New Vids, still more critique please:(

[archimedesjs]

I am getting very disheartened and frustrated at being stuck at the plateau I am at now. I definitely put the time in. I get out every day that I can(usually 3-5 days a week) and practice for at least 3-4 hours on weekdays, and 8-10 hours on each weekend day. I read all the stickied threads start to finish, including all 20+ pages of the incomplete secret technique thread. I feel like I'm missing something significant. When I read Blake saying that guys who "half-way" hit it are getting 425'+, then that means I'm not even hitting it. I can hit 400' on a linedrive with a nuke SOMETIMES, but I can't put my teebirds and leopards out that far on a line drive. I can't even turn my teebirds or leopards over without OAT. I've made 3 more videos trying to incorporate all the advice that has been given to me from my other videos, more critique would be appreciated, thanks for your patience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmA_t1Vehlg (roughly 330')
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuZsw0fNXyI (roughly 350')
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK3DT3yrzZM (roughly 375')

[keltik]

what discs are you throwing in the vids? the first one looked nose up.

one thing you need to remember about the Teebird is that it's not supposed to turnover without OAT. It is a beloved mold because it flies with zero high speed turn and finishes with a minimal fade. The Leopard on the other hand is supposed to turn but if your Leos are champ or star plastic then they will have more high speed stability when new or in heavier weights (or obviously both).

I'm a half hitter but I spent days on end in an empty field just throwing single digit speed discs as far as I could. I even added the Comet and some old fashioned lids to maintain an OAT free form. The one big downside of obsessing over distance is not developing an actual GAME. I have this problem. I can throw 450 on command but I'm only an OK putter and worst of all I can't maintain a consistent error free game. I select poor lines/shots/discs during a round because I'm usually thinking about what the disc will do in an open field. This has been my error and not necessarily what happens to everyone. I expose myself as crappy player that can throw 450 to serve as a warning. This game is not only about how far you throw but about shot placement.

The fact that you can throw 375 is still a respectable feat. I see it as you can throw 330 under control. This means you can still throw farther than 85%+ of the DG world. But the best thing to work on is your shot skills and shot placement. can you throw rollers FH and BH? flops/pancakes? roll curves? hyzer flips? skips? skoobies? Before you go down the path of big distance you should assess your current skills and goals. I strongly recommend developing a solid game and skill set before working on your distance. doing it in reverse is equally frustrating because of the false ego that comes with a big arm.

just my 2¢

[Redisculous]

It looks like your shoulders open as soon as the disc gets to your left side.




It looks like you are rotating out from position 2 in the diagram, and never get to 3 or 4.

[archimedesjs]

I've just spent 3 hours re-reading articles on the forum. It's killing me to do it, but I'm going to completely scrap my form and start over. The more I read about Blake saying how hard it is for people to work to get it, the more I realise that it's up to me to improve through trial and error. Tomorrow is going to be 10 hours of right pec drills, and relearning the fundamentals. If it worked for masterbeato, then there is no reason it shouldn't work for me. I won't be posting any more videos until I'm hitting 500'. Thanks to the people who tried to help.

[Redisculous]

Our D is similar, as are our throws, so I'll share with you what I've been working on.

I am also prone to rotating out too soon and have been trying to drill to overcome this. There has been many a "your arm is a whip" analogy made on this site, and it may be overdone, but it's relavant here so I'll make it again, with my own twist.

When you snap someone with a towel, your hand moves twice. First, to throw the towel out in the intended direction, then again to actually snap the towel once it's almost straight. When someone cracks a whip, the handle moves twice. Once to throw the whip forward, (as the whip moves forward the handle stays still) and then again, once the whip is almost straight, to help crack the whip.

Rotating out of the throw too soon is the equivalent of turning the handle of the whip (your shoulders)in a constant circle. The whip (arm) will never crack this way because the handle pulls it to the side before it straightens out enough to crack. The shoulder needs to move twice, just like the handle on a whip.

I personally never got anything out of the right pec drill until recently, because i was starting with the shoulder. It was only after I figured out that I had to get my arm out front before the shoulder moved that it became useful to me. I have been using the backhand hammer drill to find the point where the shoulder pulls the arm to the right.

I don't know if you've tried the hammer pound drill or not or if you've had any success with it, but i suggest getting it down before doing the right pec drill, as the right pec drill should really be just adding more body movements to the hammer pound drill (you should be pounding the hammer every time you do the right pec drill). If you haven't tried it, or have with no success, i suggest trying it limp wristed at first, and letting the inertia of the disc bend your wrist back ad you swing your arm, and then feeling the disc open your wrist when your arm stops. There shouldn't be any body movement at all. If you've read that entire thread you saw Blake say that you don't want your wrist to be acted upon by the weight shift of the disc, but for your wrist to be part of the movement, I just think it's a good starting point to try it limp wristed at first.

Once you've got a good feel for it and you can feel the weight shift, and are getting some pivot around your finger, think about how much more powerful you could make that feeling, how much HEAVIER you could make the disc feel if your arm were moving to the right during the wrist extension, OPPOSING the wight shift of the disc.

This was a major "ah-hah" moment for me. Then I was ready to add some shoulder rotation/right pec drill, and am currently working on the timing of the out motion in conjunction with the wrist extension/disc pivot.

[JR]

Your arm pull direction from the reach back to the rip is wonky. Normally for control and repeatability you want to pull the arm in a straight line. Only for risky max d efforts you'd want to reach back to the right side of the tee pad behind your body. You do that and proceed to whip the arm to the left of the teepad. Straight line from the middle of the throw to the end but in another direction to the tee direction and the way the rest of your body is going. You should train getting the arm to move in the direction of the tee and pulling the arm in a straight line by getting the disc close to the body and leading with the elbow. That means getting the elbow closer to the target than your right side before starting to straighten the elbow.

Looking at the third vid you plant anny and run in an anny fashion so it is less bad that the arm flails around away from the body than with other shots. You would rotate faster in the pivot if your plant step was a littler shorter from not kicking the right leg forward from the hip prior to planting.

[archimedesjs]

My updated drive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2umeuUcVzIY

[JR]

You reach back fairly similarly in height and toward the right rear of the tee to masterbeato. If i understand the rail right this is more of a rail than it is a hammer pound. Have you tried kicking the left leg more toward the right and what's the difference to your current kick?

[archimedesjs]

Perhaps it is closer to the rail, I gave up trying to analogize my throw. I just try to build momentum around the flip-back drill, which I associate with the hammer pound. My footwork is attrocious, grade, and surfaces drastically affect my throw because of my run-up. I can still muster some pretty good D, and accuracy with poor footwork, but my balance is off-kilter, and sometimes I unintentionally throw nose-up because of it.

[JR]

That is a great way to describe why i wrote my signature. I've gotten a lot of flak for saying those old school accuracy and consistency improving distance reducing things on Finnish forums. Machos here throw faaaaar and often will not have anything else questioning that. My reply to them is that of Stokely two forms and i add my own to it by saying if you want D throw a 360, 720 or as many revs as you can maintain balance and accuracy with and still have the head not spinning afterward and are fit enough to avoid second round blues.