2020-02-22 Nose-up, Bonopane Grip, Technique Practiced for an hour today on the field. It had around 5 C and a steady wind blowing from south west (i.e. mostly an headwind). My goal was to go for distance. I want to get back to 90m shots. Recently I lacked on distance. I realized that I had forgotten to pull the disc a bit in at the wrist, just before the snap to increase that snap. I wanted to look for that again. Into the headwind it became apparent at once that I throw way too much nose-up. The discs flew up on exagerated lines, because of the wind. It was horrible to watch them go so far up. With all that power they wasted on the climb they could have gone 30m farther. Most discs came down just beyond 70m. The more under- stable discs (P VL, DX TB, DX EG, Insanity) glided right, over the fence and into the woods -- not really to my surprise. The Trespass, as my only speed 12 disc, cut through the wind seeming- ly better. It flew 85m. (Usually it doesn't provide more distance than the rest.) After that nose-up experience, I had to react. Thus I went for the Bonopane grip, which I don't regard as a solution, but as a tool. I also added a slow X-step. The flights I got out of it were completely different. Now they flew as they should. Getting rid of the nose-up angle changed the flight completely. That was important for me to see. Distance-wise it gave me not too much more, I assume because the grip is really weak (only the middle finger inside the rim). The Trespass flew 90m. Felon, RR and both Valkyries came to rest at about 80m. Last I threw the overstable Champ Eagle from a standstill and with the normal powergrip ... equally to 80m. Hence it can work the normal way as well. It's all a matter of angles and timing. This follow-through thing is important in the sense that you have to sling your upper body with your hips. This rotation force will rip your upper body around ... and thus *cause* a follow-through. To really leverage the power, it requires that all motions are such timed that their climaxes fall together in a hit (snap) mo- ment. At that moment the disc must sling out around the wrist and take off. If any of the timings is off, it won't work. Philo's form is remarkable: His motion shows no speed at all, but he thus accellerates the disc to 90 km/h though. How does this happen? That's the whip effect: Although his body and arm are slow, the disc at the tip of the whip can be made fast nonethe- less. The secret therefore is the snap, i.e. when the disc slings from inside out. Thus you have to tuck it in at the wrist before. I tried this for upshots: Not throwing them with the arm at all, but only focussing on bringing the disc in and having them slung out when the arm motion comes to the climax. That worked well enough to support the theory. (Reminds me on Paul's upshot video from back then, as well.) Seems the key points are: 1) Slinging the upper body with your hips. (Doing so creates a follow-through.) 2) Snapping the disc around your wrist at the climax (hit) of the arm. This requires tucking it in just before (loose wrist). 3) Getting the nose down. (Still not sure how to achive this.) 4) Consistency. The main problem is (4). There are so many variables to the mo- tion that I cannot reproduce any constellation. Everything is al- ways different. Well, that's a common problem and the solution actually is clear: Disect the motion and train each part separately, then combine it slowly again. That requires a lot of training time and good feedback, of course. This time I don't really want to invest; I only want the results. ;-) Cannot work this way, of course, unless you're a talent. I'm not. Distance that requires no strong-arming and nose-down angles lies beyond my limits, currently and maybe forever. In Faustball it's about the same. There as well I lack that whipping motion, I only strong-arm ... accurate enough (like in disc golf) but not fast/far enough. Maybe that's my general limit, thus. http://marmaro.de/discgolf/ markus schnalke