At 60 new to the sport

[gwhalen]

I have bought into a 55 and over community and after playing on our nice pits I have decided to get a lot better at this sport. With over 20 years of competitive tennis playing I got pretty good at hitting targets untill annoying little injuries took away my comptitive edge in my early 40's.
 
I had an old garage sale set of American Proffesionals that I started practicing with, about 5 weeks ago. I am retired so I have been getting in a couple of hours a day. I started just trying to hit the stake on most evey throw. It only took about a week to get that making noise number up to about 90%, no control, just nail the stake, some ringered up.

I decided the next step was to soften up those landings so I wouldn't have to deburr those shoes twice a day, I knocked most of the paint, and all of the rust off of them.  This next steep required a smooth deliberate online repeatable swing and that has really improved things overall.  I was naturally throwing a flip and spent some time getting some controll over it I really want to throw a turn and am spending some time with that, mabe a half hour a day.  Something else I have been doing to help track progress is to score the number of shoes to game. Most of the games played at the pits are to 21, so I am couting that. I stated out needing 38 to 40 shoes to get to 21, now I am getting there with 32 to 34 shoes.

The American Professionals may be the best cheap back yard shoe in the world, but I have decided a great shoes it is not. I don't think they are balanced well enough to turn well, so UPS is scheldued to deliver 4 matched Renagade Cobras tommorow, so serious turn work starts very soon.

By the way my ringer percentage is at about 22% now with the flip, I know it will drop untill I can controll the turn shoe some.

All suggestions are welcome

[rbaker]

I would recommend concentrating on first throwing an open shoe, second throwing a flat shoe, and finally alignment with the stake. If I had it to do over again (flip to a turn shoe), I would step up about 5 feet until I could consistently throw an open, flat shoe, so I would not have to put quite so much strength into the delivery. Once you get tired or aggravated put the shoes up for awhile---Bad practice = Bad Habits. Beginners should not worry about ringers unless they can consistently throw an open and flat shoe. Good Luck and hopefully you will get better advice from future posts.

[gwhalen]

On that distance thing I think it's best to stay at 37, when I first started I did play with starting a 20 ft then 30 then 40. Like other sports distance comes off the back swing and follow through.  Oft time when I step out the first few shoes are a little long because I am over committing on the backswing. A turned shoe will totally change with power and distance, and since I have the power I can't see a lot of bennifit by shortening the practice distance.

[TwoImperials]

If you want to start off throwing the turn shoe properly read the following at http://www.horseshoepitching.com/gameinfo/howtopitch.html   Pay special attention to Guy Zimmerman's instructions on how not to obtain a turning shoe, and then read how to properly obtain a turning shoe. Most former flippers have a tough time on bringing the shoe down too flat.

[gwhalen]

I think I've read that piece about 5 times now. I have had some success and am blown away by how some of my poorly thown turned shoes still ringer. I can easily see the stake gragging advatage to mastering the turn. I feel like practice, practice and more practice will bring things around. My skill develpoment in other sports has taught me that if you want to do something well, learn what not to do, and invest the time to learn it the right way.