The "Incomplete" Secret Technique

[Whiz]

If you do not have a correct heel pivot it will cause knee stress. If you plant with a closed stance and try to pivot on your toes/ball of your foot you will hurt/stress your knee.

[fanter]

If you do not have a correct heel pivot it will cause knee stress. If you plant with a closed stance and try to pivot on your toes/ball of your foot you will hurt/stress your knee.

That makes sense. I'm sure that I do pivot on my heel, though. I've had a bit of a bum knee since I injured it in an accident, and it seems to be more sensitive about how I plant. I had to adjust to more of a ~90 degree angle from my target to alleviate some of the stress. It still gives me trouble.

[Blake_T]

knee stress is always a threat.

my right knee bends 3 degrees sideways in either direction.

the angle of your knee bend while you pivot as well as where your weight is focused has most to do with it.

i can perform both heel and toe pivots as well as a shifting pivot that starts on the hell and rolls to the toe without any knee strain.

The lack of the pop sound was actually what lead me to believe I was doing something right. As far as I know I'm turning a full 180 on my reach back, but I have been keeping my feet parallel to one another, not staggered in a closed position. I also keep my right foot's toes pointing closer to 90 than 100 degrees from the target. I'll make those tweaks the next time I get to hit the fields, and try to get the timing right. Unfortunately it wont' be until next friday or saturday. Hopefully I will be able to duplicate what I did today and incorporate this new positional information. Thanks Blake.

basically we're just trying to re-direct your angles so that your late explosion puts the disc out straight rather than pulled to the right.

[tmahan]

For as long as I've been playing it's really pathetic that I still haven't mastered a decent snap. I appreciate the time you've taken and detail you've gone into here. Been putzing with the drills here in the house, will try them outside tomorrow. It seems what you're describing is somewhat analogous to flycasting, where you have to wait for the line to finish uncoiling before you snap your wrist. Or I could be totally out in left field.

[Triflusal]

knee stress is always a threat.

my right knee bends 3 degrees sideways in either direction.

the angle of your knee bend while you pivot as well as where your weight is focused has most to do with it.

i can perform both heel and toe pivots as well as a shifting pivot that starts on the hell and rolls to the toe without any knee strain.

what is the best angle of the knee and the best place for your weight to be focused for minimal strain? i have been having some knee problems recently. I do a heel pivot

[Blake_T]

for a heel pivot, the more bend, the less knee strain.

for a toe pivot, it's a combination of knee bend and ankle bend that make this happen.

in both cases, the more knee bend, the more strain is deferred to the hip and ankle but less strain on the knee.

oddly enough, the better ankle support your shoes have, the more likely you are to hurt your knee.

[Trey133]

^^^ This is super true ^^^

I cringe when I saw pictures of myself early on with high top hiking boots playing disc golf. They restrict soooo much movement that needs to happen so you don't blow your knee out.

[tmahan]

Tried out the new technique with mixed success. I was able to identify one of my problems thanks to your guide, I've definitely been too rigid. I relaxed more during most of my swing and hit my normal max D more often with generally straighter results. I'm still missing the timing and definitely having trouble with the clampdown at the end without invoking the rigidity problem I mentioned earlier. Still, it was promising and plan on working at it some more.

[Whiz]

I have been working many things at once after attending a clinic by Feldberg but I had some good success tonight working on the hammer drills. I tried to keep my grip and wrist so loose that the disc could practically fall out of my hand and focused on a quick whip of the disc. I used a two finger grip (index and thumb) and was able to get some very clean and strong releases. I am going to make this off-season count and look forward to throwing 500' by spring. I currently max around 375ish (golf D). I will report my progress and successes.

[soupdeluxe]

Hey All
First time long time. I have been following this thread and everything Blake posts for quite some time. I have had some success and am throwing better with less effort than ever. I know I am missing something though. I feel like I have been dancing around the hit/snap for quite a while and am enjoying the process even if it is slower than I would like. I read this at the end of one of Blakes posts and a light went on.
" yeah. the pocket is pretty much when if someone took a snap shot from above, the hand would be at ~9 o'clock and the bicep would be at ~3 o'clock (even though the disc is much lower than the bicep). one thing to note, is that the pocket doesn't start until after the disc passes beyond the right edge of your body."

I always thought the pocket was at the right pec not past it. That is about a 8 or 9 inch difference. I think this new for me pocket also creates the situation I have heard people speak of where they "resist the inward bending of their wrist" I find I can snap or spin the disc more by bringing the pocket beyond the pec. I also feel the weight of the disc when it reaches the pocket. JR always suggests "getting your elbow further toward your target" I think this is saying the same thing as well. Am I on the right track? Thanks for your responses
SD

[JR]

I think you are on the right track. The discussion about the pocket and, maintaining the thumbnail away from the target as long as possible and the location of the pocket mandates IMO getting the elbow out as far as possible, without locking it. I have noticed in my throws that if i manage to get the elbow bent more by getting it more forward and bringing in the disc to the pocket instead of just the right pec and straightening the elbow from then on, i get more tendon bounce and a faster chop of the elbow. Timing changes too. You need to have a longer pause in between the two parts of the body rotation before the rip. Thus the legs, hips, shoulders, elbow and wrist turn in a shorter time adding acceleration rate. F=MA Force equals mass times acceleration. Thus acceleration is good. The faster and stronger you are, the more you can get away with not pushing the elbow forward and not bending the elbow as much as could be utilized.

[Blake_T]

JR is correct.

the pocket really forms BEYOND the edge of your body... and i mean like the entire disc is beyond your body.

F = ma but there's a physics trick involved here. when you throw the hammer head you are basically directing the angular velocity of the hammer head as it "comes around" the fulcrum point. if you are familiar w/ the outer edge of a record spinning faster than the inner edge, this is the basic concept.

what getting deep into the pocket with the "handle pull", the motion that initiates the rotation of the disc forwards has a very small radius. as the disc unloads from the pocket the imaginary hammer head (front/outer edge of the disc) starts to spiral forwards. the end result is that the radius of arc the hammer head is coming around on gets MUCH larger. e.g. at the start of the motion from the pocket the initial radius (if the arc was a circle) is like 2". by the time you get the disc out in front of you with an open wrist the radius of the arc is like 16-18".

by increasing the radius and accelerating the disc from the pocket, the angular velocity builds at an exponential rate. basically... the "a" part of F = ma is incredible, since a = change in velocity / change in time.

[JR]

I was lucky to be able to throw 3 hours in the field today. Yesterday i cleaned up my disc releases by switching to pinkyless stack fork grip. Today i brought more attention to not pushing in the fingers into the disc across the rim to ensure not having the bottoms of the discs scraping against the top of my index finger. As a result i aligned the ring and middle fingers more vertical. More success Since i already had reduced the finger to rim surface area, i thought to go all out and only touched the rim with the outermost portion of the ring and index fingers. That is for the larger radius of the pivot. I do usually get a little more D this way and a spinnier flight, but there is no major distance jump for me.

Grip strength was certainly an issue, because i had many hours on the field yesterday too and am pretty well exhausted and 46F. I had early slips more often with only the finger prints touching the discs. It was more difficult to maintain angles with outer parts of the fingers only touching the disc. But i was exhausted, when i started to try this way of throwing. The less finger contact there is the weaker the grip and the more the disc pivots so pinch power and wrist angle controlling muscle power requirement is higher than with any other way of throwing except using fewer fingers on the disc.

I had a few better wrist stopping attempts as usual, but with the winds changing constantly i could not say if there was any distance changes. I had more grip locks than ever. And the discs slipped off of the ring finger judging by the feeling and redness of that finger and definite grip locks launching off of that finger. I've never had as many grip locks as with rubber drivers today early in the session and Rocs late in the session.

The added oomph and speed and possibly slightly more spin on some of the throws with the three finger stack fork grip gripped with finger tips only showed best in flight patterns of understable and Gyro mids (was doing a mid shoot out with the new for me grip). Comets and Axes being the biggest improvements. No flip to Axes without wrist rolls or the hips tilting to the side. Comets had their flip lessened some more after a more vertical finger positioning separated the bead from the index finger top. No scraping And i was doing a almost full speed run ups with full reach backs this time Winds mess with results like accentuating the problems of Buzzzes in rear wind ranging. ESP glides better than Z, but the ESP thrown low and dropped by the wind can easily slap the disc down at 290' on a full rip for me. And a little higher toss carried by the wind gave me my longest Buzzz toss ever at 367'. Comets maxed out at 360'. Fair bit of rear wind. Clear Ion 310' with almost a full reach back medium speed run up, but more relaxed and slow body and arm motions until the late acceleration had no flips. All of these were line drives. There was one major finger sticking fail in one throw with the Ion so it's still susceptible. So far it looks like i still have issues with tall discs. I wasn't able to minimize the amount of distance my ring and middle fingers were inside the Ion.

Having fingers like a pianist should definitely add to disc pivot arcing power and spin.

[Banjar]

the pocket really forms BEYOND the edge of your body... and i mean like the entire disc is beyond your body.

Is Jesper Lundmark a good example for this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ4OVpX34U0

Anyway, I figured I would report on my progress, after doing the hammer pound. I have gained a little length (20-30 feet or so), but that is not as important as the feeling I have been experiencing. I think it is timing. Every thing feels fairly loose and relaxed (but still firm) until the delivery of the disc. It is almost as I if i can feel this wave of energy build up as it moves down my arm, and it connects with my hand as the disc begins to pivot. it is almost like a sling-shot. During this build-up, the disc feels weightless. The best thing is that when I get the feeling right, it is almost as if I can point and shot, l just give a little 'twitch' in my wrist, and the disc just takes off in that direction. To sum it up, the difference between before and now can best be descriped as this:
before: I appled continious energy to the disc throughout the pull motion (dF/dt is low).
now: I collect energy from my lower back, shoulder, elbow and store it in my lower arm/wrist/hand; and then I deliver it to the disc as it pushes into my hand and begins the pivot (dF/dt is high).

I think I am just about to get it. Unfortunately, my grip is not strong enough to transfer the energy fast enough before the disc slips out.

I know this is called the hammer pound. What really works for me (conceptually in my head anyway) is to think of not a hammer, but a piece of rope with a big knot at the end of it. if the 'handle' of the hammer is not rigid, timing is even more critical.

I'm excited!

[Blake_T]

yes, jesper has a very good power pocket.

Unfortunately, my grip is not strong enough to transfer the energy fast enough before the disc slips out.

it works better with narrow deep rims.