Since late August, my friend Jeshua Erickson and I have thrown ourselves into the sport of disc golf, all thanks to the new course at Bancroft Bay Park. Life gets busy, and the game gives us exercise and the opportunity to clear our minds.

That’s because the game is a lot more complex than it looks. It’s an easy game to play, but it is difficult to become good at. Normal golf looks simple. It is hitting a little white ball with clubs, but anyone who plays it knows it isn’t that simple. There are different clubs, different strokes, different strategies. Well, it’s the same thing with disc golf.

For starters, people don’t play with your regular Frisbees that you throw at the beach or at a barbecue. There are official discs that you can buy here in town at Martin’s Cycle & Fitness and at the Web-Room.

I have seven discs, but I play with three or four. The discs aren’t as big like beach Frisbees. They are about 21 to 24 centimeters in diameter and weigh between 150 and 180 grams — never more than 200 grams. The discs are labeled as drivers, mid-range and putters. Even then there are variations, such as distance drivers and fairway drivers. And they have variations of shape, weight and distribution of the weight. They are shaped to match the kind of throw you need to make.

For instance, the edge on a driver typically is sharp to cut through the air, while a putter has a blunt edge so it hovers well and bangs into the chains of the basket well. They have slick names, too. My favorite disc is a fairway driver called a Leopard. It is made by Innova. There is a mean-looking leopard printed on it. The discs come in colors, but the colors don’t mean anything.

Remember those halo Frisbees that were popular in the 1980s? They had nothing in the middle, and they curved in the air like crazy. Some disc golf discs have more of their weight on the outer rim than in the center. Others have more evenly distributed weight.

Overstable is the term for discs that naturally curve, and understable is the term for discs that seem to push against the natural curve. Stable is the term for discs that tend to level out.

You know how when you throw a Frisbee the normal way you can tend to place the outer edge closer to the ground than the inner edge when you release? This results in a curved throw. If you are right-handed, the disc curves left. In disc golf, this left curve is called hyzer. If you throw level, the disc soars flat. If you throw with the outer edge up, it curves right. It is called anhyzer, which is a good source of beer jokes.

In golf, you try to complete the course with the least number of strokes. In disc golf, it is the least number of throws. In golf, par is labeled at the tee. (Par means the strokes a typical expert should need to reach the hole.) In disc golf, many courses don’t label the par. The Professional Disc Golf Association rules say the par is always 3 unless otherwise labeled. However, some casual players will play par-4 games just for fun. Jeshua and I play par-3 games at the course at Bancroft Bay Park.

You throw from directly behind where your disc lands. Like golf, the person whose disc is farthest from the hole throws first. In disc golf, players throw at baskets with chains that sort of catch your disc but sometimes the chains can push it back out.

So you see, the game has complexities.

I have two different ways that I tee off. One is my hyzer shot. The other is my flat shot.

For the hyzer shot, as I step forward, I have two hands on an overstable driver disc as I pull back, which makes me wind up nicely while keeping the disc at the angle I want, and then I unwind right at the tee line, releasing the disc with a lot of thrust and a bit of hyzer. I release it so it goes to the right because I count on the hyzer — the curve in the air — to bring the disc back to the middle of the fairway. The flight looks like a “)”. It goes pretty far because I have long arms.

My flat shot is something I discovered accidentally. I was thinking about disc dynamics, and it occurred to me that the more spin I put on a disc the farther it will go, regardless of the amount of forward thrust I put on it. I tried some shots and in goofing around found one that worked like a dream, when I do it right. I stand backward from the tee and step into the shot and turn, as though unwinding 180 degrees. If I keep the understable driver disc flat and low and give it a nice snap of the wrist, which almost happens anyway from the centrifugal momentum of turning around, that disc goes long and straight.

The flat shot is beautiful when it works, but it can be hard to get the flat shot to work, so I have to keep practicing.

You can see, there’s a lot to think about. For the first month of play, I tried many different grips. Some advice: Don’t have a finger on the exterior of the disc. It robs speed from the disc. Now I focus on form and release. Form is hard, but I think the hardest part is getting good at release.

The other thing I have learned is to not think too much about your form or release. The more you do, the worse you throw. Take all the time you want for aiming, but barely think about your form. You want to be rhythmic, like you do it all the time.

Reading helps, but the best thing you can do is to go online and watch videos of people throwing. The best way to learn is by watching. You’ll see some people making amazing shots. Jeshua and I call a successful long putt a “YouTuber.”

Tribune Managing Editor Tim Engstrom’s column appears every Tuesday.