Practice practice

We had both played ball golf for a number of years but in February 2019 I had sustained a bad ankle injury which had prevented me from playing. Despite physiotherapy I was still unable to play anything more than 4-5 holes without swelling and problems. However, at this point in November 2019 I was able to walk and throw discs with minimal discomfort, provided I didn't overdo it.  So the ball golf took a back seat and Disc Golf became the sport of choice. Little did I know at this point in time just how much more I would enjoy it than ball golf.

From mid November until early December, influenced initially because my starter set was made by Innova, we indulged in reading about Disc Golf and discs on the Innova website. The more we read the more we explored the internet for more information. We started watching more videos, anything we could find on Disc Golf. Reading about all these different discs and what they could do, how far they could fly, all the different brands. It was amazing.

We would go to Bob Gardner Disc Golf Course as often as my ankle would allow. I probably would manage 3 days straight and then I would need a couple of days for the ankle to calm down from the swelling, icing it each day when we came home from playing.

Seduced by all the discs and in a naive attempt to improve our throwing, probably like many beginners, we started with a buying session of new discs. What we should have done is practice technique with the starter pack discs we had. So we bought the discs and off we would go to Bob Gardner Park and practice some more. We also had to buy a bag to put them in!

During this time I have to say that we did start to see a reduction in the number of throws to get to each basket and that was not necessarily because of the additional discs. It was more likely that we were toning the muscles being used and getting a little stronger as a result. I was struggling though. Most players throw using a backhand technique. It's the one developed through the history of the sport that, if executed correctly, generates the most power to propel the disc forward. It's the dominant technique that we had seen in the videos, so why was I struggling, my partner was getting further but I wasn't. Anyone can throw a disc and get round a disc golf course and have fun. However, I have been competitive in several sports in my past (Athletics, Powerlifting and Bodybuilding to name a few) and wanted to get it right and throw like the pros, despite my age! I then saw a video of a professional female player called Sarah Hokom who threw her discs using the forehand or sometimes referred to as flick style. I used to love skimming stones and this looked similar, so I thought I'd try that.  Better. I felt more in control instead of behaving like I had spaghetti arms. After a few sessions of practice I had caught up to my partner in terms of how far the discs would fly. Now we are now talking mega distance here but we had started to get to the basket in 5 & 6 throws rather than the previous 7 & 8. Progress. So practice practice continued until we took a break to go travelling from mid December to January 2020.