Disc Golf X-Step Deep Dive | Level Up

[Music] what's up everybody brian erhart here with team disc craft and today we're going to be doing a deep dive into the foundational footwork of the backhand throw the x-steps [Music] so in this video i'm going to be breaking the x-step down into three phases and for each phase i'm going to be highlighting some of the most common mistakes i've seen players make over the years while i've taught the game while this video is intended for current players looking to level up their game if you're a brand new player who just got into the sport and you're looking to get caught up to speed here's a quick rundown of what the x-step is the x-step consists of three main steps and it's the footwork used by all of the best players in the world number one the initial step number two the cross step and number three the plant step these three together is how you throw a traditional backhand throw before i start diving into each phase of the x-step there is a concept that i bring up throughout this video that refers to feet staying in their own individual lanes i want to make sure you understand that first when i say that i mean just like when we're walking our feet do not cross over each other at all the feet if they're drawing lines when we're walking we'll create parallel lines alongside of each other in the x step we want to do a very similar thing so instead of moving forward we're moving laterally now so we need to make sure that our feet stay in their own lanes laterally now and no foot is crossing over into the other foot's lane all right so phase number one the momentum steps and the initial step i've explained what the initial step is but what are the momentum steps momentum steps are an optional addition to your x-step footwork that act a bit as an on-ramp to get you up to your desired speed when your x-step begins whether you're taking a full-on sprint up to the t-pad or just a couple extra collection steps the most important one to focus on is the one that transitions you into your x-step here are the most common mistakes that i've seen players make along the way most players that i've seen that struggle with their momentum steps like to face forward to their target when they begin this is fine but the biggest mistake that i've seen players make is they take a very large and forward momentum step with their back foot so i'm left handed that's my right foot for righties it's their left foot they take a very large first step that's dead forward and it makes it very difficult now for your front foot your initial step to hit the ground you have to swoop your first step around in kind of this j motion and now your back foot has a really tough time rotating and getting behind you so it's a very clunky step that wastes a lot of motion the other thing that i've seen with players that take a large collection step or momentum step are players that face sideways to the target and instead of starting and moving forward they like to take a momentum step sideways here very long and what happens now is their initial step steps in line with their back foot the problem is like i said earlier this foot is now in the back foot's lane and now the cross step cannot move laterally it has to compensate and fall backwards and it pulls the weight off the line so if you want to stay online you have to make sure that your feet are staying in their lanes and a large momentum step this way makes it very tough to do that regardless of how many steps you do want to take before you start your x-step the most important thing to remember is that the final momentum step you take is short quick and at a bit of a diagonal angle to allow for this initial step to hit a little bit more easily in its lane to get you down the line that you want to throw if you're taking too large of a momentum step it makes it very difficult to fluidly transfer energy into the initial step of your x-step and speaking of the initial step two of the biggest mistakes that i see people make with the initial step actually come from players that don't use momentum steps a lot of players really like to start their x-step nice and linearly to their target but what they do is something i explained in the momentum step section they step their initial step completely even with their back foot like i mentioned before what this does is it actually pulls you offline even though this looks and feels like you're moving linearly now your cross step your back foot does not get to move down the line it now has to fall backwards and pull your weight this way so ideally what you want to do is get your initial step in its lane right away so even if you want to back your back foot up and start your initial step that way that's much better than starting with your feet together and driving your first step even with your back other thing that i see a lot is players that will take their initial step and they'll over rotate it so rather than stepping and hitting perpendicular to where you're initially throwing you step and a lot of times this comes from collection steps you'll step and you'll over rotate and it's going to turn your hip away one of the big things that this is a detriment to is it opens the door for your cross step step number two to be really long and i'll explain the detriments of that in the next section now that we've covered phase one the initial step and the steps leading up to it let's jump into phase two the cross step all right so phase number two the cross step this is one of the most important parts of the x step because it's normally where i see the most breaks and timing of the upper and lower body as i just mentioned with the initial step a lot of players will turn their initial step away turn their hips away and it really opens the door for this cross step to be very long this is the most common mistake that i see in a very high percentage of players that i've worked with and the problems with the long cross step are as follows so first and foremost i mentioned timing breaks and a rule of thumb to follow when you're moving through the game and you're reading and watching all these videos about timing the hand and the back foot the opposite foot should be together it should feel like you are playing your back foot like a puppet so ideally you take your initial step when you take your cross step your hand and disc come with you and what happens when you have a very long cross step a lot of times is the disc doesn't come with you it stays in what feels like a neutral position but now your back foot is already here your disc is here it's going to trail what i see a lot a lot of players do is now they'll step and they'll reach full extension really early and now you're still behind your back foot as you step to throw you have to kind of fall over to get the disc back to a nice balanced position so that's the first break in timing that comes from a long cross step so ideally a good cross step if you watch most of the best players in the world is very quick very perpendicular to your target and on the toe we do not want a cross step that falls back flat footed because your weight will fall this way we're throwing over our front foot not our back foot so ideally we want a nice clean cross step that's quick with our hand and disc kind of balanced with it and that's where we can set ourselves up for success when we take that final step another thing that happens with a long cross step it's very difficult to have a long cross step if you keep your foot perpendicular the moment you turn away it can get a lot longer and instead of the proper shift of driving this knee inward off that big toe when we're throwing you can't do that when your foot is turned away like this you'll step to throw you'll see a lot of players fall onto their heel and not actually get to drive into the shot properly so you'll fall onto your heel and really no weight shift happens and that's where the concept of strong arming occurs when we throw a shot if you do happen to have a long cross step and your first couple of steps are more closed off than they should be it's a little bit challenging to fix but with that said i have a couple of great drills that you can start working on to start the process of correcting them this first drill is called the side shuffle drill and it's a fantastic drill to practice feeling what it's like to have a shorter cross step and it's also a great warm-up drill before a tournament to get your blood flowing so there's a very small difference between basic side shuffling that you would do in maybe youth sports or pe class growing up and a proper x step in disc golf rather than just shuffling and letting your back foot click your front foot all you need to do to transition into a disc golf x step is drop the back foot on the toe and let it overlap ever so slightly once you get that down maybe start walking through it to feel it you can start shuffling through this footwork and practice this linear movement where your feet are perpendicular and your back foot lands very quickly on the toe and doesn't extend too far the other thing that it does is it also helps you keep your feet in their own lanes if you happen to try swinging your foot even with your back foot you're not able to continue the drill so it's a great drill to practice feeling what it's like to have a shorter cross step so drill number two is just a simple modified one step drill while the side shuffle drill is fantastic for feeling the footwork moving through the footwork and getting your blood flowing before a tournament round this is something that you can actually do in the field and actually throw a disc with so most one-step drills that i've seen tell you to start with your feet together and step to throw the disc but for this drill i want to simulate what our feet are actually going to look like in a round of disc golf so we're obviously never going to get our feet here we're never going to have our feet in the same lane so what we're going to do is drop our foot back on the toe just like the side shuffle drill overlap it ever so slightly and now when we're getting ready to throw we're gonna have our hand and disc even with our back foot because again like i said earlier we're playing our back foot like a puppet with our dominant hand so we're going to get our hand and our disc even with that back foot and all you're going to practice doing is taking that step forward and making our knee drive inwards when we throw the disc because again when your foot is turned away we can't get that hip engagement because we'll be falling onto our heel so we're going to practice we're going to step here on the toe we're going to drive forward and we're gonna throw the disc all right so now that we've covered phase two the cross step let's jump into the third and final phase the plant step the plant step is the third and final step of the x step and it creates that full extension position that you reach right before you throw the disc there are a few common mistakes that i've seen players make pretty often let's walk through them and learn how to fix them [Music] so the very first thing that i see the most often with the plant step are players that do what i like to call a baseball player step or a softball player's step they take two very nice steps of their x step but then this final step instead of driving linearly down the line you want to throw the disc they really have this urge to swing their plant step even with their back foot and again like i mentioned earlier this pulls the front foot in the same lane as the back foot which is no longer driving forward it's pulling the weight wide so a lot of players especially those who really like in baseball batting like this they like having their feet here but again remember in disc golf this is a more lateral step than this the next thing that i see a lot of players do that throws their weight off in another direction is over staggering their plant step i don't see this as often as players that swing the plant foot wide but they'll take two really nice steps of their x step and then they will literally derail their forward momentum and really throw off their final step and really close off their momentum so much so that anything they've built up in their approach gets thrown off and their weight falls off that way so anything that they need to do to get the disc back online is an over compensation last thing that i see very often and it doesn't necessarily coincide with swinging even with your back foot it's the direction that your plant foot hits the ground so a lot of players again will take two really nice steps and then this final step instead of driving and hitting perpendicular to where you want the disc to go they will open their knee and they'll open their hip flexor and their foot and they'll step wide and then they'll try to throw the disc what this does is it kills any of that brace where you hit that front foot throw and then you pivot and follow through all that rotational momentum gets killed because you open up early and now you have to round to throw the disc forward so again what we're looking for in a proper plant step is we have to see where we want the disc initially to go and drive our weight just like every other step forward and try to land as perpendicular as possible again we don't want to step even with the back foot we don't want to over stagger our plant step and we don't want to open as we're stepping so a couple of drills that we can do to fix this are the exact same drills that i mentioned for the cross step the side shuffle drill like i mentioned earlier forces you to keep that final step in line or else you'll fall off course you're not able to in the side shuffle drill swing even with your back foot and again the modified one step that i showed you you can film yourself get yourself a smartphone tripod and film from behind and watch yourself doing the modified one step drill to see where that plant foot is hitting we want it to move down the line land perpendicular and that's what a good plant step looks like now that we've covered the third and final phase the plant step let's do a quick recap [Music] if you choose to take momentum steps make sure the final one you take is at a bit more of a diagonal angle to help you transition from facing forward to moving laterally for your initial step make sure you're not stepping even with your back foot and you're getting it in its lane early and stepping perpendicular to where you want the disc initially to move for your cross step make sure it's not too long and is short quick and on the toe for your plant step make sure you're driving that foot forward down the line you want to throw you're not swinging it even with your back foot or over staggering to close off your body weight [Music] footwork is a foundational skill in disc golf and developing a fluid balanced x-step is a sure-fire way to help you level up your distance accuracy and consistency on the course leave us a comment down below and let us know some other things you want us to help you level up and we'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Discraft Disc Sports

Views: 17,728

Keywords: discraft, disc golf, disc golf tutorial, disc golf x-step, disc golf how to, brian earhart

Id: 5_OcQ04rGL8

Length: 17min 15sec (1035 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 20 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/wesxninja]

In my opinion, Brian is one of the best teachers out there.

[u/TMRaven]

Everything is good in the video except for one thing. Do not forcefully jam your rear knee inward to drive hip rotation, that will lead to knee injury. The knee dropping is a result of weight shift and the rear foot deweighting.

[u/Bearonsphone3]

Every time I hear Brian speak I have a new tip to annoy my friends with. Seriously though, I feel like I learn so much from you every time I watch a video or catch you live on IG. I want to see season 2 of scratch to scratch with you and Uli going against each other.