|
Throwing
Speed
You've got your backhand, you've got your forehand,
you've got your inside-outs and outside-ins, you've got your hammer - what
more could you want? Well, besides all of those thumb-hammers, scoobers and
push passes, one thing a lot of average to good players are missing is the
concept of changing the speed of their throw.
Imagine the count is on seven, you've just got one cutter and they are heading
straight for the sideline with their defender just two steps behind. What
are you going to throw? Basically, you're going to have to drill it, hard.
If you put a soft pass in, either you're going to have to put it so far out
in front that they'll be over the sideline by the time they get it, or they're
going to have to slow up and their defender will come through and get the
block.
What if the situation is the same, except that
the sideline is much further away? The percentage play is to sit the frisbee
up out in front of your cutter and to let them run it down (assuming they
are matched for speed with their defender). That way instead of trying to
hit your target in the chest, you are letting your target do the work.
Have
you got that throw?
Think about your backhand or forehand. Can you
throw it at different speeds? If not, it is something you should think about
to improve your game.
Most people find it easier to throw fast throws
than slow throws. The reason for this is probably that people are brought
up on throwing balls, where the main power comes from the arm. To throw a
slow throw there is much more emphasis on the wrist, and much less on the
arm.
The trick to throwing a slow throw is the ability to take the arm out of the
throwing equation. This is simply a matter of practice, and of concentrating
on using the wrist to provide both the speed (which is minimal) and the spin.
The other thing to remember is that speed provides some of the lift of a frisbee.
If you want to throw it slow, you have to put it a bit higher into the air
to compensate for the loss of lift. Usually this means head height instead
of waist or chest height.
There is of course another way of throwing slow backhands, and that is the
air bounce. The air bounce is achieved by dragging the thumb across the back
edge of the disc on release. This pushes the back edge down, the front edge
up, and slows the throw a lot while giving it an upward trajectory.
If human arms flexed equally both ways, then
you could apply the same ideas to throwing slow forehands as to slow backhands.
Unfortunately (unless you are some bizarre case) they don't.
The idea behind the slow forehand is the same as for the slow backhand, but
the mechanics are quite different. The trick is again to be able to take the
arm out of the throwing equation. There are at least two different ways of
doing this. One is what I call the "high forehand", and the other is by pulling
your arm back just before releasing the disc.
The high forehand is an unusual but useful throw. The throwing arm is held
perpendicularly to the body. By twisting the throwing shoulder forward, you
can start a "ripple" or "wave" down the arm which ends with a sharp snap of
the wrist, releasing the frisbee with plenty of spin but very little speed.
The high forehand is particularly useful for breaking the force, since most
defenders do not expect a forehand to be released near shoulder height.
The other slow forehand involves pulling your arm back just before releasing
the disc. The throw starts off normally, but by pulling your elbow backwards
just before letting go you can reduce the speed of the throw without reducing
the spin significantly.
As with the backhands, you have to angle these throws upward slightly to compensate
for the loss of lift.
Fast throws tend to magnify throwing mistakes.
A slight wobble on release turns into a sharp dive into the ground, a slight
lack of spin causes a rapid turnover. There are two main reasons people have
problems with fast throws - one is spin, and the other is hand angle versus
disc angle.
Let's start with spin, since it is the obvious one. Simply put, spin equals
stability at high speeds (not necessarily true at low speeds). The more spin,
the better. I've never seen someone throw a high speed throw with too much
spin, and I doubt that it's humanly possible. So concentrate on getting as
much spin as possible on both forehand and backhand. This usually involves
cocking your wrist as much as possible before throwing.
The less obvious one is hand angle versus disc angle. Many problems with wobbles
result from slight inconsistency between the angle of the hand and the angle
of the disc. At low speed the result is a small amount of wobble and turnover.
At high speed the result is usually a lot of wobble and a vicious outside-in
throw, or even a blade into the ground (particularly on forehand).
The angle your hand is trying to throw the disc at needs to be the same angle
that the disc itself is at. There is no quick fix (that I know of). It is
simply a case of adjusting the angle of your wrist, and the way you hold the
disc until you can throw it consistently with no wobble. Slowly work up to
longer and longer, and harder and harder throws.
References
Tom Brennan and Jonathan Potts
http://www.afda.com/skills/
|
