Slowing it down

[ashley]

I met Courtney in Ok at am worlds in 2006? Very nice, she can really chuck it. Yes, every time I learn to throw a little farther it takes a while to figure out what will work now. Only 2 weeks ago I was parking those two holes with the teebird. I figure maybe throwing an eagle back in the bag would work for that distance. It just surprised me to outdrive them.

[JR]

I don't remember, when she had her first baby. Kevin wrote that Courtney was approaching 450' after that i think! At some point Eagles and Teebirds will be equally long. But the Eagles are way different in L and X mold and in Star X the weight changes the behavior of the disc to different roles for a 400' thrower with fast discs. For me a 150 is a hot rod in that it has very little margin of error for a hyzer flip of one or two degrees turning to flat and any degrees of missing will lead to missing wide off the mark. Those babies soar until they inevitably slow down earlier than max low line drive golf line D discs=speed 11+. A 166 * Eagle is straight for the most time having a fade that moves the least sideways of all weights. That is because the 150 glides so much better when fading and it leaves the hand faster so it starts the fade a few feet later. A 175 new Eagle X is a hog and i don't have the spin to tame it or the speed to get it to go straight as far before the fade that is way harder than with the other weights. YMMv but i'd top out at 166 if i were you and would try the 150 because it sweeps very far to the left hyzered and right annied -the glide is nice!

[ashley]

Will be working in the field more. Yesterday I had an hour to burn, so I went to the field. I was trying to throw my drives hard, duh and they were all over the place. Going back the other way I was throwing approach shots, and they were all within 15 feet of each other, and I thought duh, what am I trying to do here? So I tried to mimic my approach shots with my drives, and guess what happened? They were going just as far, except they were all right next to each other, no worm burners no ridiculous hyzers. I wasn't getting them out as far as I have been, but I really should let my finger heal. It was feeling better on Sun, but after throwing for an hour on Mon it was tender again. It isn't tender today, and I suppose instead of throwing in the field tomorrow I will work on putts(good thing about throwing with one and putting with the other)

[JR]

Have you seen this?
http://www.youtube.com/user/sportdisc?b ... MC6OYzb3oY

You might have just done yourself right by switching to later acceleration. Standard advice around here.

Fingers have tendons not muscles i've been told. My index finger got overworked and probably inflamed in the spring last year. The finger gets stress at work and last winter wasn't enough for the finger to heal fully. Tendon damage takes at least three months of healing time with minimal stress and more like a minimum of six months for complete recovery. Hope your finger ain't that bad, but you should take it easy and concentrate more on playing rounds so that you don't get long term damage that will cap your performance limit eventually. I suspect that is a problem for me, because the index finger should pinch hard and it is so painful=damaging to the finger, that i would not wonder at all, if i loosen up the pinch early subconsciously. To protect the finger from more damage. What can you do against your subconscience?

[ashley]

Well luckily it isn't anything as bad as injuring my tendon. I just have a sweet blood blister forming on my ring finger, which I am sure is from too many drives last week. I was driving a few feet farther last week, and I am guessing that's where it came from. I already have callouses on my index and middle finger, and I figure I will end up with one on the ring finger here.

I watched the video you linked, thank you. I was reading up on grips today, and I don't think that I have been using enough pressure with my thumb. Once the blood blister goes away, I think I will work on grips some more. I have tried a few different ones, and am not convinced that I have been doing it quite right. Maybe a little more pressure with the thumb will help we will see.

[JR]

Ring finger is a weird place to get a blood blister with a power grip. Are you using a fan grip? If so how long are your nails? Could you put more of your finger tips to the bottom of the flight plate to reduce the disc to skin sliding? If you use the power grip i would definitely fiddle with finger placement, orientation and pressure. Do you squeeze hard early on or late? There might be a more innocent answer in that now that you've gained power the stresses have increased and in conjunction with the many throws in the field it is just more than your skin can take. It is common to need several months of field practice to toughen and thicken the skin to take the wear from hundreds of drives in a day.

[ashley]

Oiy. I figured it out. I wasn't using any real pressure with my thumb. Duh. I didn't have as tight of a grip, so it was slipping and pivoting off my ring finger. I went into the field today, and I was adding more thumb pressure, and after an hour in the field, my ring finger isn't sore at all. I was getting a lot of drives in the 260 range, and my better ones were 280. However, I need to work on it more because now that I am increasing the grip, I have a tendency to throw more hyzers. Of course my hyzers are still going 240.

The field I am working in is 2 min from my house, but because of the location there is always a slight headwind. I am going to go out to the field by the course, because the wind is more favorable there, and see what my distance is really at now.

I just can't believe that I haven't figured this out before. It seems so silly.

[JR]

Where is your thumb? Over the wing, half over wing half flight plate, on the flight plate just beside the wing or farther toward the center of the disc? The more you push down and to the side with the thumb against limp fingers while the thumb is closer to the center of the disc the more leverage there is to tilt the disc into a hyzer angle. And if your wrist is totally loose except for the pressure from the thumb the thumb toward the center of the disc grip can roll your wrist counterclockwise.

[ashley]

My other fingers are definitely not limp. I haven't decided where to put my thumb. It seems more natural farther in, but my hubby says to keep it closer to the rim. I am going to start working from the hit back. I was able to just stand and throw close to 250 yesterday but my drives were only maxing out at 280, so I am losing something major when I try a run up.

If I had to guess I would say my hyzers are mostly caused by not getting weight forward and/or just trying too hard(as in I think when I try too hard I start fast and finish slow). I think I have a tendency to have "happy feet" when I attempt a run up. Also, I am not convinced that I am keeping the disc close enough to my chest.

I have thrown well over 300' in the past, but just like anything else, when I try to work on one thing I lose another. Like I have said before, my approaches are my bread and butter, and I know that if I can just stand and throw 250 I should be able to drive a lot better than I am right now.

I know it is strange, if I walk up to a drive and am anywhere from 250' in I am pretty confident I can put it right next to the basket. I just think I need to start with the right pec drill and slowly work back so that each addition is really an addition, if that makes sense.

[JR]

That makes perfect sense and is the recommended way to go. Run up steps really don't give you much added D and the consistency goes down so much that in many cases it is not worth the risk. it is better to be in the fairway. 250' stand still is good for anyone so it is great for a woman so congratulations on getting close to it. It means that you do have the potential to go way farther than 300' already. Coordination is a difficult thing to master especially, when you should reach back so much. It is not a motion that people usually do so you start out with the experience of a baby like all of us have had to. Field practice and adding one step at a time helps. One step run up first then two and so forth until you nail it. There is no point in running with more steps than, what gives you the best distance. And you should be able to not lose much elsewhere while adding each step. It doesn't help to lose form. I've progressed slowly, because i can't swing my hips around at full run up speed unless i do the unhealthy way Markus Källström does. I don't want to go there even though it adds speed, because i'm injured enough and people have ruined their hips using that form. And Markus is super beefy in the legs and hip area to handle the stress. I'm not. I think that my hip issues are at least partly related to a spinal injury and subconscious relief. The way Markus throws forces the hips to turn so it is tempting to say the least. The torso turns way faster with that method.

The hyzers sound like wrist rolling counterclockwise late in the throw. Tightening the wrist area while pinching should help or you may need to stiffen the wrist a little earlier. Practice will show, which timing eliminates the hyzers. Leaning forward does not cause hyzers unless you also tilt the hips or the shoulders to the left.

Fred Flintsone happy feet are a common problem. Try an x step with exaggeratedly slow first step and a veeeeeryyy sloooow x step followed by a brisk plant step. After that try to make the x step progressively faster while still keeping the first step stupid slow to see, which speed of the x step works best. Then keeping that x step speed try to add speed in small increments to the first step to find the best speed for the first step. Once you've nailed the speed for the first step try to keep it the same and see if increasing the x step speed helps, because things have changed with the faster first step. Once you get the best D it is, what you should use. Only then should you try adding the first run up step. Happy feet gotta go they won't help you.

You should try to make your fingers limp until the right pec position at the least. If you don't get slips, while pinching later, you'll move your arm faster.

[ashley]

Worked in the field for a long time with my hubby. Slowed down the run up a lot, I feel like I was trying to pull too early before. He made me stand and throw 50 or so to get the feel right, then I threw 50 or so with a one step weight shift, and then another handful with a slowed down run up. It felt completely different. They seemed to be coming out at a much greater speed and would just shoot out straight and fast, and fade off slowly the last few feet.

I was getting completely different flight paths for almost every disc. The leopard and tl flew quite similar straight out with a gentle right fade. The teebirds flew much straighter than they ever have for me( the 163 faded slightly right at the end, the 168 was dead straight). The orcs were probably the biggest surprise, they flew much straighter much longer with just a gentle fade left at the end.(they are both light 162 and 164)

I will continue to work on this, it seems like the answer to 300' consistently is right there.

As far as the thumb, he was having me keep it closer to the edge. Ever since I became aware it needed some pressure it seems to have fixed the slip on the ring finger. Keeping the disc above the seam helps me to grip better with the index finger.

[ashley]

I think I figured out the different flight path. I started out all over the place, but then I was concentrating on bringing it in closer to my right pec and whenever i did so successfully the disc would fly out dead straight and finish left or right.(Note, living at 4500 feet, most discs have a tendency to finish left, when I went to lower elevation I was blown away at how easy it was to make a disc anhyzer) I think my tendency is to straight arm it when I am trying too hard.

There was a pretty good headwind working towards the end, and I was still able to get the discs to fight it much better.

[ashley]

Well after 6+ months of working on this, the improvement is really starting to show. I've recently added just a touch of hyzer to my flippy discs, and it's really making a difference. I am hitting 300 more and more often. I am now able to throw my TL on a slight hyzer line, and it flips to flat and gets out near 300. It has become very reliable for me at my home course, which is fairly wooded.

I've been able to work out my throw on between shots, and am throwing a rhyno much further than I used to. I also added a nice beat in core to the bag that will hold almost any line I put it on.

Every once in awhile I get it all together and throw a drive in the 325 range. I feel like hitting 325 consistently is in my near future.

[JR]

The Rhyno flying better is strong evidence for you throwing better´not harder or the discs breaking in to flippier. Congratulations! Getting stronger and better with controlling the body may also account for the improvements.

[ashley]

Was working on changing my pull line,as I was having some decent looking drives dying out early into the ground. Started pulling from around the waist. Accidently added more distance. First hole I did it on I threw 60 feet farther than I had ever thrown that hole.(Hole is supposedly 343, was 20 feet short) Been working with it a little more, and am able to throw it consistently nearly every time. I even beat my husband by 2 strokes, and was 1 stroke ahead of him in the second round(we had to leave early) It also seems to be a clean straight throw when I do it.

Worked on it in the field awhile today, and my drives kept ending up in a 20 foot circle of each other. I am able to throw discs that used to hook left for me straight now, with just a little fade at the end. I am now putting my mids out to where I was putting my drives last fall. The TL is still going out close to 300, but the Valks and Orcs are starting to pull ahead in distance.