I need help! Please criticize.

[WesOMG]

Hello experts, I throw myself at your wisdom. I love this game, but I'm not very good and am growing frustrated with my lack of progress. I took a few short videos of 5 drives at my park hoping I can get some feedback on the most obvious issues here. Any and all criticism is greatly appreciated. The only videos on my youtube are these five and are found at http://www.youtube.com/user/wcpatton

Thanks!

[seabas22]

Nice frisbee toss, but not so good for throwing a disc. Learning from a standstill will help you develop faster. You need to get more backwards with your body, turning the hips, and shoulders back and keep your upper arm wider from your body, so you can lead with your elbow bent ahead of the shoulder. Any of the sticky threads in the technique section will help explain more.

This is good for basics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgn6Os4YSW0

[JR]

Welcome. When throwing don't keep anything in your mouth and keep the left leg on the ground until the disc has left or do what Feldberg does. You'll gain a lot of power when your balance and body control becomes good enough to handle reaching back farther by turning the back towards the target and aiming the heels at the target in the first two steps and a little less with the final step. Also check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pk23LeyVk4

Gaah! Youtube direct linking wasn't working once more grr.

[WesOMG]

Yeah, I kinda figured I was swinging more than pulling. I can see the difference between my videos a d the YouTube instructional ones, just having trouble changing the visual to the physical movement. Ill try the advice and repost more videos in a few weeks or so.

[WesOMG]

hmmm I just don't get it. Everything says to straighten on the reachback but all the videos have a bent elbow. Everything says throw across the chest but the bent elbow seems to be below the pecs.

[JR]

Below the pec ain't a bad thing at all so don't worry about it as long as you get nose down flight. The elbow can't get straight in the reach back if you don't turn the feet away from the target. Heels toward the target in the reach back allows for a full reach back.

[WesOMG]

The video you posted didn't look like a straight arm to me. The videos I've seen with Avery Jenkins, he says have you feet parallel to the target\tee line.

If I'm holding the disc at 3 o'clock, what point is the nose? Is it in my grip? Where the thumb is pointing (12)?

[cubeofsoup]

Nose is 12 if your hand is at 3. If you look at the grip tutorial: http://www.discgolfreview.com/resources/articles/gripittoripit.shtml, the primary things that will get you nose down in relation to your grip is the correct disc orientation and getting your thumb forward.

The video JR posted shows Ken Climo throwing what is effectively powered down shots that don't require a full reach back (elbow doesn't get to straight). The whole point of the KC video is to keep the disc on a line and not round, it doesn't really address reach back.

here are some videos of slow motion drives that I like to reference when I watch video of myself driving:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rauvjnphLc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GavJAfAxYts

[WesOMG]

Was back out at the field today. Had one or two ok throws, focusing on the grip kept the throws low but the pull still isn't working, discs were going all over. The more I think about it, the worse they get. Throwing with no run up felt pretty awkward and the results were all over, lots hard to the right. Might need to take a break for a while.

[JR]

Ken was making controlled shots not high powered drives in that video. Resting is good to diagnose if your form variances come from being tired or not managing slower speed throws well. An example of possible problems with sideways accuracy in slowed down form is that if you don't push hard with the left leg and having lost much momentum you may not turn toward the target with the body and the disc leaves left. Momentum changes between forms, keeping the knees bent enough to push hard from and being in good enough shape to really push enough to be able to aim at the target without compromising form, timing power generation and positions is a matter of coordinating all moving parts at different speeds. You need those eventually to control distance and when discs stop pushing through initial hyzer/anny and start to move to the side like the angle would suggest.