(About the Author)
Kuni Nishimura is a Certified Personal Trainer with years of experience playing and coaching Ultimate.
Arguably the most important factor to skying your opponent is the ability to read the disc. If you don’t know where the disc is going, then you’re not going to catch it in the right spot, it’s as simple as that. Improving your reading just takes practice and experience, but one way to immediately improve it is to place yourself in an advantageous position to see where the disc is going. This is where positioning and setting up your approach come into play. If the disc is in the air and you are directly underneath it, then it will be very difficult to read. To counter this, when the disc is in the air, try to move slightly away so that you’re not underneath it. This way, you’ll be able to see the angle of the disc and predict its destination. Furthermore, try to move towards the direction the disc is going. For example, if the disc is thrown with an outside-in forehand, then it’s going from right to left, assuming it’s a righty throw. In that case, move towards the left so that you can attack the disc as it’s coming down towards you.
Now that we’ve talked about positioning yourself so that you can read the disc better, let’s address something that's under-emphasized in the art of skying: setting up your approach. This means planning your steps to attack the disc. An error I see many players make when jumping for the disc is starting from a standstill. By doing this, you’re missing out on several inches of your vertical jump, and, depending on whether you’re a single leg or double leg jumper, this could be as much as a whole foot difference. Personally, when I set up for a vertical jump, I try to use either a 3 or 5 step approach. That means I take 3 or 5 steps for my jump, much like how a volleyball player approaches a spike. Find what works for you and figure out whether you perform better jumping off one foot or two feet, but practice both.
Let’s see what setting up looks like in action.
Here, you can see Jakeem Polk, a player well-known for his posterizing skies, set up his approach to catch the disc over the crowd. Whereas everyone else is crowding together for the disc, you can see Jakeem away from the crowd, stalking the disc like a lion stalking its prey, carefully calculating the sky. Now, you can attribute his skies to his insane vertical jump, and while that’s a huge factor, you can clearly see that he pushes it to its full potential by his approach to the disc. Also notice how he’s away from the disc and on the left side of it as it comes down from right to left, which helps him read it better as we mentioned before.
Here is another example of a different athlete also known for his amazing skies, Husayn Carnegie:
Again, we can see Husayn keeping away from the disc, on the side that the disc is heading towards, and then he slows down, stalks the disc, and uses a 3-step approach to takeoff, whereas his defender is standing underneath it and doesn’t take intentional steps in his approach like Husayn does.
While everyone might not have the vertical jump to put on skies like this, we can at least put these steps into action to get the very best out of our jump. Whether we have a 40 inch vertical or a 20 inch vertical, it’s no use if we can’t read the disc, put ourselves into the right position, and set up a calculated approach.
Recap:
Finally, practice it. A fun game I like to play to work on my skies is called “500.” You and a group of people split into 2 groups about 40-50 yards away from each other. To play the game, someone hucks the disc to the other group and calls out a number below 500, usually 50-100; this is how many points that disc is worth if it’s caught. The point of the game is to catch the disc over the people in your group until someone reaches 500 points. It’s a great way to work on your reading, your positioning, and your approach, all the while having some fun. Once you’ve practiced it enough and have the technique down, all that’s left to do is increase your vertical jump, but that’s a whole different story for another time.
(About the Author)
Kuni Nishimura is a Certified Personal Trainer with years of experience playing and coaching Ultimate.
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The situation above could easily be due to poor execution (hey, it happens to all of us), but for this article, we’re going to rule that out. Instead, we’re going to blame a common biomechanical throwing habit that affects certain throwing situations. The example of the disc being thrown too fast is the result of a poor throwing mechanics technique that I call “one motion fits all.” This is the player on your team - or maybe it’s you - who throws with the same exact mechanics for a 3 yard up-line, 15 yard throw under, or 50 yard huck. The one that you hate cutting up-line towards because you know you’re going to get hit by a freaking laser. While this technical habit can get you by in some scenarios it's certainly limited.
The “One Motion Fits All” Fix
Let’s start by breaking down forehand mechanics into points along the kinetic chain: wrist, elbow, shoulder, and total body. Each point connects from one to the next, from distal to proximal (away from the trunk of the body and towards the trunk of the body). The more power you need in your throw, the more points along the chain that are needed, and vice versa—the less power you need, the less points along the chain that are needed. Here’s a breakdown of the points along the kinetic chain needed for certain distances. We’ll refer to this as the kinetic chain throwing continuum (KCTC):
*note: these aren’t absolute distances, it’s just a general guideline
If you’re the player above who throws up-line passes way too fast, chances are, you’re throwing it using your wrist, elbow, and shoulder, when you only need to use your wrist and elbow. Why does this happen? Well, the more points along the KCTC you use, the more power you generate. However, with more power means less fine motor control. The wrist is the least powerful point along the kinetic chain, but allows you to finely control the spin and speed on the disc. Thus, we have a trade-off: more power with less fine motor control, or more motor control with less power.
Unfortunately, even if you’re using the appropriate points along the KCTC for a certain throw, that doesn’t guarantee that it’ll come out right. Ultimately (yeah, I’m pretty clever), the most important element about getting the right portion of power and touch is how you finish with the wrist. Actually, this point is even more important than using the appropriate points along the kinetic chain. For example, you can make a short throw using only your wrist, but still throw it too fast for a floaty up-line if you snap your wrist too hard. Contrarily, you can make a short throw using your wrist, elbow, shoulder, and total body and throw it with more fine touch than the previous example if it’s finished with a slow, smooth, and gentle snap of the wrist.
So, why didn’t I just talk about finishing with the wrist if that’s the most important part? The KCTC is important because it helps a player visualize that the more movement involved in a throw, the harder it is to control how you finish with the wrist. It’s just a starting point that’ll help guide you into using the appropriate mechanics for a certain throw, but as you can see, it is not an absolute rule. Once you get advanced enough, you’ll be able break the rules.
Let's take a look at some simple examples of proper throwing form for your different distances.
1) Short Up-line, 1-5 yards: here, we’re primarily just using of the wrist
2) Longer Up-line, 5-15 yards: you can see more use of the elbow here
3) Low-Release Forehand, 15-30 yards: this throw uses a slight shoulder turn to add more power
4) Forehand Huck, 30+ yards: last but not least, you can clearly see total body use for this throw
Now, get out there and start applying the KCTC to your forehand throws and practice finishing appropriately with the wrist so your teammates aren’t so reluctant to cut up-line when you have the disc.
(About the Author)
Kuni Nishimura is a Certified Personal Trainer with years of experience playing and coaching Ultimate.
Thanks to our awesome supporters and their detailed feedback, we've decided that our Beta 3 gloves have reached a high enough level of quality to be exposed to a larger audience. We've been getting very helpful reviews and overall positive responses to the gloves so far. We're very happy to see our product grow and improve.
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]]>It wasn't too many years ago, that this question wouldn't have made any sense at all. In fact, it wasn't too many years before that when not many people would have even known what "Ultimate" was.
The Ultimate industry is growing and looks to be heading only for bigger and better things. Players have some choices to make nowadays, one of the biggest is "to glove, or not to glove."
Let's take a look at some pros and cons of using Ultimate Frisbee gloves:
Pros:
Cons:
Ultimate Frisbee Gloves have become quite popular among professionals and amateurs alike. Many players like to wear only one glove on their receiving hand and leave their throwing hand bare. This gives the player a sense of security in their catches but does not require them to make any adjustments to their bare-hand throw.
Gloves have been the cause of a lot of controversy in Ultimate - many people have expressed a desire to have them banned in professional and club games. If anything, this is an indicator of how much gloves can improve your game. As of now, there are very few leagues that ban gloves and it's more then likely that they will only grow to be more accepted.
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