12 Legitimate Reasons for Initial Pivot Inversion

The In-version vs. the Out-version of pivoting

[r/ultimate questions and commentary on this article here]

Probably my biggest pet peeve in the game, even bigger and more profound than my disdain at the pervasive epidemic of grotesquely horrible throwing mechanics in the game (left) is the overwhelming propensity that players have for initially pivot away from their team's core and towards the sideline when they first catch the disc. [note: questions and commentary about flawed mechanics here]

My experience is that the outward pivot is so detrimental to a team's success that when I coach, I make the outward pivot a turnover just to enforce the idea that there is a different approach. It's not that one way to pivot is correct and the other one is wrong, but the overwhelmingly lopsided disparity between the usage of the two pivots is a fundamentally flawed imbalance. 99% of players, in 99% of situations, in 99% of games, on 99% of teams pivot to the outside when they catch the disc. No where else in sports do you have this level of lopsidedness, especially in light of the fact that it is far more advantageous to invert the initial pivot as opposed to pivoting outward.

Whether you decide the spread should strategically be a 50/50, 70/30 or 40/60 ratio or whatever, having a 99/1 ratio makes your offense highly predictable (and makes the game boring as crap). Additionally, pivoting inward on the initial pivot is not only superior on a dozen different levels, but it doesn't detract from the downfield play that the outward pivot provides. In other words, not only are there 12 legitimate reasons to invert the initial pivot as opposed to the out-version, but the inversion of the initial pivot doesn't negate the down the line pass and in fact makes it more potent by facilitating superior throwing mechanics, it provides better balance/vision and it neutralizes the marker far better than an outward pivot.

Pivot Inversion means this. There should always be a triangle between the player who threw the disc, the player about to commit an initial pivot and another player on your team. Most of the time, especially as your cuts are to the right or left sideline, this triangle will be back towards the middle of the field, but not always. The inversion should be a pivot that is directed towards the interior of this triangle, not the exterior. However, sometimes, even near the sidelines, a triangle can be constructed where the interior of the triangle is towards the sideline and not towards the center. I realize this is confusing but too many people were assuming that inversion always means pivoting towards the interior and that is incorrect. It's almost always correct, but there are special cases where it is not so I want to make sure I'm not misleading people into a rule for inverting that isn't necessarily true.

Here are those 12 reasons to invert your pivot:

By inverting your initial pivot, you are naturally more balanced (physically). Conversely, the standard or traditional initial pivot leads a player to be leaning out way over their non-pivot foot and be way off balanced (often leading to traveling infractions) By inverting your initial pivot, you have far superior field vision as you are pivoting back into the field rather than away from it. Conversely, the standard or traditional initial pivot gives the player a good view of the out of bounds area. Field Vision is limited to the sideline side of the field, the deep cutter and not much else. The thrower has gone “all in” with regards to putting all his eggs in one basket. By inverting your initial pivot, the marker is forced to ‘lay off’ a bit in order to protect against the quick release back to the thrower and subsequent downfield give-go. Conversely, with the standard or traditional initial pivot, the marker knows that the thrower is committed to the downfield throw and can come up and give a ‘hard’ mark and even commit a foul and have an effect on the throw. By inverting your initial pivot, your throws will be more powerful, more accurate, have more distance, more consistency and accuracy. This is because with an inverted pivot, the body mechanics for the throw are far superior. Conversely, with the standard or traditional initial pivot, because the weight is out way over the non-pivot foot, and the waist is completely opened up before the throw, the body mechanics are compromised. By inverting your initial pivot, the prior thrower is kept as a prime option, thereby maintaining a more balanced attack offensively. Conversely, with the standard or traditional initial pivot, the thrower is generally unavailable as an option for some time, making it a 7 (defenders ) vs. 6 (offenders) game for a bit. The irony here is that in general, the previous thrower is most often the one offensive player who is sure to be open. Don’t be a cocktard. By inverting your initial pivot, all six team mates (including the previous thrower), are all subsequently viable options for the thrower. Even if the throw doesn’t go to any of the interior players, the defenders must honor the possibility that it might and guard against it. Conversely, the standard or traditional initial pivot really only honors the downfield (or “continuation” ) cut so in sum the total defense is not being manipulated or controlled at all. By inverting your initial pivot, the deep defender will be forced to defend both the left and right sides of the endzone (and in fact, deep defenders tend to over-guard the ‘off’ side of the end zone leaving the downfield side of the endzone more open (this may seem counter-intuitive, but I’ve seen this literally hundreds if not thousands of times)). Conversely, the standard or traditional initial pivot sends the message to the deep defender that the throw is most likely going to be down the sideline and therefore they can commit to guarding against that. By inverting your initial pivot, the previous thrower’s defender is forced to cover the backfield or the penetration move tighter than he would like to. Conversely, the standard or traditional initial pivot typically includes the previous thrower “clearing” which allows that defender to ‘multi-task’ during the clear process. By inverting your initial pivot, the receiver requires fewer steps to stop. This is important in the sense that time is of the essence and energy is wasted on offense waiting for the thrower to get set. Inversion is therefore much more efficient than outversion. Conversely, the standard or traditional initial pivot requires more steps to stop. This may sound like an opinion or theory, but again, this has been born out to be true over 10 years of observations. By inverting your initial pivot, you’re in a far better position to penetrate down the sideline after you throw. Conversely, with the standard or traditional initial pivot, in order to have an explosive downfield move, the thrower would have to reset his balance in order to get ‘back onto the starter blocks’. One could argue that the conventional pivot would allow a downfield penetration move, but it simply would not be as explosive as a move where the thrower is coiled and poised to accelerate. By inverting your initial pivot, your team will experience far fewer turnovers. Conversely, the standard or traditional initial pivot leads to more turnovers. When you pivot down the sideline, you are going ‘all in’ with your move. If you have an open receiver you’re in luck, but if you don’t, you’ve given the advantage back to the defense. However, if you have an open receiver, you’d still have that open receiver with an inverted pivot as well and chances are, he’d be even MORE open. By inverting your initial pivot, your team will experience fewer injuries. Conversely, the standard or traditional initial pivot, because you are doing less to manage or manipulate the defenders, you will incur more injuries By inverting your initial pivot, you are NOT eliminating the deep downfield throw from your options. You can throw the same deep throw, to your same deep receiver with more distance, accuracy and power. You are simply inverting the pivot, nothing else is changed. Conversely, the standard or traditional initial pivot does not include the 12 advantages and benefits above.

In summary, initial pivot inversion promotes better teamwork, superior body mechanics and far better balance (on all levels). This is not an opinion, it is a simple fact.

The ‘In’ version of the initial pivot not only has at least 12 distinct advantages vs. the conventional initial pivot, it also does NOT take away the downfield option!!