The
sidearm (forearm) lift is something I began to play
around with in the early nineties and has taken me over a dozen years to perfect.
Hopefully, when you learn how to throw it, you'll
appreciate why I went through the trouble of making a
video (link below). It's a sick throw when and if you ever
nail it.
I've started to break it
out at local games over the last couple of years and it's always nice
to hear 'what the hell was that?'. At first
glance, it looks like a push pass but the spin is
the same as a forearm
rather than the push.
It's a very subtle throw with the trick being that the
disc needs to slide off the fingertips at the release point.
Sliding the disc off the fingertips is such an integral
part to this throw I was originally going to name it the 'slider' but my
son Sean thought that was a stupid name so I'm sticking
with the sidearm lift.
I've also begun to hear
the same things that I heard 20 some years ago when I made up
the backhand lift and high releases which is "what good
is that throw"? Serious, that's what people's reaction
to the lift and high releases were when I started
breaking them out back in the day.
The sidearm lift is a
serious weapon when used at the right time but don't
bring it unless you can deliver otherwise you'll look
pretty stupid trying.
1) The grip. The
grip consists of four fingers all pointing towards the
center of the disc with the thumb on top (also pointing
towards the center).
2) The wind-up. The
mechanics on this throw are similar to the backhand lift
in that the motion is more of a roundhouse throw.
Draw the disc down and back behind your leg.
3) And the pitch. Start to bring the disc forward while lifting it
almost straight up at the same time with some intense upward velocity,
but also extending the arm away from the body at the
same time in a circular type of motion.
4) The release. As you raise the disc above your
head start to let go of the disc but you want to do it
so
that:
a) you put a small amount of spin
(counter-clockwise for right-handed throws) on the
disc by turning your wrist slightly
b) the disc slides off your finger tips (the
whole skill of the throw is here).
Follow through with your throwing arm across your chest to the
opposite shoulder.
5) Enjoy.
This is an extremely fun throw once you master it
(hopefully it won't take you as long as it took me).
The video for
this throw can be viewed
here.
The throws are not perfect and neither is the video
quality but you should get a pretty good idea of how the
disc flies. As usual, I strongly encourage
you to
download the full MPEG version using file donkey
(instructions
here).
MPEG looks so much better than Google video. Also,
for what it's worth, most of the videos I've made to date are
also on a single encapsulated DVD file
tree which can be downloaded and then burned directly onto a disc.
