The Intentional Disc Golfer
Unleash your disc golf potential with The Intentional Disc Golfer podcast! Join us as we dive deep into the physical and mental aspects of this incredible sport, helping you become the player you've always dreamed of being. We're here to elevate your game, share expert insights, and inspire intentional growth on and off the course. Support our mission by becoming a part of our avid listener community. Together, let's take your disc golf journey to new heights! Email us at theintentionaldiscgolfer@gmail.com to support or be featured on our show. Let's tee off towards greatness!
The Intentional Disc Golfer
When He Throws, It Allows Us To Dream; With Scott Stokely
What if you could transform your life and community through a sport that’s both adaptable and inclusive? Join us on the Intentional Disc Golfer Podcast as we chat with the legendary Scott Stokely. Scott isn’t just a renowned figure in the world of disc golf; he's a testament to the sport's power to build bridges and foster growth. His journey, from the early days of disc golf to becoming an influential player and mentor, offers valuable insights into the evolution of the game. Through his stories, you'll discover the profound impact of disc golf on personal and communal development, underscoring its ability to unite people from various backgrounds.
This episode goes beyond the technicalities of disc golf, exploring how shared hobbies can enhance personal relationships and promote self-improvement. We delve into the role of sports in children's lives and the balancing act parents must perform to support their kids’ emotional investment while keeping outcomes in perspective. We also reflect on the transformative potential of disc golf, especially for families with special needs, offering a sport that adapts to individual abilities and fosters an inclusive environment. Our conversations are enriched with personal anecdotes and stories that reveal how disc golf can be a source of peace, purpose, and joy for individuals of all abilities.
Explore the intricacies of disc golf mechanics and the importance of practice and repetition. Learn how advancements in technology have changed the game and how teaching and sharing these insights can elevate the disc golf community. Discover Scott Stokely’s ventures into disc manufacturing, with his unique approach to combining passion with business, and hear about the exciting developments in disc designs. Whether you're a seasoned player or new to the sport, this episode promises to inspire and encourage you to embrace the vibrant and supportive community of disc golf.
Disc Golf Changes Lives <3
To support this podcast or arrange for an interview please contact us at theintentionaldiscgolfer@gmail.com
Welcome to the Intentional Disc Golfer Podcast, the show dedicated to helping you elevate your disc golf game with purpose and strategy. Whether you're stepping up to the tee for the first time or you're a seasoned pro chasing that perfect round, this podcast is your guide to playing smarter, training better and building confidence on the course. We are, brandon and Jenny Saprinsky, passionate disc golfers, here to explore everything from technique, course management, mental focus and gear selection. Grab your favorite disc, settle in and let's take your game to the next level. Intentionally.
Speaker 3:And thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Intentional Disc Golfer. We have a very special, awesome episode for you. But first I am one of your hosts. My name is Brandon.
Speaker 1:And I'm Jenny.
Speaker 3:So, first of all, we would like to thank all of our fans and our supporters over the years for sticking with us. We really do appreciate it. Like to thank all of our fans and our supporters, uh, over the years, for sticking with us. We really do appreciate it, and if you would like to become a fan or a supporter of the show, please hit that like, subscribe, follow button. You can find us on facebook and instagram. A little bit of a change here.
Speaker 3:We are at the intentional disc golfer. You can just search the Intentional Disc Golfer and it should pop right up. And on X and YouTube we are at the IDG Podcast. That is the symbol at the IDG Podcast. We also have an email if you want to get a hold of us directly Theintentionaldiscgolfer at gmailcom. That is theintentionaldiscgolfer at gmailcom. And you can support our show on Patreon, because you're the ones that make this all possible. It is Patreoncom backslash TheIntentionalDiscGulfer, patreoncom backslash TheIntentionalDiscGulfer. And don't forget to join us at the end of this episode. After the outro music, we do have a blooper reel and, uh, some outtakes and that's been pretty successful so far, getting a lot of uh, really funny compliments on that uh, we created a facebook group.
Speaker 1:You can join our group at the intentional disc golfer podcast on facebook to get the latest updates from us, and you can still find us at saprinski disc golf. That is c-z-u-p-r-y-n-s-k-i-d-i-s-c-g-o-l-f.
Speaker 3:On facebook and instagram I don't think I could spell that. If I tried, that was really good. You must be a teacher. I teach math, you teach math.
Speaker 1:I don't do words, I do numbers and letters.
Speaker 3:I do letters, though, so that's why I can spell Algebra, I suppose. Yeah, all right, jenny. Well, we have some upcoming events and whatnot, so take it away.
Speaker 1:All right. So we have, on February 8th, the 2025 NADGTC time at Fort Steilacoom. There's still lots of places open, lots of spaces open. Please sign up and support matt for all the hard work he does. Uh, there is the evacuation route on february 15th in sumner. We're both signed up for that and also still a lot of spots available. And then we have team golf again on the 23rd, and that one is at White River. Yeah, white River.
Speaker 3:Shout out to Team Grit City tearing it up out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm still at 100%.
Speaker 3:Woo-hoo, yeah, we'll see All right. So, like I said, we have a very special episode for you this time, and I would like to start off like this, and I quote he can do things with the disc that nobody in the world has ever been able to do. When he throws, it allows the rest of us to dream. I'd like to introduce to you one of the best to ever play the sport. Sir, go ahead and take it away.
Speaker 4:Well, I love the introduction. Apparently, you read my book, my autobiography.
Speaker 3:I am 95% of the way through it.
Speaker 4:Okay, oh, my God. Well, you're going to hate the ending. I don't want to spoil it, but I die.
Speaker 1:Stop reading now. You die at the end yeah yeah, I do, I do so
Speaker 4:all right, uh, no. So, by the way, the autobiography is called scott stokely growing up. This all fit there, but amazon and audible it's um, I'm very proud of it. It's. It's my first 25 years in the sport. Uh, it's actually, uh.
Speaker 4:So I, I played my first round of frisbee golf, what it was called back then. I played my first round of frisbee golf on the world's first permanent frisbee golf course, when it was the only course in the entire world. So I actually started it at zero. So my first 25 years of life, which kind of started at age seven I don't remember age six basically I chronicled, which it paralleled the first 25 years of the sport of disc golf. So it's my autobiography, but it also is basically the history of the first 25 years of disc golf through my eyes. So it's not names and dates. It's not one of those like boring history classes that you might get in high school. It's one of those history classes where you have that cool history teacher that actually makes it interesting. Well, that's what I tried to do. It's my story, but it's the story of disc golf. Anyways, thank you for the opportunity to block that wonderful segue. No, so you want me to give me a quick, or would you like me to do a quick introduction about me?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, Just tell our listeners who you are and what you've done.
Speaker 4:Well, I'll give the 50 cent cent version. I kind of already started with the when I was a kid, but basically I've been playing disc golf for the whole history of the sport, minus a 13 year gap where I took a break from the sport to raise my kid. But other than that, I my life has revolved around this game. I'm in the 90s. I I toured for years. I was the seventh player to actually play disc golf for a living. Uh, six players did it before me. I was number seven in that lineage. Um, I set the guinness world record for the longest throw of a disc backhand and then I broke my record, my world distance record backhand and that was in 1995 and 1998. And then in 2000, I set the world sidearm distance record. So I've had both the backhand and sidearm distance record. And then I took 13 years off and my life was really exciting for a while. It went very badly at the end of that 13 yearyear period and basically disc golf. Coming back to disc golf in 2014 saved my life and I've been out basically doing disc golf again since then. I've been traveling around playing in tournaments and teaching special needs disc golf. I've gone to 290 cities where I've taught a free disc golf class for kids and adults with special needs Huge passion of mine.
Speaker 4:I in 2022, decided that I was going to rejoin the Disc Golf Pro Tour at 52 years old and see what I had left in the tank because I had been gone for so long. And it turns out that at 52 years old, I was a pretty mediocre golfer on the Disc Golf Pro Tour. I was fairly middle of the pack. I cashed in about half the events, but I'm actually extremely proud of it because at 52 years old, I was an average touring pro and I think an average touring pro at 52 years old pretty neat. That's what I've been doing.
Speaker 4:And then in the past three years, I've also discovered a huge passion for disc golf teaching disc golf. Not teaching, but trying to grow disc golf around the world. I've now been. We are at this moment in our 39th country um, which is vietnam. I've taught disc golf in 26 different countries um. Do I know 27? 20, I think it's 27 different countries I've taught disc golf. And my 28th country teaching disc golf will be in about an hour in Vietnam. So I've actually taught disc golf in 28 different countries. To say the words out loud just seems absurd to me. It's crazy, that's amazing. But my passion for growing disc golf around the world is absolutely superseded my passion for competing. Um, I love to compete. In fact, I just won the mpo division southeast asian disc golf championships two weeks ago. So I'm still playing at a pretty decent level, but I'm far more interested in growing the sport globally than than anything else.
Speaker 3:Um, in my attempt to do that, by chance, scott, are you going to be uh, heading up here to the cascade challenge?
Speaker 4:No, um, I am going to be in Oregon and Washington and I'll be announcing this really soon running some seminars out there.
Speaker 2:Um, but I don't.
Speaker 4:I haven't set. I haven't set the dates yet. I hope you all come and hope you can give it a shout out on the show. I teach full day seminars. I've done several hundred of these around the country, some of them around the world, mostly in the US, though it's a full day disc golf seminar. We start at nine in the morning. We we finish around 6 o'clock at night. It's scheduled to end at 5. We always run late and basically you show up At the end of the day you're sore and you're significantly better at disc golf than you were when you got there, because we make all the mechanics work for you.
Speaker 3:Well, we will be there and we will definitely plug it on the show. For sure, We'll bring all our friends too.
Speaker 2:I would love that.
Speaker 4:So yeah, so yeah. Well, the seminars are. I do two things. I do clinics and seminars. The clinics are two hours long. It's open to as many people as want to show up. I typically charge $25 for adults, $5 for juniors, charge $25 for adults, $5 for juniors and anybody with a family member with special needs or anybody who works in the special needs community. It's free. The clinics, the seminars, are limited to six players, a lot more expensive, but it's six hours intense session. So those are two different things the clinics and seminars I'll be doing both Excellent.
Speaker 3:Well, count us in, we'll be there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I just wanted to share with education wise.
Speaker 1:So I'm a teacher by trade and one of the things that I've been noticing since I've taken on disc golf is when I have a kid who's dysregulated or they're, you know, really upset, frustrated or they need to get their wiggles out, one of the best things I can do is take them outside and let them throw a few discs at a basket and that just helps the kids to kind of breathe, regulate and you know, disc golf does a lot more for us than I think we realize.
Speaker 4:You know it's true, and I will give the nod to ball golf traditional golf in this, because they figured this out about ball golf a long time ago. The difference is that most people can't afford to ball golf, and certainly not every day.
Speaker 4:But from a psychological perspective it has basically all the same elements that every skill you need in life, like emotional skill you need in life you can hone in and improve on the disc golf course. So you know dealing with frustration and being patient and you know dedication, discipline, like everything. Everything translates from the disc golf course to the real world. So I think disc golf is or just say golf in general is a fantastic tool for adults and kids to do life better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you said it really well when you said that you, you know, went through some things and coming back to it really well, when you said that you, you know, went through some things and coming back to it, really, you know it, it saved your life and you know, we've uh, one thing that we've talked about is that, um, both of us playing disc golf together has actually strengthened our marriage and it's actually strengthened our family, because we all play, so we're all able to go out there and learn those skills together and and if you've never been on a course Scott with your wife and five kids, let me tell you it's a treat.
Speaker 4:That's amazing and, by the way, I would make the case that disc golf doesn't strengthen a marriage. Disc golf will magnify your marriage, because if you're having problems with your marriage, it's probably going to make things worse.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, they all come out. It's going to pretty much.
Speaker 4:I say that it's probably not true. It probably isn't actually I mean I'm half joking because it probably helps to have a shared hobby and shared interest and something you enjoy together. So I'm sure that it could help a struggling marriage also. But there are also, I know, couples that you know they can't play on the same card.
Speaker 1:There are days. There are days.
Speaker 2:That's for sure there are days.
Speaker 4:There are days, that's for sure. You probably have a good marriage if it's strengthened it, though, so that's that's good to hear absolutely well, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you for that, scott. No, and you're absolutely right, I think it, I think you're. You're speaking some truth when you say that it magnifies what already exists.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and it also brings out character who you are. Who are you? It's probably going to surface. You can only keep the demon down for so long. You're going to find out who you are when you play, but that's not a bad thing.
Speaker 2:I have lots of.
Speaker 4:In fact, I'm actually talking to someone. You're going to find out who you are when you play, but that's not a bad thing. I have lots of friends. I'm actually talking to someone right now. I won't name names. It was someone I met on the Disc Golf Pro Tour. It was one of the only times I had a bad interaction with someone when I first met them and they apologized afterwards for it. They got huffy over something and they apologized for it and I'm like I don't have a friend who doesn't have flaws Like I'm like why? Like I'm not, I'm not bothered by the fact that that you had a bad moment. That happened to be the day we met, I mean, so what? We all have bad moments. So you know, I don't mind those flaws surfacing.
Speaker 3:It's just, we're human and that's something while reading your book that I was able to relate to is because this last year I started off the season real tough and I generally did not like who I was becoming and I think that some of my colleagues in the sport were a little bit cautious of me as well, because you know you expect to do so much better and when you don't you it's really frustrating and sometimes you know I'm a very intense guy and I wear that type of stuff on my sleeve. And can you speak to that a little bit, Because I was able to relate to that in your book a lot.
Speaker 4:Yeah Well, so this is more just about life in general. One of the things that I do share a lot in social media I try to impart we'll call it wisdom, life wisdom. We'll call it wisdom, life wisdom and the reason why I feel qualified to do so is that I am extremely happy Now. My life is going extremely well. I'm happy, I'm at peace, but I'm also successful. My business is going well. But I haven't had a life that's been easy. I've had ups and downs.
Speaker 4:So you know, earlier in my life I wasn't qualified to talk about these things because I wasn't doing them as well. But now that I'm doing them well, I love to share, and so I think that when things come out like I think you should always be endlessly trying to evolve as a person, like, unless you're perfect, then there's things you can improve upon. In fact, one of the things I tell people when asked is one of the biggest red flags when you start dating someone is if they say anything similar to well, this is how I am. Like you run Like. You should never say this is how I am. You should always you know, because that's always referring to something negative, some bad part of you Well, this is how I am. You should always, you know, cause that's always referring to something negative, some bad part of you. Well, this is how I am. Like, no, you should always be trying to improve those parts.
Speaker 4:Now, whether you succeed at it, that's a different story. Like, let's say, you have a little bit of a temper. No, let me have a little bit of a temper that you're trying to get ahold of. Well, it might be 40 years later and you still have a temper. It doesn't mean we're not human, it doesn't mean everything's solvable, but you should have spent the 40 years going damn, I shouldn't have blown up. I need to do better next time. You should always be trying to improve. The minute you go, hey, I have a temper, that's just me, like you know, go away, I don't want. I don't want to be around that person. So you always want to try to improve those things. And so if they, if they come to the circus on the disc golf course, then great, it's like, um, it's symptoms of a disease that you can now start to treat, because you, you see the symptoms, right that's well said.
Speaker 4:That's very insightful yeah, I appreciate that. I that I was wondering I was going. I got a little off track from disc golf for a minute there, but I think it's important.
Speaker 1:That's the thing with disc golf is that you know, we found that it really does relate a lot and it's changed who we are and we want to be better people because of it and share our love of the sport and the community. And you know, that's why disc golf seems so different from any other sport or any other community thing that we've done in the past well, because disc golf is so brainy and psychological and and emotional at the same time.
Speaker 3:I really think that it it brings out everything that's inside of you, the worst of you and the best of you.
Speaker 4:Well for sure, well, no, definitely. I think it's even something I mean. What did I mean? Just?
Speaker 4:sports in general is such a great thing for kids, but it can be a challenge as a parent, cause I'll I always think when it comes to your kids sports you have to hold two separate things in your mind. When your kids play sports, you have to know that how they perform is complete, like it's it's so irrelevant, like how your kid does in a high school. Sport is so not like it's the least important thing in the entire world. But you can't ever let the kid know that because there's so many lessons they're learning, such as caring about your team and when things aren't, when you succeed, working harder to fix it, and accountability and and dedication. There's so many things that you only learn because you feel that this sport is important to you.
Speaker 4:Like little league baseball, like that's. That should be irrelevant to your parent, to a parent how well, but your kids little league team performs, but you don't want the kid out there not caring how the team performs. The kid should live and die with every game. Like that should be the most important thing in their life and we should convey that as parents to the kids, how important that sport is to them, while simultaneously going it's not early, but I can't let them know. So I think that that's a challenge when you know as it applies to disc golf, which is, you know, yeah, it doesn't matter if your kids throw a bad shot or a good shot, as parents, we don't care but at the same time, you want them to care because those are the life skills that they're developing. It's a challenge.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and then to multiply it times five.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really hard. One of the things, um, I played bowling in high school, so I didn't take it very seriously. One of the things that I love about disc golf is that I was able to pick it up at the age of 35 or whatever age I started, and I'm, you know we have a lot of friends that are older and this is a sport that I can play now.
Speaker 1:I can play with my kids, I can play with my friends and we all get to go out there have some fresh air, but I can start this sport at the age of 30, like it's. It's not something that I necessarily needed to train for back when I was a kid, so it's. You know, it's great to have a sport that you can get into. Now, when you're older and you have that perspective of man, I can learn all this stuff and I can choose to do it when my parents aren't necessarily like maybe forcing me or anything along those lines to do those sports. Scott don't.
Speaker 3:Don't let her blow. Don't let her blow smoke at you. She's a shredder out there on the course, don't let her blow smoke at you.
Speaker 1:She's a shredder out there on the course.
Speaker 4:Well, I'm happy to hear that and a pat on the top of your head for being a good husband. So no, but you're right. I mean the thing is that golf is such an internal thing, like again, I say disc golf, but disc golf in general, which is you set your own goals. You know you're trying to improve upon your score, your game, your average, your rating, your success, and you can exist in whatever size bubble that is. So you can be playing FA two, or you know, be playing FA two, or you know you can be playing, you know, fm two, right Like, and that's that's your butt.
Speaker 4:You started at 43 years old, like you're never going to be on the disc golf pro tour, but you have your subcategory that you can compete in and you still have things to achieve in that. Whatever size group that is, it doesn't have to be global, it can be, you know, like talking about bowling Well, being successful at your Tuesday night league can mean as much to you as a professional bowler cares about being, you know, a world-class bowler. You're still goal-setting, your goals based on your world, and, yeah, I mean you get to set your own rules. It's great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's awesome. So, going through your book here, a little bit tell me about the Gophers.
Speaker 4:So the Gophers is basically the world's first Frisbee golf club and it was Frisbee golf until 1983. There's still a sign at Oak Grove Park that says Frisbee golf, with the rules on it. I think it's on my Facebook page somewhere, but the Oak Grove Gophers were the first club. So basically what happened is my dad died when I was seven years old and I would get my mom, would take me to all the different local parks in the area and one of them had a frisbee golf course, one of them had a merry-go-round, one of them had a swing set. So you know, as a little kid, parks have different games in them, and this was you. This was the game that Oak Grove Park had was frisbee golf. So I certainly didn't take it serious, but I'd love to play.
Speaker 4:When I went to that park when I was 11, I moved just a couple hundred yards from the park. No-transcript. You know it was the rich part of town, one of the rich suburbs of Los Angeles, and the Oak Grove Disc Golf Course technically wasn't in La Cunada. It was across the street from La Cunada High School, but on the other side of the street was Pasadena, which is where the park was located, but for all intents and purposes, it was La Cunada. I moved to La Cunada when I was 11 years old, from a very blue-collar part of town. I didn't grow up, you know, when I was younger, wealthy, my mom was in real estate, which made she was able to create a situation where she could get me into La Cunada, get me into the La Cunada schools, but I was probably the poorest kid in La Cunada. Now, into La Cunada, get me into the La Cunada schools, but I was probably the poorest kid in La Cunada. Now, this is not real world. Poor, I mean this is. You know, we were middle class, so certainly weren't struggling, but as an 11 year old, I thought we were living in abject poverty because every kid had a nicer bike, every kid had nicer clothing, every kid had nicer toys. Like you name it, like I was, I was an outcast in this town because I was middle class.
Speaker 4:I didn't fit in oak grove park because it was out in pasadena. Nobody from la quinhada, or not nobody, but very few people from la quinhada went to oak grove park. It was, uh, the people from pasadena, and it was extremely blue collar, and that is when those people were working, which often they weren't, they would just be in the park drinking beer and hanging out in the park and I fit in so much better with that group of people than the people of La Cunada, to a point where I basically didn't have any friends in La Cunada my own age. Instead, I would go to the park every day, disc golf with all these grown men who were the people that I fit in with, and that was the Oak Grove Gophers.
Speaker 4:Now, there were some women in the club and not everybody was partying Most of them were, but there were a couple that weren't. But that club, that club adopted me, adopted me. See, this is at a time if you're younger, you're going to cringe when I say this, but this is the early 80s. There was a time when you could be taken under, you know. Basically, you know, grown men would look out for me, they would take me to tournaments, they would, you know, spend time with me, take me under their wing, and it wasn't considered creepy or weird, it was considered like an admirable thing, like it yeah, that's just a generation ago, man yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, back then the grown man would see if they saw a young boy and said, oh well, you know that's not good to be a lonely young boy. Let me, let me, let me be an adult male figure in your life. You know people are scared to death of that in 2025. But back then it was. You know that meant you were being a good person back then.
Speaker 3:I feel like that mentorship aspect is really something that's missing from the world today.
Speaker 4:Oh my God, oh, I guess guess funny story. I won't name names, but I was basically talking about how much things have changed to a friend of mine who's older than me and he said, because, oh my god, he says he goes, I like camping. He says I have a friend and I didn't camp, but whose son wanted to camp, so I took my friend's son camping with me. You know, he's like 10 years old and we're sleeping in the same tent together, me and this 10 year old boy, child of a friend. He says if you. He says I would never do that today. But back then it wasn't weird, it was like oh, I like camping. Well, let me show your kid what camping is it? You know like how much it changed anyways point is, it wasn't weird back then it wasn't weird.
Speaker 4:It was like oh, I like camping. Well, let me show your kid what camping is Like. How much did it change? Anyways, the point is it wasn't weird back then. All these grown men adopted me. They were looking out for me and they basically raised me. I mean, most of the stuff I learned in life. You know, I got from the club.
Speaker 3:Basically, they all became my dad in a way yeah, you, uh, you definitely speak to your fondness of those people. Uh, throughout the book, um, I I can't I'm not very good with names and whatnot, but uh, a lot of fond memories and and I can't help but say, like one of my favorite parts of it was uh, when you keep interjecting and go well, this is why you should go on tour, kids yeah, I know I actually I put those in there to piss off parents.
Speaker 4:well, I, it's just one. It's just one of those things where I'm like why don't you tell my kid to go on tour? This is going to be on tour. But it's like look, I'm not and we're not talking. I'm not political at all, I'm not talking politics. I'm saying as a person. I am not a very conservative person. I'm a pretty open-minded, fairly libertarian type of individual who thinks you're supposed to go out and have fun in the world and, um, you know, I don't really look down on anything that that isn't harming other people, and so, um, there's a lot of stuff out there that is in the real world, that is a lot of fun, and so I think it's kind of you know again, just kind of messing with the parents a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I. I do follow you on Facebook and I enjoy seeing a lot of your posts, as you're traveling around and finding those little quirky places and taking pictures of them. It makes me smile. So keep doing that, finding that fun out there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, I thought now I do separate that though. So most of this. I have a page, my Facebook page, called Stokely's Longest Drive, which is the non-disc golf stuff, and I'm a little more free there, because on the disc golf page I am, you know, I started a disc company, I teach classes, I'm building a brand, I teach special needs kids, so I tend to be a bit more reserved on my disc golf pages.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:But if you want to know a little bit more about you know kind of how I live my life, it's there.
Speaker 4:You know, it's a real funny thing. That's happened, though, which is I've gotten I've actually you know, I said I'm teasing the parents a little bit but I've had a lot of parents who said that they finished the book and they gave it to their kid and they like the fact that there's some really good life lessons, but it's not coming from someone who's boring and reserved. It's kind of like look, you can have an interesting fun, not boring life. I keep wanting to say not conservative, but I don't want to confuse political like a lot of political and you know not politics. I mean in the non-political term, that you can have a kind of exciting life and then also still be a good person.
Speaker 3:I think what you're speaking to is modesty, follow some rules. There's modest people out there that aren't as colorful and outspoken as maybe you are.
Speaker 4:Well, I think I said this and I almost say, say this joking, but it's it's kind of not joking, it's it's like boy, this is gonna get. Please don't clip this and put it as a soundbite on the internet. But it's almost like if you've never been arrested, if you've never been arrested, if you've never been arrested as a teenager, like, come on, like you're supposed, you're supposed to be pushing your limits and getting in trouble, like that's part of like what growing up is and like I, like I've my. I never had a problem with my, my kids. I don't think that my kid got into trouble enough yeah, I've had that conversation at work too.
Speaker 1:I know our kids never.
Speaker 3:Well, except for the one, our kids never get into trouble. They're always just sitting on their video games and doing whatever, and it drives me nuts.
Speaker 1:Well, in education, a lot of the people who end up working with the kids are the ones who have done those things, had those experiences, because we see how important it was to have that role model in our lives that helped us through those things.
Speaker 2:So guaranteed a lot of the teachers do that.
Speaker 4:I'll give you a better example. Example, because that whole arresting, that might don't take that one literally, but but you never want to see your like. No one wants to see their kid get hurt, ever exactly. But if your kid is 20 years old and they have no scars, what? What the hell like, like how you not you're supposed to have scars, like that is yeah, you have to have some battle scars.
Speaker 2:You know chick steak scars.
Speaker 4:I believe that. Wholeheartedly no it's true, right, so it's um, yeah, like I don't. I try to. I try to, like, try to find a balance between those two things in the book, which is I do want to teach good lessons, I do want to be a good role model, but being a good role model doesn't mean being boring.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I told Jenny the other day I like your quote when you're like hey, when we go out with the boys, it's not because we're going out there to pick up women, it's because we don't want you to know how big of morons we are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was funny.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and you know why I wrote that so women would have no problem with the guys going out and then, when they're not there, they can go try to pick up women.
Speaker 3:Oh, no, the secret's out Scott. No, the secret's out Scott.
Speaker 4:No, I'm just saying, I'm just saying I gave that one to the guy. No, I'm definitely not on the. I'm not on that, like you know. What do you want to call it? The modern man team? I'm definitely on that. Like you know, what do you want to call it? The modern man team? I'm definitely a little more old school than that. So wherever that line is, I never crossed that line. But yeah, no, it is true, like you know, it's just getting to be yourself. You know, and getting to be yourself and having fun is you know doesn't always look very smart from the outside, but I stand by it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you spoke a lot about getting involved with special needs kids and teaching them about the sport of disc golf, can you?
Speaker 4:elaborate on that and maybe share some stories? Sure, I would very much love to. So I think that disc golf is the greatest sport in the world for kids and adults with special needs. I think there's a lot of reasons for it, but the biggest one is the NYC special needs, I guess. Originally I was autism and it migrated into including Down syndrome and then it became physical disabilities, paraplegic, let me know. There's a whole spectrum of different disabilities, but special needs is probably the best term. I started teaching special needs classes because I wanted my clinics to be more inclusive and most of what I taught at the clinics I've now done something like 800, throwing clinics in probably 500 cities. Most of it doesn't apply to someone with special needs. So I started opening up my classes. I said, well, I'll come an hour early and do a special needs class for anybody that the clinic itself doesn't fit for. And it caught on. And next thing, you know, I'm teaching special needs classes all over the world. The reason why I think it's such a good sport, there's a couple things. The first is that it's adaptable. There's a couple of things. The first is that it's adaptable.
Speaker 4:The game of golf means disc golf, ball golf, foot golf, miniature golf, doesn't matter. The game of golf involves advancing an object towards a goal and counting the amount of attempts it takes to succeed at that goal. That's golf. I love that the game of golf is not defined by how long a hole is, or how difficult the hole is or how many trees hold. So if you're playing disc golf, if you are somebody that can only throw a disc 30 feet, well then a 55-foot hole is a par 4. And it's every bit as much as a par 4 as a 900 foot hole would be. For me, it's still two maximum throws that have to be successfully executed, the direction you want them to go, and you're you're counting the amount of shots it takes to get there. So that means that the sport could be adapted for everybody. Every single person can play the game. They can play the game of golf. They don't just go putt, they can play the game.
Speaker 4:But the second thing which is real important and this gets overlooked a lot, and this evolved working within the community is that having a child with special needs can be incredibly isolating for families. Now, when you're not part of this community, you don't realize how isolated your families can feel because they are isolating themselves. So you don't see it. But there are families, for example, that might have a kid with autism that they haven't gone out to eat in 10 years, because if they bring the child with autism with them it's unpredictable. It could wind up being something that they're embarrassed by. It could be something that, like there's reasons that it's just safer to stay at home and maybe they hang out with another special needs family or a relative who knows their kid. It's isolating.
Speaker 4:The thing about disc golf is that it is something you can do with your special needs child, for a number of reasons that make disc golf stand out. The first is it's a parallel sport. The first is it's a parallel sport. What I mean by that is there are some sports where you're competing against the person, but there are other sports where you're competing side by side with the person, against the environment. Tennis is a traditional sport. It's a competitive sport. You're competing against the person. Bowling is a parallel sport. You're competing against the lane and the person. Bowling is a parallel sport. You're competing against the lane and the pins.
Speaker 4:The difference is not small when it comes to special needs, because let's say, for example, you have let's just say you have a 10 year old with Down syndrome and with a 12 year old older brother. Well, you can tell the older brother hey, take your, your kid brother out to play tennis. And they go out to the tennis court. Well, they are sharing time together. They're maybe having some laughs, they're getting some exercise, they're building their relationship, they're doing a lot of things, but the one thing they're really not doing is playing tennis, at least not from the perspective of the 12-year-old. He or she is having to adapt the game for their special needs, brother, which means there's always going to be a challenge of hey, you need to bring your brother with you or your sister with you because you're not really playing the sport.
Speaker 4:Now, take a sport like bowling. Take a 12-year-old who loves bowling with a 10-year-old with Down syndrome who also likes to bowl, and say, hey, you want to go bowling? Well, heck, yeah, because it's a parallel sport. That 12-year-old without special needs is playing the exact same game, whether they're with their kid brother, sister, sister or without, because they're competing against the lane. Which means if they like bowling, they'll like they can bowl with their kid brother and they could still play the sport of bowling just the way they would if they were with me. You or a professional bowler okay, huge difference. So a parallel sport allows you to compete side by side and still play the game. So there's a number of parallel sports. There's bowling, there's archery, there's ball golf, there's disc golf.
Speaker 4:The best sport, in my opinion, for a best parallel sport for a family with a child with special needs, is disc golf, because every single one in the family is getting to play the sport. You step onto the tee pad. You're throwing the exact same shot you would be throwing if you were with me. You're playing the game because everybody plays at their own level and, if necessary, you can adapt the sport for the special needs child. Maybe you give them a tee pad halfway up the fairway. And it's affordable because families with special needs often don't have two parents working, because it's not a situation that allows that to happen. There's so many challenges that disc golf solves the sport itself because it's a parallel sport that is affordable, that everybody wants to play because they're playing the sport. That is affordable, that everybody wants to play because they're playing the sport.
Speaker 4:The second thing that makes disc golf and this is where the isolation part comes in is that every single disc golf club in the world, without exception, would love if that family came out and joined the club. They would love if that family came to league. You have a special needs kid. That club will adopt that kid. There's not a disc golf course in the country where they will not adopt that kid.
Speaker 4:So you have a kid that, maybe because of their autism, um, doesn't moderate their emotions very well. They, they, they, they lose it once in a while. That disc golf club isn't going to care. They just know that, that every once in a while that disc golf club isn't going to care. They just know that every once in a while Johnny blows his tag. Okay, that's fine, they don't care.
Speaker 4:You don't need to isolate from them. This is not a Denny's restaurant where, if that same thing happens, people are staring at you and giving you dirty looks and someone says you need to spank your child and discipline and blah, blah, blah. All that crap that special needs parents hear by people who don't even know their situation. The disc golf club ain't going to do that. The disc golf club is going to be like that's cool, I can't wait to see them next week. They're going to show up at the courts. They're going to be given discs, they're going to be like hey, try to play with us. You know what I'm saying. Like there's no need to isolate, because it is a safe environment with people that want you and your family around. It's something very special about disc golf that you might not find at the local country club, you might not find it the local bowling league, but you will find it in disc golf, because there's something about disc golf that makes these types of people come together where your family is safe. So very long explanation.
Speaker 4:But I teach these special needs classes and then I introduce the families and I say, look, go to your local club. They will love your kid, I promise you Like they will adopt your kid If you show up, and especially if you show up and keep showing up, I go, you're going to be part of this local disc golf family and I repeatedly have seen that happen because it's disc golf. So I like teaching kids with special needs, but it is absolutely as much, if not more, for the entire family than just the child with special needs. It's about everybody, family than just the child with special needs, it's about everybody. So, anyways, that's that's why I do it. I'm trying to, you know, reach out to these groups, these invisible groups of people out there, and say, hey, you don't need to be invisible, there's a place where you can go and you're going to have a great time, and so are the siblings.
Speaker 1:And that's it's. It brings tears to my eyes because that's, you know, that's kind of the reason that we got into it. With covid, having five kids, we needed something that we all could go do together. So it was that family that really made us connect with playing disc golf and why we became, you know, such avid disc golfers ourselves.
Speaker 3:And I have to say, scott, that was nothing short of beautiful. I think you articulated it and summed it up perfectly. I mean wow.
Speaker 4:No, I appreciate that I care very much about this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of my blessings was I used to work over at Chief Kitsap Academy and we got a nine-hole course put in by the Paul Macbeth Foundation and being able to hear from a former tribal council member how much their nephew changed, like he lost his dad, his grandpa and he was, you know, really secluding. And once he graduated and that course went in he was out there playing every day. He was a different kid, like he started getting re-involved in life and just bringing it to people who maybe don't have access to it easily. People who maybe don't have access to it easily. It's giving them that opportunity to see that and make those connections and build that community that is so huge.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's such a strange thing about disc golf because and I have my theories as to why that are probably irrelevant but it's like you hear people say all the time oh I came back from Afghanistan and disc golf is how I deal with my PTSD. Well, you never hear that about any other sport. Like, nobody says I deal with my PTSD from tennis, and I'm not saying there aren't some people that do, but it isn't something that is like a thing like what's. You know why do you play tennis PTSD, but you hear it all the time in disc? You know why do you play tennis PTSD, but you hear all the time in disc golf.
Speaker 4:How do you deal with your depression? Disc golf, how do you keep sober? Disc golf, it's just this, like this magical confluence of elements that have come together to form a sport that just, it just works for people. For you know so many reasons, like I have. For example, I have a. There was a player I was in Eastern Kentucky. I got a million of these stories. There was a player that came back from the war.
Speaker 4:He had a traumatic brain injury. So he was there, was, he was definitely off and this is it happened to him in the war and he came back and you know the and his wife was now with his best friend and just the. Those stories happen. But his story was pretty rough. And then he's dealing with this traumatic brain injury and he says he called me. Flat out, he goes, I go out every morning. He says nobody ever shows up to this course before noon. The course is out in the woods. He goes I go out every morning by myself in the woods and I play. And then I don't kill myself. And he said flat out, he goes I would not be alive if not for disc golf. He says this is, this is where I find my peace. So I've heard that some version of that story countless times and it's, it's amazing, it's like our sport's special, it really is very special, very special now I will tell you this most of the stories from the special needs classes are actually just hilarious.
Speaker 4:You want to hear a couple yeah okay.
Speaker 4:so most of the stories are fun. So it's not all heavy emotional stuff. A lot of it's fun. So I got a million of these so I'll, just off the top of my head, I'll rattle off a couple. I'm in Dallas and I cannot for the life of me remember his name, so I'm going to call him Mikey because I can't remember his name. But a 20-year-old brought out his, I think 17 or 18-year-old with autism, and the kid's name is Mikey. And I go teach the class and we go show them.
Speaker 4:And one of the things I always did in all my special needs classes is I always gave the class and we go show them. And one of the things I always did all my special needs classes is I always gave the players a disc for showing up, because it's really important that this is not a one-off. You need to have a disc so you can go play again. So you always get a disc. So I do the class and Mikey always talks about himself I mean, I only met him that one day, but in the third person. So he would say Mikey this, mikey that, right. So after the class Mikey walks up to me and says and he said something like Mikey had a really good time playing today.
Speaker 4:Mikey had so much fun playing disc golf. Mikey loves disc golf so much. Thank you so much. Mikey loves disc golf. Here's your Frisbee. And I said oh, no, no, this is for you to keep, this is for. I said oh no, no, this is for you to keep. I said this is for you to keep so you can play again. And he says, oh, but Mikey will never play again. Mikey will never play disc golf ever again. The rest of his life Mikey will never, ever, ever play disc golf. I said but you said it was fun. He says Mikey had a lot of fun. Mikey had so much fun playing disc golf. He is so happy he played disc golf. Mikey much fun playing disc golf, he is so happy he played disc golf.
Speaker 4:Mikey loves disc golf. Here's your Frisbee. And I said well, no, no, this is for you to keep, saying you can play again. And finally his older brother goes Scott, he's never going to play again, but he had a lot of fun, but he won't do it twice. And I'm just like, okay, I gave this to his brother. I said well, you keep this just in case. He said he's never playing again. So, by the way, do not miss it. I'm not making fun. I'm trying to say like, look, anybody that works in the special needs community, I don't care who you are. You have to have a sense of humor, like you have to appreciate the things that are silly and fun, and this is one of those things. That was just you meet like with autism, especially if there's an expression in the autism community and the expression is once you've met someone with autism or no, once you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, because it's a spectrum. Everybody's so different, so one of the fun things about working with people with autism is everybody's different, and so when they're different, you can enjoy every experience for its uniqueness.
Speaker 1:I had a kid in my class who was obsessed with moles, so I can relate with you.
Speaker 3:Are you talking about like moles, that like around your skin? No, like the gopher moles, the ones on the ground.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was obsessed with them. It was a fun kid yeah.
Speaker 4:Very kind, I think it's. I don't know how to pronounce it Perseveration, I think, is the word for it. It's a fixation on one thing to the exclusion of all others, like it's very common for things like trains.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's like my, my cousin. He was obsessed with Barney the dinosaur, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and that is that is a very, a very common thing. So, yeah, so, but it can be anything, it can be moles.
Speaker 2:Okay, one more story.
Speaker 4:I was. I was invited. Okay, one more story, did he not catch one? I was invited to go teach a class at the Tennessee School for the Blind and it's a boarding school and it's a bunch of young I wouldn't say young adults because they were teenagers, but they were older teenagers Well, at least the ones I worked with. But it's a boarding school, so the kids live there during the week and they go home for the weekend, but Monday through Friday they're at the boarding school and it's a school for blind kids. And I had solicited a number of players from the Disc All Pro Tour, like Missy Gannon, chandler Fry and others, who were going to come out and do this class with me. I tried to include other players and introduce them to this, so we were all going to go out.
Speaker 4:And then the day of the it's before the Music City Open, the day of the class, the principal says I'm so sorry, we had a water pipe break, the school's flooded and we had to send all the kids home. They were so excited for this and now they're so disappointed. You know, in my heart's broken form I felt so bad. I said, okay, well, you know, that's okay. So anyways, the class, like on Wednesday, thursday was canceled. Well, all of a sudden it occurred to me I don't have to drive to the next event on Monday. I can stay over an extra day. Now Missy and them are going to be off to the tournament, but I can find some local club members. So I call the principal up and I say, hey, what if I come Monday? And they're like, oh my God, that would be amazing. So Monday morning they tell all the kids that that, uh, the class is back on Monday afternoon. Kids are excited. Then they get a weather report Lightning, thunder showers and lightning all afternoon.
Speaker 4:So they canceled the class a second time and the principal calls me on Monday and says look, everybody's super disappointed. And I'm like, oh my God, we just disappointed the school of blind kids twice. We got their hopes up and let them down. Like something about this isn't right. So I said, well, wait a second. I said we don't have to actually throw, we can just, we can still have fun. I mean, do you have a gym or something? And he says, oh, we have a gym, but you can't throw anything in the gym. There's things on the walls that might get broken, and so you know, like all the kids know, there's you're not allowed to throw stuff in the gym. And I said, but that's okay, but we can maybe like, like, do some putts or something. He goes well, yeah, if it's controlled, you do some putts, but but you, but there's, you know all the kids know you can't throw things in the gym. And I said, okay, I totally understand.
Speaker 4:So anyways, a couple of club members and we go out. So we get to the event. We get in the gym, all the students show up, probably like 20 students and about 10 teachers. They have a high ratio of teachers and students with blind kids. Like 10 teachers come and the principal are all there because they want to watch me teach this class. So the teachers are there, the principal is there. There's like 20 blind students there and I said first thing I said was guess what Good news. Everybody. The principal said we can throw in the gym today.
Speaker 2:And everybody's like yeah, they're all screaming.
Speaker 4:And I look, and I look over at the principal and he kind of like tilts his head at me, and then I mouth the words you want to tell him.
Speaker 4:I'm like, I'm like, I'm sorry. Like you know, with all due respect, I care way more about the kids than you know. Plus, I know what I'm doing. I've been doing this, this is what I do, like nothing's going to happen and nothing did happen. No one got hit, nothing got hit on the walls. I know, I know, like I knew that I knew what I was doing, that nothing was going to get damaged yeah they just didn't know it.
Speaker 4:But so I just basically said, okay, just trust. And I, just I was, I was like, just trust me, and then everything went fine, or maybe he thought it was kind of funny. Afterwards I'm like, I like, look, I know what I'm doing, but anyways, point is we had a great day and and we they got to throw things in the gym for the first time that's awesome.
Speaker 3:Did you get invited back?
Speaker 4:that's the ultimate question oh, that's a good question. The answer is no, but I haven't been in the area but I'm sure I would have. I have a great relationship with, with, with these. Oh, my god, I, I've had, I, I, I don't know. So the disc golf pro tour got asked by oh God, was it in Cincinnati maybe? Or oh God, I can't remember where it was, but anyway, so it was one of these cities. The Disc Golf Pro Tour, somebody from a school. It's not a special needs school, but it's a disciplinary school. It is the last school before. You know, juvenile prison, basically, like. These are the kids that are the most antisocial kids. They've gone to the, they've left their school and then gone to another school for the kids who don't fit in with the school and the kids that can't make it in that school. There's one school in the city. So this is the um, I want to say worst of the worst sounds bad, but you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:These are the most troubled kids out. Yeah, roughest of the um. I don't say worst of the worst, sounds bad, but you know I mean these are the most troubled kids, that, yeah, roughest of the rough.
Speaker 4:And and they said, do you want to teach that class? And I'm like, yes, that sounds like like a lot of fun and and, uh, so they, they, they, they brought the kids out and, um, I, I told, and by all the teachers came out because they kind of wanted to watch and and and they weren't wrong, it was, it was very challenging and you could see, you could see different types of you know adhd and you could see like you know it was. It was a challenge. But I started to give a little background on my, my, my story and then and they weren't really paying attention, and then I screamed at him and I cussed at him and I won't repeat that on your show, but I, you know, I basically told him to shut the F up.
Speaker 4:I go shut the F up. If you want to play, you're going to keep your mouth effing shut for the next two minutes and if you can do that, we're going to play. If not, I'm done. And they all, they all listened to me and and it was like I basically talked to them, like they talked to each other and, by the way, I hadn't, I had no way of knowing if this would work or if they would, like, you know, reject it. Um, but uh, it, it did work and and they gave me like two minutes of their time and it was, it was uh, and and you know, and it wasn't three minutes, it was two before it started going off the rails again. But that's the fun part about this type of teaching is that every situation is different and you just have to kind of make up the rules on the fly and, and you know, not everything works. Like I'm telling you success stories. I tried stuff that didn't work and you know those are less interesting stories, but yeah, it's, it's a I don't. Anyways, I'm.
Speaker 4:I'm very passionate about my, my special needs teaching as well as my. My two passions are growing disc golf around the world, teaching people with special needs. Basically, they fall into the exact same category, which is for most people. Uh, in North America, europe, australia, new Zealand, most people have access to disc golf. They can play, they can afford it. It's right there. They can do it. I'm interested in people that don't fit that mold, so it's maybe people in the Us or europe that have special needs, or it's just anybody outside of places where disc golf exists. That's what excites me. Um, there's some, there's thousands of people doing a good job. Growing a sport in the us and europe like disc golf is crushing. It's like I can't do anything here. So my interest is the people that are reaching the other, people which, by the way, there's billions of.
Speaker 1:I'm going after them.
Speaker 3:And you have a unique capability of being able to do that with your resume and your history and your businesses and everything, and you're a fantastic ambassador for the sport.
Speaker 4:I appreciate that. So, yeah, there are some advantages in my name and stuff like that, but that is not the most important part. The most important part of doing something is pulling the trigger and doing it. So many people have reached out to me I can't tell you how many. I love what you do. I want to teach a special needs class, but I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 4:It's like here's how you, like anybody listening you want to teach a class for people with special needs. I will tell you the order that you do things. First you contact the school and ask them if they want to do this and then you settle on a date and a time. That's the first thing you do before you research how to get this, before you research how to teach the class, before you do anything, book that date and time, pull the trigger, lock yourself in. Once you know that on June 22nd, on Thursday at 2 pm, you're teaching the class, then you figure the rest of the stuff out. Because if you do it the other way around and try to figure stuff out, you try to get your ducks in a row. Your ducks will never be in a row. You try to learn all the skills of teaching special, you're never going to learn all the skills. You basically have to just set the date and then show up and do your best with what you have.
Speaker 4:So when I did my first special needs class, I booked a class and it was Northern California. It was at, like, crescent Bay. I booked it at Crescent Bay, I booked the class and I was doing my regular clinic and I just announced on the Facebook page I'm coming an hour early and I'm teaching a special needs disc golf class. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't have a curriculum, I didn't know anything, I just said I'm going to be here, we'll figure it out. And then I showed up and not a single special needs player showed up the following day. I had also booked and I said this is in Arcadia, California, and I said I'm going to do a special needs disc golf class. And three players showed up A player with very low functioning autism that needed help the whole time. A kid who was more high functioning it was more behavioral, but it was high functioning, um, and an adult who was blind. And all of a sudden I'm like, oh okay, well, first off, these are three completely different situations, but I'll figure it out. And I probably did horrible. In fact, I know I did horrible because we played three holes. I don't even play full holes anymore. Like this made no sense, but who cares? Like they had fun.
Speaker 4:The biggest thing that people need to do when they do this is don't worry about getting it right. Like there is no right or wrong. Like if you show up and do something, everybody's going to have fun. Like you literally can't do it wrong, just pull the trigger and do it and it's so much fun. And, by the way, you even can't plan. I don't, I never plan.
Speaker 4:I've been 290, I've been to 290 cities teaching special needs classes now, the 290 cities teaching special needs classes now, and I never plan because every group of students is different. They get out of the van or something, and then you look and you go, oh okay, well, tell me what you can do, or show me what you can do, and then you have to. You just have to win it, but you'll, but everybody will, do a good job, so, so, so it's not about being me that can do this, anybody can do this. Like contact a school or an organization, figure out a date. They're in, they want, they love this stuff. They love when people come in and want to help. They want a break from having you know, like if they get a 30-minute break, that's fantastic. So anybody can do it, it's not just me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and as a teacher myself, I want to say that flexibility is probably the best attribute of being a teacher is being able to be flexible and reach a group of kiddos.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely, you have to be even you know neurotypical whatever word that you use for non-special needs. Even neurotypical kids, like three different groups of kids, are three different groups of kids, Like. I'll give one example. So this is something I learned in my special needs classes is that I don't schedule a length of the class because basically every single class, when someone decides they're done, everyone just decides they're done and you just watch them just like everything's going great and then they're done. That's, that's what they had to give.
Speaker 4:And then they check out class is over, like it's never an hour, yeah, it goes as long as it goes, and you, you, beyond that, you can't, can't really force it, you know. So you just, I don't set a lane, I don't, you know, and you, just you just have to. The thing is that people need to do is they need to trust in their own ability to problem solve, like if you, if you want to do something like this, it's because you love disc golf. Well, you know how to throw a disc. You know how the arm moves backhand. You know how it moves sidearm.
Speaker 4:Well, if someone comes out and they're in a wheelchair and they have limited mobility in their arm, I promise you anybody listening, I promise you that you ask the kid to show you where their range of motion is and how their arm moves. You will see the best solution to how they can throw a disc. You'll see it. You'll absolutely solve that problem exactly the same as I would. No better, no worse. You just have to trust that you're going to be able to, because you can.
Speaker 1:Some great words of advice there. Really great.
Speaker 3:I'm just loving this.
Speaker 1:This is amazing. I know You're just sitting here enjoying this. I got a great big smile on my face.
Speaker 3:This is like putting some warm and fuzzies in my heart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's actually a little rejuvenating to go back to work tomorrow, so good stuff. I do all this.
Speaker 4:Fuzzies in my heart, yeah, it's actually a little rejuvenating to go back to work tomorrow. Good stuff, I do all this, I tell everyone this, everything I do. It's not altruism. I do everything I do for incredibly selfish reasons. I like the way it makes me feel. I enjoy the praise and the respect I get from people for what I do.
Speaker 4:There's nothing wrong with that At least I don't think there is. So I do these things because they make my life better. That's selfish, but that's okay. It's you know, in that context, selfish is not a bad thing. Selfish is a good thing. So when people that are interested in doing things like this yeah, you do it because you feel good it's okay to put your head down on the pillow and think, man, I did good today, like I feel really good about who I am as a man or a woman right, I mean I'm a man, so I think about men like it's okay to think, you know, hey, I, you know this is what men do like like they take on problems of the world and they go solve them and they build and they fix.
Speaker 4:I was a man today like that, like do things that make you feel that way and I can't speak to the other side. I can't speak to the other side, so forgive me for, um, you know what I'm saying. Like I, I can only relate. I can only relate to to that for me, but it's okay to do things that make you feel the way you want to feel.
Speaker 3:I don't know, do you ever lay down at night and be like I did girl stuff today?
Speaker 1:no, I always talk about how bad. I am at being a girl, because I can never keep my nail polish on, I can't do my makeup. I'm the opposite. Maybe I think that I do better with man stuff.
Speaker 4:Honestly that's hilarious yeah, I know you're not supposed to even talk about different. Maybe I think that I do better with man stuff. Honestly, that's hilarious. Yeah, I know, I know you're not supposed to even talk about different genders, but I'm old enough where I'm still allowed, yes, so yeah, by the way, look, there's more guys that play disc golf, and I have a no surprise here.
Speaker 4:I have a very large following of older men and so I do speak to them directly. I do speak to, I speak to everybody at times, and I also speak to my older male audience at times and I can speak differently to that audience than the broader audience. And I think I'm right, I think it's correct. So I do speak to my older guys all the time about hey, this is, you know, there's things you should do and that's part of feeling good about your role in the world. Is is building and creating and solving and and fixing and making better and caring, and like that's. That's what we do, is what we should do, and so it's okay to it's okay to do that and feel good about it, feel proud of it.
Speaker 4:At least you're using your powers for good. I've been told that my best friend says that all the time he's like. I'm so glad you used your powers for good oh man. No, I did, but nobody. I mean, I get it, I get exactly what you're saying, but yeah, I think that you know purely selfish reasons. I do the stuff that makes me feel good. It just so happens the things that make me feel good are doing good. If the things that make me feel good were doing bad, then I would be a terror.
Speaker 3:I'd probably be a very well, um, if we could, let's uh, let's switch gears a little bit. That was, that was amazing. Um, I wanted to get. No, I love, I love it. Um, I wanted to get on to maybe some more of the performance issues as well and involved with this stuff so whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 4:You heard it, wait, you heard about my performance issues.
Speaker 3:I have never been oh my gosh, not those way to go hon way to take off.
Speaker 3:The guests shut it down. No, all right, no, um, one of the things I have been just dying to ask people that are ultra successful at this sport and just kind of put together like kind of my database of stuff, is when you're in full-on training mode and you're, let's say, in your prime, when you were getting ready for these big tournaments like worlds and things like that, what was your training regimen like? Like what did you do on a daily basis? Or like on a weekly basis? What did that look like?
Speaker 4:so. So it was. You know, in the broad sense it was repetition and it was focusing on the weakest parts of the game. And then it was just repetition, building up muscle memory, building up, you know, improving timing. You know, like if you've been playing for one week and you throw 10 shots and you put them on, you know if you attempt to throw 10 shots in a line, they're going to be widely distributed nowhere near that line. But after a month, after six months, after a year, after five years, the spray pattern is going to get closer and closer to the line as you improve. So that's time, but it's time because of repetition.
Speaker 4:So the more repetition you do you accomplish the same goal. You reduce the variance of your misses. So instead of missing by three degrees on a bad shot, you're missing by 2.9 degrees on a bad shot. But that is one less tree hit. And one less tree hit is several, you know, several strokes a tournament. So you've worked really hard for those couple strokes. So at some point you know what you're improving is very small. But the difference between first and third and eighth is razor thin. So you are trying to shave off those little tiny bits. Or just you know and fine tune those. So it's really just for me, it was always just about repetition, getting the shots and making sure I'm doing enough putts every day, which I used to do a lot of putts, as I got older and my body won't allow me to do that I just appointed diminishing return because of my age, with how hard I train.
Speaker 4:But when I was younger I didn't have those things. When you're young you're kind of fairly invincible, so I didn't really have those. But yeah, I would just play, play, play as much as possible. I think that when it comes to becoming successful, there's two things that are 98% of it it's proper mechanics and practice. Right, like, basically, your mechanics, how good your technique is, gives you your ceiling as far as how good you can get. Like, if your technique isn't very good, you're never going to get past your that ceiling. Right like, I don't care who you are, it could be a 28 year old man who's been playing for you know, 12 years if you, if you don't have good technique, your ceiling might be 980 rated. You could play 10 hours a day like 980s or ceiling, because your technique puts that ceiling on you. What practice does is it gets you as close as possible to your ceiling. So with proper mechanics, that same player with better mechanics and better technique could have had a 10-20 ceiling and the more they practice, the closer they get to that.
Speaker 3:And you're from the age before YouTube and things like this. So how did you figure all this out? Just all that repetition, or take tips from people around the block.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we did it by. You would find people to train with. But no, it was much, much more difficult. We didn't understand what proper technique was, or we understood some things, but then we get other things wrong, but we would learn from each other. I mean, like, this is how I mean every sport does this. I mean, you know, skateboarding was a piece of wood with four wheels and then people got together and said, well, wait, what if you do this? Oh my God, that worked. And the other person says wait, what if you do this? Oh my God, that worked. And the other person says, well, what if you try this? Oh my God, I just broke my arm. Don't do that. And you know.
Speaker 4:That's how every sport has to evolve. It's, you know, free internet. That's basically what you know, what you had to do. Now, I was lucky because I was always around other top players. So that's how we evolved. But even by 2000,. I mean what we thought? We thought a lot of things that we know for a fact are wrong. So, for one thing, there was no such thing as slow motion video. Sometime in mid-90s, a player named Jack Cooksey went to a university, put on a suit that had sensors on his feet, knees, hips, elbows, wrist, chin and actually got video of him throwing and to my knowledge, this is the first time anybody actually was able to capture what the body does on a throw at full speed, like there just wasn't even like literally at the 90s, like mid-90s before, and that's not something that we had access to I don't know if you remember, but like video cameras in the 90s.
Speaker 3:Mid-90s is when motion capture was really first kind of coming into its own, with all the little ping pong balls all over everybody.
Speaker 4:Exactly. And if you were a regular person, you had a video camera and when you, when you record on a video cassette you can't freeze a video cassette, it's not digital, it's analog, so you couldn't, you couldn't freeze it and and see what people are doing, you certainly couldn't watch it in actual slow motion, um. So we didn't even know what the body did. We were guessing and we got a lot of stuff right, but then it turns out that you know there were some things that were common knowledge, that that aren't common knowledge. They were wrong.
Speaker 3:It's only been recently that slow motion has become accessible to just everybody in general with the advent of cell phones everybody in general with the advent of cell phones Very recent?
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely. And so what's happened is because I do more teaching than anybody in the sport. I've been to around 800, I think 800 cities to do throwing clinics. I know I did 500 of them for free before I ever charged. I've done about 300 paid simp things. I've been to like 800 cities. I have an online disc golf class that I've run several thousand people through. I've done more teaching than anybody. Well, I don't want to say that Jay and Des Redding have taught an enormous amount of people and, especially with kids, they may have actually even taught more. I don't want to say I've taught more than them, but them and me have taught more than. I don't want to say I've taught more than them, but we're them and me have taught more than anybody.
Speaker 4:And the thing about slow motion is that we figured out the right and the wrong way to throw. But what wasn't figured out and what everybody not everybody, but some people get wrong on YouTube is the right and wrong way to throw has nothing to do with how to teach someone to throw the right and wrong way, like what you're looking at when you're watching the YouTube videos. You're looking at the end result. So, for example, let's suppose you and your wife wanted to swing dance. Okay, well, you can go watch a swing dancing video in slow motion and try to copy what they do and you can start to get you know, you know with practice, start to get better at it, but nowhere near as good as a really good swing dancing coach that says no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't start with the end result. You start by learning this step and then you add this step and you've got to get this down before you do this. You need to have this basic thing down before you add this advanced thing. So the learning to teach is independent of knowing how you're supposed to throw.
Speaker 4:So what I've developed I call it the Stokely Disc Golf method is I have a very specific method of teaching that's different than anybody else in the sport is doing. This is what I do, this is what I'm so proud of this, but I don't teach a different way of throwing. The end result is the same end result that everybody agrees is the right way to throw. So I don't just you know, me and all the other disc golf teachers and disc golf teaching content creators. We all agree on the right way to throw. I mean this is right, that's wrong, but my method of how to get there is the most effective, in my opinion.
Speaker 4:By the way, if anybody's interested, I have an online class called Become a Complete Disc Golfer at scottstokelynet. It's a six-month class. You can read all about it at scottstokelynet. It's a six-month class. Um, uh, you can read all about it. Yeah, so, so, but to me it's it's proper mechanics. You have to have proper mechanics and then you have to practice those proper mechanics and that is. That is 98 of it. Like, if you throw properly and then you practice, you're going to be good and you know good relative term. If you start when you're 40 or 50, maybe you maybe have a lower ceiling because it's athletics, you know age matters, but you're still going to get good for your age for sure, and you're also going to be less likely to get injured and you're going to have more fun because, like, disc golf is fun, but it's way more fun when you're playing well than it is when you're playing poorly.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Throwing well is nice.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, for sure. So when you do your clinics and things, what are some of the most common things you get asked and what advice do you give to those things?
Speaker 4:so I mean, people want to know, like they always want to know, like what is the one thing, what is the one trick to throwing farther, what is the one, this one, that? And the answer is it's never that the silver bullet yeah, it's kind of like this is what?
Speaker 4:look, I think the people that mastered this first, the masters of clickbait, in my opinion, is Golf Digest, like golf magazines, because long before there was a YouTube clickbait on their thumbnails. Every time and I'm not a golfer, but every time I saw a golf magazine right on the cover of the magazine was the three tips that will make you good at putting, the one tip that will make you drive straight. You're not joking and it's like really no, no and it's like well, if that was true, your magazine would run about six issues and you would be out of covers because everybody would have used those tips for putting driving or like on on youtube throw 500 feet today yeah, yeah, it's not one step.
Speaker 4:basically, there's all sorts of things you have to get right and every single one of those things you don't get right will take away from your accuracy and distance. So know, and it's hard to quantify, but let's say that you have the ability to throw 500 feet if you do everything right, based on your age, your body type, how long you've been playing, how athletic you are, how much you practice. Right, let's say your ceiling would be 500 feet, but you're doing three things wrong. Well, one of them might be costing you 40 feet. One of them might be costing you 40 feet. One of them might be costing you 30 feet. One of them might be costing you 50 feet. So you throw 380. Well, if you fix one of those things now, you're throwing 430, but you haven't fixed the other two. You're still leaving that distance on the ground and it's not quite as black and white as that, but it's metaphorically. You can look at it that way. Every little thing adds to it. When you get everything right, you've maximized what your body can physically do. We all have a ceiling, but the question is, how close can you get, you know, to that ceiling? And if you do everything right. That's the highest your ceiling could possibly be. So you, you have to do everything right.
Speaker 4:So when I I teach, my method is not about breaking down, it's not about putting out fires. I should say I don't fix things that are wrong. Everybody starts at the ground floor and builds up from scratch Everybody Because you need to have certain things in place before you move to the next thing. There's things you have to get right, because if you don't get this one thing right, the other things aren't going to fall into thing. There's things you have to get right because if you don't get this one thing right, the other things aren't going to fall into place behind it, like you're putting a bandaid on stock. If you're putting out fires or even worse, you fix one thing can cause a problem in another area.
Speaker 4:So one of the things that's really important is that, when it comes to disc golf throwing technique, there's actually two ways most players learn how to disc golf that everyone's pretty much familiar with. The first, which you are probably familiar with, is if anyone's ever told you just figure out what works best for you and do that some version of that. You've got to figure out what works best for you. That's bad advice. There's a right throw Physics, biomechanics, how your body moves that trumps your style. There is a right way to throw. However, the second way that nearly everybody has experienced learning how to throw is you're trying to copy or emulate. Another player has experienced learning how to throw.
Speaker 4:Is you're trying to copy or emulate another player, maybe their entire throw, maybe a portion of their throw, possibly a probe, maybe even in slow motion? You try to copy what someone else does and if you've done that, which everyone has, you probably noticed it didn't work, or at least it didn't work well. Okay, that's not your fault. It is impossible to copy a professional disc golfer's timing and mechanics, not because they're better than you, but because they are throwing with a different body than you're throwing with. Okay, every single person that plays disc golf is a different size, a different shape. Everybody has a different amount of muscle mass in different areas. Our joints don't align at identical angles from one another. Even if they did, we would have developed a different range of motion in those joints from the player next to us. Then you add in different flexibility, past injuries, scar tissue. It is impossible to copy another player's timing and mechanics because you are throwing with a different machine than they are throwing with. It will never work. However, you also can't just throw any way you want to. That's terrible advice.
Speaker 4:So what I figured out after many years of teaching and experimenting, trial and error, getting stuff wrong, figuring stuff out but I'm pretty set on this now is the proper way to throw is there is a small number of rules you must follow. There are some things you're going to copy that other top players do, but there's not that many of them. If you get these small number of things right, then every other part of the throw will happen automatically, based on your individual body. So, basically, there's fundamental rules to follow. These are the rules of physics. Physics trumps everything. You must do this or else you're going against physics. You also must do certain things, because this is how the human body, every human body, mechanically moves. You must do these certain things right. If you don't, you're wrong. But once you follow those rules, there's a lot of variability in how an individual body is going to move while successfully following that rule. So there has to be an individual component to it, as long as you don't break the rules of physics.
Speaker 4:This is why every golf swing is not identical, right?
Speaker 4:You see every pro golfer out there, like if they all had identical bodies, they would all have an identical swing, because there would be a universally correct swing. But there, not. People pull the club back at a different angle, at a different line, they get off center at certain points, their wrists and different parts of their body bend at different spots and it's like like, well, why? Well, who are you supposed to copy? Well, the answer is they all fundamentally swing the club exactly the same from the perspective of physics, but since they have different bodies and all their joints are aligned at different angles, the club path is not going to be exactly identical from pro to pro, because they have different bodies.
Speaker 4:So my method has everything to do with making sure you're following the rules, but then also allowing those other parts of the throw to happen, based on the individual. It must be in. Some parts of the throw must be individual, but some will must be followed, and after a lifetime of doing this, I'm very confident that I figured out the difference between those two and then, once you get that right, you can succeed. Yeah, my life's work.
Speaker 3:Oh well, and you're darn good at it. So how do you work with a player that's maybe developed some bad habits along the way and, you know, has maybe been playing for a while and has gotten into kind of a groove and is like, well, hold on, here, we need to step back. How do you address that?
Speaker 4:I don't correct it you don't. I don't correct the bad habits, I start from scratch.
Speaker 3:You start from scratch.
Speaker 4:You follow some basic, fundamental rules of a step-by-step and you ignore the other parts of the game. Allow them to be individual. So certain things are going to be, you know, individual from person to person, but we ignore those things and we can convince the person that they could ignore that part, regardless of what that YouTube video told you. You can ignore it, I promise, and then I make sure they're getting these small number of things correct. You know it's um, it's an amazing thing, but when I do my full day seminars, I start off the day with the backend. We start off the biggest challenges letting everybody know that there are a whole bunch of parts of the throw that will work if they ignore them and don't even try to do them and let them happen automatically as long as they focus on getting these certain things right. And the biggest challenge is convincing everybody that that's the case, because everybody's a little bit skeptical. So the way I describe it is if I ask you to make a list of every single thing you do on a backhand, based on all the YouTube videos out there, you could probably easily come up with a list of 30 different things that you need to do on your backhand, like at least 30 different things. You could find an entire series of videos about doing that thing. Okay, that's crazy. All right, it is impossible to intentionally do 30 individual things in one and a half seconds. Nobody in the world can intentionally do 30 things in one and a half seconds Impossible.
Speaker 4:You do five, you do five. If you do these five things correctly, those other 25 things will happen automatically, based on your individual body. If you are willing to ignore them and not even think about them and just get those five things right and I tell everybody when say that I go and I do not expect any single one of you to believe me Like you came to the class, you paid good money, you believe me, you've seen my videos, you trust me, but there's no way that you could fully buy into the idea that you only have to do five things and let everything else go and it'll just work. All I ask people to do is take a leap of faith, go, just give me the benefit of the doubt and buy into this. As soon as they buy into it and they get those five things right, they go.
Speaker 4:Holy crap, the disc just went 50 feet farther. Holy crap, it's basically flying on the line I mean holy crap, the nose isn't up anymore. Holy crap, the wobble went away. Line on the line I may mean holy crap, the nose isn't up anymore, holy crap, the wobble went away. Oh, and then probably the biggest holy crap is oh my god, I threw like 300 drives today and my arm doesn't hurt and at the end of the day, a hundred percent of at the end of the day, a hundred percent of people are like, wow, I cannot.
Speaker 4:But like I, you know I was skeptical. Everybody admits to being skeptical at the beginning. Nobody being skeptical at the beginning, nobody's skeptical at the end of the day. Nobody leaves the class going eh, eh eh, everybody goes.
Speaker 4:I can't believe how much better my throw is. But again, this is my life's work. I'm teaching a class in Vietnam in about half an hour. This is what I live for. I'm obsessed with figuring out, not proper technique. We've already figured out proper technique. Everybody knows proper technique. You know proper. You watch a video. You know good technique from bad technique Everyone does. But the methodology by which I teach it has been my. You know I love it. I'm obsessed with how to get people to throw correctly. And people are mind-blown. They're like oh my God, I can't believe how much better I'm doing. I never thought I would improve this much in one day. It's like, yeah, I promised you that you would when you messaged me and you said your class is really expensive. Are you sure this is going to work? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's why it's expensive is because it works.
Speaker 3:You sold me, and me and Jenny are. We're coming.
Speaker 4:I know I can't wait. Definitely You'll, you'll, you'll get word of it. It'll be posted in all the Washington pages. No I, I, um like I like.
Speaker 4:One of the reasons I charge a lot of money A, it's because it's a free market and I can Like. That is the way you know. I'm a free market capitalist. I love the idea of like. This is a business and if people like I charge, you know, but I actually do put a ceiling on it. I can charge more and I don't, because there's a part of me that never wants to be ball golf. I never want to price myself out of the money. So my full-day seminars are $400 for the day. That's a lot of money. That is real money in the real world. But I have a wait list in every single one of these, which means if I have a wait list, it means I could have charged more and I've basically said that's as high as I'm going to go because I don't want to price it out Like that's a lot of money. But I believe if you really care about the game, that's a swingable amount of money that's in your wheelhouse. I don't want to get to a point where someone says I just can't do it and if it is too much money, I also do my two-hour classes for $25, which you're going to get a lot out of it. That's actually a great way to reach the masses. But yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4:But here's the second part of it. When I charge that much, all of my special needs classes I teach are free. Um, the I can't remember if it's 27, 26 or 27 countries, but um, I've only charged to teach disc golf in, I believe, 10 countries. So the other 16 or 17 countries I've taught disc golf in is free. So I charge really good money over on one side of my life so I can give away all the stuff that I'm passionate about on the other.
Speaker 4:So when you take one of my classes or show up to one of my clinics or even buy one of my divs, part of that money is going towards doing things that I think are really cool, that have to be paid for somehow. So every time I do a special needs class, every single person that came you know a free special needs class. Everybody that comes to my seminars, you know they. They paid for that. I was able to do that free class because they paid for my paid class. So I do think that you're also you are contributing to something that I do believe is also really positive as well. So I do think that you're also, you are contributing to something that I do believe is also really positive as well. So I charge good money, but I feel you know I justify it, you know, pretty comfortably yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I think I think that's a small price to ask compared to the amount of discs that people buy these days. I mean 20, 25, $30 a disc. I mean we have a few years of college sitting over here on the shelf, I think.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, you're right. No, I mean, look, if people did the math, if I improved your game by one stroke around and you play for the next 10 years, you more than pay for the class simply by finishing seventh place instead of ninth place at this tournament and getting second place at league instead of fourth place, like you know, and getting, you know, one extra ace pool after 10 years. I mean like like it pays for itself if you actually did the math. But it's, you know, it's still. Look, I'm not, I don't dismiss that that's real money either. Like you know, there's.
Speaker 3:I, I'm not. I don't dismiss that that's real money either.
Speaker 4:Like you know, there's I I've I've had periods of my life where I ordered something for $8 off the menu because I didn't want to pay nine for something. I had many years of my life where that was. That was my life. So I'm not I'm not so far removed from that Like I'm doing really well now, but I, you know, I've been broke a good portion of my life and, yeah, so when people spend hard-earned money, I take it very serious. I don't mess around with people's. You know, when they pay me, I make sure they get what they paid for that's awesome of you.
Speaker 3:That's a person of integrity right there. Now, you touched on it real quick. You recently released a line of discs, did you not?
Speaker 4:Well, not a line of discs. You not well, not a line of discs. I manufacture discs, you manufacture, and and I only yes, yeah. So stokely disc yeah, we own. I'm me and a partner. We own the machines. Every disc, stokely disc is run on a machine that we own. We own the molds, we own the plastic, we own the dryers, we own the stamping machines. We own the dryers, we own the stamping machines, we own the warehouse. Like it's our company.
Speaker 4:Now we do have help from somebody within the industry, because there is designing golf discs and even the manufacturing process, pressures and temperatures and all that stuff. I mean, it's art, not science as much as anything, and there is a multi-year learning curve that we didn't want to go through. So we definitely have help from somebody within the industry. I'm not taking credit for what I don't do, but it is our company. That's amazing. Stokely discs is yeah and uh. So we have four molds out. Um, we've already got our next four molds for 2025 run. They're approved. So our next four molds have already been built and they're ready to go. And that's we've been. We're actually running them already like we're, like, we're right in production. Our next four discs are done. Yeah, absolutely I also, until those are all original molds. Stokely discs.
Speaker 4:We also purchased Chinging discs. I saw that king was a brand. Yes, we, yeah, I own ching, so um, or we, I own ching discs, so we. We released the juju um, I don't want to announce which one's coming next, but we've already run them, and so, because we own all the molds, um, the molds were actually sitting over in China because the discs were being made in China. The first thing we did was bring the molds back from China back to America and they're in our facility being run in our facility here.
Speaker 3:That is so cool Now, those are not original molds that we.
Speaker 4:You know they were designed by Mike Colgate, but they're ours now and we're running them with Stokely Plastics.
Speaker 3:What's the deal with the little dimples in the?
Speaker 2:top of the chain discs.
Speaker 4:So this was originally an experiment. They're called Accelerator, accelerator Contour experiment, um, they're called accelerator, accelerator contour, um, basically there are five different distances, there are five grooves, five different distances from the rim, and then then that they put four more back on the other side for symmetry. So the disc is, you know it's symmetrical, um, but basically there's, there's five different places you could place your thumb. Well, six technically, because there's also a places you can place your thumb Well, six technically, because there's also a spot. If you don't want to use one of the grooves, you can place your thumb. And the idea is just to find a thumb placement that works for you that you can then replicate every time by putting the thumb in that thumb groove.
Speaker 4:But also the thing about gripping a disc is the bottom of the disc. You have the rim to hold on to and you have friction if you have a stand grip or a pin grip. So you have two things to hold the disc when your thumb goes on top. You're mostly requiring just friction on top. So it is. You know, the top of the disc is the weak link as far as gripping it goes. The thumb grooves give you a ridge to place for your thumb to to be up against, so it doesn't require. It gets friction, which means you could grip it better, especially when it's wet, especially when your hands are sweaty, but that's the idea the the contours on tops of dimples really don't affect the flight, which is shocking.
Speaker 4:But um, we have ch Qing discs with and without the contours.
Speaker 3:You're saying they don't affect the flight.
Speaker 4:They don't. Oh, okay, not really. No, so it is the shape of the disc and the wing of the disc that is far more important and where the weight's distributed on the wing versus the center of the disc. There's a lot of other factors involved in how the disc flies and this doesn't really seem to affect it. Even if it did affect it, it's nominal and even if, let's say, hypothetically, with the contours, the disc turned over slightly more, well then, that's just what that disc does, right, it still flies great, it just does something different. But honestly, the difference is negligible.
Speaker 4:The Juju, which is the disc we have out, is the straightest flying approach disc in the sport. The only one that I would compare it to as far as the straight flight would be the Glitch from MPP. When I say straight, I mean the disc flies straight and it does not fade. Even discs like putters that quote don't fade, fade a little bit. They the. The juju fades less than that, like if it's flying flat, it slows down and it lands flat. It never deviates from its line. It's fantastic. The glitch is a fantastic disc, but it's also 150 grams and smaller. The juju is a little bit bigger, making it easier to control and you could go up to, like you know, up into the mid or high 70s much actually I don't even know the exact max weight, but it you can go heavier.
Speaker 4:So, um, I've actually and this is so strange for me, but I've switched to throwing backhand anhyzer approach shots with the juju over a sidearm hyzer on my approach shots because, like and if you know me, like I never thought I would throw backhand approach shots on purpose, like I'm good at them, but my sidearm is just my shot well, you're the guy that invented it.
Speaker 3:practically Well I didn't.
Speaker 4:No, no, no, no, definitely didn't invent it. It was not invented by me. I played a part in the lineage but, no, I throw backhand anhyzers on my approach shots now and it's absolutely amazing. And well, I do want to touch on that because people do say they have been. You know a lot of people and I know you're half joking but people say that I invented the sidearm. It's like no, no, no, no.
Speaker 4:There were people who had mastered the sidearm before I'd ever even threw a sidearm. Victor Malafronte is probably the most notable, but people like Ken Westerfield and many others had mastered that shot. It's just that when I was touring in the 90s, nobody, not a single touring player, was throwing the backhand and sidearm interchangeably. Some of them didn't throw it at all, some of them would use it for, like, as a utility shot, for short approach shots, but almost nobody was out there actually throwing it. Now, eventually, Mike Randolph and Steve Rico, you know like, by the late nineties, started to develop pretty good sidearms, but for for quite a bit of time there nobody threw the sidearm but me on tour and I was throwing it 50, 50. Mike really, by the way, I don't want to leave him out he was, uh, uh, a player from Michigan who had a phenomenal sidearm, but he wasn't a touring player, so there were some players that threw it also. I don't want to dismiss like so I'm the only one, but among the touring players you go out to the Kansas city wide open and you're not going to see a sidearm off the tee pad in the final nine if it's not thrown by me.
Speaker 4:So I played a role in it, but I definitely did not invent it. I had learned it from people that had mastered it, and when I say mastered, I don't mean for the time, I mean the stuff they were doing. The people in the 70s were so good like I have videos of some of the stuff people are doing in the 70s that nobody today could do, um, like they were unbelievable. So, yeah, they just uh. There was just no youtube yeah, there's just no youtube.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know in your book you were like if anybody has video of this, please send it to me.
Speaker 4:On several different things, oh my God, no, no, no, no One of them. I just got one of them a couple days ago.
Speaker 3:Oh which one.
Speaker 4:So no, I couldn't believe it. So at the final hole of the 1998 World Championships where I threw the skip shot off the water, oh, really. Hole of the 1998 world championships where I threw the skip shot off the water, oh, really, so, yeah. So the video, so the video that I saw, the video that I saw um was from the t-pad and you could see it really, really well. And then, after I threw on the video that I had seen scott martin steps up, goes. He called that before he did he said he was going to do that. I had to follow this all week, right, so that was on the, that was on the video. I saw that has been completely lost. Well, somebody, somebody sent another video that was shot from the t-pad, um, it's. It's not as good of an angle, but you could definitely see the shot skip off the water. So, yeah, I had managed to get one of them. I was hoping, once I put the book out they would all surface, but I was still happy to have one.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I'm talking like a week ago it showed up.
Speaker 3:That's a good turnout.
Speaker 4:Mind blown.
Speaker 3:That is awesome. Yeah, we live up here in the Washington area western Washington. We live up here in the Washington area, western Washington. What is your favorite disc?
Speaker 4:golf course or maybe a couple of your favorite disc golf courses up here in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 3:Well, you mentioned the.
Speaker 4:Cascades. Did you see my 10-mile hole in the Cascade Mountains, your 10-mile hole? Yeah, so go look up on my YouTube channel Also. I'll try to send you a link. But if you go to my youtube channel, just say type in scott stokely longest hole. I set up a basket and then played in 11 and a half, I think 11 and a half mile hole. No, no, 12 and a half mile hole. Oh my gosh, across the cascade mountains yeah, and half of the uphill.
Speaker 4:but yeah, no, because of I, I've, I've done five of these longest holes. They're all over 10 miles and they're a bunch of 200 or 150 foot throws, because it's you know, if you go off a cliff then you have to kite down and work off to find the disc, which is almost impossible up there. Possible up there. No, my favorite course is up there. I would say it would. It would be a kayak kayak point. Yeah, that one. I and I haven't played the course, but I've seen the facility and so I think that one would be magic. I didn't have time to play. I did a clinic out there, but I met the folks out there and I thought they were just awesome out there. But I met the folks out there and I thought they were just awesome. Um, um, I like, uh, shelton springs, is that?
Speaker 3:right. Yeah, shelton springs is where the uh pro tour is going to be this year yeah, I remember playing there, um, oh god, 2015 or something, no, 2017 or 18.
Speaker 4:Anyways, I played there and thought that was really great.
Speaker 3:I think still a comb's a great course uh, you hear they have another one now at.
Speaker 4:Still a comb yeah, no, I, yeah, I've been out there a few times to play that one. Um, so I actually this is kind of funny but I, I have played way less courses than people would think. I mean, I've played lots of courses because, after this many years and you know whatever, you know 39 countries I've played a lot of courses. But there are a lot of players that have played more than me because I have almost never played the course that wasn't the tournament course I was going to play. I've always just dedicated 100% of my time to that course. If I had time to play around in another course, then that's when I could play the tournament course to prepare for the tournament as a competitor.
Speaker 4:My focus was always on that. My focus was always on that. Actually, at this point right, this minute, or maybe the first time ever in my life, I'm moving away from that and going to get to play more for fun, because I haven't really announced, but my tour plans are changing a little bit, so I'm going to get to play more fun, have more experiences now than I've ever had, which is why I'm in Vietnam right now instead of competing in the Koh Samui tournaments in Thailand, and I skipped the Koh Samui tournament to come to Vietnam to work on a disc golf project, because I'm way more focused on that now. So I've played less courses. I've played less courses in Washington than you would think, gotcha.
Speaker 3:Gotcha. No, and that makes perfect sense. You got to stay focused on the prize, you know. And then one last question for you before we go what's your favorite disc or favorite couple of discs that you got in your bag right now, and why?
Speaker 4:Well, you know, I would say that. Well, there's probably the four discs I manufacture from Stokely discs and the Chainsmokers that I manufacture. It's going to be. It can be really hard for me because now I'm I have every reason in the world to basically be plugging my own disc. I think they're really good. I mean you can read about what they do and you can watch videos on them and reviews. I mean the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. They're really really great. But I'll answer your question by I'll leave those out. So I still love the Berg.
Speaker 4:The Berg huh I still bag the Berg, yeah, the Berg, yeah. I mean, when the Berg came out I became a really good finesse player for the first time in my life. It was really exciting. I love the Berg, I love the felon.
Speaker 3:The felon.
Speaker 4:That is my yeah. I love the felon, yeah, and it's funny because I know the dynamic is going through some more challenging times at the moment. I don't know what's going on with them.
Speaker 3:I just heard that I don't know anything.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I don't know anything about House of Disks, I can tell you that I've met some of the House of Disks people and I thought I liked them and I think it seems like they've made some poor I can't even say poor decisions because it's not my business and I don't know I don't know anything behind the scenes, but it doesn't seem like or they've made decisions that I don't understand. But, um, the, the, uh, the ruskos and and all the people, um, you know, that are involved with, have been involved in dynamic before they sold house to disc.
Speaker 4:I'm a big fan of them, you know beard giz and you know, eric mccabe and like I love all those guys so I've I've been a big fan of them and the discs. Those discs came out of them. So um big fan of the felon um, I love the destroyer. Can't get away from the destroyer. Destroyer is still the gold standard for ice blue drivers from innova. I love the force from discraft. That's my go-to, um kind of really overstable disc, especially if it's windy. I mean, I've never thrown a disc as good as the force um in the wind. I love that disc. So those are probably the ones that are my go-tos outside of my outside of the discs I make.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, eventually I'll be bagging nothing but my own disc, but I don't. I don't have a full set.
Speaker 4:I will tell you this though they will be just released the Lark Um and you can get. Uh, well, I encourage everybody to shop local first and go get them from your local retailer. So go get the Lark at your local store. But the next Discount is going to be our first high-speed driver and it is I mean look, I'm always straight with everybody Like I can tell you, this disc is is so good, like it is like it is, like I'm so happy with it, like I mean I've been throwing it. I mean I brought some of them with me over, I got them in my suitcase and I'm throwing them and it is like it's gonna yeah, it's. It's like the lark should put us on the map.
Speaker 3:We're talking like overstable, understable, Like what are we looking at here?
Speaker 4:It's not super overstable for a high-speed driver. The thing about this disc is that when you throw it, if you throw it with no wind, it has a certain flight characteristics. When you throw it into a headwind, it basically flies exactly the same, like it doesn't care. Yeah, it is it. Now it's not exactly like.
Speaker 4:Obviously it'll become a little more understable, but I mean it's like it it's not going to flip over and tank into the ground yeah, if you have like, let's say, a reasonable 10, 12, 13 mile an hour tailwind and you're playing catch with somebody at you know 350 feet, you're throwing with a 12 mile an hour tailwind. That's throwing with a 12 mile an hour headwind. If you were watching you two play catch and you had no gauge on the wind, you would have a hard time telling which way the wind's blowing, because the disc basically flies the same either direction. It's really good, but it's not out yet, so that's going to be a few months still.
Speaker 4:Right now the big one is the Lark. The Lark is it is like I love this disc. I mean it's super easy to control fairway driver. It's basically a straight flying disc which means it's a little bit unstable out of the hand at high speeds, but it basically flies straight. It made a tiny bit of turn but it's just a straight, true flying, easy to control disc for everybody. So I'm super, super happy with it. I bag it.
Speaker 3:And you guys design the molds yourself. So we have help.
Speaker 4:There's somebody within the industry that helps to design, because there's a learning curve involved in designing discs.
Speaker 3:Fair enough.
Speaker 4:The people that start designing their own discs rarely get it right. Like, if you look at Latitude's first couple discs, it's like, oh yeah, those aren't good. Like, well, of course they're not, they were trying to figure out how to make discs um, and you know, you know, you spend twenty five thousand dollars minimum per mold. Every time you want to try out a new experiment it's going to cost you twenty five thousand dollars. So if you can't, yeah, and then it. Then it takes years to get. You know, get good discs. So we got help, so that way we'd have good discs right out of the gate. So that you know, we have our first four discs out. The next four discs are ready to go um, so by the end of this year we'll have eight stokely discs and and, uh, three, three ching discs out. So we'll we'll already have 11 discs in our lineup less than two years after starting. So we're off to a really nice start.
Speaker 3:That's a fantastic start.
Speaker 4:Yeah, when I, when I look at the other companies and, and you know, all the other companies, I no one, I think no one's hit the ground running this fast before in terms of how many discs they could put out their first year, their second year. We are way ahead of any any curve. So, yeah, I couldn't be any happier.
Speaker 3:We're in 200, more than 250 stores already. Well, I know that uh our local shop, uh 360 disc golf, the house that matt built, he uh, he just got him in stock, yeah yeah, no, yeah, we're, we're, we're, we're making moves.
Speaker 4:So we're, like you know, like, like I said, I, I honestly couldn't be like any happier. We're not quite 12 months and and I you know, we're in 250 stores. I think that's, you know, really exciting. You know we need to be in you know a lot more, but it's definitely a good start.
Speaker 3:We would first of all like to thank Scott Stokely very profusely for spending this time with us and sharing all his knowledge and wisdom and experiences. It has been a very fun episode for us and hopefully for you as well, scott.
Speaker 4:Oh, for sure, I had a great time.
Speaker 3:Fantastic and good luck to you over there in Vietnam and Hanoi.
Speaker 4:Thank you very much. Well, we're here, then we got something in Cambodia, thailand, and then we're going to South Korea, which there's a disc golf project happening out here we're going to get to hopefully participate in a little bit.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful.
Speaker 4:The Southeast Asia. There's things happening out here, so it's really exciting.
Speaker 3:That's very cool. That's very cool. If you enjoy listening to the Intentional Disc Golfer podcast, please hit that like, share, subscribe button. You can find us on our Facebook and Instagram at Soprinski Disc Golf. That is C-Z-U-P-R-Y-N-S-K-I Disc Golf. Or you can just search the Intentional Disc Golfer podcast and you can get onto our Facebook group. We're also on X and YouTube the symbol at the IDG podcast. That is the symbol at the IDG podcast. You can also email us directly at theintentionaldiscgolfer at gmailcom. Theintentionaldiscgolfer at gmailcom. And if you'd like to support the show in any way, we also have a Patreon. So patreoncom backslash theintentionaldiscgulfer, patreoncom backslash theintentionaldiscgulfer. And we would like to thank, first of all, scott Stokely and all of our fans for sticking with us throughout the years and listening to us and just being a part of the movement. So I am one of your intentional disc golfers. My name is Brandon, I'm Jenny and here at the Intentional Disc Golfer Podcast, we truly do believe that disc golf changes lives. So go out there and grow the sport.
