The last point of contact dictates disc nose angle

Some thoughts on why last point of contact dictates nose angle.
The disc acts as a gyro. Because its gyroscopic stability is governed by spin, the torque imparted to the disc at the last moment of contact be it upward or downward, should take effect 90 degrees away on the direction of rotation.
Wrist angle is important to get the nose right, but it’s important to know “what” is the actual nose of the disc, and imperative to note that The disc doesn’t just pop out of the hand, but rather “un-zips” from the fingers and lastly from the thumb and index fingers.

[@dalesherman8615]

Wow! What a difference understanding this makes. I am nose down now w/ no problem...Thanks!!

[@bsmo9148]

I love the scientific fact-based content you put out. There are too many opinions out there and some of those opinions even contradict one another. I love getting into the details of why something works the way it does.

[@DiscgliderPete]

Thank you:) My goal is to get away from just opinions. Understanding why something works is a huge component to arriving at a conclusion as to “how” to find pathways to solutions.

[@brookehughes-brauner]

I love the diagramming and the arrow. This is something we had talked about previously, but seeing the arrows re solidifies the concept for me!

[@discgolfingdad5475]

Very unique video. Seems like you hit on something not a lot of others are highlighting. Thanks for the content.

[@DiscgliderPete]

I appreciate that!

[@athistedthetjapper823]

That would explain the tendencies of my forehand 🤔 my intuition was just nodding through the entire video. 👍😀❤️

[@dennismoniz7384]

this ties in great with the video overthrow disc golf just released.

[@loud_noises_nick]

I just had a thought in the backyard practicing my putt. I think this effect you've been describing explains Simon Lizotte's bizarre hand motion we often see in replays of his putt. That thumb down, palm forward finishing motion that he himself doesn't understand why he does. If indeed gyroscopic procession takes place even while we grip the disc, perhaps his finishing motion of pressing down on the right side of the disc as he releases his putt results in the back moving down, and thus he gets that straight flying, nose up spin putt.

[@loud_noises_nick]

Ok after more experimentation I am getting really close! My typical issue when trying to mimic this putt has been it hyzers way left, and it dawned on me that it is because my release point was the back of the disc, resulting in the left side pressing down and causing an extreme hyzer.

[@DiscgliderPete]

Yes. You are on the right track. If you throw the spin putt by placing downward thumb pressure at the release, it will push the tail down, and the as a consequence the nose goes up…. In order to make it fly straight and float in line with the target, you need to throw it with a little an-hyzer. The old school guy’s call it an “air-bounce. Once you get the hang of it it can be thrown with various degrees of nose up to meet the needs of the shot.

[@finklesteenDK420]

Great video. Great to see the legendary Ulibarri on the scene. Would love to see you and Paul do doubles again on Jomez!

[@keithmcdonald7279]

Thanks Pete I have been trying to figure out how to get the nose down more for a couple months now. This is good food for thought. .

[@DiscgliderPete]

I’ll make another video talking about it. At the hit point, think “turn a key” in a lock clockwise motion. Supinate the wrist some. This avoids pronation which puts downward pressure on the top of the disc. Good luck and check back.

[@jayjames8026]

this may explain why i tend to throw it into the ground when i am trying to put anhyzer on something like my boss. ill work on this. thank you Pete. you're the best AZ has to offer us.

[@NickCarroll]

Awesome analysis, Pete!

[@DiscgliderPete]

Thank you kindly!

[@jasonsaygnavong488]

Great information! Thanks again for taking the time out of your day last month to show us the Red Mountain course!

[@DiscgliderPete]

Any time!

[@jaynorris3631]

Great video brother. Very informative. Hope to have some more of your thoughts in the future. Thanks for sharing 🤙🏼

[@mikiah530]

Really interesting to stumble upon this since I've come across something similar when working on my grip. I have been imagining that I am "cradling" the disc with my grip. To feel this, grip disc, hold in front of your body with a straight arm 90 deg from shoulder line, adjust the disc to flat, then release your thumb and balance the disc flat. You can feel the weight of the disc pushing down into your fingers, maintain that heavy disc feeling throughout the entire throw. Then instead of pushing the thumb down into the fingers, push the fingers up into the thumb. It's subtle but has helped me impart an upwards force at release. I think this is how pros like Ezra Aderhold are able to throw the disc both high and nose down. This is not caused by doing two different actions but one which is imparting a small amount of upward force on the disc upon release. That upward force on release causes nose down AND imparts a small amount initial upwards velocity. This initial upwards velocity will continue accelerating upwards due to dynamic lift and a nose down angle. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[@discsmd]

This is great! Thanks so much! I need to get an overhead camera now!

[@nyqpi33]

Very interesting insight! I havr some experimenting to do now!

[@aztodd]

Great content Pete! Thank you !!!

[@martycoplea8697]

Mind blown!

[@merk345]

Pete, please collaborate with @SmarterEveryDay! With your knowledge and his cameras and knowledge…mind blown!

[@DiscgliderPete]

That has been a dream of mine for years. I’ve messaged him before, but I imagine it got lost in the fray with that big of channel. He’s got a podcast he does with Matt Whitman called “No dumb Questions”. It’s real very good. They both play little bit of disc golf too. One day…

[@merk345]

@@DiscgliderPete I messaged him also.

[@joenathan7392]

Older bro with the content! Insta sub

[@discRuben]

Very good analysis Pete! Overthrow disc golf released a video about this a few days ago and how to fix it.

[@dennismoniz7384]

made the same reference, this is good tie in with their video.

[@deepsender]

Overthrow originally said that the "only" way to throw nose down is to push the nose down from the top of the disc, by pouring the coffee. I commented in that video that there is another way to do it, and that is to lift up on the under-side of the disc at release. Do I get any credit for that?

[@dennismoniz7384]

@@deepsender no, cause youre annoying in your self congratulation and if you watched the video i'm talking about you wouldn't have wasted my time.

[@deepsender]

Which video? I got a like and you didn't :)

[@zlw14]

This is super interesting. Curious to see how my power grip compares to your grip and how much it changes the nose angle.

[@DiscgliderPete]

Analyzing my throw Using data from tech disc, I have more spin with a modified fan grip and control my angles better, compared to a power grip, however nose angle remains relatively the same. I average -2 degrees nose down. With the slo- mo footage, I placed my thumb normal, wide over the flight plate and near the edge…. I found that my thumb still slid to the release point at the and the index finger was the last to pop off.

[@andrewn5614]

Holy figuring out nose angle! Thank you so much!

[@DiscgliderPete]

You are so welcome!

[@seabas22]

I don't think your physics is correct, although there may be a relationship. Ken Climo wrote about rolling the wrist the opposite direction for hyzer vs anhyzer. The disc pivots/orbits around the last point of contact/rim, so it is not actually spinning around it's center of mass like a gyroscope yet until it has left the hand. We lever or throw the center of mass of the disc around the point of contact like throwing a stick or hammer. The force being applied by the last point of contact vertically is not acting through the center of mass of the disc, like lift does during flight inducing torque free precession. One would think ideally we would grip to apply as much force horizontally into the rim while releasing both the top and bottom opposing vertical forces simultaneously to reduce the induced wobble/nutation. When you release with either the top of bottom of the grip last, then you are pitching a rotational axis off plane to the principle axis of inertia (aka OAT or Off Axis Torque). You can use OAT to shape different kinds of shots as long as the OAT is not too large an angle off axis (around 45 degrees). David Wiggins tends to throw his distance shots with a rather large magnitude of wobble, not sure if it's just a consequence of generating that much force on the disc, or the plastic warpage that happens from leveraging the disc, or intentional shaping, or any combination of those. GG on the other hand throws with very little wobble while he has massive wrist roll and doesn't throw anywhere near flat/level swing plane - which doesn't really exist IMO due to how the body works or not very efficiently. Trying to throw flat is the most inconsistent way to throw, 1 degree variation changes it to hyzer or anhyzer, meanwhile if you consistently aim to throw 10 or 20 degrees hyzer or anhyzer, then a couple degree variation is still hyzer or anhyzer and not nearly as drastic a change. A flat/horizontal swing plane will also have a greater potential left-right/early-late release variance off straight. A more vertical swing plane will have a greater potential to go straight while the early/late variance would be greater on height.

[@DiscgliderPete]

As far as swing plane, I wasn’t making a point of flat shot vs hyzer or otherwise. The point was more from reach back to pull through, be it hyzer flat or an-hyzer, my swing is “on plane” with my chosen angle and line of throw, being the disc is for me, rather grooved or on rails on a relatively straight line wether I pull low to high for higher shots or across for lower throws. For better or worse this is for my throw, and I feel I throw plenty far enough for now. For the other points, I’m not claiming full understanding, however I’m pointing out what/where the release point actually is….. Yes, the ideal would seem the thumb and index releases at the same time. Yes, this would result in the least amount of force up or down at the point of release. Yes, any release of the thumb or index first would be a force upward or downward. One point of interest in this video is simply my index is a fraction of a second after the thumb, this was basically the case no matter what grip I used wile filming, power, modified, thumb deep or shallow on the rim. (This is Just my current observation) To your point on the pivot point and spin, yes the disc isn’t fully “spun up” till it pops off the index and thumb, however, it does make at least a little over half to 2/3 rotation in the very last moment of the swing before snapping free of each finger, and at the the moment of the release, it is at maximum rotation, for me around 1200 rpm’s. Even though we swing “like a hammer”, not from the center of the disc, it seems to me there is plenty enough of a beginning of rotation to have a gyroscopic resistance to a force up or down on the disc which would result in a torque against the discs momentum. If technically it’s “not spinning” or having gyroscopic effects till it’s free of our hand/finger, then perhaps our usage of the term “off axis torque” in also not the correct language? Whether the force is applied to the rim of the disc or from the center pivot point, its resistance should in theory translate the same, be it 10 rpm’s or 1200 rpm’s. An object in motion tends to remain in motion… I’d wager that perhaps the 1/2-2/3 rotation that occurs in the swing is what starts the process of creating rotation that then pivots from each finger to the index then pops free out to a free spinning disc with angular momentum, which then is only influenced by the air passing over and under the flight plate. The effect of an upward pressure/force on the rim of the disc at the moment of release, seems by all accounts to drive the tail up, and as a consequence, the nose down. While thumb pressure/force down on the disc at the moment of release causes the tail to go down, and as a consequence, the nose goes up. This seems to have a correlation with gyroscopic effect, even if it’s not technically a gyroscope till released and spinning free of our influence. I believe it’s correlated, though at the moment perhaps my vernacular possibly falls short. This last point is the main underlying theme of the whole video.

[@sarinhighwind]

*sigh* This is what I get for holding onto info and only posting it on DGCR and not making the video. Pete beats me to this. I've been trying to explain this concept to people for a long while now and shot high speed footage to prove what people think is the nose angle isn't. So this whole pushing the nose down thing we do to teach nose down doesn't mean jack crap, cause you're usually rolling the actual nose up. Same with grip, The grip has to work with the "actual" nose angle, not the perceived nose angle. Anyways, its really easy to teach students to throw nose down now with a grip change, vs some silly "pour the coffee" method now.

[@DiscgliderPete]

I’m glad to see others thinking about this also. I’ve been procrastinating on doing this video for years. I’ve used these understandings in my coaching sessions too with much success.