NooneOfConsequence wrote on Oct 7
th, 2018 at 5:11pm:
Some people like to say that the first two professions in history were the prostitute and the priest, but the first job was actually the taxonomist. The first man, Adam, spent his days naming the animals, and humans have been fascinated by categorizing and classifying everything ever since then.
Here’s my $.02:
1. What matters most is the trajectory, the projectile stability, the speed, and the spin at the release. How many times you whirl the rock around your head may matter when it comes to proprioception and muscle memory, but in the end, you either hit the target or you miss, and that has more to do with practice than which particular style you choose. I don’t care what label you put on it. If you can hit the target, you’re doing it right even if you don’t know what to call the style or your style isn’t “pure”.
2. You could go crazy with names to classify styles, or you could just define a set of parameters that describes the throw, such as the angle of the swing and release relative to the direction of the throw. For example, imagine that you are punching at the center of a clock when you throw... the sling would pass through 12:00 with Apache or overhand, and about 1:30 or 2:00 with a figure-8 (unless you’re left handed). Balearic might release at about 4:30, and so on. Then we can all argue about what clock position is “correct” for the release, but it’ll be clear to everyone what the form looks like at the release, no matter how you swing it before that.
It's true - To classify things is human nature (Some would even say that it's the basis of existence.) However, because of that, classification is, and always has been, subject to human purposes - For instance, what is a tomato? To the botanist, it is a fruit, since it bears seeds after its kind; to the chef, a vegetable, due to its lack of sweetness, and to the La Tomatina reveler in Buñol, it's a projectile.
(On a side note, I'd love to see how a group of slingers would do in a tomato-throwing festival!)
So, if we're gonna come up with new naming conventions for slinging styles, it's important to keep in mind what exactly we're naming them
for - The historian might classify a style as being "Greek" or "Byzantine" or "Balearic" for on their
presumed places of origin, while the physicist might classify someone's style as "overhand" or "underhand" or "sidearm" based on the particular style's release point.
Another side note - Why should we assume that, for instance, all ancient Greeks exclusively used the Greek style?
So, which are we? Most of us, I'm assuming, are either one or neither - Most of our style names are an ambiguous mix of both.
I think that a solid naming convention should account for all different parts of a slinging style, including the windup and maybe even the number of spins, so that anybody with a working knowledge of the terms would be able to hear the name of the style, and, never having seen it before, be able to "get the gist" of what the style might look like - The syntax could be simple:
I.) A term describing either the starting position and/or the windup.
II.) The number of "spins" (as far as it is applicable.)
III.) The release point of the style.
A helicopter style with two "spins" would be called an "overhead double-spin sidearm" to describe (A) the position, (B) the number of spins, and (C) the release point. The Greek style could be called an "overhead zero-spin overhand", while styles like Underhand and Overhand could be clarified depending on the particular nuance a particular slinger puts on it - For example, "side-body double-spin underhand" or "figure-eight triple-spin overhand" respectively. If one part of a slinging style is not adequately described by any existing terms, others may be invented to describe them, including proper names if necessary - Turkey style, which seems to begin with the sling across the back could be called the "RS-crossback zero-spin overhand," or maybe the "Turkey zero-spin overhand." The only thing needing explanation would be what "RS-crossback" or "Turkey" means, information easily supplied by knowledgeable members.
Of course, this syntax would need some tweaking to be effective - But I think that it is sound in principle. Describe the throw itself, and give users of the syntax room to describe their styles efficiently and simply.