Now, full disclosure:
I think mot veterans in the community are probably aware of this at least in some way or other, and it's not like I've never seen anyone else do this, this is just for others like me who didn't really get the memo and have sore arms.
I've been slinging for about
3 months now, I've gotten good enough to throw hard, fast, and pretty accurately, but my arm hurts after a while, especially with bigger rocks! why is this?
Well I believe I have made a personal breakthrough on that, it's basically recoil, you know like a firearm, I realized that I was snapping my arm to a stop to shoot my projectile, powerful to be sure, but my arm was constantly copping the full force of my throw, not ideal.
Through natural development and watching others on YT I found that I should be twisting my body into the force of the throw and letting my arm and the sling twist around my body for better accuracy and consistent power, but, I had yet to really understand why it was
so vital.I found myself keeping my distance from throwing larger rocks for the most part as I was aware that it usually meant a sting of pain and a fairly underwhelming shot, this was
deeply unsatisfying as I'd put so much effort into learning this skill.
Thus, yesterday I stumbled upon my solution,
"recoil absorbance".For a little context, I throw in two main styles, greek overhand (I'm fairly sure) and some version of underhand I saw on YT a while back, I do not use more than one spin usually and my goal is always power, distance, then accuracy. During yet another of my daily sessions throwing into the water, I messed up a shot with a largish rock and my arm followed through and rebounded off my upper stomach lower chest region.... No pain..? Confused I tried it again trying to replicate the same mistake, again, no pain, a sucker for punishment I ran around finding all the biggest rocks that would fit in my sling pouch and threw them all as hard as I could, not even a mild twinge from my arm.
Learn from me brothers and sisters, slinging may be painful to learn, but it can just be your pride, not your arm!