Take a bow....

....Is the song I have stuck in my head today. Thank you, Watchmen trailer.
Go check it out, if you like that sort of thing.

Anyways, I've been thinking a lot grip today. The process of learning to throw lefty has made me examine the way I grip the disc with my right hand. Comparing grip strength between hands it became apparent that without thinking my right hand grip is about a zillion times tighter, yes a zillion. I measured using science. Anyway, point is I came up with two good throwing tips for players looking to develop their sick nasty throws, or perhaps teach someone to throw sick nasty throws.

1. Teaching someone to throw? Have someone hold out their hand and grip it, forehand and backhand, with the same grip you would use on a disc to demonstrate what a good grip feels like. This is informative and also shows how strooong you are! Most likely they will have a reaction that will gratify you, like 'wow!' or "ouch".
If you are practicing your own throws you can grip your opposite hand or the cat.

2. This one is easy and also less awkward. Grip the disc with your normal grip. Then grip it significantly harder and throw like that for your entire session and heck maybe even the next one. Once it becomes muscle memory you should, in theory, have improved your grip strength and thus your throwing in general. Just don't hurt too many people during the learning process.

Now that I have expressed my daily idea and am free from the burden of pretending to know what I am talking about, I will share other things on my mind.

Like the FiveUltimate sponsorship application. My nerves are wracked! I think. What is the clinical definition of nerve wracking? I don't mean to exaggerate the issue, but this is the kind of thing that drives me nuts because I have a "what if it is not good enough/I'm sure it could be better" complex. Helpful at practice. Helpful during the creative process to a point, that point being when it actually is good enough and I can stop stressing. Such a point is hard to determine! In fact nearly impossible so I have to rely on others to tell me which is fine but they get tired of reassuring me after perfectly rational inquiries like "BUT SRSLY SHOULD I CHANGE THIS FROM A COMMA TO A SEMICOLON? YOU THINK FIVE LIKES SEMICOLONS? WHAT IF THEY DON'T LIKE SEMICOLONS!"

Yeah so my friends and family have probably had enough of that at this point. But they've been very helpful! Shout outs to everyone on the team who has contributed, you are keeping me sane and giving me hope for the world. Also shout outs to everyone on the team I know would contribute if they were not out having a social life. I figure its good to have people on a team who will spend twelve hours on PowerPoint if necessary. Even if they blog. I also figure its best if most of the players on the team actually spend their time doing 'normal people' fun things.

Twelve hours of PowerPoint can make a man a little crazy.
You've been warned.

Well that's our show for the day folks. What's that you say? How is the development of my lefty throwing mechanics coming along? Well if you really want to know...
Forehand: about twenty yards, tends to float or curve a little. There's one release point that is really solid but I don't have it nailed down yet.
Backhand is hitting about forty yards tops, could probably throw it farther if I practiced my grip. Pretty decent rotation as well. Aim is totally off, I just sort of throw it and hope. It's getting there. I also threw one lefty scoober so I could make a dischoops joke, because shit I'd better be trendy and show how much I read RSD (actually the answer is "too much").
So yeah. Throwing lefty? Cool. Having a brother who will toss with you when its cold and snowing? Even cooler, especially when he has a better forehand than you do.
My lefty throws are approximately at the point my righty throws were September of my sophomore year of high school, which is just fine.

Ciao.

PS: After having a long conversation with my mom arguing about semicolons, ms word tells me I need one for every other damn sentence. Cosmic irony? Poor grammar on my part? I'll let you be the judge.

PPS: added "FiveUltimate", "dischoops" and "scoober" to my ms word dictionary. NERD!

PPPS: ms word thinks "pps" is a stock ticker. Wtf ms word srsly. It probably is but that is not the point darn it.

PPPPS: My cat is currently in the process of destroying as much of my room as she can. I rescind my previous statement; it is a bad plan to grip cats firmly. Get a dog or something.

PPPPPS: Did not add "wtf" or "srsly" to my ms word dictionary.

PPPPPPS: Have reconsidered previous statements and determined that ms word is giving me subtle financial advice. As we speak I am calling my agent and buying 1,000 shares in case the sponsorship deal falls through. Bonus points for the first commenter to tell me what company PPS is the stock ticker for, I'm curious and too lazy to google. Ever think about how you can’t really wonder about a point of fact without someone googling it and telling you the answer? I wonder what that is doing to our collective psyche. Fortunately my blog is about ultimate, because if it was about philosophy then by golly it would be even more irrelevant than it already is!

Wow yeah okay.
Peace friends.