Aussie
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Joined Nov. 1, 2006 Luke 14:14
Posts: 3265
Melbourne, Australia
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The difficulty in comparing slinging and say tennis or some other common sport is that coaching at any level is easy to obtain and all the basics are well established. You join your local tennis club and get lessons from an accredited coach who was himself probably a professional player. As, and if, you improve you get better and better coaching until at the top level the coaches are as elite as the players. Most of us slingers are lucky to ever get together with even one other slinger so there is no ready pool of experts to consult. I would dearly love to get together with Jurek and Jaegoor. Unfortunately finances and time preclude that at the moment.
I must say it took a deal of courage to post your video and invite criticism the way you did and I was honoured to find you specifically wanted my input. But really how do you know my advice was valid? Sure I talk a lot and generally am quite confident in my opinions but then my wife just thinks I'm a pig headed bombast. I am quite confident that my understanding of the physics of the sling itself is accurate (engineering background) but I am no sportsman and my analyses of style are based only on observation, especially of sports which I consider have similar characteristics to slinging, namely baseball pitching and cricket bowling, tennis forehand shots and the golf swing. Funnily enough hammer throw which is really a form of slinging has little relevance because of the extreme weight of the hammer (16lbs).
Even people connected with sport may have their particular biases. For example Jeagoor obvious anti Fig.8 bias seems relatively unfounded. It may be largely based on the fact that he uses very heavy (200gm+) projectiles. Nevertheless any dire predictions of injuries have not eventuated in my case at least. True, aching muscles are not proof of power, in fact an inefficient activity may produce more muscle soreness than an efficient one. But the way to settle the question is not to argue theoretical merits but to measure the velocity (Audacity method). What counts is accuracy and stone speed, not the style. Of course with something like Fig.4 overshoulder you may be prepared to sacrifice some muscular efficiency to achieve a compact, fast hunting style.
Even in "slinging shangrila", namely the Balearic Islands, slinging is hardly standardised. Have a look at the video of their competition posted by MegaFoska; all sorts of strange and inefficient actions. I can't believe that they were all coached into doing some of the weird actions they do. BTW As I've pointed out before, not one of them throws with a style anywhere near that employed by Jaegoor.
So, by all means get coaching if you can. But make sure your "coach" has at least some claim to fame and is giving you good advice.
PS I was going to add. David Morningstar and C-A live within reasonable driving distance of you. It would be beneficial for all to have a weekend get together and compare notes. Take plenty of video, slomos are especially helpful.
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