Slinging technique is a much-debated subject. Underhand
& overhand techniques are the two basic divisions
of throwing with underhand being the more powerful, but
typically more difficult to master in terms of accuracy.
Underhand seems to be the most common style of throw and
my personal preference. If a picture is worth a thousand
words, a video is worth a thousand pictures. Rather than
expound greatly on description, here is a video clip of
my slinging technique. Each person will develop their
own style, but the basic foundation is the same.
In watching my technique there are some important points
to notice. First, pay careful attention to body stance
and motion. This is for a right-handed person, so if you’re
left handed, reverse everything. Stand like you’re
throwing a baseball, left shoulder towards the target,
feet slightly apart. The motion of the throw begins with
the left foot stepping forward, rotating at the hips as
the shoulder rotates, followed by the elbow and then the
wrist in a whipping motion. This whole body motion generates
an immense amount of power and speed, especially the elbow/wrist
action at the end. You will notice that I do a little
hop, thrusting my left foot forward. I do this when I’m
generating a lot of power, sort of like running up for
a throw.
The second part of the technique relates to the point
in the sling rotation at which you execute the throw.
The timing for the hop or step forward with the left foot
depends on the speed of the sling rotation. Time it so
that the hip rotation and beginning of the arm throw occurs
when the sling is directly above you. If you observe the
slow motion part of the video clip you will see this more
clearly. The reason behind starting the throw so early
is that by the time your arm reaches full speed the sling
will be directly behind you and the forward motion of
your arm will accelerate the sling in an elliptical arc
generating an incredible amount of speed. If you start
the throw later, the sling will be below the horizontal
axis and already moving forward, in some cases faster
than you can throw, and the acceleration will not be as
great.
The release is a fickle beast. Each sling will be slightly
different. I let go when the sling is at about the 7 or
8 o’clock position in front of me depending on how
shallow an arc I want. The final motion of the sling is
that the release end wraps itself around my waist and
legs. This means that there is a sideways motion to the
final action of my throw. If I were to release and continue
the sling’s normal rotation, the sling would wrap
itself around my head and shoulders. How critical that
is I don’t know. It’s nice not to have the
sling whack me in the head every time I throw a rock though.
Overall, the feel of the throw should be a continual tension
on the sling as you throw the stone. If there’s
no tension or you feel like you’re throwing out
your shoulder or ‘chasing’ the cradle with
your throw, you’re throwing too late in the rotation.
I generally rotate the sling somewhere between vertical
axis and 45 degrees. Experiment and see what angle you
prefer most. If there are people around you, a vertical
rotation is safest since the stone will go either straight
forward, straight back, or straight up and it’s
easier for people to be out of the line of fire.
Initially, go for technique not for power and speed. Try
different sized stones. You might find slightly heavier
stones easier to use, since they will allow you to feel
the rotational force of the sling and how it interacts
with your throw.
If you’re not use to throwing things or haven’t
done so in awhile, expect to be a bit sore. It takes awhile
to become consistent in your throws and a lot longer to
become accurate. There are a lot of sling and cradle designs
to choose from. If you have trouble after practicing for
a while, try a different cradle or sling design and see
if it works better for you. Most of all… have fun.
- Barak Bruerd
Movies:
BarakUnderhand.mov
(QuickTime format, 1.3mb)
BarakUnderhandLow.mov
(QuickTime format, lower quality, 732k)
BarakUnderhand.mpg
(MPEG format, 3.1mb)
BarakUnderhand.avi
(AVI format, 2.7mb)
To
download the movie, right click or ctrl click (for macintosh
without two-button mouse) on the download link and choose
"Save target as", "Download link to disk",
or something similar.
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