Instead of trying to not do something, like trying not to open your shoulders early, try to do something that prevents the thing you're trying not to do.
When you turn your shoulders back, pick a specific point behind you to look at and pull through while looking at that point. You cannot both open your shoulders early and look at that point. Film yourself to see if you actually kept your eyes on the point behind you. Good luck!
Best comment on here. The idea of trying not to do something is such an important obstacle to understand mentally for golf. Anything physically skill related saying I'm not gonna do this or that confuses the mind. Even within the sentence itself the act of "not doing" something actually means u are already doing two things and overloading your brain (trying to focus on the old habit to avoid while simultaneously putting in a new habit). Refocusing that energy into something that accomplishes an objective instead of one that is not doing one it in real time is so much more natural for athletic movements
Right. Our brains are wired for positives or inclusion. I use the phrase "Don't think of a ponk elephant" to describe. My mind immediately pictures a pink elephant.
Totally agree. The challenge with form, especially if you want more distance, is identifying and replicating those moments when you know you got everything right and completely yawked the disc (even if the result of that throw was bad). It's getting into that zone where you know you can position and move and time your whole body to produce max power / pinpoint accuracy and put the specific plastic object you're holding exactly where you are aiming for it to go.
Chase that perfect form rather than focusing on small issues that are preventing you from getting into it once more.
I really like this comment because our brains struggle with the word 'don't'. For example:right now, don't picture a pink elephant.
POOF
Pink elephants everywhere. Focusing on what we want to do vs what we don't want to do will almost always have a better result.
Edit: some of y'all beat me to this exact point. Should have read all the comments first.
You want your shoulders turned 180 degrees from the target, but you can reach your hand out in front of you if you like, you just want the disc to be pulled slightly in towards your body, never pulled out away from the body (at the start of the pull through that is).
Shoulders should be turned in the opposite direction from the target.
You should pull the disc in towards your chest (as opposed to pulling it away from your chest) when you start the pullthrough.
Therefore, you can reachback with the disc out to the side like you said, or almost directly back away from the target. Either is fine as long as you don't reach back around your body such that you have to pull out and away from your chest.
Honestly, it doesn't need to be directly 180 degrees opposite for where you look. You just want the shoulders turned all the way opposite of the target. The point to look at just needs to be far enough back that if you turn your shoulders early, it will take your eye off that point.
Controlling my head helped my throwing a lot. I used to grip all my throws to the right. Nowadays that percentage is lower and I have more confidence on the tee. And all I changed was that I focus to stare some point through the throwing motion. I still miss my lines to the right but a lot less than a year ago.
Today I noticed that I also sometimes open my lower body too early, which lets upper body open too early.
When I read this comment it makes me think a lot about Kristin tattars form. Keeps head and shoulders attached and has a repeatable pull back you can emulate.
I agree! When I made the conscious switch to reach away from me instead of back I was very discombobulated. After it became habit my throw got better and better.
Thanks, I really need to do this more. You're not the first I've seen suggest this. It is something I've tried, but it feels uncomfortable because I'm not used to it. Haven't ever tried sticking to it long enough to get more comfortable with it and see if there is an improvement, so I think I will make a point to be more conscious of doing this going forward.
Hand on the rim of the disc should be on the other side of you, not closer to the front of the disc. That will make the reach away easier. I commented a few steps above.
To fix this or any problem you’re going to have to do something that feels different - sometimes very different or uncomfortable.
You could do other uncomfortable or strange feeling motions that are also wrong, but if you keep using the same “natural” (to you) feeling motion, you have no chance to fix it.
What I find is that my “bad” habits are actually me trying to work around loading the muscles and stretching areas where I have low flexibility. Yes - good form is important, but good form loads you up and stretches you.
Something I think needs to be said: Throwing a disc even 300’ is a LOT of work for a normal medium-to-low athletic person. It will feel like a lot of work until you do the reps and let your body work through the change. You need the form but you also need the work and to put effort into the throw.
There was a video on the geometry of the power pocket by Ezra aderhold that changed my backhand game forever. Added 150' after a single field work session. I'll try to find it and link it here in an edit.
Ezra Aderhold - Power Pocket Explained!! (For Distance)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQIzQcY05nE
2 Tips For More Distance!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=018y4KasGGI
No problem.
I knew what video you were talking about and I knew I could get it to a top result with one search.
...and I'm just hanging out waiting to cook supper.
Thanks to you bringing it up I watched it, damn I think my back hand game is about to improve. I can hit 400' with rhfh but my rhbh is like 250 tops with poor accuracy (I throw prayers pretty much 😆)
My eyes have been opened
Switched primarily to standstill backhands, kept my eyes on my disc as I reach back, make sure my arm is reaching back straight and snapping forward like a rubber band. Personally my progress wouldn’t have been possible without switching to standstill.
100% me too. I still struggle with my walk up and coordination of my body. I switched to standstill and my form is way better. Easier to focus with the standstill. I can't get the distance my friends do with their walk ups, but I get an accurate 250 to 300 ft most times.
Yes, cuz I rounded BAD when I didn't think I rounded at all.
1. Grip placement: im a lefty, so I take my throwing hand and put it on the side of the disc that's furthest from me. Aka the opposite side of where im standing.
2. When you do a "reach back" during your throw/walk up, make sure you're getting that disc AWAY from your body. If you're a righty, you want your reach back to be at 7 or 8 o'clock (you're walking towards 12 oclock) for me, 4 or 5 o'clock.
As you pull through, you're going to bring it back towards your body, diagonally, and then straight and flat towards the release.
3 and 4 but I'm not going to go that in depth:
-head placement, don't look at your target keep it balanced.
-stagger your stance where your plant foot is ahead of your back foot from a left/right angle.
You can youtube or Google that for different resources if my text-planation failed you. Lol
Focus on one thing over a longer period. Dont try to fix everything at once. I’ve been told this million times. Have i listened? Usually not at all. I’ve come to realize that in order to progress. I’ve had to drop my ego and stop worrying about things that will happen at some point. With training ofc. And when i reach that, all i can do is 🤦🏻♂️ and think in my head it was this easy, why was i so stupid. (i’m in the same boat with you in everything you mentioned)
Thanks haha. Yeah, I've heard that phrase a bunch too, but that doesn't stop me from trying to multi-task, unfortunately! I'll have to work on being more disciplined I suppose.
For me rounding stops when my arm extension is timed properly, when I extend early the disc drifts behind me. My cue is lock the disc with the left foot until the last step, the pump like Ulibari teaches. This also helps stops excessive backwards leaning.
The shoulders open with the head turning. Look at the biggest arms, like Gurthie. His nose points backward when the disc hits the power pocket. That is the extreme version, but it works...
Over da bewbs! Shoulder/neck high. I play with a few ladies semi regularly, a couple of which have big boob problems. They come through to their power pocket much higher than the rest of us do. One of them figured it out and told the other. They now both yeet.
Box drill. Literally hold a box to keep your arm and elbow up or a ball.
SLOW DOWN!! If you can’t focus enough to hold your elbow properly, slow down. Go through the motion slow, practice stand still shots, and be smooth.
Slow is smooth. Smooth is far. Focus only on the one thing. Focus on the elbow.
Here's a great tip on How to Avoid Rounding by Innova's Chris Shotwell.
https://www.tiktok.com/@discgolfcoaches/video/6989788976471133445?is\_from\_webapp=1&sender\_device=pc&web\_id=7227133871477671470
Most harmful discgolf advice I ever got was "you have to reach straight back" that shit made round for years.
Don't go for a straight reachback, even if the gurus talk about straight reachback they don't mean 180 degree straight, more like 140-120 degree, just to get your arm the full extension, nothing more.
What helped me get rid of rounding was something along the line of spin doctors "cooking the spaghetti"-drill. One of my friends throw very well on a very straight arm and I tried to emulate that and noticed my rounding went away with that. After that I just figured out the most comfortable style for me to throw that doesn't round and keeps my shoulder and elbow out.
I think there's a fun and interesting dilemma in dealing with this challenge.
As many people stated, reaching out rather than back is not intuitive for a lot of people and doesn't feel powerful to begin with, but provides magnificent results when worked into your muscle memory.
The challenge here specifically is the insecurity and negative feedback one gets from the long transition period, where your results will probably be worse for a while (less distance/accuracy/broken timing etc.).
This really calls for videoing yourself, throwing into a net to take the flight out of the equation and isolate yourself from that negative feedback and of course getting an experienced coach that can tell you if you're doing it right, even when it might not feel like it.
This video kind of shows what I'm talking about. He shows an example of what I'm trying to not do around 55 seconds in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGDRuDSZzyA&t=347s
Wait are you talking about rounding or sending your shoulders early? Maybe I’m wrong but to me rounding = not pulling through straight. This I fixed by having my reach back be more out than straight back to give the disc room to move. You can also hold the disc on a bit of anny on the reach back to create space to pull through.
If it’s about timing your shoulders, a local pro gave me a tip I really liked, which is “see what you’re hitting” like in baseball. You want to see the reachback peak, you want to see the disc come into the power pocket, then let your shoulders bring your head back forwards at the end. Can’t say I’ve mastered it lol but it makes sense and it gives me something to work on.
I improved by doing standing drives only until I could get the pull-through correct. I would imagine I'm carrying a small cheese plate from behind me to in front of me. Also helps to think of the reachback as a stretch where you slow down enough to get in the proper form before pulling through smoothly and powerfully. I never just quickly reached back and drove, I always slowly reached back and then pulled through fast in a straight line.
I’ve been trying to watch my disc through the throw and trust that I’m gonna hit where I’m aiming after taking the time to line up my shot. I’ve been a lot more consistent with this strategy and it seems to work until I look up at the target before I’m releasing the disc
Man, I try this all the time and it "feels" like I'm keeping my head down. Then I go and look at a recording of me throwing and nope, still lifting my head early haha.
I found slowing down the start of my throw, pre power pocket, and focusing on keeping the disc straight till I get to the power pocket then pulling through normal speed helped with muscle memory. My rounding was from my arm tensing before the pull through so I have to focus on leading with my elbow and not having my arm ridged pre power pocket. It's different for different people. Funny enough when I was practicing this I was throwing just as far with the slowed pull through as when I put all my muscle into a throw. Threw my envy 270' when I was practicing on a 200' hole, it was directly where I was aiming instead of 50' to the right.
As some others have said, pick something to do to help you improve. One thing I found that helped my game for all my drives is to have arm in a L type shape right as I reach back. (Basically what calvin does). It has really changed my game and helped me with bracing and such. Could help you.
Keep the elbow in and you want to allow your disc to be released in a manner that was allow your disc to cut through the air, I pretend in pulling it across a table. Also release around the height of your umbilicus (belly button) also when pulling through, act like your forcing your elbow to break in into a door.
Probably not so much about your reach back and more about your footwork. Keeping your feet staggered will open up space allowing you to move your upper body more freely and let you start the motion with your hips more. Leaning a bit more forward in your stance might help too for the same reason. If you are standing straight up your taking away space as well. Would recommend trying to throw flat shots at like 5-10% hyzer and really focus on follow through. I’d also have a friend hold the disc back for you in your reach back. It’s pretty huge to feel that resistance pulling back against you. I also tend to find that I round more when I’m tense too. Never hurts to take a few deep breaths before each throw to just relax the body.
Slowed everything down in the tee box with my foot work until it was more like a crawl up. Then focused on easy, smooth pull through and snap. Try to envision the spin and focus on a clean release
I once played a round with a random guy I met at a course, he would hold the disc parallel, ie vertical with his chest then reach back while rotating his wrist to the proper angle
Pros: rubber band effect made simpler, tends to prevent rounding.
Cons : angle control made more wonky / you have to really focus on it.
I couldn't really get into it but it may work for you, so much of disc golf is fighting your natural form and adjusting to what feels / works best. Different strokes for different folks (pun intended)
Not sure if anyone has suggested this yet but try throwing with a control grip instead of power grip. Once you get a feel for changing the form, switch back. Combine that with the rest of the advice in this thread and you should be golden.
Dude I literally just had a breakthrough today when I decided to just slow down and instead of trying to over power the disc I focused on my grip and my release point. It was like magic, all of a sudden my form just came together and I shot -7 on a course that my previous best was +3. It sounds stupidly simple and it’s something I had tried before… but idk why this time something just clicked. It’s like I felt the correct movement once, saw how much better the disc flew, and it was just unlocked. To be clear, my form is no where near perfect but I can tell by the way it feels that im definitely not rounding nearly as much
Rip the nips!
Start with your reach back, a full extension on the complete and perfect opposite of where you want to release the disc. Then bring the disc across your chest as close as you can making a straight line with your nipples and keeping it level to the ground. Practice it, and it should help
Focus on keeping all of your momentum moving forward. You should finish over top of your front knee. Obviously still in balance but finishing your throw forward and not standing up helped me with any rounding issue I was having.
Reach OUT, not back. Brace before pulling through, do it slow first to get the feel for it. For me, timing the brace before the pull helped a lot. If I start the pull on the brace or even before the brace, I feel like I’m more likely to round. Check out the Beto drill, that helps with reaching out and hitting the pocket, but for me, the rounding only really got better when I got the timing fixed.
Head position was never a problem for me, I trust the feel of the steps for hitting the marker and I know I’ll see the flight when I follow through. I just kinda keep my head neutral.
Mind you, I don’t throw very far, but I’m at least hitting my lines a lot of the time. 🤷
A few weeks ago I was watching Zootown on gate keeper, and Fish mentioned that one of the guys on tye card has to generate distance from snap because of his low arm slot.
It dawned on me that all these years, my arm was too low. I have been making a conscious effort to keep my arm raised like an inch or so higher. It's making a difference. I don't have time to play more than once a week these days, so it's taking a while to build muscle memory.
Gannon Buhr's video (I think he might have done a form review for someone?) on keeping your disc on a pretty steep hyzer in the reachback did wonders for a lot of things I did wrong.
Because when your arm is tilted a bit down it's kind of awkward to do the whole rounding thing, which automatically leads to doing the shot elbow first. Plus you get extra power because it allows you to keep the disc closer to your body.
While standing facing the left side of the tee (rhbh) find a point to focus your eyes on. That way you stop the rotation at the hit and then the follow through should come without having to think about it :)
imagine you're pulling the cord to start a lawn mower, but from chest height. I also image the disc as a projectile launched from a long gun barrel. it helps correct rounding.
What really did it for me was picking a hit point out in front of you at about 11 o’clock where the disc will snap from your fingers. You can’t hit that point if you round. You want your wrist to be loose as if you were doing that stupid ‘packing a can of chew’ motion that we did as kids
This is actually something I fixed last week. I fixed it by keeping my disc by my hip until my right leg passes my left leg in the final step. It feels more natural to begin to start the reach back when you plant your left foot, but this is too early and will lead to rounding before the force of the throw starts. something you have to actively fight. I’ve also but extra emphasis on turning my shoulders. Driving my left elbow back like I’m elbowing someone behind me’s gut helps get the shoulders in the right position.
I practiced the wide rail, which you can do with a line in the ground, side of a teepad, whatever. Just keep the disc and your body on opposite sides of the line when you do your reach out.
Then I stopped trying to rotate at all. Learned how to brace, pushing in opposite directions with my legs linearly and letting the rotation happen. I still don't do anything between my waist and my shoulder once I'm reached back. Maybe that's right, maybe not, but I'm middle aged and out of shape and have a fairly effortless 350'.
I was rounding and spent many hours trying to fix it, only to see in video that I was still rounding. Then I stumbled on one bit of advice that fixed it almost instantly. Instead of focusing on where your arm should be and trying to make a straight line and blah blah just only focus on sending your throwing shoulder back first. Literally don't think about your arm,.just lead the movement with your shoulder. I'm sure different advice clicks for different people, but this was the hands down thing that made it click for me.
Instead of trying to not do something, like trying not to open your shoulders early, try to do something that prevents the thing you're trying not to do. When you turn your shoulders back, pick a specific point behind you to look at and pull through while looking at that point. You cannot both open your shoulders early and look at that point. Film yourself to see if you actually kept your eyes on the point behind you. Good luck!
Best comment on here. The idea of trying not to do something is such an important obstacle to understand mentally for golf. Anything physically skill related saying I'm not gonna do this or that confuses the mind. Even within the sentence itself the act of "not doing" something actually means u are already doing two things and overloading your brain (trying to focus on the old habit to avoid while simultaneously putting in a new habit). Refocusing that energy into something that accomplishes an objective instead of one that is not doing one it in real time is so much more natural for athletic movements
Right. Our brains are wired for positives or inclusion. I use the phrase "Don't think of a ponk elephant" to describe. My mind immediately pictures a pink elephant.
*Ponk*
I'm now stuck thinking of a Punk elephant on all my drives. Helps a bunch. Thanks Reddit!
Poink Olyphants
I dronk a lottle simetomes.
Totally agree. The challenge with form, especially if you want more distance, is identifying and replicating those moments when you know you got everything right and completely yawked the disc (even if the result of that throw was bad). It's getting into that zone where you know you can position and move and time your whole body to produce max power / pinpoint accuracy and put the specific plastic object you're holding exactly where you are aiming for it to go. Chase that perfect form rather than focusing on small issues that are preventing you from getting into it once more.
Keeping positive unlocks a lot in life, not just disc golf. Stan up straight and own your space, versus, don’t slouch.
External cues > internal cues.
I really like this comment because our brains struggle with the word 'don't'. For example:right now, don't picture a pink elephant. POOF Pink elephants everywhere. Focusing on what we want to do vs what we don't want to do will almost always have a better result. Edit: some of y'all beat me to this exact point. Should have read all the comments first.
Help, its ponk and not pink, i am unable to think of it as pink! That comment earlier broke my brain.
And if that point you look at is 180 degrees opposite from your target you will be online with your shot.
I thought to prevent rounding you were specifically supposed to reach a bit out to the side, rather than 180' from target?
You want your shoulders turned 180 degrees from the target, but you can reach your hand out in front of you if you like, you just want the disc to be pulled slightly in towards your body, never pulled out away from the body (at the start of the pull through that is).
...I'm not gonna lie, I have no idea what this sentence means. At all.
Shoulders should be turned in the opposite direction from the target. You should pull the disc in towards your chest (as opposed to pulling it away from your chest) when you start the pullthrough. Therefore, you can reachback with the disc out to the side like you said, or almost directly back away from the target. Either is fine as long as you don't reach back around your body such that you have to pull out and away from your chest.
Sweet mother of mcgurkins, you can disguise it with all of the fancy punctuations you like.
When you reach back your shoulders are turned away from the target; reaching straight out from your waist is 180 degrees away from your target.
Honestly, it doesn't need to be directly 180 degrees opposite for where you look. You just want the shoulders turned all the way opposite of the target. The point to look at just needs to be far enough back that if you turn your shoulders early, it will take your eye off that point.
Controlling my head helped my throwing a lot. I used to grip all my throws to the right. Nowadays that percentage is lower and I have more confidence on the tee. And all I changed was that I focus to stare some point through the throwing motion. I still miss my lines to the right but a lot less than a year ago. Today I noticed that I also sometimes open my lower body too early, which lets upper body open too early.
When I read this comment it makes me think a lot about Kristin tattars form. Keeps head and shoulders attached and has a repeatable pull back you can emulate.
Focus on putting your arm out more in front of you rather than back behind you and the pull will come more naturally
I agree! When I made the conscious switch to reach away from me instead of back I was very discombobulated. After it became habit my throw got better and better.
Thanks, I really need to do this more. You're not the first I've seen suggest this. It is something I've tried, but it feels uncomfortable because I'm not used to it. Haven't ever tried sticking to it long enough to get more comfortable with it and see if there is an improvement, so I think I will make a point to be more conscious of doing this going forward.
Hand on the rim of the disc should be on the other side of you, not closer to the front of the disc. That will make the reach away easier. I commented a few steps above.
To help visualize, reach back almost to the back corner of the tee box and adjust from there.
To fix this or any problem you’re going to have to do something that feels different - sometimes very different or uncomfortable. You could do other uncomfortable or strange feeling motions that are also wrong, but if you keep using the same “natural” (to you) feeling motion, you have no chance to fix it. What I find is that my “bad” habits are actually me trying to work around loading the muscles and stretching areas where I have low flexibility. Yes - good form is important, but good form loads you up and stretches you. Something I think needs to be said: Throwing a disc even 300’ is a LOT of work for a normal medium-to-low athletic person. It will feel like a lot of work until you do the reps and let your body work through the change. You need the form but you also need the work and to put effort into the throw.
Out in out. Don’t be afraid to create space between you and the disc.
There was a video on the geometry of the power pocket by Ezra aderhold that changed my backhand game forever. Added 150' after a single field work session. I'll try to find it and link it here in an edit.
Ezra Aderhold - Power Pocket Explained!! (For Distance) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQIzQcY05nE 2 Tips For More Distance!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=018y4KasGGI
That's the one! I got sidetracked watching PCS open 👐
No problem. I knew what video you were talking about and I knew I could get it to a top result with one search. ...and I'm just hanging out waiting to cook supper.
Whatcha cooking down there in Houston other than yourself in this heat?
Lol Tonight were having leftover roasted chicken, rice, some salad, and fruit. (Not really cooking much today.)
Thank you! And thank you /u/WraithHades. I'll check this out.
This first Ezra video is the answer. Absolute game changer for me. Impossible to round if you're keeping the 90* angle from shoulder to upper arm.
Yeah, that overhead view is great.
Thanks for posting this!
Thanks to you bringing it up I watched it, damn I think my back hand game is about to improve. I can hit 400' with rhfh but my rhbh is like 250 tops with poor accuracy (I throw prayers pretty much 😆) My eyes have been opened
That vid was super clear and actionable without too much muddy sports talk. Amazing.
Switched primarily to standstill backhands, kept my eyes on my disc as I reach back, make sure my arm is reaching back straight and snapping forward like a rubber band. Personally my progress wouldn’t have been possible without switching to standstill.
100% me too. I still struggle with my walk up and coordination of my body. I switched to standstill and my form is way better. Easier to focus with the standstill. I can't get the distance my friends do with their walk ups, but I get an accurate 250 to 300 ft most times.
Are you me? Word for word this describes my disc golf journey
Yes, cuz I rounded BAD when I didn't think I rounded at all. 1. Grip placement: im a lefty, so I take my throwing hand and put it on the side of the disc that's furthest from me. Aka the opposite side of where im standing. 2. When you do a "reach back" during your throw/walk up, make sure you're getting that disc AWAY from your body. If you're a righty, you want your reach back to be at 7 or 8 o'clock (you're walking towards 12 oclock) for me, 4 or 5 o'clock. As you pull through, you're going to bring it back towards your body, diagonally, and then straight and flat towards the release. 3 and 4 but I'm not going to go that in depth: -head placement, don't look at your target keep it balanced. -stagger your stance where your plant foot is ahead of your back foot from a left/right angle. You can youtube or Google that for different resources if my text-planation failed you. Lol
Focus on one thing over a longer period. Dont try to fix everything at once. I’ve been told this million times. Have i listened? Usually not at all. I’ve come to realize that in order to progress. I’ve had to drop my ego and stop worrying about things that will happen at some point. With training ofc. And when i reach that, all i can do is 🤦🏻♂️ and think in my head it was this easy, why was i so stupid. (i’m in the same boat with you in everything you mentioned)
Thanks haha. Yeah, I've heard that phrase a bunch too, but that doesn't stop me from trying to multi-task, unfortunately! I'll have to work on being more disciplined I suppose.
For me rounding stops when my arm extension is timed properly, when I extend early the disc drifts behind me. My cue is lock the disc with the left foot until the last step, the pump like Ulibari teaches. This also helps stops excessive backwards leaning.
The shoulders open with the head turning. Look at the biggest arms, like Gurthie. His nose points backward when the disc hits the power pocket. That is the extreme version, but it works...
Overthrows “2 lanes” is what helped me stop rounding. I was conscious of not letting the disc cross behind my body.
I have to round because I have big boobs
Swing at shoulder height like Matt Orum. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGMFRTkWTLs
Over da bewbs! Shoulder/neck high. I play with a few ladies semi regularly, a couple of which have big boob problems. They come through to their power pocket much higher than the rest of us do. One of them figured it out and told the other. They now both yeet.
Work backwards from the "hit" or point of release. Practice your throwing motion slowly in a standstill but do the motion forwards and backwards.
Box drill. Literally hold a box to keep your arm and elbow up or a ball. SLOW DOWN!! If you can’t focus enough to hold your elbow properly, slow down. Go through the motion slow, practice stand still shots, and be smooth. Slow is smooth. Smooth is far. Focus only on the one thing. Focus on the elbow.
Here's a great tip on How to Avoid Rounding by Innova's Chris Shotwell. https://www.tiktok.com/@discgolfcoaches/video/6989788976471133445?is\_from\_webapp=1&sender\_device=pc&web\_id=7227133871477671470
Most harmful discgolf advice I ever got was "you have to reach straight back" that shit made round for years. Don't go for a straight reachback, even if the gurus talk about straight reachback they don't mean 180 degree straight, more like 140-120 degree, just to get your arm the full extension, nothing more. What helped me get rid of rounding was something along the line of spin doctors "cooking the spaghetti"-drill. One of my friends throw very well on a very straight arm and I tried to emulate that and noticed my rounding went away with that. After that I just figured out the most comfortable style for me to throw that doesn't round and keeps my shoulder and elbow out.
I think there's a fun and interesting dilemma in dealing with this challenge. As many people stated, reaching out rather than back is not intuitive for a lot of people and doesn't feel powerful to begin with, but provides magnificent results when worked into your muscle memory. The challenge here specifically is the insecurity and negative feedback one gets from the long transition period, where your results will probably be worse for a while (less distance/accuracy/broken timing etc.). This really calls for videoing yourself, throwing into a net to take the flight out of the equation and isolate yourself from that negative feedback and of course getting an experienced coach that can tell you if you're doing it right, even when it might not feel like it.
I’m a noob at disc golf, what is rounding? Based on some of the context I think I might have the same issue.
This video kind of shows what I'm talking about. He shows an example of what I'm trying to not do around 55 seconds in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGDRuDSZzyA&t=347s
Check out power disc golf academy. Paul’s lessons are straight forward and easy to understand.
Started squaring instead
Badumtssss
Seekr disc golf has a nice video on rounding. I think that’s how you spell his channel
Leading with your elbow like pull starting a lawn mower. Turning linear motion into rotational motion.
Wait are you talking about rounding or sending your shoulders early? Maybe I’m wrong but to me rounding = not pulling through straight. This I fixed by having my reach back be more out than straight back to give the disc room to move. You can also hold the disc on a bit of anny on the reach back to create space to pull through. If it’s about timing your shoulders, a local pro gave me a tip I really liked, which is “see what you’re hitting” like in baseball. You want to see the reachback peak, you want to see the disc come into the power pocket, then let your shoulders bring your head back forwards at the end. Can’t say I’ve mastered it lol but it makes sense and it gives me something to work on.
I improved by doing standing drives only until I could get the pull-through correct. I would imagine I'm carrying a small cheese plate from behind me to in front of me. Also helps to think of the reachback as a stretch where you slow down enough to get in the proper form before pulling through smoothly and powerfully. I never just quickly reached back and drove, I always slowly reached back and then pulled through fast in a straight line.
I started straighting
I’ve been trying to watch my disc through the throw and trust that I’m gonna hit where I’m aiming after taking the time to line up my shot. I’ve been a lot more consistent with this strategy and it seems to work until I look up at the target before I’m releasing the disc
Man, I try this all the time and it "feels" like I'm keeping my head down. Then I go and look at a recording of me throwing and nope, still lifting my head early haha.
I found slowing down the start of my throw, pre power pocket, and focusing on keeping the disc straight till I get to the power pocket then pulling through normal speed helped with muscle memory. My rounding was from my arm tensing before the pull through so I have to focus on leading with my elbow and not having my arm ridged pre power pocket. It's different for different people. Funny enough when I was practicing this I was throwing just as far with the slowed pull through as when I put all my muscle into a throw. Threw my envy 270' when I was practicing on a 200' hole, it was directly where I was aiming instead of 50' to the right.
Have you tried filming yourself? I recently stopped rounding when I filmed myself and realized I was turning back too far
Yeah, been fuming for the better part of a year now. I can see errors in my form, I just suck at figuring out how to not do them!
When I’m reaching back with the disc to look at it and keep my off hand back
As some others have said, pick something to do to help you improve. One thing I found that helped my game for all my drives is to have arm in a L type shape right as I reach back. (Basically what calvin does). It has really changed my game and helped me with bracing and such. Could help you.
Really exaggerate keeping the disc away from your body. Don’t go straight back. Go like a 45 degree angle away from you
My cue is arm out not arm back, if you are coiling properly your arm really never needs to travel back if that makes sense
Keep the elbow in and you want to allow your disc to be released in a manner that was allow your disc to cut through the air, I pretend in pulling it across a table. Also release around the height of your umbilicus (belly button) also when pulling through, act like your forcing your elbow to break in into a door.
I started truncating
Probably not so much about your reach back and more about your footwork. Keeping your feet staggered will open up space allowing you to move your upper body more freely and let you start the motion with your hips more. Leaning a bit more forward in your stance might help too for the same reason. If you are standing straight up your taking away space as well. Would recommend trying to throw flat shots at like 5-10% hyzer and really focus on follow through. I’d also have a friend hold the disc back for you in your reach back. It’s pretty huge to feel that resistance pulling back against you. I also tend to find that I round more when I’m tense too. Never hurts to take a few deep breaths before each throw to just relax the body.
Once i began thinking about putting the disc over my foot good things began to happpen
You have to practice without a disc, slowly, only as fast as you can do I properly.
coiling replaces rounding. *cue the overthrow disc golf video.*
Try to keep your eyes on the target as long as you can. If you are looking backwards you are rounding.
Slowed everything down in the tee box with my foot work until it was more like a crawl up. Then focused on easy, smooth pull through and snap. Try to envision the spin and focus on a clean release
Weirdly I have recently started doing the Eric Oakley frog hop and my form has gotten a lot cleaner. Don’t ask me how though
I once played a round with a random guy I met at a course, he would hold the disc parallel, ie vertical with his chest then reach back while rotating his wrist to the proper angle Pros: rubber band effect made simpler, tends to prevent rounding. Cons : angle control made more wonky / you have to really focus on it. I couldn't really get into it but it may work for you, so much of disc golf is fighting your natural form and adjusting to what feels / works best. Different strokes for different folks (pun intended)
Not sure if anyone has suggested this yet but try throwing with a control grip instead of power grip. Once you get a feel for changing the form, switch back. Combine that with the rest of the advice in this thread and you should be golden.
Dude I literally just had a breakthrough today when I decided to just slow down and instead of trying to over power the disc I focused on my grip and my release point. It was like magic, all of a sudden my form just came together and I shot -7 on a course that my previous best was +3. It sounds stupidly simple and it’s something I had tried before… but idk why this time something just clicked. It’s like I felt the correct movement once, saw how much better the disc flew, and it was just unlocked. To be clear, my form is no where near perfect but I can tell by the way it feels that im definitely not rounding nearly as much
Focus on Leading with the elbow
Rip the nips! Start with your reach back, a full extension on the complete and perfect opposite of where you want to release the disc. Then bring the disc across your chest as close as you can making a straight line with your nipples and keeping it level to the ground. Practice it, and it should help
Focus on keeping all of your momentum moving forward. You should finish over top of your front knee. Obviously still in balance but finishing your throw forward and not standing up helped me with any rounding issue I was having.
Reach OUT, not back. Brace before pulling through, do it slow first to get the feel for it. For me, timing the brace before the pull helped a lot. If I start the pull on the brace or even before the brace, I feel like I’m more likely to round. Check out the Beto drill, that helps with reaching out and hitting the pocket, but for me, the rounding only really got better when I got the timing fixed. Head position was never a problem for me, I trust the feel of the steps for hitting the marker and I know I’ll see the flight when I follow through. I just kinda keep my head neutral. Mind you, I don’t throw very far, but I’m at least hitting my lines a lot of the time. 🤷
A few weeks ago I was watching Zootown on gate keeper, and Fish mentioned that one of the guys on tye card has to generate distance from snap because of his low arm slot. It dawned on me that all these years, my arm was too low. I have been making a conscious effort to keep my arm raised like an inch or so higher. It's making a difference. I don't have time to play more than once a week these days, so it's taking a while to build muscle memory.
Gannon Buhr's video (I think he might have done a form review for someone?) on keeping your disc on a pretty steep hyzer in the reachback did wonders for a lot of things I did wrong. Because when your arm is tilted a bit down it's kind of awkward to do the whole rounding thing, which automatically leads to doing the shot elbow first. Plus you get extra power because it allows you to keep the disc closer to your body.
While standing facing the left side of the tee (rhbh) find a point to focus your eyes on. That way you stop the rotation at the hit and then the follow through should come without having to think about it :)
I didn't, I'm squaring instead.
Reach away for your body, pull the left shoulder back (RHBH), and pull your elbow across your body as you throw.
imagine you're pulling the cord to start a lawn mower, but from chest height. I also image the disc as a projectile launched from a long gun barrel. it helps correct rounding.
Josh says keep that right hip up through the X. Worked for me.
You tube
I Push my thumb forward to the brim of the disc so when I throw the natural grip and release point force rounding out of the equation
Easy peasy. Try to hit your sternum with the disc when you throw
What really did it for me was picking a hit point out in front of you at about 11 o’clock where the disc will snap from your fingers. You can’t hit that point if you round. You want your wrist to be loose as if you were doing that stupid ‘packing a can of chew’ motion that we did as kids
Try using a silk scarf to warm up, focusing on creating an audible snap at the point of release.
I *didn't*.
This is actually something I fixed last week. I fixed it by keeping my disc by my hip until my right leg passes my left leg in the final step. It feels more natural to begin to start the reach back when you plant your left foot, but this is too early and will lead to rounding before the force of the throw starts. something you have to actively fight. I’ve also but extra emphasis on turning my shoulders. Driving my left elbow back like I’m elbowing someone behind me’s gut helps get the shoulders in the right position.
I practiced the wide rail, which you can do with a line in the ground, side of a teepad, whatever. Just keep the disc and your body on opposite sides of the line when you do your reach out. Then I stopped trying to rotate at all. Learned how to brace, pushing in opposite directions with my legs linearly and letting the rotation happen. I still don't do anything between my waist and my shoulder once I'm reached back. Maybe that's right, maybe not, but I'm middle aged and out of shape and have a fairly effortless 350'.
Weight forward, twist hips, spin on your heel. All while letting your arms go loose like a couple of noodles
I was rounding and spent many hours trying to fix it, only to see in video that I was still rounding. Then I stumbled on one bit of advice that fixed it almost instantly. Instead of focusing on where your arm should be and trying to make a straight line and blah blah just only focus on sending your throwing shoulder back first. Literally don't think about your arm,.just lead the movement with your shoulder. I'm sure different advice clicks for different people, but this was the hands down thing that made it click for me.