Kevin from Jacksonville, Florida writes in regarding our most recent issue on catching:

Granted, pretty much everyone understands the value in stretching out with the claw grab, but I think what often gets missed are the more intrinsic values in the grab. For one, to get the D, in addition to having to extend that much further, the defender pretty much has to go through your hands to get the disc. It takes a pretty spectacular play to get that little piece of the disc that is available without getting the receiver’s hand.

The other element that I think doesn’t get touched on nearly enough is how little the pancake grab translates to other catching elements, while the claw works for everything. Layout grabs? Almost always a claw grab. Personally, I’m not gutsy enough to try a pancake-layout grab. Skies? One handed claw grab. Low shoestring catches are the claw. Attacking a hammer instead of a basket (which is usually necessary unless the defense gives it to you) is a claw grab. So the more practice you get, the more muscle memory you get, and the faster you can get your reaction speed on your hands closing, the more it improves your all around catching ability, as opposed to practicing a pancake which really builds up one, very specific skill.

I had the blessing (or curse) of playing offense with Timmy Halt on Machine. He can throw a flick faster than anyone I’ve ever seen, and at first it caused a great deal of drops for me. The thing would come in so hard and fast that my hands literally could not close fast enough to hold on to it. Eventually, I was able to start catching his bullets, and I think it came from three basic areas.

1, Asking anyone and everyone to throw hard at me, especially on in-cuts. Disc traveling fast, plus Kebo traveling fast in the opposite direction combines for a high speed at the catching point.

2. I started carrying a disc everywhere. I have a disc in every room of the house, in the car, and at work. And any time I have down time, I do little wrist-tosses to myself, switching hands. Eventually I got to where I’m not even really looking directly at the disc, and it gets the hands used to the idea of closing the instant the disc hits.

3. Lifting weights. Doing arm and chest exercises while focusing on grip really helps build hand and forearm strength. That strength translates into grip on the disc, tight grip means less drops. A lot of players do the lifting, but not nearly as many focus on gripping properly and tightly, and so miss out on a valuable element of the exercise.

We would like to thank Kevin for his first-class, thoughtful response to our most recent issue. While we may not have typical comments for our magazine or this weblog, we do appreciate any and all feedback and responses from our readers. These sorts of responses raise the level of discussion, and we encourage everyone to participate.