> 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.
I think we might also just be coming at this question from different perspectives. It seems like you're thinking about things from the perspective of how to help someone become a dependably intermediate player.
But I think one of the main goals of my blog is to showcase some of the subtler things that elite players are doing. If all a player gets is advice on how to become intermediate, they might one day find themselves "stuck" and not have any idea how to get to the next level. I want my blog to help them.
And yes, I admit that sometimes elite players are doing things that players who aren't at that level can't currently do well. So maybe the hidden assumption in this post is that what I'm trying to say is "if you want to be elite, put in the lots of hard work it takes to become great enough to use this throw consistently"...I'm not saying "start using this throw in games immediately regardless of how much you've practiced it".
You're right about the intermediate vs elite perspectives. The people I play with are far from elite. I throw these low-to-high touch passes but find it difficult in heavy wind to aim up *a little bit* as you say. I'll keep practicing.
The comment on wind throws was kind of a special case in ways I didn't explain in the article. I do still think low release makes sense here, but for reasons I didn't fully explain above.
— First, I pretty much agree with this Ultiworld article that you want to release low in the wind simply *because the wind is lesser closer to the ground*:
And if you're releasing low, you need to aim up *a little bit* because low and flat just gets you a disc that never gets off the ground
— Second, when throwing upwind, the disc will rise "naturally" due to the extra lift, so you don't actually need to tilt the nose up more than the tiniest bit. So that, to some extent, can answer to your worries that you're exposing the disc to getting caught by gusts.
The wobble stabilization aspect introduced in the article is interesting and unintuitive.
Regarding gusting, the issue is that the shallow upward angle of the throw may be calibrated for one wind and then face a different wind. If we measured the nose-angle that results in a chest level reception 20 ft away vs a knee level reception, the difference would be tiny. The wind variation can eclipse that difference, even if the throw was exactly right for the wind five seconds previous.
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 :(
Do you have thoughts about this Kirk Gibson video? He seems to say that one of the problems with the errant upline flicks was that they shouldn't have been thrown low to high in the examples provided. If you concur, I'm wondering in what scenerios throws shouldn't be low to high.
Ooh good find, thanks for sharing that. A couple thoughts:
— Looking at the flag above the field (at 7:42 for example), they're playing downwind-ish on that point. I agree with the ultimate community's consensus that you should aim your throws much more up into the air when you're throwing downwind b/c the lack of lift means they'll fall faster. I think high releases do make much more sense when throwing downwind b/c then you get more time to let the disc fall.
— I agree with Travis in the other comment on this post that getting touch on flicks is much harder than for backhands (for whatever biomechanical reasons that may be). So I definitely think of this as something I do *more* on backhand throws but it can be useful on forehand throws too.
— Kurt's example of a good pass (the Leo Gordon pass at the end of the video) is released at his waist and ends up over Jacques's head -- so it still has an aspect of low-to-high -- it's still slowing down b/c it's thrown slightly upwards, it's just released from a slightly higher point.
— I think Kurt's argument is slightly confused. For example, at 2:53 he says it's a harder throw b/c "you've gotta get a little snap on it because you've gotta throw it *up*". But he himself points out that Leo Gordon's throw is being released from the waist and ending up at Jacques's head -- it's also going *up*. So I agree with Kurt on what the problem was -- those UNC throws didn't have enough touch on them. I'm not sure I agree with him that it's impossible to get touch on low release throws, just b/c these two examples he showed didn't have touch doesn't mean that other low release throws couldn't have much more float (but as I said above, I do agree that it might be harder on the forehand throws...)
So, overall, I don't think Kurt and I really disagree on much. I think we're both in agreement that getting touch on throws is so important b/c it makes it easier for the receiver to catch, which was one of my main points in this article and he talks about in the video starting at about 2:55 and then again at like 4:30-5:40
1. The point that (assuming laminar flow!) the wind speed is zero at ground level and then higher as you go up, so starting/keeping throws as low as possible helps prevent the wind from messing up your throws, already got mentioned in Austin's comment and your response. I just wanted to mention it again because this is something I remember being taught by my own first ultimate coach, legend of the game Chris van Holmes, who coached the University of Washington team for a while when I was in grad school there in the late 90s. Anyway, it's true that you might have to adjust some other aspects of your throws in windy conditions, but I still think it's generally true that throwing "low to high" is very helpful in preventing the wind from messing up your throws too much. (That's of course in addition to the other virtues of "low to high" that you discussed in the post.)
2. And then, you kind of touched on this (no pun intended) in the post, but I just wanted to underscore the idea that throwing "low to high" -- especially forehands -- is a really essential part of throwing gently aka catchably aka with touch. This actually came up for me just a couple weeks ago, at the tournament where I met you for the first time in person! Before my team's last game we did a little dishy type drill and most people had no trouble completing passes when we were throwing backhands but then when we switched to forehands I noticed that the completion % plummetted and noticed in particular that people were throwing from chest/shoulder height but trying to make them "touchy" by just throwing them soft/slow. But those soft/slow forehands had very little spin and tended to just die and plummet to the ground, or get blown off course by a little breeze, instead of hovering stably in place for the receiver to catch. I pointed this out to some of my teammates later on the way home, noting that it seemed like people didn't understand that to throw forehands with touch they need to be released from near the ground, and rise, so they slow down as they rise but still have spin and stability. I learned that day a couple weeks ago that, indeed, this isn't something people generally know, so your post about this was very timely! Anyway, re: "touch", I've heard "touch" defined as the ratio of rotation speed to translational speed. Somehow in my experience it's easy to throw a backhand with touch, i.e., with more spin and less (translational) speed than usual. But it's much harder to do that with a forehand. (It's possible, by putting a little reverse "hitch" in at the end of the throwing motion, but it's kinda awkward and can lead to errant throws, at least for me.) So throwing low-to-high is kind of my standard method of throwing forehands with touch: you can basically release the forehand in the comfortable normal way, with the normal spin/speed ratio, but then because the speed decreases as it rises (conservation of energy and all that) the spin/speed ratio increases and you end up with something that can hover stably and be caught easily.
I agree that, for whatever biomechanical reasons, it seems like it's easier to throw with touch on a backhand than a forehand. One reason of many that I love my lefty backhands ;)
And yeah, judging by the feedback I got on this article (both comments here and emails), I think I made the right choice in writing it up!
> 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.
I think we might also just be coming at this question from different perspectives. It seems like you're thinking about things from the perspective of how to help someone become a dependably intermediate player.
But I think one of the main goals of my blog is to showcase some of the subtler things that elite players are doing. If all a player gets is advice on how to become intermediate, they might one day find themselves "stuck" and not have any idea how to get to the next level. I want my blog to help them.
And yes, I admit that sometimes elite players are doing things that players who aren't at that level can't currently do well. So maybe the hidden assumption in this post is that what I'm trying to say is "if you want to be elite, put in the lots of hard work it takes to become great enough to use this throw consistently"...I'm not saying "start using this throw in games immediately regardless of how much you've practiced it".
You're right about the intermediate vs elite perspectives. The people I play with are far from elite. I throw these low-to-high touch passes but find it difficult in heavy wind to aim up *a little bit* as you say. I'll keep practicing.
The comment on wind throws was kind of a special case in ways I didn't explain in the article. I do still think low release makes sense here, but for reasons I didn't fully explain above.
— First, I pretty much agree with this Ultiworld article that you want to release low in the wind simply *because the wind is lesser closer to the ground*:
https://ultiworld.com/2014/08/13/throwing-in-wind-part-2/
And if you're releasing low, you need to aim up *a little bit* because low and flat just gets you a disc that never gets off the ground
— Second, when throwing upwind, the disc will rise "naturally" due to the extra lift, so you don't actually need to tilt the nose up more than the tiniest bit. So that, to some extent, can answer to your worries that you're exposing the disc to getting caught by gusts.
The wobble stabilization aspect introduced in the article is interesting and unintuitive.
Regarding gusting, the issue is that the shallow upward angle of the throw may be calibrated for one wind and then face a different wind. If we measured the nose-angle that results in a chest level reception 20 ft away vs a knee level reception, the difference would be tiny. The wind variation can eclipse that difference, even if the throw was exactly right for the wind five seconds previous.
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 :(
Do you have thoughts about this Kirk Gibson video? He seems to say that one of the problems with the errant upline flicks was that they shouldn't have been thrown low to high in the examples provided. If you concur, I'm wondering in what scenerios throws shouldn't be low to high.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaAul_7k87o
Ooh good find, thanks for sharing that. A couple thoughts:
— Looking at the flag above the field (at 7:42 for example), they're playing downwind-ish on that point. I agree with the ultimate community's consensus that you should aim your throws much more up into the air when you're throwing downwind b/c the lack of lift means they'll fall faster. I think high releases do make much more sense when throwing downwind b/c then you get more time to let the disc fall.
— I agree with Travis in the other comment on this post that getting touch on flicks is much harder than for backhands (for whatever biomechanical reasons that may be). So I definitely think of this as something I do *more* on backhand throws but it can be useful on forehand throws too.
— Kurt's example of a good pass (the Leo Gordon pass at the end of the video) is released at his waist and ends up over Jacques's head -- so it still has an aspect of low-to-high -- it's still slowing down b/c it's thrown slightly upwards, it's just released from a slightly higher point.
— I think Kurt's argument is slightly confused. For example, at 2:53 he says it's a harder throw b/c "you've gotta get a little snap on it because you've gotta throw it *up*". But he himself points out that Leo Gordon's throw is being released from the waist and ending up at Jacques's head -- it's also going *up*. So I agree with Kurt on what the problem was -- those UNC throws didn't have enough touch on them. I'm not sure I agree with him that it's impossible to get touch on low release throws, just b/c these two examples he showed didn't have touch doesn't mean that other low release throws couldn't have much more float (but as I said above, I do agree that it might be harder on the forehand throws...)
So, overall, I don't think Kurt and I really disagree on much. I think we're both in agreement that getting touch on throws is so important b/c it makes it easier for the receiver to catch, which was one of my main points in this article and he talks about in the video starting at about 2:55 and then again at like 4:30-5:40
Makes sense! And my apologies to Kurt if he somehow sees this. I don’t know why I typed Kirk 🙂
Such a great topic! Just a couple thoughts...
1. The point that (assuming laminar flow!) the wind speed is zero at ground level and then higher as you go up, so starting/keeping throws as low as possible helps prevent the wind from messing up your throws, already got mentioned in Austin's comment and your response. I just wanted to mention it again because this is something I remember being taught by my own first ultimate coach, legend of the game Chris van Holmes, who coached the University of Washington team for a while when I was in grad school there in the late 90s. Anyway, it's true that you might have to adjust some other aspects of your throws in windy conditions, but I still think it's generally true that throwing "low to high" is very helpful in preventing the wind from messing up your throws too much. (That's of course in addition to the other virtues of "low to high" that you discussed in the post.)
2. And then, you kind of touched on this (no pun intended) in the post, but I just wanted to underscore the idea that throwing "low to high" -- especially forehands -- is a really essential part of throwing gently aka catchably aka with touch. This actually came up for me just a couple weeks ago, at the tournament where I met you for the first time in person! Before my team's last game we did a little dishy type drill and most people had no trouble completing passes when we were throwing backhands but then when we switched to forehands I noticed that the completion % plummetted and noticed in particular that people were throwing from chest/shoulder height but trying to make them "touchy" by just throwing them soft/slow. But those soft/slow forehands had very little spin and tended to just die and plummet to the ground, or get blown off course by a little breeze, instead of hovering stably in place for the receiver to catch. I pointed this out to some of my teammates later on the way home, noting that it seemed like people didn't understand that to throw forehands with touch they need to be released from near the ground, and rise, so they slow down as they rise but still have spin and stability. I learned that day a couple weeks ago that, indeed, this isn't something people generally know, so your post about this was very timely! Anyway, re: "touch", I've heard "touch" defined as the ratio of rotation speed to translational speed. Somehow in my experience it's easy to throw a backhand with touch, i.e., with more spin and less (translational) speed than usual. But it's much harder to do that with a forehand. (It's possible, by putting a little reverse "hitch" in at the end of the throwing motion, but it's kinda awkward and can lead to errant throws, at least for me.) So throwing low-to-high is kind of my standard method of throwing forehands with touch: you can basically release the forehand in the comfortable normal way, with the normal spin/speed ratio, but then because the speed decreases as it rises (conservation of energy and all that) the spin/speed ratio increases and you end up with something that can hover stably and be caught easily.
I agree that, for whatever biomechanical reasons, it seems like it's easier to throw with touch on a backhand than a forehand. One reason of many that I love my lefty backhands ;)
And yeah, judging by the feedback I got on this article (both comments here and emails), I think I made the right choice in writing it up!