2017-01-27 Filming Myself We had sunshine today and no wind. You didn't feel the minus eight degrees Celsius. In the afternoon I rushed to the sports pitch to throw some shots. I had been waiting for such good weather for days! With me I had my camera to film my throwing technique. That was as revealing as everyone says. But let's start from the begin- ning. My goal was to do the basic shots: straight, hyzer, anny ... but primarily the straight lines. I wanted to use not more than 80% power, but rather focus on my technique. I chose to throw on a large plain pitch in order to not be tempted to go for other goals than producing nice flight lines. All that worked out well. I threw the Aero, Roc, Comet, Buzzz and Teebird. These are all of my discs, apart from my putters, which are of white color and thus not suited to be thrown on snowy ground. I used to have problems throwing the Aero and one of the other discs alternat- ingly, this was no problem today. Maybe because I always threw the Aero first, or maybe I learned to treat different discs dif- ferently. On each go I threw the same shot with each of the discs, from most understable to most overstable. (Although the Roc fades left at the end, it's flight felt to be more understable to me than the Buzzz. Therefore I threw it second, between Aero and Comet.) My straight shots worked out well. I managed a good angle to the ground. All discs flew on defined ways. There were no surprises. That's great! I even managed to throw decent lines with the Tee- bird. Also, I quickly learned that I had to give the Aero some hyzer angle to result in a dead straight hyzer flip -- Yay, my first real hyzer flip! :-) Then I threw some hyzers. The results were quite broad among the discs: Aero and Roc flipped to flat. Comet and Buzzz held the line. The Teebird was too overstable to throw it with (a non- spike) hyzer. Then I threw some annies. That was not so pleasing. Only the Buzzz took the line I wanted. The Aero and Roc rolled, well, that I should have expected to happen, with a bit too much anhyzer. All in all, the throwing motion felt a bit strange; I need more practice with these shots. Moving on to the sidearm. That was horrible. Two shots to the left, two to the right, one that caused me twenty minutes to search for it. The fastest disc (Teebird) flew best forehand, the putter (Aero) flew worst. This is a signal that my technique is bad, and surely it is. A lot more practice will help with that. Last the overhead shots. I tried as well thumbers as tomahawks. There was hardly a difference between them, just the thumbers tended to land more on the back and roll less. It was revealing how straight they both went. Surely, if I need a dead straight result and have open space above, I'll use one of these shots. And even more: The thumber with the Teebird was most likely my longest shot ever. It went 70m. With backhand shots I reach only about 65m, with a lot more side variance. Okay, I am much more used to the overhead throwing technique, but why not take this as a gift and use it to my advantage? On long holes I'll now use an over the head shot for max distance. Already looking forward to trying that out and watching the faces of other players. ;-) (I was most impressed by Johnny Football's tomahawk throw on hole 2 of the Champ vs. Chumps rematch [0] ... and by his death putt for birdie as well.) Now to the filming. I had a tripod and a simple digital camera. I made a film of each set of throws of my five discs. Those films are each about 1:30 minutes, which are about 15 seconds per throw. I filmed some from the left, some from the right, some from behind and the forehands from in front. Each viewing angle shows enough of the technique to analyze it. The positions when you can watch the disc's flight path, however, create more valu- able videos, as they show the result of the technique, especially the wobble of the disc. What I've learned from watching myself in slow motion: - The main problem with my first few throws (but with none of the later ones) was not pulling the disc close by the breast. Omit- ting this results at once in poor flight. Always remind myself to pull close to my body! - My reachback is radial and not in a straight line, thus I reach back around my body which results in a non-straight line when I pull the disc forward. I should focus on where I reach back to. Also, I reach back a bit downwards, leading to an upward throwing line, which is not always what I want. I should try to reach back high. - My follow-through is good enough, I think. - My sidearm improved already through the few shots I did today. That was visible in the videos. So, I should throw more sidearms! - All in all, my throwing motion was pretty consistent. Next time I'll care mainly for my reachback. (Btw: I'm throwing backhands only from a stand-still, currently. I've tried the x-step earlier, and although I can manage that, it didn't result in more distance, but in more variables that influ- ence my throwing technique for the worse. Hence I continue to throw backhand from a stand-still for some time.) It was not only a pleasure to go out and throw some discs but it was the right decision to practice on a large plain pitch, as well. I feel it did me so much better than going on the course. I'll continue to work this way. This goes well with Steve Rico's advice: Das Loomis: As someone whose been around the game for so long, what advice do you want to share with new players who are hoping to get better? Steve Rico: Work on form first. Get out to a open field and work on your form. Try different shots with a few different discs, figure out what works. [1] [0] http://youtu.be/psAYzcVoDlg [1] https://allthingsdiscgolf.com/steve-rico-kid-became-king- california/ http://marmaro.de/discgolf/ markus schnalke