How Do You Practice?
We (who is we, anyway) always hear the trick to getting better is to practice? Practicing must just mean to go out and throw, right.
And to that, I say, yes, but that’s an oversimplification. That’s like saying I planned the entirety of my wedding all by myself, a complete and absolute boldfaced lie which will 100% trigger my fiancé if she reads this. Chelsea, like I said above and every day, thank you for being the backbone of our household, if you are reading this.
Back to the reason you clicked the catchy title and link… practicing. First, you need to buy some boards and support the local guys. Next, find a flat and even area nearby your domicile and measure it out. I keep a tape measure in my truck like a try hard but a friend of mine has a 27-foot-long piece of string which I think works way better and is far less try hardy. My issue at my house is there is honestly one fucking flat spot but some advice I was recently given, if you have a tennis court nearby the singles lines are 27’ so not only is it flat, but you don’t have to measure. Two birds stoned at once am I right?
Situational Practice.
I like to practice a few different shots consistently and then whatever I encountered at league night that gave me trouble. Lately, for me, it’s been my push shot and airmail. For whatever reason, my push shot was absolute shit and my airmail, which had been my bread and butter, was not hitting as much. Absolute disaster. I’ll put one bag 6’’ in front of the hole (I promise I don’t measure this), with the set of now three bags I’ll attempt to push that blocker in and with the other four I’ll only attempt airmails. Airmail or push is what I call it. I don’t have a better name for it quite yet. A or P? I’m open to suggestions. <Shameless plug to create comments> If you’ve got a better name for it, let me know, I’ll use it from now on.
I’ll also practice with a blocker just left or right of the hole, or a bumper bag on either side. Or, a blocker in front and a missed bag directly behind the hole for and one attempts. It sounds like a waste of time to practice that because the opportunity usually doesn’t pop up that often, but I pulled one out of my ass and it was cool and we all like to do cool shit. Trying flop shots, wrist angle manipulation, etc.
Game type practice
Hey, have you ever used Scoreholio? Using this wonderful application on the iPhone or Android, which you should already fucking have (it’s FREE), you can track your throws, and I think that’s important until you get pissed off about how bad you’re doing. You can play against yourself and track that, or play against the ghost which is honestly better because you can’t throw 8 bags in a turn in a regular game and you don’t want to create a crutch or false confidence. Decaholio is cool which I don’t totally understand BUT the basic premise is trying to score as many points as you can in 10 turns.
A big part of learning the game and improving to where you win is muscle memory. Start by going out and throwing just like you would with basketball, as you advance, add in tweaks like I listed above to make it interesting and hopefully improve. I played my first league this past spring and made it from the bottom league to the top in about 10 weeks. Granted, I didn’t win a LOT there, but I still won games against good competition. The only reason I made it there was because I was practicing. Honestly, I would be at a friends’ place who didn’t know I was good, they’d comment on it, and my fiancé would laugh and giggle and say “he plays like 8 hours a week because he has a competitive addiction…” so practice and get better. Or don’t and drink and have fun. Honestly, practicing sucks unless you’re doing well and not pissing off your fiancé because you’re in the backyard throwing bags 27-30’ instead of wedding planning.
-Andrew
