Many experienced throwers will often throw passes that rise slightly. They start low-ish (knee height, sometimes lower) and rise to hit the receiver in the chest or shoulders. Of course, this is just one of many skills in a thrower's toolkit, but it's an important one.
One the one hand, I think many of my readers will be familiar with this already. However, I consume a lot of frisbee content and I can't remember off the top of my head much discussion of this technique. (Or perhaps it's just buried within larger discussions of things like "touch", see below. But it deserves its own post!) So here's a short article to help make this skill more well-known.
Let's get right to some video clips. Here's a great example from Nathan Kolakovic's recent WUC 2024 Finals highlights video:
(Rewind the video and you'll see that, like, 3 of the 4 passes before this one are also low-ish to high-ish throws.)
Seemingly every second pass in "Just Breaks." by Cal Poly SLO Men's Ultimate is a low-to-high. This one stands out to me as the perfect example of the throw I'm thinking of:
Released from knee height, caught at head height. Here's another solid example from later in the video:
Every once in a while, the topic of "air bounce" throws comes up on the r/ultimate subreddit. Commenters will pretty much unanimously tell people not to use them. And I agree! They're more hassle than they're worth. What I'm suggesting here is NOT an air bounce. A true air bounce is thrown downwards and the force of the air underneath it pushes it back up (watch this in slow motion for proof). What I'm suggesting is to throw upwards from a low release.
That said, there was one air bounce (or at least very very close to being a true air bounce) in Just Breaks. So I guess if it's a throw that you've already mastered anyway, go ahead and use it:
I'm failing in my attempts to embed a timestamped Vimeo video, but if you're looking for more examples, watch Stanford's second score (at 18:49) and, on the following point, UNC's fourth score (25:02, replay at 25:46) in the 2024 women's college championship game:
I see a few factors that make this an objectively good technique. They are:
Lower releases will generally be harder for a mark defender to block.
But passes are easiest for a receiver to catch when they're right at stomach-to-chest height. Low-to-high gets you the best of both worlds.
Upwind throws will naturally rise. Starting extra low give more leeway for the disc to rise without it ending up over the thrower's head.
After getting past the mark, the disc will slow down, making it easier to catch.
Let me explain that last point in some detail:
All thrown discs generally slow down during their flight due to aerodynamic drag.
But when the nose of the disc points up, some of the underside of the disc is exposed to the "oncoming" air. That extra exposure to oncoming air increases the drag on the disc, which means the disc slows down more quickly than a disc thrown straight horizontally. And slower-moving discs are easier for the receiver to catch!
These throws are easier to catch in two ways. First, the physical act of grabbing the disc with your hands is easier when the disc is moving slower. And second, when the disc spends more time in the air, a receiver has more time to adjust to a slightly inaccurate throw. No one is a perfect thrower, and using a low-to-high throw gives the receiver the chance to adjust to your imperfect throws.
Coaching a team of (on average) inexperienced college players has really driven this point home for me. They often can't pull half as far as I can but their 10-15 yard passes are thrown harder than mine. Their slightly inaccurate passes lead to incompletions because the receiver doesn't have time to adjust.
Of course, the disc spending more time in the air means a defender has more time to get to it, too. But, done right, the benefits of a low-to-high throw solidly outweigh the risks. There's a reason Shayla Harris used the low-to-high throw even when completely unmarked:
Low-to-high is related to the concept of putting "touch" on your throws, but I don't think they're exactly the same thing. In my mind, low-to-high is just one aspect of touch, which also includes things like:
Literally just throwing less hard
Using curved flight paths (curved flight path = longer flight path = more time in the air)
Getting lots of spin on the disc while doing these things so the flight path stays true
Add the low-to-high throw to your skill set if you haven't already!
> Upwind throws will naturally rise. Starting extra low give more leeway for the disc to rise without it ending up over the thrower's head.
I'd argue that in windy conditions people make more mistakes when making throws that vary in height significantly throughout their flight. Throwing low-to-high exposes the underside of the disc to the wind and the wind can vary in intensity and direction.
Low to high throws are great but for consistency sake I'd advocate releasing the disc at chest level and trying maintain that height through the catch. Otherwise people risk turfing or overthrowing.
You mentioned it a little bit but with my college rookies I've had to emphasize that the same angle does not work for hucks unless they're downwind. So many hucks stalled short for the defense to collect :(