Learning to throw with both hands (update 8/20)

by **Peot** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 6:47 pm

Hey everyone,

Ambidextrous, learned and started playing as lefty and am naturally right-hand dominant. Just trying to clean up my form and start throwing farther!

I know the angle on some of these are bad but bear with me please. I've been playing for about a year left-handed (minus november-march) and have only thrown right-handed about 5 times now.

2 vids from each side today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=venqbYfs0Yw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJwTe8pqHHo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPFaGEGKK5c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb-UnxzNzbw

Thanks for your input!

by **Whiz** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 6:58 pm

Six words: Hammer drill, hammer drill, hammer drill.

This is what I have found is most helpful when trying to learn to throw with the opposite hand.

by JR » Thu Apr 21, 2011 8:40 pm

Ambidextrosity is a distinct advantage and because it seems to be easy for you to attain you should pursue it.

Obviously you want to eventually match your left arm with your right. It's the same process all over learning to crawl first then walk then run. so first you need to be able to mirror your lefty from a stand still.

I only review the lefty because the righty will follow with practice when you mirror the lefty. As a control drive your form ain't too shabby. As a distance drive there is room to improve. You miss the pause. The leg follow through varies in where it lands. Did you intentionally want to go for different power levels in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb-UnxzNzbw
You don't turn the waist or the shoulders to the left and miss a lot of power. You aren't really elbow forward. I'd also test different timings of the arm acceleration to see which one yields you the most distance now. Note that it may change when you gain power and condition your nervous system to be faster. So you should test each season. Can you pivot on the heel after landing on the toe then rolling onto the heel along the edge of the side and the bottom of the sole of the shoe? It is hard to tell what you use because you have flat footed shots and ball of the foot pivots and quarter heel pivot.

What is missing most out of long throws is oomph. Get going. Explosive acceleration in the legs, hips, shoulders and the arm. The arm is closest to where it needs to be out of those. What specifically do you want advice on? I'm not sure if it was distance or control.

by **Peot** » Fri Apr 22, 2011 11:32 am

Basically distance. I never really realized how little I've been putting into my throws, since I don't get any hands-on help and really the only way I've been improving has been by reading DGR. The other thing is that, though my left-handed form is much better because I've been doing it longer, my awkward right-handed throws are already starting to go just about as far if I throw correctly. I can get putters around 225' with some consistency with my left hand and I've hit about 240" with both hands on a good Wizard throw. I just can't get much separation between throwing putters and throwing mids/drivers, which must be because I'm throwing mostly with my arm.

I think once I learn how to effectively use my power I'll be able to bomb, since I've been training for and competing in (I guess arguably) the most physically demanding and training-intensive sport there is for so many years. I don't know how many pro disc golfers have been forced to do power cleans and deadlifts and things of that nature, and I'm very curious as to how years of strength training and wrestling will translate once my technique gets better.

by JR » Sat Apr 23, 2011 4:27 am

Disc choice of too fast and /or too LSS discs may also limit distance separation between putters and drivers. Nose up may be an issue. To me it looked like you had a couple of degrees of anny in the video i linked in my first reply. I didn't scrutinize the other videos. Since you've wrestled i'd imagine that you've got huge amounts of torso power. Tapping into that should make things happen fast. Good luck trying to tie form and timing to that. When you do... booom!!!

by **Peot** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 12:31 pm

Ok guys, I've embarked on a steady diet of pec drills and form enhancement and got a HUGE jump in distance yesterday. Was pulling way closer to the chest, planting on my whole foot/heel instead of the ball of my foot (this changed a lot) and I was sending an ESP cyclone, pro leo and champ valk to about 350'. Video to come soon!

by **Peot** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 6:45 pm

Ok, here's some throwing from today. I still think I need to pull closer to the chest, get my elbow pointed at the target more and get my weight forward better. I'm trying to do the pec drill (included a couple of those) to help with that

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBewm6NDi08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZseoAwMNq_s

by JR » Mon Jun 06, 2011 6:32 am

You'll hurt yourself quickly with fully planted steps. You absolutely must pivot with only a part of the sole touching the ground. Luckily you aren't totally flat footed. You may confuse pushing harder with the leg with added traction from having more sole to ground area. Your arm drops way lower in the follow through compared to the throw plane. Do your discs flip often? Or can you avoid flipping only with very overstable discs?

by **clard** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:33 am

Nothing helpful to say except that I noticed you are throwing at Schenley park. I have seen you out there a few times.

Yep, I'm creepin.

by **Peot** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 10:52 am

JR wrote:You'll hurt yourself quickly with fully planted steps. You absolutely must pivot with only a part of the sole touching the ground. Luckily you aren't totally flat footed. You may confuse pushing harder with the leg with added traction from having more sole to ground area. Your arm drops way lower in the follow through compared to the throw plane. Do your discs flip often? Or can you avoid flipping only with very overstable discs?

Well I don't mean necessarily planting and not pivoting at all, but that pivoting off of a harder plant/more on the outside of the foot has definitely proven more effective than pivoting on the ball of my foot. I've been watching a lot of pros throwing lately and this seems to be the convention.

The most overstable disc I threw in that video is a star teebird. The rest are MD2's, a Buzzz, a pro leo, an ESP cyclone and a champ valk. I don't have too many problems flipping discs in general, though obviously if I release more understable plastic in a flat plane they will track left.

by **Peot** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 10:13 pm

Tried starting my pull much higher and preserving the plane and this allowed me to throw much higher, which gave me a little distance boost. I threw a couple absolute bombs (relative to my distance say, a week ago) so I'm very excited about what's to come!

by **Peot** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 4:56 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOfSezjXdI8

I definitely still have some of the same problems, but slowing down my run up is helping a lot. More right hand video to come soon.

by JR » Sat Jul 02, 2011 10:26 pm

Your pivot is too close for comfort to being flat footed. Reaching back farther is in order when you get comfortable with accuracy and repeatability. Nobody can tell you when you're fine but the more you are on the fairway on the tightest courses the better off you are. You need more than form for that. You need to trust your ability to throw as well as you do in field practice. You gotta be able to trust your form and commit to the shot.

by **Peot** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 5:56 pm

At this point I feel pretty good about my form relative to throwing upshots and short drives. At this point I think it's just distance that I really need to keep pushing.

by **Peot** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 9:06 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVU1KnlgHFM

Comet, Roc (little OAT here), Roc, River, EL, EL, brand new EX, Roadrunner, brand new SOLF, new Pred, Flow, Flow

Still have a little too much of a dip in my reachback, but a lot of other things seem to be clicking for me.

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