Flag Help

[naty9423]

It's going to be my second year and I cant for the life of me figure out how to do a parallel or a double, but I almost have the double. I just need a few tips.

[twinmomma]

With a parallel, the key is to pull it all up from your stomach. Start with the flag behind your back, flat, right hand at the silk. Use your wrist to rotate the flag to the front and your hand should be right about chest level. As you continue to rotate the flag around and up, your hand at the silk should pass DIRECTLY in front of your nose (of course, don't release until you've cleared your head). The key is to think about your hand taking that path up the center of your body.

You can't work on a double if your technique on a single isn't clean. The key is to make sure you're not releasing before your hand turns over. The release should happen as your (for a right handed toss) hand rotates from palm up to palm open and facing front. A double is just more power, a stronger, higher release point. A single should release about shoulder level, a double at the top of your head.

[ErinF]

If you already have release and lift you just cant get it flat, a good thing to do is to put a chair right in the front of you (with the back of the chair closest to your belly), about a foot or 2 away. When you release, you wont be able to dip down so it will keep your pathway flat. Thats the key. I've used chairs, or even garbage cans during practice when i have a girl who cant keep her toss flat. One girl had to practice with a garbage can for 3 days during colorguard camp until keeping it flat turned into a habbit for her lol.

[oreocookis]

Does having a weighted flag help with this toss and would you just weight the tip? I have done it with the small 5ft poles, but never with the 6ft, mainly because Im afraid Im going to hit my face lol.

[ErinF]

I always weight both tips of my flag. Its just how ive always done it and have never had any problems tossing any sort of horizontal. Ive done them from the behind the back, behind the neck, and horizontals that come from all different directions during a sequence of work. Ive tossed with a little 5ft footer in jr high and it was fine. Ive also tossed with a 6ft pole. I hate 6ft poles no matter what im tossing, but it works the same way as long as you have propper technique. However, ive never tossed with only one side being weighted on a pole. I dont like the feel of it or the look of the rotation. Thats just my preference.

[tooweird]

I always weight both tips of my flag. Its just how ive always done it and have never had any problems tossing any sort of horizontal. Ive done them from the behind the back, behind the neck, and horizontals that come from all different directions during a sequence of work. Ive tossed with a little 5ft footer in jr high and it was fine. Ive also tossed with a 6ft pole. I hate 6ft poles no matter what im tossing, but it works the same way as long as you have propper technique. However, ive never tossed with only one side being weighted on a pole. I dont like the feel of it or the look of the rotation. Thats just my preference.

i toss with one side weighted. i might put two just to see how it works for me . going into year two as instructor. lots of work ahead. there's going to be a lot fo changes!

[twinmomma]

Depends...in a fiberglass pole I never used weights. But with an aluminum I only ever weighted one end.

[oreocookis]

so what was the standard size weight used? I forget ... I also had problems when I did get some bolts and tried taping them so they would not fly off, but I guess I taped too much because I had a really hard time putting the cap back on.

[mariahorn]

We use carriage screws (I think it's a two inch by something one). Pull the cap off, put the screw in, put the cap on, and use electrical tape twice around the tip onto the pole to keep it from flying off. We only weight the top (flag), and we are using 5' poles. I found that if we don't put a weight in it is very hard if not impossible to do a double toss if you're using the nylon practice flags. Doubles are doable with lame (pronounced lamaye, not lame like all my kids think) without a weight, but much easier with one, and again we still only weight one side.

[GuarDiva04]

As far as weights go. i think on 6 foot aluminum poles it's best to weight both ends because with something that large the even weight really helps. I've always weighted both ends even on 5 and 5.5 foot poles.. It might be personal preference but I think it's helped.

As far as getting a standard double out, to help would DEF be following through with your push hand and really thinking about the 3 step release process.. push lift release. Push hard lift quickly and release with your fingers straight to the sky. You'll be tossing them beautifully in no time!