 Hey everybody, it's Eric Johnson from Airtay Throws Nation. In today's video, we're going to go behind the scenes, kind of show you some of the highlights of our Dallas, Texas pre-season throws camp. It's a really good day. One of the things we did is we had changed up the format, and we're really trying to make sure that connection of understanding the throwing chain reaction, how it works, how it connects, how the six pillars of the throw work. And again, the results from the camp were really awesome to see. We had some young throwers that felt self-conscious, didn't know how to move, and we taught them how to move through and feel the throw. And by the end of the day, they were moving extremely well. And understanding how they have to train. Big thanks to Coach Robinson and Dallas Jesuit Prep, Efron Alonso, Jamie McGee, James Burke. You guys were awesome. Everybody out there, hopefully you enjoyed the video. Check it out. Welcome to our throwing chain reaction camp. Throwing is definitely a complex sport, OK? But when you start to understand how it works, that complexity becomes very simple. So for a world-class thrower, when they get the discus to hear, and by the time they release the implement, it's about one and a half seconds. For our beginners, maybe at two seconds or just over. The idea with this camp is not just to come and tell you how throwing works, but to come and teach you a way of looking at the throw, an actual system that we say we break down into six pillars so you know how to train position. This is the slingshot effect. If you guys don't know how to do this, this is what your throw looks like when you do it right. See how I have this? Now, here's what a throw with no separation looks like. What we're doing is when I do this, look where my chest and my hips are facing the bleachers. When I turn, so when you guys rotate, don't turn your hips. That's called separation. Brandon Smith, Oxford, Mississippi. Stratton Smith from Oxford. I like the fact you get out, you start doing the things you're talking about as you go. I like the amount of reps we got. Yeah, you've been able to throw. You feel like you got a lot of work in today? Yeah, that's true. He's tired. He goes, I'm thrown out. I'm afraid that happens now. Like, would you recommend the camp to other people? Absolutely. Paul Merrington from Guthrie, Oklahoma. Excellent job. I mean, yeah, very thorough in explanations and took a time on the track. Great. We put it onto the track field. Great. The newest, yeah, it's some of the same things we've taught, but it's addressed in a different language, in a way. And the band telling you, you know, you're thinking about stretching out, but the band is keeping you stretched out as opposed to reaching out to that corner and, you know, we've been taught through the years. And would you recommend the camp to anybody else? Completely. Okay, great. Yeah, that was solid. Long two days. Again, just think about how much time we spent working on positions. This is how you get better. This is one of the reasons why this is a tougher sport. Throwing is technical. It's hard, right? Lots of work. The big thing I want you guys to remember, it takes two seconds. There's just not enough time. You have to learn what to do. You either set things up right or you don't. And it pretty much boils down to that. Set up that chain reaction, things start to fall into place more naturally. That's what we were really trying to get across. That's the whole point of throwing chain reaction. Then you put them together, now everything starts to get a lot better. Give yourselves a quick hand again, because it was a good two days. All right? We're gonna talk about our cues. Cues are super important for a couple of reasons. And at the end of this video, we're gonna have a link where you can get a download sheet on some cues and some of the muscle functions that they create. Now, here's the key thing. What's difficult about coaching throwing is that I can have 10 athletes lined up. One cue will not work for all 10. That's the thing. So one of the things that we're always trying to teach and what we focus on with the throwing chain reaction system is we're breaking down the pillars and we're training those motor patterns. That's the point of the pillars is to be able to teach everybody how to move in those motor patterns. Cues create specific muscle sequencing. So pre-season throws camps are kicking off here in the US. Click the link below for information for this camp and upcoming camps. You're really gonna love the changes, new camp format, really cool. We'll see you there. For example, one of the things we're gonna talk about is that one of the common cues as a throws coach, you wanna make sure that your athletes will land on the ball of the foot in the middle and they're gonna keep rotating around and they're gonna hitch what we call our pillar four, five, six. And so you're gonna be moving into that power position and coming through. Now, one of the things that's gonna be a detriment, of course, we've talked about is if you drop the heel rotational stop, you'll create this lateral shift. The upper body catches up to the lower body and then you're losing that acceleration ability which creates those big distances. Now, one of the common cues is to tell people get your heel up. One of the things is I'll talk about that and we'll go to camps and we'll teach where we want the position of the heel and how we want it to stay up so that we can keep rotating on it and that's correct. One thing we'll say is I'll have some coaches and common things they'll say, you know, I've been explaining this, I've been telling the athlete that same thing and what we're trying to explain in this video is that you're not always explaining the same thing. You can be saying two things that seem very much alike which are gonna create two different muscle actions and those muscle actions are going to create different movement patterns in the throw. So for example, as we're discussing, as I'm coming in and we're teaching athletes how to stay on the ball of their foot. Now this is gonna have to do with angles and high point and all those sorts of things, things that we go in depth on and we teach inside of our throwing chain reaction. The thing that we're trying to do is when we stay on the ball of the foot, the angle matters but what happens is is an overcorrection sometimes and you'll hear a coach say keep your heel up. That is a cue I used to use and what you have to realize is that when you tell an athlete keep the heel up, you're creating planter flexion so you're shortening the calf. A short flex calf isn't gonna load the same as not dropping the heel. So you notice when I say don't drop the heel, I'm gonna load through the hips and the quads more, I'm gonna stay on the ball, I'm gonna keep that calf basically in an eccentric position that's gonna be able to allow the thrower to drive through and you're gonna notice how I'm maintaining contact to the ground creating power and I'm gonna be able to keep that hip ahead of the shoulder through the delivery which is exactly what we're gonna wanna have happen. All cues are absolutely not created equal, it's super important to realize that. What we're gonna do is we have a lot of common cues and so we created a checklist and a link in the description and you can download a five of our most common cues and the muscle sequences and why they're more effective than using common cues which again like in this example is keeping the heel up versus don't letting the heel drop. Two different sequences of muscle activation, therefore you're gonna get two different outcomes and that's one of the reasons why throwing is so difficult. Okay guys, thanks so much for watching and we'll see you on the next video. What are some of the fundamentals that really help the rotational shot? And one of the core things is to understand that of course we have a smaller ring, the ball's sitting on top of us.