Every throws circle in the country has heard some version of these four cues this week. A coach stands at the edge of the ring, watches something break down, and calls out a fix. The athlete tries to obey. The problem doesn’t go away — it just moves, or it comes back next throw wearing a different mask.
That’s because most common coaching cues describe the effect. They tell the athlete what’s going wrong, not what’s causing it to go wrong. And correcting an effect without finding its cause is like trying to catch your own shadow — you can chase it all day, adjust your speed, change direction, and it stays exactly one step ahead, because the thing casting it never moved.
Causes happen early. Effects show up late. If a coach only has eyes for the moment things fall apart, they’ll never see the moment things were actually decided. This week, four videos go up at Second Eye Consulting, each one taking a cue you’ve heard a hundred times, tracing it back to where the real problem starts, and giving you the language to fix the cause — not just describe the symptom.
Four videos go up this week, Monday through Saturday. Here’s what’s coming:
• “Keep your right foot turning”
• “You’re not keeping the disc back”
• “You’re scooping the disc”
• “You’re pulling your head away at the finish”
- “Keep your right foot turning” / “You’re stopping your right foot”
Same problem, two different sentences — and neither one tells the athlete why the foot stopped. Telling a thrower to keep turning a foot that has already stopped is asking them to fix a result with more of the same effort that failed the first time.
The right foot stops because something upstream lost its sequence — usually a breakdown in how the lower body is loading and transferring rotation before the foot ever gets there. Yelling “keep turning” at the foot is coaching the last domino, not the first one.
This video walks through where that chain actually starts, and gives you a cue that speaks to the cause instead of narrating the collapse. - “You’re not keeping the disc back” / “It’s catching up with your hip — there’s no separation”
This is the classic sighting of a separation problem, but separation doesn’t get lost at the moment you see it disappear. It gets lost earlier — often all the way back in the wind, before the athlete ever enters the power position.
Telling an athlete to “keep the disc back” targets their arm and hand in the exact window where it’s already too late to do anything about it. This video identifies where separation is actually created, so the cue you give addresses the source instead of policing the symptom in real time. - “You’re scooping the disc”
Scooping is one of the most misdiagnosed effects in the throws. Coaches see the implement dip and rise and assume it’s an arm problem, a wrist problem, or a timing problem in the release. Sometimes it’s none of those.
This video traces scooping back to its actual origin points — because scooping is a result, not a cause, and there’s more than one path that can produce it. You have to source which one you’re looking at before you can correct it. Guess wrong, and the cue you give will “fix” the look of the throw while leaving the real fault untouched. - “You’re pulling your head away at the finish”
By the time a coach sees the head pull off-line at the finish, the problem is already several steps in the rearview mirror. The head doesn’t cause the pull — it’s usually the last visible symptom of something that broke down much earlier in the throw, and correcting it as a head issue almost always just creates a new compensation somewhere else.
This video shows you where to actually look, and what to say instead, so the cue meets the athlete where the fault begins instead of where it finally becomes visible.
Why this matters: every one of these cues is common because every one of these effects is common. But common doesn’t mean correct. If you’re only coaching what you can see in the moment it breaks down, you’re always going to be one step behind your athlete — chasing a shadow that was cast long before you noticed it. This week, all four videos go up at Second Eye Consulting to help you find where the fault actually starts, so the next time it shows up, you already know exactly what to say.
New videos post Monday through Saturday this week. Follow along on [YouTube] and [Instagram], and check back here for the full breakdowns.
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