Help needed

[JR]

Check out Youtube channel lcgm8 for The Stockholm Disc Golf Open 2010 where i managed to film each throw of David to see how often he rounds. He teaches people to not to round and in one interview he said it has given him a profession teaching to pull in a straight line pivoting on the heel. His power comes from timing to a large degree. He does kick forward with the left leg so much so that it moves from back to front left. That counters the backward force of the elbow straightening. You might want to try the Feldy steps because done right it will almost force you to time the late acceleration of the arm well. Dave has variations in how much he bends the arm and often times his arm is nearly straight throughout the throw. Not always though.

Probably the real reason for his distance is the snap.

For more Feldy stuff check out the clinics in Disc GOlf Monthly 94 and 95.

Don't worry it is perfectly normal to not to be able to rectify even one thing immediately. More than two is a crap shoot.

[fusan]

Hmm interesting... so this thing called Snap, what exactly is it?
I allways thought that snap was created from the right pec and out. But since Dave does not use this method,
it must be something else, but what?

[JR]

Don't think that Dave doesn't use it nobody throws that far without snapping and he showed the wrist part of the snap in his clinic when he was here. He held his wrist at neutral and moved the hand about a centimeter or 1.5 cm to the right of neutral and stopped the wrist there. Every part of the snap has been documented all over in technique forum threads and in video reviews too. Body positions and timing. Note that there are more than one form of wrist snap and previous forms though. In the wrist part of the snap i think most forms share the need to resist the bending back of the wrist somewhat at least and the need to actively move the wrist right and stop the wrist abruptly right after that. A good snap does need some elbow straightening and Dave does have minimal amounts of many times but it is there almost every time. The movements are small and fast so they are difficult to see. Timing is crucial and the pivot hop step that Dave uses seems to make the timing of the elbow chop fast and the wrist actions easier to learn. So you definitely want to try that. The arm shoots out faster and it feels different in the arm physically to most other forms. With that feeling i was able to focus more on my form to the chop and make it more consistently faster. It needs twitch movements AKA using mostly the outer layers (the fastest cells) of the muscles only for much of the elbow chop early part to get equally fast acceleration. I had gotten similar acceleration but with lesser frequency before i tried the pivot hop step. Once i became more mentally aware of how it felt i was able to zoom in on that feeling and how to consciously guide the muscles to get the same acceleration. The feeling is unmistakable once you feel it. doing it with the pivot hop step makes it easier to achieve without as much fast muscle cells, nervous and muscle speed and muscle power.

[fusan]

So I have changed the runup to being way slower and a lot more inline.
I feel like Im getting the hips to rotate.
I get close to the Right Pec before the final rotation.
The reachback is now straight.

Now I only have to get rid of the throwing to the right...
Is it the lack of the pause?
Do I rotate to early?
Do I not reach back enough?

Please enlighten me...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMtYuEpE ... e=youtu.be

[seabas22]

You reachback too early and rotate too early. Your weight transfer is still wonky and shifting from in front of you which will lead to throwing right. Stay on your rear toes(off the rear heel) and keep your weight between your feet. You let your weight/head get too far back toward the outside of your rear leg/foot and don't turn the hips back enough coming down to the plant. Close your stance(front foot) some on the plant so your weight can transfer from behind you.

Watch the feet.

[JR]

You're nearing Markus Källström with the foot being almost flat on the ground and the leg being fairly stiff and in place with the momentum shifting super quickly into the rotation of the upper torso from the hips. I'd call that a positive problem. Problem because it happens so fast that your shoulders and arm did not keep up with the faster (more power generating) movement. Positive because now you know the principle and practice of moving the different parts of the body in separate pieces at least to a degree. And that holds keys for more distance in driving. Beware that being so flat footed is dangerous to your health and it is no wonder why Markus lifts weights and is very muscular from the core down. And he stretches more than many realize even during round but before that he's really not cutting any corners. His power and way of throwing mandates being an athlete and it still can injure you.

You have choices to be made. Will you harness the added power of the hips flying fast to the right with the leg being jammed in place at least for a while or using more torso muscles with less stress for the legs and being looser in the leg and pivoting. If you choose to plant the foot and hold it in place until the disc has left the hand you need to yank the arm faster and probably earlier too to keep it in line. Or you'll miss to the right each time because the arm ain't that fast vs the x steps and pushing with the legs flinging the hips to the right.

What you should absolutely hold on to throughout your throwing career is keeping the hips turning. That tells that your plant step distance and sideways placement is good enough to allow free enough movement of the leg to hip joint. You clear the hips many don't and for many of those who don't the reason is the joint locking up due to running out of movement range. Thanks to setting the plant step down in a wrong place. You were planting for more weight shift and less than perfect straight line movement still so the plant step was in a mild anny position.

You tilted so your posture should be more upright.

[fusan]

Thanks again for taking the time to analyse my swing to both of you.
Like I mentioned, I have been working hard on the allready mentioned issues and I can see Im moving the the right direction.
The improvement is not as fast as I would like it to be, but Im improving and thats whats important.

I remember asking our local pro, Karl Johan Nybo about how he generated the speed for his long throws.
Even though he is physicly very talented, he have a hard time explaining exactly what he is doing. The thing
he told me was that I should twist my leg. But back then I couldnt understand how it could generate that much power.
I had very little understanding of the mechanics of the throw. Now I know a little better (after you guys explained it)
so now it is clear why I have to twist the leg to start the chainreaction of the throw.
Well what I basicly mean is that you have to have a certan degree of theroretical and practical understanding to move on.
Otherwise you want be able to fully understand it. Well I cant anyway.

JR I understand you point about the arm not matching the speed of the legtwist. I hope it is a timing issue and like you said,
If I slow down a little with the legs and speed up a little with the arm I might find a way to throw straight.
Regarding the left foot getting stuck, I think seabas22 is on to somthing about that I transfer the weight to much and make it hard
to rotate on the heel once most of the weight is on the front foot.
I do understand that I have to rotate on the heel of the front foot in order not to harm myself, so that is indeed something I will work
on. But it is a slooooow proces to get everything in place.

This leads me to another question...
Should I rotate more (and slower) with the legs and hips and push less with the rear leg to avaoid transfering to much weight to the front
and be able to rotate on the heel?

[seabas22]

I'd say it's more of a balance/posture/stance issue rather than thinking about pushing/rotating legs/hips. There are different ways to have your weight forward. The front foot pivot occurs after your weight has transferred forward as much as possible and then you start becoming weightless as you kind of bounce back off the ground. Think about weight transfer being more ground force up/down rather back to front. Your weight should always be kept dynamically between your feet. Brad Walker talked about the feet doing a double pivot, both feet actually pivot. The rear foot pivot is hard to explain, but it's how you keep leverage through the shot.
This is fairly good explanation of the rear foot leverage, skip to 2:20 in the video:

[fusan]

Seabas22, what is mentioned in the video and what you said, was what I ment by rotating rather than shifting weight.
This also sustain your theory about not moving to far foreward. Good aspect and explanaition about not loosing the elastic
you build up by collapring during the swing/throw in the video. Anyways its is time to practise you guys advice, but Ill be back
with more videos.
Again I really, really appreciate that you guys take the time to explain the mechanics and how to apply them to my throw.
This valuable information is not available in my club. Not many can go so much in depth so I greatly enjoy all your feedback.