Thoughts.

So I spent my summer in Japan, studying the language at a University near Tokyo.

I didn’t exactly have easy access to regular ultimate (I had weekly pickup with a pretty sweet group of international people in Tokyo, but it was a long trek–expensive, too, a good $20 to travel there and back–and there were weekends we traveled and such as a class when I couldn’t go play), so I tried to make up for it with a lot of tossing–a good hour or two every weekday, basically. And when I wasn’t tossing, I was doing reading online about ultimate, with particular emphasis on my throws.

And I had an epiphany about my throws. Really, it’s gotten to the point where I wonder how I ever really threw before I figured out how to really throw.

In any case, I feel like I have a good enough grasp of throwing mechanics that I can almost coach it (well, as well as it can be coached, I guess). Some of the things I figured out about throwing over the summer, listed in order of (I think) importance:

-Wrist snap. It’s important to have it, but what’s really game-changing is the timing of it. A lot of newbie players, I think, throw with their wrist snap drawn out over the course of the throw–that is, you’re starting your snap/release prematurely, resulting in a loss of spin, velocity, and a trend towards instability and the airbounce, all not particularly desirable.
Basically, the way I visualize throwing, it’s all a whipping motion. As far as the wrist is concerned, you want to snap your wrist as hard as you can at the point of release–take all the velocity from your arm motion, multiply it with the wrist snap, and then release the disc. A little hard to follow, maybe, but when applied it’ll improve all your throws.
Along with this, you also have the amount of wrist snap to worry about. The further back the disc and your wrist are, the more power you can transfer into spin and thus the further the disc will fly, generally speaking.

-Grip. As far as having control goes, it really starts with the grip. Most people know better than to use that finger-on-the-rim backhand grip, and the split-finger forehand, but I think a lot of people, especially with forehand, don’t get optimal control from their grip. A good grip is tight, and allows for maximal energy transfer to the disc.
For a backhand, it’s hard to beat the power grip in terms of energy transfer, but because all your fingers are tight against the rim it’s hard to keep the disc in a stable line while throwing, so I prefer keeping the pointer and maybe the middle fingers only bent, and the others are extended along the radius for stability (most of your power comes from the spin around that front finger–this is why the finger-on-rim grip is crap).
For a forehand, there’s definitely a lot you can do with the grip. I see a lot of newer players with forehand grips that are far too loose–you can throw the disc, sure, but because you’re not in control of the disc angle on release you’ve little say in the curvature of the disc. It’s very hard to get touch on a flick with a poor grip. I’m a big fan of gripping the disc tightly by means of the thumb and ring/pinky fingers; the thumb should press so hard that it “dents” the top of the disc slightly, and the bottom fingers can be bent or extended, so long as they clench the disc with the thumb. My grip is good enough to the point that I can remove my two “throwing” fingers from contact with the disc and hold it perpendicular to the ground by strength of my thumb and non-throwing fingers alone. Along with the fingers, where the disc rests in the hand is also important–it should be as far into the recess between the thumb and pointer finger as possible, for a good, tight grip.

-Wrist position. This mostly applies to IO/OI throws. When you want to throw OI, you need to tilt your hand upwards at the wrist, and vice-versa for IO. Along with this, your body position comes into play as well–essentially, your shoulders should be in the plane you want the disc to fly in; if you want the disc to fly IO and you’re throwing a righty flick, you should be dropping your right shoulder so as you throw and your arm comes across your body it’s going from your lower right to your upper left, the same sort of arc you want the IO flick to have.

There’s more to it than that, mostly with regards to hucking, and I’m gonna put it into a separate post.

I rant a lot, but I swear I actually know what I’m talking about…

A fine art, though few view it as such. A more common view for many could be any of the following: Nothing new, A sign of the young, overzealous college player, something wonderful, something dangerous, the list goes on. It’s so many things all at once, and I think it’s a marvelous tool to have in one’s repetoire, if used correctly.

But first, a short how-to.

Put simply, a bid is falling with style. Because one wants to reach a disc which is too low, moving too fast at one’s side, or just generally out of reach whilst standing, the bid is used as a means to force the body to move in such a way that the disc is within reach.
Sounds simple, but there are a number of mental blocks and physical blocks that prevent it from being instinctive for most.

The budding bid-happy college player goes through several phases before really reaching the point where the bid is practical for the player and in-game (there may be more, but these are the phases I’ve gone through):

1) Oh man, laying out is so awesome. One is in awe of the bid, and wants to have it. This phase is generally typified by lots of comments when somebody bids, audibly enough for several nearby players to hear, in the hopes that conversation on the topic will yield some insight not yet afforded to the budding bidder.

2) Research. Perhaps a foray into the internet, perhaps simply through Q&A with one who’s been there, one comes to understand some of what goes into a bid–see the disc, know you need to layout, layout.

3) Failed attempts. This could range from wanting to bid but only being able to get on one’s knees before falling, thinking the bid is necessary but hostering it in a given situation, or perhaps as far as jumping and falling willy-nilly at whatever is within range, which is the most dangerous as it can result in poor landings and serious injury. All these things have in common is that it gets a player ready for real-time layouts; the comfort zone is continually expanded.

4) Success. Whether it be simply while tossing, for a D in the zone, or an offensive bid, whatever, there comes a moment where one finds success. One doesn’t necessarily need to catch the disc or get a hand on it to have a successful bid; generally, one has the realization after it happens–holy crap, I just flew.

5) Bid-happy. The budding bidder is at a dangerous point; with the newfound bidding ability, it becomes all too easy to do it whenever one can, as practice/showing off. This leads to many heckles of “gratuitous”, but also is an injury risk. Laying out is not a painless thing; it really requires a mind-over-matter sort of mentality. It’s definitely possible to hurt one’s hips and shoulders with improper form, particularly if repeated, and even with proper form (absorbing the impact with one’s torso) repeated collision can lead to a lot of arm scrapes (I’ve got perpetual scars on my right arm by the elbow) and, I find, at least, back pain due to the unnatural body position absorbing the impact requires.

6) Refinement. Once the concept of “laying out” has been integrated into one’s game, one seeks to improve the usefulness of the bid–laying out at head-height as opposed to foot-height, getting a full extension at full speed, improving timing, etc. This comes from experience–the bid-happy phase, while dangerous, also (hopefully) provides insight as to when it’s appropriate in a game to take the risk of a bid and when you can’t afford to give your man two unmarked seconds after a failed defensive bid–but also comes just from examining one’s game. I find visualization of in-game situations to be very beneficial here; picturing yourself in a number of different situations and getting the layout D in X situation, or thinking better and holstering in Y situation, it all becomes that much more instinctive in real life if you’ve thought it out beforehand.

After that, I don’t know. I’m still refining my choosing of when to bid, as my layout D vs. layout attempts ratio is nowhere near where I want it.

Not the clearest of how-tos, but hopefully you can glean some insight out of all this.