Another multi-player season has come and gone and maybe you’re feeling like nothing’s changed. You didn’t reach Champion, didn’t get to top 250, and didn’t increase your win percentage. What gives?! If after hours and hours devoted to dusting internet frolfers you can’t seem to get past a plateau, I have some ideas that may help.
Practice Better
Picture this: you’re playing multiplayer, make a couple mistakes that put you in 3rd, and
immediately re-queue in frustration wanting some redemption. Surely you’ll play smarter in the next round, right?
As someone who’s spent time learning an instrument, the best way to progress past mistakes is through successful repetition. I’m talking about playing Smoke on the Water at a death crawl until you can hit every single note and then slowly bringing it up to speed, giving neighbors and significant others headaches but building your muscle memory and confidence. You can’t flub a riff but eventually nail it by playing something else, you have to practice.
For DGV this looks like going to Practice mode. When you have a multiplayer round with some errors, immediately go to Practice and make sure you’re happy with your play on that hole. Was your error misjudging conditions? Is there a simpler way to accomplish the same thing? Was it just bad luck? Take a minute to play the hole in a non-competitive setting to practice without consequences. Ideally you’ll leave practice mode knowing your play for the next time that hole shows up.
In the beginning this will be tedious. Sometimes you may need to practice all 9 holes of a layout! But that’s ok, because practice isn’t about judging ourselves. If you can learn to give yourself grace for making mistakes in practice you’ll do the same thing during multiplayer and be better off for it.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Maybe you’re a lone wolf, crafting your own lines late at night in the glow of your computer screen, laughing maniacally at the pure genius of how you carve a fairway. Maybe in the light of day your genius line hits first available.
Personally I love being the lone wolf, the guy people ask for when they want a line on a difficult hole. Think about this though… there are currently 333 holes in the game. There’s no way me or anyone else is going to be the person cracking 333 holes wide open.
My point is this: confidently borrow from other players. Get on Facebook and join the Disc Golf Valley Players Page or DGV Tips pages, join Discord and check out the Global Disc Golf server, and get on YouTube and subscribe to ALF, Bamananam, and Aaron Christensen. Search through the pages for holes you struggle with and be a sponge. For this to work you need to not be so proud of your lines that you won’t change your play. That last bit of advice is hard, especially for me, but I think it’s a really important step to keep growing.
Let Your Score Tell the Story
It’s likely you already participate in DGV social media and have learned tons of lines. In this lies a trap though: flexing on the internet.
There’s a time and place for humiliating your opponents with aces and throw ins, and climbing the multiplayer leaderboard isn’t it. Think of Isaac Robinson, my Eskimo brother of Disc Golf World Championships: his world title rounds felt boring at times because all he had to do was play solid golf while his competitors tried and failed to gain bonus strokes.
Be like Isaac and practice restraint, patience, and discipline. You can always get highlights in the Daily Challenge, and at the end of the season when you’ve made Champion division you can flex on social media, but up until that time stick to your game plan.
*If you do want to just play multiplayer for fun then you can’t be mad about losing. You can’t have both.*
In conclusion…
Multiplayer runs like a marathon. Give yourself grace for individual mistakes because most likely you’ll make hundreds of them. Play with confidence and discipline, celebrate your successes, practice better, learn from your peers, and enjoy the climb!
Reese Hight
2x DGV World Champion
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