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General >> Project Goliath - The History of The Sling >> Throwing techniques
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Message started by Gunsonwheels on Mar 21st, 2007 at 7:05pm

Title: Throwing techniques
Post by Gunsonwheels on Mar 21st, 2007 at 7:05pm
I have been throwing with a sling since I was about eight years old. I am now sixty-three.  I still enjoy casting enough stones to bring back both the accuracy and power which I feel is inherent to slings and slinging... if a person knows a viable technique for throwing with the sling.  After over fifty years of throwing, study of articles on the sling, watching movies depicting throwing and the application of what I feel is some plain common sense, I came to the following:

Throwing techniques to “shoot” a sling have been lost and are, in all probability, largely unknown in our modern world.

Any technique which exposes the thrower to the enemy’s spears, arrows and stones during an extended (anything over a couple seconds) twirling of a sling from an erect position is not militarily sound and likely not what the ancients used.

Any technique which is not naturally complementary with an over-hand throwing motion is also not likely what those armies used.  There is a reason modern baseball pitchers both use the body motions they do to throw and do so accurately at velocities of 90-100 MPH.

The physics of extending the length of an arm by 24-30 inches which throws at say 90 MPH without a sling should yield projectile velocities in excess of 200 MPH.

Projectile mass and shape, if held consistent like arrow spine in archery, contributes to both the accuracy and range of slinging.      

What techniques are known in the .org which meet the above criteria???

George N

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by Tint on Mar 21st, 2007 at 9:42pm

Gunsonwheels wrote on Mar 21st, 2007 at 7:05pm:
Any technique which exposes the thrower to the enemy’s spears, arrows and stones during an extended (anything over a couple seconds) twirling of a sling from an erect position is not militarily sound and likely not what the ancients used.


That is not entirely true.  Since the sling out range everything in the ancient time.  Slingers can shoot at plain sight without having to worry about spears or arrows.  There are ancient militarily text that describes the formation of the armies of that time and records quite clearly the positions of the slingers and their range.  

I agree with you that an overhand release position is very effective for power in slinging just as in baseball pitching and that a velocity of over 200 miles an hour is achievable.  However, there are drawings that suggests the underhand technique was widely used.  Perharps it is because this style requires less effort and the slingers are less likely to get injuried in battle.  

Using a "wide grip" to hold the sling the spiral spin can be generated with almost any style of slinging.  It does decrease the air-drag of the projectiles that are shaped for such purpose but if the slinger is throwing round smooth rocks, putting underspin on the projectile would probably gives the most range due to the lifting effect of such spin.

I thinks the great slingers of the old days must know how to sling in many different styles.  We have rediscovered many styles of throwing here on slinging.org and they each have their advantages and disadvantages.  Depending on the situation and the skill of the slinger, a different style may be best at different times.

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by curious_aardvark on Mar 22nd, 2007 at 8:42am

Quote:
The physics of extending the length of an arm by 24-30 inches which throws at say 90 MPH without a sling should yield projectile velocities in excess of 200 MPH.


Well approximately 0.00001 (that may be far too high) percent of the population can throw at 90 mph. And they're pretty much all millionaire baseball players or olympic athletes. The average for non professional athletes with a reasonable arm would be around 40 - 60 mph.
Go watch people playing with the pitching booth and radar gun at any baseball stadium.

I concur with the fact that twirling a sling round your head adds little in the way of power or accuracy if the sling is tailored to your size.

However I don't believe that any of the old techniques have been lost. There are approximately 3 styles. Overhand (start with the sling held at head height), sidearm (usually start with sling hanging down but can also start with sling held at head height) and underhand (sling dangles is swung in one or more circles and released). Everything else is a minor variation on the theme.
There's just not anything mysterious to lose :-)

However what has changed in the last 2000 years is the fact that there are no professional slingers in the world. So we're simply not as good as they were - that's it really :-)

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by loh_kah_hoe on Mar 22nd, 2007 at 9:12am
So far, there are only two person who exceeded 400 metres. What style do they use?

I BELIEVE some styles are still lost.
Egyptian20soldier20with20sling.jpg (2 KB | )

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by loh_kah_hoe on Mar 22nd, 2007 at 9:13am
::)
thyton1s_001.jpg (17 KB | )

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by loh_kah_hoe on Mar 22nd, 2007 at 9:17am
I agree with George, slinging in close battles must be done quickily, it's like playing quick-draw. An archer can quickly shoot dead a slinger face to face..... :o

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by winkleried on Mar 23rd, 2007 at 11:45am
Welcome to the list.
Couple of points that I disagree with you with.
Main one is on the overhand release.
Unfortunately we as a species tend to think in a linear fashion. Closest point is a straight line sort of thing.

Underhand has a lot going for it in a military sense in the same manner that the modern miltaries still use indirect artillery fire or plunging small arms fire.
At least in the ancient Greek tradition where the close packed spear and shield armed and Bronze armored hoplite is concerned. with the double pointed spears used then, close order manuver was extremely inportant. If one moved wrong in a battle formation one ran a very real risk of being accidentaly injured by your fellow hoplites. Another issue was the Greek helmets of the day defintely restricted vision to that which was most important to the hoplite, namely straight ahead. Again this is similar to the vision that we see even today in modern armored vechicle combat.

The underhand throw is idealy adapted to striking from above to where the tightly packed hoplite would not have much of an active defense against it, You can't see it coming and if you did, in order to defend against it you run the very real risk of injuring your fellow hoplites or yourself by your defensive movement creating gaps in the rank. Now by reading some of the basic tactics of this time period  one of the duties of the slinger was to supress other missle armed troops and to exploit openings in the ranks of the opossing side. Another possiblity is that the helments MAY have been designed to offer deflect stabbing attacks from the front and not offer so much protection from the top. but I will admit that this is pure conjecture on my part.

There is a book I have at the house about ancient greek infantry warfare. It doesn't have much to say about the slingers but it definately desribes all the pros and cons of tactics and equipment of the day and how the individual hoplites acted both before and after battle. As soon as I get home I will post it here for further reading.

Another problem is that slingers don't have to be very tightly packed in order to fulfill thier mission requirements in this context. Due to thier lack of panolpy don't have to worry about thier movements causing difficulties to thier fellow slingers. We do not know what styles were used by ancient military slingers, they could have very well used more than one style depending on the circumstance. so even then the horizontal throw could have been used depending on the circumstance.

Another factor to take into consideration is siege warfare which the greeks and romans also used. This could take another set of slinging skills that were not commonly used in the field battles.

As has been alredy pointed out most slings would definately outrange most other military missle weapons being used at the time. Now as we get into eras where the archery technolgy becomes more efficent then the sling starts losing it's military importance. ( Ala Middle ages after say 14th centry).

Ammunition in a military context was held to tight standards, with each military defining those standards. (This is the topic of a research paper I am working on in my off-time). One of the reasons why stones tended to be used in a more civil setting ( Greco-Roman era) but in military conflict glandes were used that the manufacture of glandes can be held to much tighter standards. Earlier than this and yes stones were the military ammunition of choice, but amazingly each find/cache of stones are remarkably similar to each other. But only more research will tell.

Ok I gotta go back to work now. I will continue this at a later time today.

Marc Adkins


Gunsonwheels wrote on Mar 21st, 2007 at 7:05pm:
I have been throwing with a sling since I was about eight years old. I am now sixty-three.  I still enjoy casting enough stones to bring back both the accuracy and power which I feel is inherent to slings and slinging... if a person knows a viable technique for throwing with the sling.  After over fifty years of throwing, study of articles on the sling, watching movies depicting throwing and the application of what I feel is some plain common sense, I came to the following:

Throwing techniques to “shoot” a sling have been lost and are, in all probability, largely unknown in our modern world.

Any technique which exposes the thrower to the enemy’s spears, arrows and stones during an extended (anything over a couple seconds) twirling of a sling from an erect position is not militarily sound and likely not what the ancients used.

Any technique which is not naturally complementary with an over-hand throwing motion is also not likely what those armies used.  There is a reason modern baseball pitchers both use the body motions they do to throw and do so accurately at velocities of 90-100 MPH.

The physics of extending the length of an arm by 24-30 inches which throws at say 90 MPH without a sling should yield projectile velocities in excess of 200 MPH.

Projectile mass and shape, if held consistent like arrow spine in archery, contributes to both the accuracy and range of slinging.      

What techniques are known in the .org which meet the above criteria???

George N


Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by Gunsonwheels on Mar 23rd, 2007 at 3:27pm
Hey all responders...
Thanks for the input... I didn't mean to come off as really knowing much but appear to have really accomplished my goal of getting responses to help me better know what knowledge exists in the .org.  As a passionate slinger for many years I am really exited to find so much knowledge on such an ancient subject.  I have a throw technique I am very dedicated to but am really looking forward to trying some of the others described on the site.  Mine has too much motion before the release to spook game and the chords make a horrific racket toward the end of the power portion of the throw.  I too believe a really good slinger will have a variety of throws with which he/she is proficient.  I like a variety of ammuntion also as Korfmann describes.  I believe "direct, point blank" shooting (straight line throw to strike the face or front of the foe as opposed to dropping the stone down on top of them) requires a different technique than what I call "siege casting" (high angle of throw to achieve maximum range).  I know of a slinger in antiquity who was greatly outnumbered but his foe were apparently only armed with swords.  He would/could allow them to get/be closer than 200 yards and likely used a direct throw to dispatch the six he killed before taking what was left on with his sword.

Again... thanks to all you who have (and are) responding.

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by winkleried on Mar 23rd, 2007 at 3:30pm
Ok I'm Back.
Now one of the assumptions that I used in my previous post on this topic was the Greek Phalanx model of warfare. For the other military uses in other cultures it's all going to depend on the arms and tactics used in that culture.
But I can defianately see where each of the main types of cast ( Overhand, Underhand and Horizontal) could have legimate and effective military uses.

As too the speed of the sling in relation to modern baseball players. I research and use modern agricultural hand tools. A good example here is the scythe. Now depending on which source you use and a lot of that depneds on which measurement that is accepted for any given area of property. and there are mutiple interpatations for that. A good mower should be able to mow about 1-3 acres in a day. I am not even close to that measure.
Another good one is the use of the axe in felling trees. My muscles while in decent shape are nowhere near trained as the classic professional lumberjacks were in the late 19-early 20th century. so my performance will nowhere match what they were capable of using the same tool they were.

So to answer your last question most of the techniques on this site if used by trained individuals are fully capable of doing what they were intended to do. But we have to get to that point.

As a friend of mine says about the classic english longbowman....
" How do you train a good effective longbowman? the answer according to him is you train his grandfather"

Marc Adkins

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by Gunsonwheels on Mar 23rd, 2007 at 10:45pm
It appears the worst part of having something unique about my throw is I now need to learn all three of the principal ones described on the site.  Is it possible to be proficient in four different styles while attending to all else required to keep you and yours alive and healthy??????????  I'm really looking forward to having a go at it... rocks and range are just outside my door.

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by winkleried on Mar 24th, 2007 at 1:51pm
Ok here is the book:

The Western Way of War:Infantry Battle in Classical GreeceBy Victor Davis Hanson ISBN: 0-19-506588-3

Marc Adkins

[quote author=winkleried link=1174518354/0#6 date=1174664723]Welcome to the list.
There is a book I have at the house about ancient greek infantry warfare. It doesn't have much to say about the slingers but it definately desribes all the pros and cons of tactics and equipment of the day and how the individual hoplites acted both before and after battle. As soon as I get home I will post it here for further reading.


Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by winkleried on Mar 24th, 2007 at 1:56pm
Don't worry about coming off the way you did.
And my main emphasis isn't on military casting techniques either...Just put a little knowledge to use there. I'm actually experimenting with no windup casts for hunting purposes. Once I get my accuracy down then it's going to be small game hunting the old fashioned way.
Check out the article on the homepage on the "Apache" style there are more than a couple of threads discussing the finer points of it in the forum.
I agree that direct and indirect fire require diffrent techniques.
I'm sure we all would love to hear about the outnumbered slinger..care to share references :)

Happy Slinging
Marc Adkins


Gunsonwheels wrote on Mar 23rd, 2007 at 3:27pm:
Hey all responders...
Thanks for the input... I didn't mean to come off as really knowing much but appear to have really accomplished my goal of getting responses to help me better know what knowledge exists in the .org.  As a passionate slinger for many years I am really exited to find so much knowledge on such an ancient subject.  I have a throw technique I am very dedicated to but am really looking forward to trying some of the others described on the site.  Mine has too much motion before the release to spook game and the chords make a horrific racket toward the end of the power portion of the throw.  I too believe a really good slinger will have a variety of throws with which he/she is proficient.  I like a variety of ammuntion also as Korfmann describes.  I believe "direct, point blank" shooting (straight line throw to strike the face or front of the foe as opposed to dropping the stone down on top of them) requires a different technique than what I call "siege casting" (high angle of throw to achieve maximum range).  I know of a slinger in antiquity who was greatly outnumbered but his foe were apparently only armed with swords.  He would/could allow them to get/be closer than 200 yards and likely used a direct throw to dispatch the six he killed before taking what was left on with his sword.

Again... thanks to all you who have (and are) responding.


Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by winkleried on Mar 24th, 2007 at 1:58pm
Why Not
And that's the spirit that keeps this hobby/sport still alive.

Marc Adkins


Gunsonwheels wrote on Mar 23rd, 2007 at 10:45pm:
It appears the worst part of having something unique about my throw is I now need to learn all three of the principal ones described on the site.  Is it possible to be proficient in four different styles while attending to all else required to keep you and yours alive and healthy??????????  I'm really looking forward to having a go at it... rocks and range are just outside my door.


Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by gryzz on Jun 19th, 2007 at 1:34am

Gunsonwheels wrote on Mar 23rd, 2007 at 10:45pm:
It appears the worst part of having something unique about my throw is I now need to learn all three of the principal ones described on the site.  Is it possible to be proficient in four different styles while attending to all else required to keep you and yours alive and healthy??????????  I'm really looking forward to having a go at it... rocks and range are just outside my door.



       It should be quite possible for you to tack on a few more throwing styles.   I am curious as to what is unique about your throw  :)

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by Dale on Jun 19th, 2007 at 5:55pm
My two cents ...

The fundamental classes of slinging styles are four, in my opinion:  two with the sling swinging in a vertical plane, two in a horizontal plane.  Three have been mentioned already: overhand, side-arm and underhand.  The last is the backhand.

The overhand, underhand and side-arm styles have a number of variations, dealing with how the cast starts, how many wind-up twirls are done, whether the sling swings to one side of the body or the other (or both), and so on.  I think there is just one way to do a backhand cast, and the motion is very much like throwing a Frisbee.

So, GunsOnWheels, since your style is not overhand, not side-arm and not underhand, is it that you use a backhand style?

Or ... have you discovered something truly unique?  Looking forward to reading a description or seeing a video or sketches of your style.

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by curious_aardvark on Jun 22nd, 2007 at 9:32am
backhand ?
first ever mention that I can recall. And there are definitely no videos.

But yeah I can see how it might work - I'll give it a go and let you know if there's any point to it.

It's possible some styles aren't used for a reason :-)

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by wanderer on Jun 22nd, 2007 at 12:51pm
I do recall a reference to 'backhand' slinging with respect to some Pacific Islanders I think. Unfortunately I don't remember whether the reference was on this site, on the web, or even it might have been in a real book. If I can find the time, I'll try to track it down.

I have tried slinging this way, but not seriously. I can believe it would be a feasible method.

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by aussieslinger on Jun 22nd, 2007 at 6:58pm

Curious Aardvark wrote on Jun 22nd, 2007 at 9:32am:
backhand ?
first ever mention that I can recall. And there are definitely no videos.

But yeah I can see how it might work - I'll give it a go and let you know if there's any point to it.

It's possible some styles aren't used for a reason :-)


Backhand styles are generally confined to the Southern Hemisphere and as such are not widely known in Europe and North America. When one is suspended from the underside of the globe and in constant fear of falling off it is essential to minimize the time that one's hands are diverted from their main function of hanging on for dear life. Consequently the backhand flick was developed. Exponents are able use their especially adapted super short slings which hang down from the backs of their hands in between grasping tussocks of grass, tree limbs and other such hand holds.

Some particulary gifted slingers have learned to do all the most popular styles as seen in the Northern Hemisphere with their feet. Unfortunately have no photos as my camera fell off into space.

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by Dale on Jun 23rd, 2007 at 5:32am
I can toss a Frisbee better backhand than I can forehand, but I have not worked on the backhand sling technique enough to be good at it.  I tend to release too late, and it flies 'way off to the right of where I wanted.  Distance is as good as my Apache style, though, so if I get my aim corrected it will be a nice addition to the repertoir.  For the present, I am going to blame my difficulties on the fact that I am in the northern hemisphere, so the backhand is an unnatural style.

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by aussieslinger on Jun 23rd, 2007 at 9:05am

Dale wrote on Jun 23rd, 2007 at 5:32am:
the backhand is an unnatural style.


Frisbees ain't slings, and the above quote is the essence of why backhand isn't really viable for most people. Experimenting with unusual styles that don't have any real advantage just  messes up your natural style. Stick to what you have proven works for you!

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by curious_aardvark on Jun 23rd, 2007 at 12:31pm
yep backhand, while technically a style suffers from several drawbacks.
1) Your sling arm ends up outstretched at the side of your body, so anything you might have been aiming at will have been totally out of sight till you've released the sling. Aiming sucks.
2) it's bloody difficult to accurately adjust for vertical variation - so accuracy sucks.
3) you pretty much can't do any kind of windup - so power sucks.

And as aussie says - it ain't a frisbee - so frisbee-ness sucks.

Backhand is ou of vogue for a good reason :- it sucks :-)
lol



Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by Dale on Jun 23rd, 2007 at 1:02pm
Aussie,

You are quoting me out of context.  The proper context includes the bit about me being in the northern hemisphere, preceded by your comments about Southern-hemisphere slingers hanging from their toes to keep from falling off the world.  I almost fell for that, by the way... good job.

Seriously, though, the style which initially felt most unnatural to me, is the figure-8.  Perfectly natural now.  But you may have hit on why I can't sling so well, after two years.  I've tried every style I've seen described here, and thus made myself a jack-of-all-styles (and master of none).

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by aussieslinger on Jun 24th, 2007 at 9:05am
Greetings Dale,

I don't quite know what it is about this Australian penchant for telling tall stories. I think it comes from the fact that we do undoubtedly have unusual wildlife and many "Northern Hemisphereites" on meeting an Australian, seem to think we are all going to be as weird as Crocodile Dundee. BTW Crocodile Dundee (or for that matter Steve Irwin) represents the typical Australian about as accurately as Spiderman does the typical American.

Actually other than the season reversal and a few other little oddities, Australia is about as "normal" a place as you could hope to find. By far the majority of us live a highly urbanized lifestyle, work long hours to pay off our mortgages, love our kids and passionately follow our football team's progress during the winter season. I would bet many Australians have never even seen a kangaroo in the wild. Also the majority of our native animals are quite shy and often nocturnal, consequently difficult to find.

On the odd occassion I throw a Frisbee I also throw it backhand. It just seems the natural way to do it to get the rotation required for stable flight. Similarly with slinging I think it is important to adopt a style that is as simple and natural as possible that gets the desired results. For me "results" means the ability to shoot as accurately as possible out to an effective range of 30 - 40 metres. Ideally I would like to be able to sling with the same effect as shooting offhand with a small calibre handgun. To that end I have settled on the simple overhand as the most effective style which will give the results I am looking for. I just can't see backhand, helicopter or even the beloved fig. 8 giving better value for money. Having said that I do sometimes enjoy the extra distance I can get with fig. 8, but it's only the satisfaction of seeing the stone soaring off into the sunset; at over 100m I can't reliably hit anything anyway. I did have a go at copying Gunsonwheels style which I would class as low angle sidearm. But my mainstay will always be simple overhead.

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by curious_aardvark on Jun 25th, 2007 at 7:16am

Quote:
many "Northern Hemisphereites" on meeting an Australian, seem to think we are all going to be as weird as Crocodile Dundee. BTW Crocodile Dundee (or for that matter Steve Irwin) represents the typical Australian about as accurately as Spiderman does the typical American


That's it ruin all my expectations. :-(


Quote:
Australia is about as "normal" a place as you could hope to find

lmao - as long as you define 'normal' as a place where just about everything that moves, swims or flies is lethally poisonous.
You're obviously using the word 'normal' in a thoroughly australian way :-) In england poisonous spiders, fish, snakes, lizards, more spiders, even more snakes and very big sharks - very much not normal.
;-)

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by Dravonk on Jun 25th, 2007 at 7:28am
There is a video of Tint doing a backhand throw. I tried to do that, too, and lost my AussiePouch. (But AussieSlinger was so kind to send me a second one :-))

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by aussieslinger on Jun 26th, 2007 at 2:57am
C-A old friend,

You have obviously been sucked in by the ABC wildlife propaganda peddlers. Sure we do have venomous snakes and spiders but as I said most Australian wildlife is very secretive and rarely seen. Snakes hibernate all winter and even in summer just keep out of long grass and you're OK. The only really dangerous native animals are crocodiles found only in nothern Australia. Others such as buffalo and feral pigs are all introduced species. I have spent many nights in the bush and never once even seen anything other than the occassional snake slithering away, which was at all dangerous. Ironically male koalas have a particularly loud and raucous cry which frightens you know what out of you in the middle of the night just above your tent. England may be particulary benign but our American friends in the woods seem to have far more of a problem with marauding bears than anything we Aussies have to contend with.

As far as shark attack is concerned, lunatic surfers dressed in black wet suits and looking for all the world like seals, are sometimes attacked. But even then far more people are killed by lighting strike than are taken by sharks.

The most annoying Australian wildlife by far are the flies which settle on your back in their hundreds and constantly try to get in your eyes and mouth. At night their comrades the mosquitos take over so keep up the repellent.

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by Dale on Jun 26th, 2007 at 3:37pm
I do not think it matters where you are from, people elsewhere have a distorted view of what your part of the world is like.  Mostly that is because we all get our view of other parts of the world from television (used to be from books); and what sells, is what grabs attention; and what grabs attention, is the sensational.  Where I live, there are cougars all around.  I've never seen a cougar, just tracks.  They are very shy.  They will only attack if you are acting like prey or you are near the cubs.  Yet folks from elsewhere are very nervous about "all those mountain lions."

Similarly, Steve Irwin came over here once and did a tour of North America looking for rattlesnakes.  (The most priceless moment of that series was when he was squatting, looking into a hole where one had just crawled, when another snake started rattling its tail -- right between his legs!  He hammed it up, of course, but his startlement was not entirely feigned.)  Judging by the television, you would think that such snakes are everywhere.  Yet I grew up in country where rattlers were common, and I saw them only a dozen times or so -- mostly on the road, squished.

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by curious_aardvark on Jun 27th, 2007 at 7:34am

Quote:
But even then far more people are killed by lighting strike

See even the weather is out to get you !

I think the one beast that really sticks in peoples minds is the dunnie spider :-)
Might be a funnel web but it's the one that hides in outhouses and bites you on the bum when you go to the toilet :-)
Probably an urban myth - but in australia, you never know :-)

Saw a program about a hotel out in the bush and they had huntsman spiders in the hotel. Not poisonous - but bloody big and fast and for a spider wimp like me sufficient reason in itself never to set foot in the country :-)

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by bigkahuna on Jun 28th, 2007 at 7:33am
Even the freakin ants spring at you just to bite you!!!! :o

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by aussieslinger on Jun 28th, 2007 at 10:28pm
not overly fond of huntsman spiders myself. just suck em up with a vacuum cleaner.

the dunny spider you mentioned is the red back, known in the us as a black widow. they like quiet out of the way nooks and crannies like wood piles or that dark corner in the garden shed, so bites on the hand are actually more common than on the posterior.

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by curious_aardvark on Jun 30th, 2007 at 8:43am
lmao - oh that makes me feel so much safer ;-)

Actually redbacks are more poisonous and smaller than black widows, possibly related but it'd have to be some 100 thousand years or so back.

With black widow bites they reckon the antivenom is worse than the bites lol
What a choice.

On the other hand I have been to california and wasn't bitten by a black widow, so I might survive in auss. But the comment about hoovering up huntsman spiders, oh hell no, if they come in the house that's it, forget it, I'll go to new zealand instead - at least there it's just the national sports that kill you ;-)

I mean what kind of soceity invents bungee jumping ????
(hmm, you're a bit of a wimp really aren't you ? lol only when it comes to things that might kill me unnecessarily ;-)

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by aussieslinger on Jun 30th, 2007 at 8:21pm
Actually it's time to get this thread away from, "Your wildlife is deadlier than my wildlife" discussion and back on to slinging technique. Especially as in the aforesaid New Zealand there doesn't seem to be any. Do you know I have not received a single request for an AussiePOUCH from New Zealand? You need to go there and spread the word.

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by curious_aardvark on Jul 1st, 2007 at 7:42am
probably not dangerous enough - make one big enough to sling full grown adult kiwis and you'll have loads of takers.

Actually don't think there are any kiwi members - wonder why not ?

On the subject of techniques. I've been using various fig8 variations at the moment. mainly because the grass is so long in the fields I have to keep the sling well above waist height for the duration of the throw. And while I don't quite get the velocity with fig8 that i do with sidearm - the fig 8 windup can actually be used to start most of the other release styles.

Just have to try and get some sort of accuracy into it now :-)

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by slingbadger on Jul 3rd, 2007 at 10:22am
I'm working on a technique where the entire arm does a figure 8. It's kind of a combination of the over and underhand technique. Right now I'm fairly consistant and get a lot of power from it. Working on it, I hit myself in the butt and elbow more times than I care to confess. The elbow was on the arm that I was holding the sling with.

Title: Re: Throwing techniques
Post by curious_aardvark on Jul 3rd, 2007 at 12:14pm
sounds like you need a shorter sling if you're doing full arm swings.
I prefer to use my wrist for the first half of the fig8 wind up.

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