Imagine the count is on seven, you've just got one cutter and they are heading straight for the sideline with their defender just two steps behind. What are you going to throw? Basically, you're going to have to drill it, hard. If you put a soft pass in, either you're going to have to put it so far out in front that they'll be over the sideline by the time they get it, or they're going to have to slow up and their defender will come through and get the block.
Have you got that throw?
What if the situation is the same, except that the sideline is much further away? The percentage play is to sit the frisbee up out in front of your cutter and to let them run it down (assuming they are matched for speed with their defender). That way instead of trying to hit your target in the chest, you are letting your target do the work.
Have you got that throw?
Think about your backhand or forehand. Can you throw it at different speeds? If not, it is something you should think about to improve your game.
Most people find it easier to throw fast throws than slow throws. The reason for this is probably that people are brought up on throwing balls, where the main power comes from the arm. To throw a slow throw there is much more emphasis on the wrist, and much less on the arm.
The trick to throwing a slow throw is the ability to take the arm out of the throwing equation. This is simply a matter of practice, and of concentrating on using the wrist to provide both the speed (which is minimal) and the spin. The other thing to remember is that speed provides some of the lift of a frisbee. If you want to throw it slow, you have to put it a bit higher into the air to compensate for the loss of lift. Usually this means head height instead of waist or chest height.
There is of course another way of throwing slow backhands, and that is the air bounce. The air bounce is achieved by dragging the thumb across the back edge of the disc on release. This pushes the back edge down, the front edge up, and slows the throw a lot while giving it an upward trajectory.
I almost ignored the high backhand here. The reason for that is that I consider it a separate throw altogether. It can be thrown at both high and low speeds in its own right, and I think it has a different role to play than a substitute for another slow backhand. Too many people throw it when another throw is the better choice, and not enough people have control of it at the different speed ranges.
If human arms flexed equally both ways, then you could apply the same ideas to throwing slow forehands as to slow backhands. Unfortunately (unless you are some bizarre case) they don't.
I have never met anyone who could throw an air bounce forehand, although I have heard of a couple. As a result I will only look at the more standard slow forehands.
The idea behind the slow forehand is the same as for the slow backhand, but the mechanics are quite different. The trick is again to be able to take the arm out of the throwing equation. There are at least two different ways of doing this. One is what I call the "high forehand", and the other is by pulling your arm back just before releasing the disc.
The high forehand is an unusual but useful throw. The throwing arm is held perpendicularly to the body. By twisting the throwing shoulder forward, you can start a "ripple" or "wave" down the arm which ends with a sharp snap of the wrist, releasing the frisbee with plenty of spin but very little speed. The high forehand is particularly useful for breaking the force, since most defenders do not expect a forehand to be released near shoulder height.
The other slow forehand involves pulling your arm back just before releasing the disc. The throw starts off normally, but by pulling your elbow backwards just before letting go you can reduce the speed of the throw without reducing the spin significantly.
As with the backhands, you have to angle these throws upward slightly to compensate for the loss of lift.
Fast throws tend to magnify throwing mistakes. A slight wobble on release turns into a sharp dive into the ground, a slight lack of spin causes a rapid turnover. There are two main reasons people have problems with fast throws - one is spin, and the other is hand angle versus disc angle.
Let's start with spin, since it is the obvious one. Simply put, spin equals stability at high speeds (not necessarily true at low speeds). The more spin, the better. I've never seen someone throw a high speed throw with too much spin, and I doubt that it's humanly possible. So concentrate on getting as much spin as possible on both forehand and backhand. This usually involves cocking your wrist as much as possible before throwing.
The less obvious one is hand angle versus disc angle. Many problems with wobbles result from slight inconsistency between the angle of the hand and the angle of the disc. At low speed the result is a small amount of wobble and turnover. At high speed the result is usually a lot of wobble and a vicious outside-in throw, or even a blade into the ground (particularly on forehand).
The angle your hand is trying to throw the disc at needs to be the same angle that the disc itself is at. There is no quick fix (that I know of). It is simply a case of adjusting the angle of your wrist, and the way you hold the disc until you can throw it consistently with no wobble. Slowly work up to longer and longer, and harder and harder throws.
The main ideas that should come out of this article are spin, and separation of wrist and arm. Spin, because you can hardly ever go wrong with too much spin. Separation of wrist and arm, because for both fast and slow throws you should be concentrating on them each doing their own work - wrist providing spin and arm providing power (or lack of it).