Critique greatly appreciated

[allsport1313]

6 months in now, I have a little clip of me throwing flat-ish drives on flat ground. Any obvious mistakes I should try to correct? Kind of sobering to see that I'm still not using footwork like I should be. I felt like I have been until I saw this. Pretty happy with my game inside 300' but driving skill is still lacking. Thanks for any advice.

Basket is dead straight of the teebox about 375 feet in a ditch. These are my three main distance drivers- star teebird(parked), gl river(nose up shank ;x), esp surge(parked).

[Stringbean]

I would say your form is excellent for being six months in. I was still throwing nose up 225 feet at that point.

Try getting your left foot forward of your right foot during the x step. Your left foot should be slightly in front of your right foot which will force your hips to rotate further away from the basket (kind of like a mini drop step in basketball).

Parking two out of three from 375 feet is really good for being six months in.

[Stringbean]

Also, try getting your weight over and beyond your right foot. This will help solve the nose up issue that you had with your 2nd throw.

[JR]

375' is rare for 6 months and parking two out of three is great for more experienced players. You should throw like you practice. That includes the mock throw before the real throw. In your mock throw you are trying to use the left leg improperly for staying on the ground and pivot hop step style. Considering the shortness of the tee i'd use the pivot hop step. The pivot hop step has the left leg moving up, forward and right simultaneously. Your left leg moved mostly up.

You do have a lot of added power generation available when you turn the heels and back toward the target in the x and plant step and those steps land with feet pointed 180 away from the target. That allows you to reach back a lot farther. That means you can accelerate the arm longer into a higher speed.

You rounded from the reach back to the center of the body. You missed right and it is difficult to say from that angle but your elbow might not have been forward enough when you started to shop the elbow and your pause was probably too short. The third throw wasn't but there might have been a too early arm pull in the first and the second throw before the plant step landed. That is a common cause for missing right. If you brace the right leg and the right side a little upon landing of the plant step and a short moment afterward it can help to delay the right twist of the hips that can be so fast from the transfer of the step momentum into the twist that the arm can't get into snapping position. That is the elbow is farther from the target than the right side and the disc moves in an arc. Like in the first throw.

You seemed to throw hard from the reach back with the arm. It might be helpful to start with a looser arm pull at a slower speed from the reach back to the right pec and then smoothly starting the accelerating really slamming in the final 8-12" of the throw. It can help with the arm getting to elbow forward at the right pec position AKA making the pause long enough.

An old school accuracy and consistency improving trick is detailed in my signature. Your running direction adds weight shift good for added distance often at the cost of visual aiming, accuracy and consistency. Which is even worse when the tee is grimy or wet or otherwise slippery.

You are off to a great start already and i wouldn't wonder if you broke 400' fairly soon. Depending on the weather and how much you can train.

[allsport1313]

Parking a hole with zero obstacles is not all that good haha. Thank you for the advice guys, lots of helpful areas to work on. Just so you know JR, I am trying to throw to the right on this hole (towards that huge tree kinda). I've kind of made a habit of this on shots that I want to end up straight, that is throwing slightly out right and letting the fade bring it back to center. Or flex shots but I'm less accurate with those. Also, I need to discover this hop step thing. Is that what Feldy does?

[JR]

Yes that is Dave's thing. So you can look at him and check out Youtube for vids of him giving instruction like in Disc Golf Monthly i think episodes 94 and 95.

It is no cake walk to get to 375' at all much less in six months and getting 2/3 parked is still good for most players. And not too shabby for the est players in the world. To be able to do that on every hole is another matter but even on an open field it is no gimme shot. So well done.

[allsport1313]

Hey DGR, I'm back with another video! Lately I've been trying to become proficient at throwing sidearm. Due to the limited amount of instruction on sidearm, my progression has come mostly as a result of trial and error. I'm very interested in any critique or advice you sidearm throwers might have for me, as I am eager to take this facet of my game to the next level

A couple of things I'll mention that may or may not be important:
- My grip is different than most other throwers I've seen, I think I use a 'power grip' with the index finger tucked in to the rim.
- For some reason I am miserable at throwing sidearm for distance. I either turn it over into the ground 50 feet away or throw a nose up boomerang. Very comfortable throwing on a given line though, up to about 250 feet.
- I usually throw a Destroyer, Wraith, Surge, or Buzzz.

That's about it, here is the clip, and thanks for any advice!

[seabas22]

Your shoulders/spine change plane during the throw as you don't get your weight forward over your front foot.

[allsport1313]

Yeah I think I see what you mean. Ricky ends up nearly falling forward with all the weight he transfers. I am not involving my body much at all. And thank you for sharing that vid, it's unreal.

[JR]

Ricky uses an advanced power generation technique used in Karate for example. Both FH and BH he starts with an anhyzer angle on the disc and as he throws he snaps the disc to the intended angle.

For form you need to halve the arm effort and double what the legs are doing. To get any power you need to have great form both at slow speeds and full power first. You should copy what Ricky was doing in taking run up steps and a follow through step to really shift the body weight and add power beyond the rip. Another trick to keep the disc from flipping it over is to spin it. By trying to stop the wrist straight fingers straight pointing at the target which means that the command needs to leave the brain a little earlier. The arm can follow through a bit from the shoulder socket without any problems that i've noted but i'm not a rocket arm FH.

[allsport1313]

Ok thanks for the response. Would a good starting point be to try following through with my right leg driving forward rather than planted? Or how do you recommend I go about doing this?

[seabas22]

Keep your right shoulder down and drive/whip it forward. The first two tee shots are rollers, forth tee shot is a flat to hyzer shot.

[JR]

Ok thanks for the response. Would a good starting point be to try following through with my right leg driving forward rather than planted? Or how do you recommend I go about doing this?

The right leg push forward starts the throw and when the disc rips the momentum should carry the left leg forward. I forgot to write in my previous post that you lack some weight shift. Meaning when you reach back you should turn the left shoulder to point at the target and you aim with the line that intersects both shoulders=the right shoulder pointing at the target. After the follow through step the right shoulder should point at the target or if you are really mashing it you can probably follow through step even a little farther to the left. With the right leg.

[allsport1313]

Ok I think I get it. I'll mess around with that for a while thanks much.

[JR]

Those are starting point objectives and when you get those going cleanly so often that you trust you'll make the shot on the tightest holes it is time to add more to the arm swing. But not until you get accurate repeatable golfable form. The harder you retard the wrist the faster you can move the arm without wobbling the disc. If the release is clean and it needs verification so you should fiddle with grip variations to see if they remove flipping and/or wobbling the disc. Understable putters are the acid test of that but so harsh in revealing problems that they might be the only problem at some point. So it might not always be a good idea to torture yourself with the flippiest and most squirrely discs if straight putter work fine and mids and above are flying cleanly. The main thing is to make sure the throws get a clean start. Verification should not be too hard to achieve in a relatively short time.