"Supposed to"?  No.  It's going to vary depending on the slinger.  There will be physical factors as well as adjustments that might be needed for different slings.  If what you're doing is working, go with it.  You can try to make slight adjustments and see what the results are.  You might even make adjustments unconsciously as you become more familiar with the form.

Thanks so much for the feedback. I’ll keep doing what is working.

The throws are generally coming out on target and super fast. Self video showed my elbow bending less than the tutorial video. Just needed confirmation I wasn’t missing out on extra velocity bending elbow more.

Threw for 2 hours this morning. Feel good about it, think I have it figured out mostly.  Need to be more consistent, but at one point put 6 in a row in a 2 foot square target at 12 yards. Of course the next throw went straight into the ground about a foot in front of me!

The biggest thing that helped was understanding stepping front foot back like pitching from the stretch and then delaying striding front foot forward until AFTER my throwing arm came up to throw. Just opposite of pitching where front foot leads and arm follows.  Once I figured that out, I was in business.

Actually been looking at videos of pitching from the stretch, trying to figure out anyway to change the current front foot small stride into an actual leg lift/kick as part of the figure 8 throw.

Think will have to lift leg after arm moves back out of the way, and figure out if I can balance with arm moving while lifting front leg. And of course get the timing of all this to work together.  In theory should work…already taking a small front stride so just need to super exaggerate that small front step into something way, way bigger.

In my head I see it working…I also see me falling down after getting all tangled up in the sling cords too. 

Never thought about storing energy somewhere in the body to throw a baseball.

My training is power comes from ground up. Wind up, high leg kick, plant front foot hard on the ground, unwind, and throw. You can feel power come up through leg, then up as hips unwind, then up as shoulders unwind, finally all goes into your arm as it unwinds.

Naturally there is no power in the ground. It is all coming from me. But never explained it as energy storage.

I can see what you are saying. If we call it energy storage we can call it a spring. Based on the windup/twisting motion the spring has to be a torsion spring. Power then is dependent on how much pre-twist we add to our body prior to throwing (the windup) AND how much we can unwind that pre-twist prior to letting go of the ball or sling (efficient mechanics).

Think I have run into this issue of efficiently unwinding to throw. I read spinning the sling faster does not give you more power. But then I found if I spin it too slow could not throw it fast. Felt like it was eating power dragging a slow spinning sling. Might just be a perception thing but I feel more efficient spinning not too fast but faster to match the throw.  That is, spin fast to throw hard, spin slow to throw easy.

BTW. Pitched through high school and played shortstop too, torn up shoulder, switched to fast-pitch softball for about a decade.  I think I was at my ceiling…might have made a community college team with luck but was not going much farther than high school level. 

I think your tension is my twisting, but we are saying the same thing.

Basically do a bunch of stuff to get energy moving forward and arm moves last so arm has to whip forward to catch up.

A sling is a longer arm with one more pivot joint at your hand. A sling moves forward even later than your arm and adds another, second whip action.

Baseball pitch with arm whipping. Arm moves last so arm trying to catch up to rest of forward movement (my leg kick, hip twist, shoulder twist movements above description)

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCrDfKttRaJ/



Your slo mo video shows basically the same body twisting with the addition the sling whips forward after the arm whips forward

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwmoPsJP7mk

I completely agree with Serg, a clean throw from a well balanced sling feels like i am cracking a whip down and to the right of my target for a right handed sidearm ish throw.
Thin/less tapered/single strand slings definitely open differently requiring slightly different momentum path and release. Generally much harder to get that snap but it can be done especially with projectiles on the heavier side. Wrist angle during windup and at the point of release plays a huge factor for both styles of sling.
Obviously every sling is different, every throw is different, every person, every rock etc. Theres very few concrete things but these are tendencies ive noticed

Xy747:

For figure 8, I found two things that helped my accuracy.

1.  Step directly towards the target. The throw will tend to go in the direction the front foot steps.

2. “Bring your face to the target”.  What this means is when you throw, your head should be facing directly at the target. Head movement can pull your throw off target so you want to make sure your face is pointed at, or moving towards, the target the moment you throw. Bit hard to explain in words but if you look at this video you see the moment the baseball is released, the pitcher’s face is directly pointed at home plate. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RrleF2lthqI

The man, the myth, the legend reappears! Glad to see you checking in! I still remember your 250m throw with a 24" sling!