doing it), and needing to bend my right leg on release instead of "locking" it?

I think I need to just pick one main thing at a time to learn to correct, because I'm really struggling to process all of this. Any ideas on where I should start? Drills?


Thanks

[black udder]

I'd start standing still and pulling close and the wrist action. That's pretty simple because you just need to get used to the wrist and close pull. Once you have that you can move onto whatever. As for bending the leg (knee), I thought that you had a heel pivot which I've seen people do with a pretty straight leg. It's actually hard to bend and pivot on it at the hit. You just want to make sure that you're not torquing the knee to prevent injury. I can't recall if you'd mentioned knee pain, but if not, I'd say continue. A heel pivot is a good thing, opens the hip faster.

As for hip rotation, you'll need to work on that. You can do that in the house though. it's easy to just pivot the hip with no power, but where you'll see gains is when you do pivot with power. It can be pretty explosive.

[TarHeelSam]

I'd start standing still and pulling close and the wrist action. That's pretty simple because you just need to get used to the wrist and close pull. Once you have that you can move onto whatever. As for bending the leg (knee), I thought that you had a heel pivot which I've seen people do with a pretty straight leg. It's actually hard to bend and pivot on it at the hit. You just want to make sure that you're not torquing the knee to prevent injury. I can't recall if you'd mentioned knee pain, but if not, I'd say continue. A heel pivot is a good thing, opens the hip faster.

As for hip rotation, you'll need to work on that. You can do that in the house though. it's easy to just pivot the hip with no power, but where you'll see gains is when you do pivot with power. It can be pretty explosive.

So like the right pec drill? Or what? I've tried the right pec drill, and It makes me jerk the disc off way to the right. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong.

[black udder]

I'd start standing still and pulling close and the wrist action. That's pretty simple because you just need to get used to the wrist and close pull. Once you have that you can move onto whatever. As for bending the leg (knee), I thought that you had a heel pivot which I've seen people do with a pretty straight leg. It's actually hard to bend and pivot on it at the hit. You just want to make sure that you're not torquing the knee to prevent injury. I can't recall if you'd mentioned knee pain, but if not, I'd say continue. A heel pivot is a good thing, opens the hip faster.

As for hip rotation, you'll need to work on that. You can do that in the house though. it's easy to just pivot the hip with no power, but where you'll see gains is when you do pivot with power. It can be pretty explosive.

So like the right pec drill? Or what? I've tried the right pec drill, and It makes me jerk the disc off way to the right. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong.

The right pec drill is an exercise to help players understand late acceleration. You reach back, pull in slowly, then when you get to the right pec area, 100% through the finish.

I'm saying in the house, try the hip rotation until it feels comfortable. Then add that to your current throw. See what it does. If I had to guess, it should yield some late releases because you'll be rotating faster than you did before, so you'll release late. Once your timing gets down, you can work on snap and pulling in tight, etc.