Full Hitting: Heavy vs Simon

By: Jason

I've had a few break through moments lately that seem to be sticking. And yes, let me just say that beard is in full and glorious effect.

Bringing the disc to the right pectoral, while having the hand on the outside of the disc

In the last couple field sessions, I was able to throw my Buzzz and Truth about 350-380' pretty consistently and had 2 shots that were just shy of 390' with Truths. All shots thrown about 12' off the ground.

I often get asked how I measure:

Google Earth has the ability to "Measure Distance"

I also use a 150' long tape measure if I am setting up for a field session.

The things that increased my distance from about 300' to 350'... I THINK are the following.

1. Disc getting deeper into my right pec, with the hand on the outside.

The benefit of getting there, seems to be that the extension / pull around the nose, happens on a shorter arc. I could be wrong on this, but it seems that by delaying the pull-around the disc will be forced to move faster during the conversion of the angular rotation to forward ejection. (probably saying that wrong)... If I start extending with the disc more "center chest" - the arc feels slower and less powerful at the ejection.

It seems to put the horse power in the right place.

2. The deeper right pec seems to help with an "Active wrist". Holy smokes, I know this is a can of worms - and it may in fact be something else, but it feels like I'm hammering the disc to the right during the end of the pull around. I don't know if it's potentially the counterweight of my body rotating against the disc/arm - but when I come into the right pec, I'm thinking "No power" - and at the right pec, I hit the "extend and hammer the disc" button in my head. Since the disc is bending my wrist into the right pec due to the redirection, the wrist is loaded and tight.

It will often feel like a spring pulled tight, and I feel as though I can add to the un-springing of the tension by "hammering the disc".

3. All of the above is the collapsing, tensioning, unspringing mechanism that rides along on the right shoulder. Queue up the dingle arm. I imagine that the leading shoulder has a base of weight that gets driven open by my lower body and that you can drive the above mechanism to hammer harder by keeping tension against that shoulder as it rotates.

I have a tendency to bring the disc into the right pec and then extend, NOT being pulled through by the shoulder, which can feel more accurate - and easier to hit a specific line - but to get the full power, I have to sync the extension to the shoulder rotation.

If I'm doing it right, then my extended arm is very close to 90 degrees from my shoulders if I screen cap the ejection. Above, you can see that 90 degree angle on Eagle McMahon's form.

When I'm throwing like this, I've been able to push 450'+ with distance drivers and a slow x-step that sets me up to uncork off my back ball of the foot. Whenever I try to throw it harder, things get worse though. The only place I really allow myself to put more into it is the grip gets a bit more firm and I try to hammer the disc deep and keep the whole thing "forward".

I was able to get some video of myself this last weekend and I wanted to compare myself to Simon Lizotte. Long story short: his angles are just BETTER.

I got lazy with my off arm. Simon keeps it tighter. He generates power with his lower body better and can get lower than I can.

Off arm getting lazy. Need to keep it tighter.

Screen Cap #2

Notice in screen cap #2, he's keeping hand more on the outside longer, giving a faster ejection. It's pretty noticeable at this point. His hand is waiting longer to pull around.

Screen Cap #3

Screen Cap #3 - By delaying the hand, he'll pull around further than I will - which will make it eject faster. Let me makes sure that I explain: if the hand has to travel further in a set amount of time - then the disc will move faster to make up that distance. Delay the hand.

Keeping the hand on the outside longer is tough. Right now, it's a variable I can't control very well.

I do move my thumb in and out towards the rim - to adjust nose angle, but on this shot, I was keeping the disc more nose down (thumb towards rim) to shape my shot to flip up.

Also notice that he opens his plant foot sooner.

For reference, I threw that wizard 290' on a hyzer and about 5' uphill. More work to do... as always.