You found your person. You are standing in a park with a disc. Now what?
The honest answer is: whatever you want. There is no script. There is no agenda. There is no magic number of throws you need to hit. You just throw, catch, talk, experiment, and let it flow. Forty five minutes later you will have thrown roughly a hundred throws each without ever counting a single one. And you will walk away a noticeably better player than when you arrived.
This chapter walks you through what a real tossing session actually looks like. Not the textbook version. The real version. The version where you goof around, try weird throws, chase down bad ones, laugh at yourself, and somehow get dramatically better in the process.
Start Close and Feel It Out
The first few minutes are about getting loose. Stand maybe 15 to 20 feet apart. Throw some easy backhands. A few gentle flicks. Nothing fancy. Nothing hard. You are just saying hello to the disc again.
This is also when you read the conditions. Is it windy? Which direction? Is the sun going to be in your eyes on the flick side? Is the ground wet? Is there a slope? These things matter and your body needs a minute to adjust to them. A few easy throws in the elements tells your brain what kind of day it is going to be.
Usually within a minute or two you settle into a rhythm. Throw, catch, throw, catch. No drops. Maybe ten in a row. That rhythm is your signal that the warmup is over and the fun is about to start.
Stretch the Distance, Stretch Yourself
What happens naturally is the disc starts to land a little further away. One throw goes a bit long. You walk over to pick it up and now you are a few feet further back. You throw from there. Your partner does the same. Without anyone saying a word, the distance opens up. Twenty feet becomes thirty. Thirty becomes forty.
And as the distance grows, the throws get more interesting. You try a longer flick. An air bounce where you release really low on your backhand and let it skip up to them. A left handed throw just to see what happens. Maybe you try an inside out curve on your flick without throwing it too hard. Just testing. Just experimenting.
Your partner starts doing the same thing. They try a throw they have been working on. It sails a little wide. You jog over and grab it. No big deal. You throw one back that blades into the ground. They laugh. You laugh. You try again.
This is the heart of the session. It is about 50% throwing and 50% running, jumping, and timing your catches. Because when both of you are experimenting and pushing your limits, the throws are not going to be perfect. They are going to fly high, drift wide, come in hot, or float short. And that means you get to practice the most valuable catching skill in the game: adjusting to imperfect throws. You decide in real time whether to back up and let the disc fall in front of you, or run toward it and jump to catch it at the highest point your hand can reach. There is no defender behind you, so you get to make that choice freely and practice both options.
The Pickup: A Skill Nobody Talks About
Here is something you will never find in another Ultimate book. What do you do when you miss?
The disc is on the ground. You walk over to it. Or you sprint over to it. And right there, in that tiny moment, there are a dozen decisions happening. Which hand do you pick it up with? Do you cross your legs over the disc and stoop down, or do you approach it head on? What grip do you use when you grab it? How quickly do you transition from picking it up to throwing it?
Most people never think about this. But in a game, the pickup is chaos. There is a turnover. The disc is on the ground. People are scrambling. You need to grab it, establish a pivot, and find someone to throw to, all in a few seconds. How you pick up the disc and how fast you get it into a throwing grip matters enormously.
So I practice it during tossing sessions. I am constantly changing the variables. Sometimes I hustle over to the disc as fast as I can and throw it immediately with whatever hand I picked it up in, even if it is my left hand, even if I am off balance. That simulates the fast break. Other times I walk casually over, switch to my preferred hand, make sure my grip is right, and take my time. That simulates settling things down after a turnover when you want to control the tempo.
One of my favorite things to do is miss a catch on purpose (or actually miss it), sprint to the disc, grab it, and flick it with my off hand as fast as I can while I am still kind of off balance. It is sloppy. It is wild. And it is exactly what you need to be able to do in a real game when everything is moving fast and you do not have time to set your feet.
Dial In Your Weakest Throw
After about ten or fifteen minutes of mixing everything together, you will start to notice which throw needs the most work. For me, it is almost always my flick. I can feel when it is blading. I can feel when I am not getting enough spin on the inside out release. And because I am in a casual, no pressure environment, I can just decide to focus on it for a while.
So I will throw flick after flick after flick. Fifteen in a row. Twenty. Trying to get the angle right. Trying to feel the snap. Watching where each one lands relative to my partner's chest. And here is where you learn something that only shows up in partner throwing: your distance limits. I can throw a reliable flick at 30 yards. But at 40 yards it falls apart. That is incredibly useful information. That tells me exactly where my comfort zone ends and where I need to push.
You cannot learn that by yourself. You need a person standing out there, giving you a target, showing you with their body language whether that throw was catchable or not. A throw that feels good leaving your hand might land five feet to the right of them. That gap between how it feels and where it lands is the whole reason partner practice exists.
Mix It Up When It Gets Stale
After a stretch of working on one throw, things can start to feel a little repetitive. Flick after flick after flick. That is when you change the vibe completely.
I will throw a thumber. Half the time the other person does not even know what that is. They see the disc come in upside down and spinning sideways and their eyes get wide. "How did you do that?" So I show them the grip. I throw another one. They try it. It goes sideways into the ground. We both crack up. They try again. A little better. And now we are both learning something new and the session has fresh energy.
Hammers and scoobers are the same way. The disc is upside down. It flies differently. It catches differently. And practicing these throws with a partner changes the entire feel of the session because suddenly both of you are slightly out of your comfort zone again. That is a good place to be.
There are actually four different ways to throw a thumber, depending on your grip and release angle. Cycling through all of them is a great way to fill ten minutes and discover throws you did not even know existed. Same with the scoober. Same with the chicken wing. Some of these throws are rare in games. But every one of them builds disc feel and hand strength that transfers to the throws you use every point.
The Long Bombs and the Cool Down
At some point, you both glance at the time. Thirty minutes have gone by. One of you says "How about ten more minutes?" The other says sure. And that is when you widen it out.
Back up to 40 yards. Fifty. As far as you can throw it. This is the part of the session where you air it out. Big hucks. Long floating backhands. Flicks that hang in the sky. The kind of throws where the other person has to run under it, track it, and time their catch.
And this is where trailing edge catches become incredibly fun. The disc sails over your head or past your shoulder. Instead of trying to catch it in front of you, you let it go by, turn, and catch it from behind as it descends. In a game, this is how deep cuts work. The disc goes up and you run under it and grab it out of the air at the last second. With no defender, you can practice the timing and the tracking over and over.
One handed catches at full extension. Jumping at the apex of your reach. Running full speed and snagging the disc at your hip. These are all game skills that you simply cannot practice alone. And at the end of a session when your body is warm and loose and your confidence is high, this is when you can really push them.
Then something natural happens. After a few long bombs, you start to walk closer. Forty yards becomes twenty. Twenty becomes ten. And at ten feet apart you just start ripping quick passes back and forth. Flick, catch, backhand, catch, flick, catch. Rapid fire. And because you just spent 40 minutes throwing at distance, these short passes feel effortless. The disc zips between you so fast it almost feels like a game of hot potato. That contrast, between the long bombs and the rapid fire, shows you exactly how much your hands have loosened up during the session. You are catching faster, releasing quicker, and feeling more fluid than you did 45 minutes ago.
Then you stop. You are done. Everybody feels good.
Throw to Their Limits
Here is where tossing sessions become something deeper than just practice. As you get to know your throwing friends, you start to learn what they can do. How high Nick can jump. How fast Regis can close on a disc to his right. Where their hands can reach at full extension. What kind of throw gives them trouble and what kind they catch clean every time.
And once you know that, you can start throwing to their limits on purpose.
If I know Nick can jump and catch a disc that is about eight feet in the air, I want to throw it right there. Not nine feet, where he cannot get to it. Not six feet, where it is easy. Eight feet. The apex. The exact spot where he has to time his jump perfectly and extend his arm all the way to make the catch. That is how I help him get better. I am throwing to his maximum, forcing him to stretch, to build muscle memory at the edge of his ability.
Same with running. If I know how quick he is, I can throw it a little to his right, just far enough that he has to sprint three steps to get there but close enough that he can actually reach it. I am learning his range the same way a quarterback learns a receiver's speed. And he is doing the same thing to me.
That is chemistry. That is what makes a tossing partner different from a wall or a target. A wall does not have an apex. A target does not have a speed. But a person does. And when you learn their abilities and throw to the edges of those abilities, both of you get better at the same time. You become a more precise thrower. They become a more versatile catcher. And when you end up on the same team at pickup on Sunday, that chemistry translates directly to the field.
Alex, a professor and handler at our DC pickup games, described a similar idea. He said that when he changes his mental frame from "I am practicing my throw" to "I need to get this disc within two feet of this person," his accuracy improves almost immediately. Throwing to a person is fundamentally different from throwing at a spot. Your brain cares more about delivering the disc to someone than hitting an abstract target. Use that.
Ask for What You Need
Do not be afraid to make requests during a session. If you need to practice catching hammers, just say so. "Hey, can you throw me some hammers?" Nobody has ever said no to that. Your partner will throw you five or ten hammers in a row and you get to practice tracking and catching a disc that is upside down and curving. Then they might ask you for something. "Can you throw me some low flicks? I keep missing those." Sure. Now both of you are getting exactly the practice you need, customized in real time, without a coach or a plan.
That is the beauty of a tossing session. It is flexible. It is responsive. It adapts to whatever both of you need on that particular day. Some days you need to work on your flick. Some days your partner needs to practice layouts. Some days you both just want to throw long and see how far you can push it. There is no wrong answer.
There Is No Wrong Way
I want to be clear about something. Everything I just described is how I do it. It is not the only way.
Some people are much more structured. They do more of a Kung Fu Throwing style where they stand at a fixed distance and throw the same throw over and over at a specific target on the other person's body, then switch throws, then switch distances. That is great if you are the kind of person who thrives on repetition and precision. It works. It builds accuracy fast.
Other people are even more casual than I am. They just toss while sitting in lawn chairs and talking. That works too. Any time you have a disc in your hand and another person to throw to, you are getting better.
The point is not to follow a formula. The point is to show up, throw for 30 to 45 minutes, and let the session become whatever it wants to become. Every pair of throwing friends finds their own rhythm. Trust the process and trust the fun.
Wrap Up
◆ Start close and easy. Read the weather. Let your body warm up for a few minutes before you push the distance.
◆ The session has a natural arc: warm up, find your rhythm, experiment, dial in your weakest throw, mix it up, go long, cool down with rapid fire passes.
◆ Treat every ground pickup as a mini drill. Vary the hand, the grip, the speed. The way you pick up a disc is a skill worth practicing.
◆ Focus on your weakest throw when it reveals itself. Learn your distance limits. That is information you can only get from throwing to a real person.
◆ When it gets repetitive, throw something unexpected. A thumber, a blade, a left handed hammer. Novelty reignites focus.
◆ Throw to your partner's limits. Learn their jump, their speed, their range. That chemistry is the same chemistry that wins games on Sunday.
◆ Ask for what you need and give what they ask for. A tossing session adapts to both of you in real time.
◆ There is no wrong way. Structured or casual, sitting or sprinting, silly or serious. Any time a disc is flying between two people, both of them are getting better.
Action Steps
→ This Week: Go throw with someone for 30 to 45 minutes. Do not count throws. Just set a rough time and let it flow.
→ During the Session: Notice which throw gives you the most trouble. Spend five extra minutes on that one.
→ Try This: When the disc hits the ground, sprint to it and throw it immediately with whatever hand picks it up. Practice the fast transition.
→ Try This: End every session with one minute of rapid fire passes at ten feet apart. Feel the difference between how your hands felt at the start and how they feel now.
→ Next Session: Pay attention to your partner's abilities. How high can they jump? How fast can they close to their right? Start throwing to those edges on purpose.
Mentor's Closing
I have read books that tell you to count your throws. Do 50 backhands. Do 50 flicks. Track them on a spreadsheet. And if that works for you, do it. Some people thrive on numbers.
But that has never been how I do it. When I throw with Nick or Regis, I do not count anything. I do not track anything. I just show up with a disc and we throw for 45 minutes and talk about life. And somewhere in those 45 minutes, without anyone counting, the reps pile up. The muscle memory builds. The throws get smoother. The catches get more confident. The chemistry between us deepens.
And then on Sunday morning at Nolte, when the game is tight and I need to put a flick on Nick's chest at 35 yards with a defender in his face, my hand already knows the throw. It has done it a hundred times in the park on a Tuesday afternoon while we were talking about the news. That is the gift of a tossing session. It does not feel like training. It feels like friendship. And somehow, that makes it work even better.
Go throw with somebody. Let it flow. See what happens. :)