I Spent The LAST 4 Months Fixing My Form | Was it Worth It?

welcome back to videos of disc golf today we need to talk about whether this off-season form change which you guys have been following the Journey of if you've been watching the channel has worked or not I just finished up my first practice round for the first tournament of my year which I'm going to be playing mpo it's a pro only a tier here in Denver called 303 open you guys can definitely follow along this weekend I'll practice round post report as well as the tournament coverage of it but this is kind of a moment that this whole off season has been leading towards because if you guys have watched project 100 it was my goal to add about 100 feet of usable distances off season also to practice a lot of putting and just work on a well-rounded game here in disc golf I'm gonna cut in a second to a side by side of my form nowish as well as my form then I say nowish because I have not honestly been spending a lot of time working on my form it's been a lot more time focusing on videos as my wife is actually leaving on a three-month road trip tomorrow so we've been spending a lot of time together making sure I get these videos done fulfilling some obligations that I have with sponsors here and figuring out my bag so my formwork has gone a little bit to the Wayside and honestly I'm a little sad about how this whole off season went because my form isn't where I want it to be and I'll cut to that now and explain the side by side all right welcome back to the office this is actually exciting for me this is the first time I've actually taken a look side by side at what this form is going to look like and I have kind of three intermediate periods I have before my form stage started in December and then we're going to take a look at February and then now so a couple months in there actually were some things that changed a little bit along the way and then now kind of what are we looking now if you guys have been here a while you know there are a couple main things that I really needed to work on the first was hit movements we want your hips going kind of up up down up right here my hip is up right here just up compared to this other hip so there's a line going this way and then if we move forward a little bit we can see it kind of gets level it's like not really up and then now it's down a little early and I'm kind of pulling through we're going to look at that in slow motion here I'm throwing graces at this time as well I don't really throw Graces anymore if you guys watch my in the bag they're actually flying less far for me than the discs that I've thrown out which is kind of exciting to be a reality but we're gonna watch basically the foot movements because the upper body There's issues all over the place but Josh who I was working with over through a disc golf wanted to coach from the feet up so first up here we can see this is already pretty perpendicular it's basically parallel to the Target and so I like now instead of having this foot here to place his foot more like a 45 degree anglish because as we're going to see I rotate back and now I'm already like behind the Target and my hips are completely facing away from the target so I'm gonna have to completely open them up 180 degrees which means there's not a lot of coil in them because my shoulders and my hips are both facing back so there's no shoulder coil against my hips hips should be here my shoulders should be here and now there's like a stretch there whereas there there's not really a stretch it's just rotational movement so I'm gonna call that rounding but my hips need to be up a little bit more here and I also need to be facing forward a lot of issues I'm already also fully extended even before I get this x step foot down there are some redeeming qualities here one thing you're going to notice is this off arm comes through not redeeming this is something that I've noticed from like literally three months into playing don't know why that started I'm also kind of Dipping down a little bit on this because my shoulder is high because of that whereas it should be dropping down a little very bad at throwing highs just before and I kind of think if you can't throw hyzers you probably have bad form because you're probably throwing over the top like this because now I'm going to come through this knee kind of gets into a decent position I don't brace super well but I do throw against it and these shots went about 380 feet I was able to hit into the 400s but I mean look at how much forward momentum I have moving over that disc oh we turned around coming through bang not terrible acceleration through that thumb kind of makes it throw a little bit nose up because you want to keep your thumb up to throw nose down and if you pop that thumb down it's going to throw a nose up so that can help with up shots as well really not ideal let's move a little bit more forward we started working on the hips I got the hip movements down and these are all videos that I'm going to link a playlist uh somewhere probably in the description to project 100 which is just all of my training videos up until this point including this one project 100 is done guys it's over my season has started so it's kind of crazy that's the first time I said that project 100 is done wow so we work from the ground up got our feet right and then there was a little bit more arm movement and things and we'll talk about the things that I'm still needing to work on but let's look at February this is in February in Florida man what a good face I look like I'm so high but I've never done anything I'm not a good disc golfer oh yeah I was really focusing at this point on getting that arm up and away from my body because so we're gonna move forward and we're already gonna see stepping here that that step is much more at that 45 degree angle what this does is it allows your body to swing behind have a little bit of rotation but since you're starting rotate a little bit this way when it rotates it's actually going to rotate you parallel to the Target which is kind of what you're wanting to look at next step is fine this is honestly still a little bit more backwards but as you can see look at how high this hip is as compared to it was before so this hip is way higher also there's a nice little bidenza mini in the pocket classic I was already fully extended before this point now and now I'm going to be extending as I'm gliding out I get fully extended about here and my foot isn't even on the ground yet my front foot we'd really ideally get this full extension to happen as that heel hits the ground and then pull through because we're going to see I start honestly not too bad I actually am still staying extended so that's not the end of the world because you don't want to start pulling before this gets to the ground but look at how wide my stance is for being like a two and a half foot tall person this is very wide and it's not going to allow these hips to engage quite as much as they could if they were a little bit closer but it's going to pull through across the top let's actually go frame by frame here so really not bad on the pull through but this leg is just kind of being a little bit of an anchor it's not really transferring weight and you're going to watch all of my weight here is going to shift right over top of this foot and we actually want to be throwing from behind that foot so that's what I worked on after this but we get into a decent little area the body stays pretty similar still don't like what this off arm is doing that's one of the main things I still need to work on honestly so this shoulder is getting Above This shoulder which is good and this isn't the end of the world but my body weight has shifted too forward here we want it to shift forward but it's too like actually that's not terrible it's not awful it's not great it actually looks a little bit worse but as we can see I'm not going to brace super well I'm going to kind of fall over the light a little bit so that means I'm moving my weight a little too forward it's kind of hard to tell but let's take a look now at what my most recent form is looking like definitely not ideal and there are some things that we can work on with it but this was just about a week this was like two or three weeks ago I haven't really done a lot of homework since then this is kind of what it's look like if you go ahead and watch my videos now but it is much more beautiful in my opinion to watch me throw the disc now than it was before it's going a little bit further it's much much more controlled because I never turn away and have to like whip around but let's just take a quick look at my form now I think I'm throwing a destroyer here yep so as you can see here I'm staying my head forward this is another thing that I really am trying to work on even now is keeping my head forward and these shoulders facing the target until after my X step which is not something that we've seen in any of this but my shoulder kind of comes out this right here my offer I'm not touching the disc is something that I'm working on to try to get my off arm down sooner instead of kind of crashing into my body like it has been this foot is at that more 45 degree and here we're seeing my X step isn't down and I'm already starting to turn my head back I would love to keep this a little bit more forward and continue watching that and keeping this shoulder up until my x-step hits because when I don't do that you can see the disc has already started to rotate a little bit where it's being like left in the same position this whole entire time which isn't bad I would rather it continue to move forward with my body until after the X step is there so maybe the disc is here and then it gets left behind because you're gonna see as I pull back my I'm allowing my head to come back a little bit more as well so that I can get a more full coil and as we can see my hips are in line here and my shoulders are very much coiled against them which is what we want to see but my step is a little too big I might like this to be a little bit shorter it gets down I'm fully extended a little early here so I'm fully extended and I just kind of hold it there as long as I don't really start to pull before my heel gets down which I kind of do it starts to pull a little bit this is definitely a better stance it's still a little bit wide but we're going to see that this weight is able to shift a little bit better staying back a little bit too much but look at how little my body weight goes over that front leg as compared to the last shot that we threw and so I'm throwing out at 10 o'clock I'm able to use my full body because I'm trying to leave my head back and this is a position that I don't mind too much but I'd rather be in this position like with my legs here right about here so this is one of the main things that I need to continue to work on there's a couple one this offering right here should be pushed down I don't think you should actively work on your offer unless it's hindering you and for me it is so I want that kind of Silas schultzy where you can watch them as he comes to throw his offering just goes shoots down and you see what it does it lifts this elbow and shoulder up which creates a much bigger way to sling out the disc so mine is actually more pushing for word which is opening me up a little bit early sometimes and so if I don't very intentionally keep my head down and facing forward as I throw out I tend to over rotate and release a little bit early it causes me to fall off my brace a little here we can see I'm also a little bit early with my pull through and I think that's because I start to leave the disc behind me before I finish my X step and so that's something that I might try to add a little bit of a pump like you see pot Macbeth do right before he gets to his next step so his disc is forward and then it gets left behind him extend it out and then pump through I'm not mad about it because these discs are flying very good for me my destroyers are consistently at that 400-ish Mark but there are these little things um like keeping this elbow out which I really like the look of this because the disc is in through this pocket I think I'm a little bit opened up maybe because the shoulder is pushing forward but it's really not that I'm able to get a full extension or short arming it anymore which is something that I was doing and I'm staying behind myself and then because of that I'm pretty well braced I'm able to stay balanced on this foot which is what I like to see but as you can see here if you watch like someone like Ezra he does this kind of same movement that I just did finishing that shot right here but his left leg stays to the left side of this leg not in front of it which I think is a consequence of me throwing out a little bit early because my hips are firing a little bit later than they maybe should this is all just kind of my conjecture and understanding the more anhyzer I throw the worse my brace becomes but that's how it happens with most people and I think if I am to fix these timing issues it probably will be a little bit easier we'll watch one more quick throw so it's definitely not bad you could see through all this that it has gotten significantly better my base for how I'm throwing and the things that I can work on has become significantly better because my form as a whole looks much much better there's still things to tweak unfortunately at this point but this is a years-long process people continuously tweak their form I'm throwing the most consistent and farthest that I ever have and I feel like my game has come around the most so the one last thing I wanted to say before I get back into the other video is sometimes because I really want to have a good brace I've kind of forced the brace by not throwing not putting my body into it it's in the tournaments of what I'm playing I try to not think about this at all I'm not trying to think about four I'm not trying to think about looking pretty when I throw I'm trying to think about executing the best shot and my body has had all these reps to figure out how to do that at this point and obviously that can get cleaner and cleaner and be farther and farther the more I work at it but as of right now I'm not going to go into this tournament thinking okay let me make sure that I bracelet let me make sure that like this looks good for the videos I'm going to put out I'm really just going to be thinking let me make sure that I put my weight into this shot and a lot of times me transferring that weight into that shot doesn't happen when I'm focusing on a brace so let's talk a little bit about what this means while I get some much needed putting practice in because my putting hasn't felt phenomenal right now but all this means is that during tournaments like the one I just practiced I'm not thinking about form at all maybe only in my cues to make sure that I throw well like for me making sure I don't wash my throw so I keep my head down that's really helpful for me when I throw out to make sure I hit my lines and my gaps as well as keep the nose down otherwise I'm really not thinking about form at all I don't care about my brace I don't care about all these things that we've talked about because now is not the time to work on form while I'm in a tournament I was really hoping that that would be the case for this whole entire year my goal is to work on form this off season so I didn't have to work on it during the season come on unfortunately I actually really failed at that goal so this season I'm gonna have to continue working on form and let me explain a little bit of what that's going to look like now that I'm playing tournaments again because I have a tournament here on out basically every weekend except for one weekend in June for the next two months and during that time I really want to make sure my rating gets hot and I feel like my play is the best that it's ever been I feel like my form is the best that's ever been and I'm not throwing you short because today my practice round it was you disc so take it for what it's worth but it was an uphill slight drive and I pumped a turnover 460. um love myself with a mid-range in on like a 800 foot Par Four so really happy with how things have come along it's just not exactly where I want it to be and that's actually exciting because I my distance is the best that it's ever been consistently I feel like because I did this yesterday but I wasn't recording if I go to a field and I throw 5-10 distance drivers they're not going to be much shorter than 395 and they're normally going to be averaging around 420. so I'm heading into the 440s so really happy with how that looks especially because I know my form isn't perfect my timing is still a little bit off and there is room to continue to grow that being said the main focus on this season is scoring well because I'm trying to get 2000 rated by the end of the year which I think is possible I feel like my play is significantly better than it ever has been which I'm very excited about and I was averaging 970-ish 975 at the end of my last tournament season last year so making sure I'm not thinking about form during my tournaments just thinking about throwing the disc well and focusing on scoring are going to be super important while between tournaments I'm going to continue working on form and this is something that I don't necessarily think is the best thing for everybody to do but I know that my distance where it is now is not able to compete at the highest levels of disc golf at the pro tour which I don't necessarily want to get a tour card now my goal is just to cash in an event and then see kind of where we go from there but if I want to be able to do that having more distance will be helpful and so as well as long as I'm continuing to round out my game like working on upshots which we'll talk about tomorrow I don't see this off season as a failure I see it as really hard to have lived in a van moved into an apartment with absolutely no Furnishings furnish the whole thing and figure out a bag here at elevation that'll also work for sea level and work on distance over a four month period because I really only had from the middle or end of December until now and I have years left in my disc golf career hopefully thanks to you guys watching this channel so it's gonna look like probably Monday Tuesday Wednesday ironing out one or two form things and really just working on them but the biggest reason that I think I'm able to do that is because during this off season I built a really good base that I can work from I feel like I was maxing out at what I was able to do with my old form which is kind of pulling over the top and there were some things that honestly are a little bit better in that form than it is now like my explosiveness getting my whole body through it because now I'm a little afraid to not brace but because that base is good I don't feel like there's going to be anything that I do to my form that is going to drastically change how I throw or how I aim or how I score and so working on it during the week and then doing a practice round or two in a field work session before I actually get onto the course to see how my discs are flying how I'm throwing that week and then go and play around it's gonna be really important but that's not kind of the end of it it's not just working on tweaking these little things throughout the season there's one question mark still in my season that I haven't filled out yet if you guys watch my q a video where I answered a lot of your burning questions hopefully um I talked a little bit about my schedule there and to really and to reiterate that schedule I'm playing this tournament 303 next weekend I travel about four hours south to Pagosa Springs to play a tournament there the weekend after I come back I have another tournament here in Denver the weekend after that I actually go to Kansas City then I go to meet with a content creator in Arkansas then come back up here for another tournament in Fort Morgan which is about an hour north and then I go to Kansas City or maybe Emporia Kansas if I can get into the DDO off the waitlist but after that it's all up in the air I don't have any tournaments planned and that was intentional because it'll be the start of July I have some qualifiers so if I get into Des Moines challenge or Casey wide open or if I'm Monday qualify for some Pro Tour events which I'm going to try to follow the tour a little bit and try to Monday qualify I might be able to get into those and play those otherwise I'm really just going to be buckling down and focusing maybe in Minneapolis on my form and really dialing that in for another three or four weeks really intentionally and then getting back into a season because August September I'm gonna have a lot more tournaments that I plan on playing again so not the fullest year but hopefully that means that next year I'm really set up well so that I can compete at the highest level with really good form and if it takes having a really good off season again it'll be okay I hope you thought about me that'd be kind of funny but it definitely is a sidewalk over there I do unfortunately anticipate that this would be something that I work on for probably about another year at least but honestly that should be helpful because there's a lot of pressure and urgency that I put on this form change that didn't necessarily need to be there and it probably added a lot of stress and I'm the type of person who lots of things can become life or death like oh I have to do this or I have to be really good at this and it doesn't necessarily have to be that way quickly it's a journey that can take time and I I know that my caching an approach to a goal is a multi-year goal potentially maybe it happens this year absolutely not planning on it and it'd be awesome if it did but I know that takes time so why wouldn't getting good enough to cash an approach event also take time like that just makes sense as well so I just need to give a little more grace to myself and realize it's going to take time while playing the best golf I can and continually getting better but I also remembered that last year I added about 50 feet of usable distance during the season by just playing more and now that I have a good base and I'm not really focused on throwing my arm out as much my arm can probably heal a little bit because there is a little tendonitis in the elbow but I mean that's that's been lingering for a long long time work on a little bit more of my conditioning and my strength training and then also playing really good disc golf so really excited for how this year is going to come out thank you guys for following this journey I'm so excited for tournaments to come back I am so competitive and I I had a pretty good practice around today playing blind I anticipate that there's going to be a lot of birdies out here people are going to be able to shred this course hopefully I can be one of them for at least around um I'm gonna kind of keep my goals a little close to the chest for the whole season but a couple of my quick goals for this tournament are cash I want to start a cash streak I would love to get a top 10 top 5 usdgc qualification because this is a usdgc qualifier but I'm not trying to focus on that I'm just trying to cash I want to have one round that I'm really proud of and I want to be one pro who came into town so hopefully those will happen the pro one is the last one but it's really just caching and having a round that I'm proud of and also not giving up never giving up even during a bad round but that's that if you guys want to check out my in the bag which I just finalized and made a video for yesterday check it out right down there I think you'll enjoy that a lot otherwise hope you like this video please drop a like if you did subscribe to the channel join the patreon if you want to support me if you like and I have filmed this for sale I don't know why I started talking like this but I didn't okay bye contacts more buddy