don’t try to throw it farther than you need to
Yet again, Phil MacAuley has given me a little gem of throwing advice.
I love throwing with Phil. He has beautiful smooth throws and is also very relaxed when throwing. And he loves to play around. I’ve learned a lot from him over the past number of years just by watching him throw.
But he’s also given me specific advice from time-to-time that has proved invaluable. Two years ago, he completely changed the way that I throw my backhand that has made an extraordinary difference in how much control I have and in how much further I can throw the disc. (Everyone that thinks I huck too much? Blame Phil.)
We were throwing last night at the Master’s-practice-that-wasn’t and everything was fine. But then we got that specific distance away from each other where my throws always change from “throw to the person” to “throw it as far as I can”. And my throws were all rising right into hospital pass territory.
Me being me, I swore. Then said, “I don’t know why all my throws are rising straight up!” And swore again.
Phil just said, “Because you’re trying to throw them further than they need to go.”
Lightbulb.
I was changing how I threw — it was as if there was a switch in my head that turned on when my receiver got to a certain point and then went into panic mode.
I processed this little nugget and started throwing to Phil, wherever he was, without worrying about whether I had the power to get to him. And it worked.
I won’t say all my throws were brilliant, but the majority were much more accurate. And definitely out of the hospital pass range.
Thanks Phil.
