After much experimentation, I have finally found a comfortable and effective sling technique!
A couple of weeks ago I was faced with the dilemma of not having a spot to sling; I live right smack in the middle of a city and I often have to travel thirty minutes out to my parents rural home to practice. After a bit of hiking and sneaking around in a state park nearby, I found a nice little meadow off the beaten trail. At the center of the meadow is a very large aged oak tree. With its wide trunk, I thought that it would make a perfect backdrop for my slinging. And so it did.
For a target, I set up a crushed tin can on a log at the base of the tree. As I have mentioned before, I’m interested in practicing short distance powerful sling throws as opposed to distance slinging. Across the meadow there is a large field, and I admit to taking a few long distance throws out of curiosity. With my lack of ammo, however, I soon had to go back to the meadow where it was easier to retrieve that which I threw.
My sling technique prior to today’s revelation was the overhead counter clockwise release. I would rotate my sling overhead until I felt comfortable, then release at my intended target. The major problem that I had with this technique was consistency. Eighty-percent of my throws would veer to the left of my target. While they were landing in the woods in roughly the same spot, I was much aggravated because it was certainly not where I had intended for it to go.
Over the past few weeks, I have experimented with different throws trying to gain more accuracy. For long distance fairly accurate releases, I have found the overhand baseball throw quite useful. Unfortunately, it just didn’t feel natural to me, and I gave up on it. I decided early on that I wanted to work out the quarks in my overhead sling.
With much practice today, I did just that. Here is the technique I have found to give me the most accuracy and power. I’ll try to provide some videos later as it is hard to explain without pictures.
My stance is rather much like the basic martial arts readiness position: Body facing east of my target with my feet at more or less a 45 degree angles. My sling arm lies ready shaped much like an L, with pocket resting just above the ground. I point my free left hand, balling up my fist, at the target (I’m not sure why, I just feel more balanced and it helps me focus). When I’m ready, I begin to swing my sling, starting in the resting position it travels over my head counter clockwise. As I’m near completion of the first full rotation, I step forward with my right back foot towards my target. With this step, I swing the sling around for the second (and last) rotation. I have found that stepping forward and rotating my hips with the release will increase the momentum of the sling. Now for the strange part: at the end of the second rotation, I arc my sling arm towards the ground with kind of an under hand sling. When my hand is facing palm up, and slightly to the right of my target, I release!
Thus far, this technique has led too much more accurate throws. I am able to hit the tin soda can fairly consistently at about 10 yards (this may not sound very like very far but a tin can is a pretty small thing from that distance).
So that’s pretty much it. It feels good to finally be hitting something.
As I mentioned before, I’ll try to get it on video (which will probably make much more sense).
Happy slinging,
Leon
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working it out... (Read 1056 times)
