how do you throw a thumber?

[monter_masher]

hey everyone how do you throw a thumber? and what is it?

[Thatdirtykid]

thumber= overhand shot thrown similar to a baseball, mabey a higher trajectory with the thumb on the inside of the rim. flies left to right for a righty.
tomohawk=fingers on the inside of the rim.

try it out, and you will get the jist of it easily. and for detail, i believe there was a tommy/thumber discussion before

[jiwaburst]

What I like to tell people about these shots is to throw them like a football.

Some people get those throws immediately. some never feel comfortable with them. Most people feel much more comfortable with one and not the other.

A Tomahawk goes right and then falls left (in general), a Thumber goes left and falls right (in general). Disc selection and angle of release allow for myriad nuances of this shot, like any other disc shot.

Both of these shots tend to flop on contact with the ground, leading to decent reliability and confidence when using it.

There are three main uses of this shot, one is to get over trouble or out of trouble when you have to go high or have hit a high clearing to get out of woods, another use is to reduce worry about severe elevation changes as you are landing "lawn dart" style. Third use, and the one I see in my area that shaves the most strokes off, is using a Thumber to hit short par threes that finish right and are blocked from taking more conventional routes for RHBH shots.

[Thatdirtykid]

i agree most people are much more comfortable with one than the other. I throw thumbers, I have alot of trouble with tommys. I believe its because I dont bring my arm straight over so when I release a tommy its more like throwing a forehand w/ 85% of anhyzer. It takes a conscience effort to come over the top and have the disc flipped over a touch to get a tommy to fly right. I have more of a sidearm tendancy when throwing overhand. I accually am throwing skamahawks or knife hyzers where alot of people are throwing tommys now. For me the skamahawk is very striaght up and down with more left to right play, like a knife hyzer thrown very nose up so it comes backward more than have an arch.

[jiwaburst]

and I have a much harder time with thumbers, in order to get that last 75' out of them I have to turn my forearm a slightly different way. This is my theory du jour as to why people are better with one than another.

Throwing overhand is not an easy thing for a human arm/shoulder to do. Most of us as kids learn to throw balls and spend hundreds of hours throwing footballs, baseballs, rocks etc.. to develop that muscle skill. One of the things we learn is how to pronate our elbows in conjunction with our shoulders. My theory is one of these methods of throwing overhand (Thumber or Tommy) will feel more natural to our learned elbow motion.

But if we really work on it, we can get our overhands to take reverse paths. I am getting pretty good at using a Spirit to go right late on a tommy, so I'm torn as to whether it is worth it to force both shots. And as you explained, you already have a nice alternative. If you have to learn one, the Thumber is more useful IMHO.

btw, skamahawk is what exactly? I see the potential for knife hyzers replacing this shot, but the fade/bounce/skip aspect of a knife hyzer still is a long way from mastery for me.

[Thatdirtykid]

http://stickitdg.com/gallery/albums/album04/skamahawk.avi

if you throw them high they generally land vertically w/ less bounce or roll than a thumber or tommy or knife. the disc comes down perpendicualr to the direction of momentum which keeps it from rolling much. (although the one in the video kinda cut rolls, I throw mine alittle different, a bit higher release like you would throw a sky roller if you wanted it to roll 50' in front of you)

[Blake_T]

Schweberger has some of the best thumber mechanics and was a college baseball player.

i have talked with him about it (and agree with him) that the thumber is a more natural motion than a tommy.

thumbers are more over the top and more closely resemble a throw from center field to home plate or a quarterback throwing a long bomb.

tommy's are more of an inverted throw (harder on the elbow and shoulder) and more closely resemble a screwball.

what most people don't realize is that if you have one, you have both.

each of these shots has nuances in technique and most players tend to just want to throw as hard as they can over the top and pick a disc to do the job rather than learn the variations of the technique and be able to throw very versatile versions of these throws (fast corkscrew, double cork, stalls, etc.)

all things equal, the thumber will always have greater distance potential because you can generate greater extension power coming over the top and because of the increased rip strength of the thumb vs. the fingers.

[Thatdirtykid]

I know weve discussed this but what kind of disc would you choose for shots like a double corkscrew (other than the epic).

can you throw a tommy w/ the same throw as a thumber. I can flip a sidewinder or other understable disc from a tommy but cant do it with flicks, wildcats or viking

[Blake_T]

if you give even 1-2 degrees of inward tilt on a tommy it becomes exponentially easier to flip it but this gets more awkward as the amount of tilt increases.

i've seen double corkscrews done with the stratus and x wildcat before (both were broken in).

[Thatdirtykid]

im not even sure I could double corkscrew my mini... I will have to mess with those in the field later. or now, after today I think I should just putt in the yard for a couple weeks (hours a day...)