On teaching forehand to begginers

An argument for teaching full body throwing, in basic terms, to beginners: Would you teach backhand beginning with wrist snap isolation only? If not, why teach forehand that way?

Shoulders: they work.


The long version: at New Paltz, we teach, in general, new throwers to throw forehands keeping their elbows in and generating power primarily with the wrist. While emphasizing wrist snap is obviously incredibly important, I feel it is also important to teach, early and often, how to put other main muscle groups behind that wrist snap to generate more power. The basic elbows at the hip, snap your wrist mantra will work fine - as long as you are throwing passes under 20 (20 assuming you have a very strong wrist) yards. For passes longer than that, you need to use the rest of your body.

It is certainly possible to throw farther than 20 yards generating power primarily from the wrist snap and not utilizing full body throwing techniques. However that will not only stop a player from reaching their full potential as a thrower, but is also likely to cause excessive wrist strain. To use myself as an example, for the first four years I played ultimate I generated power primarily with my wrist for forehand throws up to sixty yards. After two years, I began to develop a chronic wrist injury due to my poor throwing form. If you jack flicks using only your wrist and your arm from the elbow down you are either going to end up hurting your wrist, your elbow or both.

One might point out that we are not teaching new players to throw long. We are teaching to throw short and dump and swing the disc whenever possible. Even so, any dedicated player is going to eventually need to make up-field throws, and will definitely WANT to throw longer. It takes time to develop wrist snap. Before the wrist is really strong, it will be hard to throw longer distances when the wrist is the primary power generator for the throw. Introducing the shoulders, the back, the core, and the hips can help players add more power to their throw even before their wrist is snappy enough.

Teaching frisbee at our level really comes down to personal technique and opinion, but I feel there is little advantage in waiting to introduce full body throwing mechanics. I see the logic in waiting say, a week or two before really laying it on thick so as not to scare away new players, but beyond that, why? If new players start practicing good technique right from the start, they should master it quicker. The quicker the better.

I have heard it said by several people that we should not micro manage the development of new players throws, but instead let them develop their own technique organically. I contend that if we are going to be ready for tournaments in the fall or even the spring, waiting at all is silly. I do not advocate micromanagement, only teaching throwing form in a complete way from the start. Forehands are going to be hard whether you are learning good technique or bad.

At the very least, the SHOULDER NEEDS TO BE INTRODUCED. That much is necessary even for short throws. Keeping your elbow stuck to your side will only get you to a very basic level of comprehension.

I'm working on a concise, precise explanation of full body throwing principles precisely to teach new players. I hope it will be easy to understand and implement and produce better results. We'll see.

I know that many people on GUNX disagree with me on teaching new players, so let your voice be heard. I want to hash this out as it is one of the most important aspects of practice for the first few weeks.

PS a huge pet peeve of mine is when we teach new players that throwing with "too much arm" causes the disc to curve. Throwing with arm can help generate power. Angling your body (wrist, arm, shoulder, whatever) causes the disc to curve. Gah.

PPS if you want to hear about throwing from someone who is actually an expert, check out
http://dopacetic.blogspot.com/2008/10/illicit-formula-of-shoulder-jerk.html
http://mmackey.blogspot.com/search/label/throwing