Niji: Nittai Recap 6/22 + 6/24

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Well, if you read the last post about them, you know how they are, generally. And interesting aspect they put together is that they scrimmage with sophomores/freshmen vs. upperclassmen. Kind of fun. It's a little hard to assess the way I've been playing because I'm basically just doing whatever the fuck I feel like. For the most part, it seems to be working. I've been just working the disc really quick, hitting upfield stuff by 3 or dumping it, and then getting the disc back right away if the opportunity is there. The Nittai kids trust me with the disc, so they all tend to dump to me at a low count, which makes my job easier, and I haven't really felt any pressure while on offense. I've also just been hucking it whenever, and they've been working at a surprisingly high rate. I feel like my deep throws have gotten much much better in the past 4 months. As Alan described it, I can pretty much put it wherever I want. So, I don't think I have too many turns. On defense, I've been playing pretty loose, and mostly just cutting off the most dangerous cuts. Obviously, I've been looking for poach D's at the same time, which I've been getting so that's fun too. I got one as the far handler D on the flick side (ho stack), on an incut throw. I just barely missed a D on an upline deep throw. I hesitated on the poach because the thrower hesitated on the throw, but I was close enough to get the D anyway, so I should have.


Abrupt ending, because I drifted away from this post, but yeah.
2 comments

Sean: WAFC Advanced #2

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Two reverse bookends, one bookend. Two fuck ups and one game winning play. Which matters most? The play that wins the game. Cause you play to win the game, right?

Reverse bookend #1: Dont know how I turned it, but got beat break side for the score.
Reverse bookend #2: Messed up an upfield throw (SIGH), got beat deep.

The latter was the worst. Both are terrible and harsh ways to mess up. Obvious things to improve upon. Fake throws more often in order to prevent a messed up upfield throw(less pressure from the mark) and position myself better and quicker for the jump D.

Bookend #1: Near Callahan, break cut from back of the stack for the game winning score.

I say near Callahan because I D'd the disc near the endzone. Looking back I am unsure of whether I could've caught the disc in the endzone for a Callahan. Nevertheless I am glad that I hit the disc instead of catch because our team had no more timeouts left. Our offense was able to setup a calm and structured offense and the go ahead game winner followed. Decision-making in frisbee can be complex because it depends on so many variables.

Final score: 15-14 2 comments

Setting your Goals High

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One of the most important things that you can do as an improving player is to set your goals as high as you possibly can, strive to be the best player on the field even if you are seriously under experienced or overcome by the athleticism of the players around you. One of the biggest shifts that I experienced last year that I think made a huge difference in my improvement was that after winter break I really stopped viewing myself as a freshman and stopped comparing my abilities to freshmen but instead I tried to compare my abilities to the players on the team that were above me. I wanted to play shut down defense like myles and vereb, have sweet throws and decision making like Niji and the rest of our senior handlers, and be a beast cutter like acie.

Obviously, I was unable to match up to the performance of these players best qualities due to lack of experience and probably general impossibility which made practicing and games slightly frustrating at times for me, a great example of this is that I would get down on myself if I perceived that I had made a bad decision even if it turned out well also I probably underestimate my own value to a degree. However, I know that this mentality enabled me to push myself really hard on defense and helped me become pretty solid on D. Furthermore my throws and decision making improved tremendously to the point that I got chances to handle in practice towards the end of the year, something that no one really envisioned to start the year and I hope that more experience will continue to improve. The biggest thing however was my focus on cutting as it was the thing that has given me the most trouble, I often watch the upperclassmen and feel that I could be able to get the disc with as much ease as them but when I'm on the field I somehow this does not completely translate. I set my goals high and I felt that was unable to reach them, however this does not mean that I set them too high as the drive to reach them definitely made me better as a player. Just now remembering back on looking at the stats for roll call I realize that I actually had a good amount of touches on the disc, and far more than I remembered having and I realize that this mindset helped me improve tremendously and I need to focus more on my accomplishments and progress towards these goals than my inability to reach them immediately as a freshman.

As my dad always cornily but truthfully says, "set your sights high, and you will go far" 2 comments

Niji: Nittai vs. WM

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Man to man top to down match up:


Speed: Nittai as fast or faster


Throws: Most of the sophomores have throws as good as AC, Almost all the seniors have better throws than AC, at least several probably have about the same ability as I do but have different throws.


Quickness: all or most are as quick or quicker than me


Ups: WM is better in the air in a man to man match up


Strategy: Hard to say. The older players are just kinda fucking around and they're missing a few key players.

Both Alan and I agree that as far as players go, they have the potential to be better than WM but they have no coherent strategy and throw it away far too often. If the top five players from Nittai played with WM, they would immediately make an impact. Moreover, they would be easily amongst the best players on the team, especially if they learned our system and played into it.

And for being so athletic, they don't play defense *that* well. But again, something that can be worked on.

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Bobby: Quick Defensive strategy

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I tried this today, I think it should work pretty well:

When playing against a ho-stack and the disc was on the sideline, I covered my man in on an in-cut but the throw didn't go off to him. I heard the the stall count at 5, so I quickly checked behind me and saw that I had a teammate deep so I stopped where I was and clogged the lane expecting my teammate to cover me deep (should have yelled but it slipped my mind, obviously very important to do), playing a poach D to try to get the stall for my team. Probably some holes in this strategy as in all poach D's, but I felt that this was a particularly good opportunity to poach, we forced them to throw a stall 8 wobbly dump throw which was disappointingly not D'ed, but it did put a fair amount of pressure on the thrower and we got a good result out of it.

The real point of this though is that on D you should always be looking for opportunities to play a little bit of poach D if it is beneficial, for the beginner player it is something you should observe and register but perhaps not act on, but it can be a play that makes getting a D possible for your team while conserving energy and can therefore be extremely valuable. 2 comments

Making the First Move

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First point of the game, first offensive point you play.

What's on your mind?
I'm always thinking about making a big first impression.

As a handler, there is nothing more important than the first thing you do. The second I get the disc, I try to immediately break my mark, or at least pivot quickly the second I get the disc and let him know that I can break him like a bitch around backhand. Why, do you ask? Well think about it. If you were that defender, what would be going through your mind?
"Oh shit, this guy likes to break around backhand, and he has a good one."
All of a sudden, in one fell swoop, you're dictating how he plays.

Boom. Roasted. (Game over man.)

You can do the same thing as a cutter. Or as a team. Set up a big play right away, for a good deep cut shot. A little bit of a higher risk, but the benefits are bountiful. You show that you can take your man deep. You show that our handlers have the deep shots. Immediately, the opposing d-line has to respect your deep cuts, opening up the in-cuts.
Again. You dictate how THEY play.
Try it out.
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Sean: WAFC Advanced #1

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First game with a new team. Mainly older players. Not too many standouts. Handling core is weak. Our women are strong. I believe that I need to become a handler for the team after losing the game 12-8. Our captain has his head in the right place, firm yet not overbearing. This league will be fun!

One assist, three scores. No D's. One turn (early on, again).

Played as a cutter for the entirety of the game. When I got the disc I took a quick look up field followed by a quicker dump. Basically it for most of the game for me, offensively. When I got to the endzone I cut without thinking about it, looking for holes. This reflex didnt serve me in the area between bricks so much. Part of it was due to my indecision and another part due to a weak handler-cutter relationship. By this I mean they havent played enough with me to understand what I do. This will come with time, but it will come quicker if I am more decisive about cutting.

My assist was pure luck. Their teams best player against our teams fastest woman. He thought it was out the endzone, but she kept with it, perfectly timing her jump to just barely toe it in. She saved my ass and taught me a lesson: never stop attacking the disc, even when against great odds. Flick huck by the way. It slowly floated up, not sure if it bounced or not but it was certainly a low release so some bounce might have come into play.

I got broken way too often. Overconfidence in the mark and my fellow defenders. I'll play more conservative. For some reason I covered handlers most of the time. Their handling core was experienced and quick. I tried to force them to cut a certain way, which they would do, but then immediately cut where I wasnt expecting, where I didnt want them to cut. The way to improve upon this is quickness and experience. Really concentrate on staying on the balls of my feet.

I want to play defense more. Need to work on my body position and forcing my cutter to go where I want him.

If my man poaches off of me, cut deep immediately.

As usual, I want to get back on the field. Couldn't happen sooner. 9 comments

Sean: An Idea

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It is difficult to consistently get a good camera angle on ultimate frisbee play. The best and easily accessible game video comes from a high vantage point. At our school there are few easily accessible vantage points. At any tournament there are virtually none. Whats a good solution to these problems?

BAM!!

$300 dollar drone. Attach a (light) camera to its under belly, control it with an iphone or itouch, fly it high above any ultimate game in reasonable wind conditions. Every teammate chips in 13 or so bucks, and you got great game film in a jiffy.
1 comments

Bobby: Summer League- 6/14 updated

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First time playing ultimate in over a week, damn it feels good. Been busy lifting boxes all week, annoying and painful: my back was bugging me all game and I am out of shape from where I want to be due to this, I don't mean to make everything a lesson but physical fitness and well being are vital to be most effective when you play, make sure to take good care of yourself to stay in prime ultimate condition. Otherwise, it was a great game, we played easily the best opponents we have played so far this summer season, they worked the disc well and had a lot of experience/a couple of them were wearing the same college jerseys, it always helps to have experience playing with people. We definitely had the advantage physically though which lead them to run a strong defense that i'll talk about later. We ended up winning a hard fought 15-13 game.

Not too much interesting going on for me today offensively, played very consistently mostly of my catches were on in cuts, only had one turn which honestly should have been caught also threw 2 assists and one score. One thing that worked particularly well on a deep cut was that I started to clear in then busted deep again, kinda like a little stutter step, worked well and burned my man really easily

We played a different type of zone than I'm used to today which was a 3-3-1, kinda interesting basically you have the 3 front men in the cup with one of the side guys switching off to the mark (force middle so when its on the sideline the man who would be guarding the up line part of the cup is the mark and forces towards the 2 remaining members of the cup). Then there is the next three with the 2 on the outside playing as wings pretty much like in our zone where they play the area and pinch in to cut off the field but kinda play man within their zone (our wings were not very strong which weakened the effectiveness of our zone. In the middle is what they were calling the shallow deep, its basically his job to cover the over/through the cup throws and the position of the offensive zone players is relayed to him by the deep-deep who does the same as our 6 and guards against the huck, I played the deep-deep which was really fun as there were d chances all over the place I think I had like 5-6 in our zone defense (like 3 more playing man with a few damn close misses on bids), not sure how this style of the zone matches up with the one that we run definitely seemed to work well though despite the lack of wind, though much of this can probably be explained by the general lack of coordination that a summer league team playing in their 3rd game is sure to experience, can you offer your thoughts niji?

On a funny/weird note, my team calls me either monster or animal cause of my play its pretty flattering i guess but i cant really take it too seriously, its kinda funny how the quality of play in college is so high

Finally got a semi point block (hand) wooo, barely fouled the man though so i guess it doesn't really count, but im definitely improving my mark, in fact you might say it has improved markedly, its all about intensity (make sure not to over commit though) in the past I definitely treated it as a little bit of a break, that is just inexcusable

The other team played a defense that worked remarkably well by forcing no hucks on the mark and then forcing us out on cutter d, I think apart of this d's success was our team's inexperience in some ways but they also had some inexperience so I feel like its porbably relatively easy to run, also I know we ran it a few times last year, but i definitely think we should in the future

We started doing the same thing at one point and it definitely worked quite effectively, though I don't like that style of defense as much as this made me realize that the way I play defense is that I try to react more to what the thrower is trying to do than my man (while still keeping up with my man) therefore I always like keeping the handler in my field of view, I think this tactic works pretty damn well for the most part i guess sometimes I can tend to lose my man a little, you guys want to elaborate on how you most effectively play defense/the potential weaknesses of mine? 3 comments

Pitt: High School Players

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Check this out.
Basically, Pitt has a large pool of experienced players coming in as freshmen. This number is obviously growing, as we can see from the growth of 5/15 to 20/24 players with high school experience, from 2005 to 2010. But damn. 20/24 have high school experience. How many of ours have high school experience?

Regardless of this, I think its kinda cool to see the growth of ultimate.
I guess the ironic part is that the kids with legit high school experience were in my class (Sami, Zach) and the class above me (Alan, Hodges, and uh.. Pat Mallin). Oh and Ankoor.

On an entirely different note: Holy fuck.

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Sean: Pickup 6/8

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Context: high school friends, only two knew what stack was. Therefore it was unstructured pickup.


My main goal going into this game was to concentrate on placement of hucks. Sadly, I was not able to practice this because my teammates stood in the endzone, hands waving. Instead, I practiced what some call "taking over the game". This means I attempted to touch the disc more than any other person, working the disc up the field purely through my effort. Few hucks, almost all give and go's. It worked really well. When I started to call for the disc right after completing a pass, people on my team quickly realized i meant business and do whatever the hell say. And they did. Hooray.

"Taking over the game"allowed me to practice quick handler movement, whether strike or dump. The first cut worked about 80% of the time (due to defensive inexperience). When it didnt I played the indecision game. Something to work on for next time: if the first cut doesnt work clear out (in an ideal and organized game) or quickly setup another cut.

I got my pulling practice in today. I have a better feel for it now. To me, it no longer feels like a huck. Its a different throw now. My grip is much tighter. My body movement is aggressive and methodical, not full of finesse and quickness like a huck. My approach to where I throw the disc is different now too. How I pull a disc is similar to how Richard Hamilton free throws:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mttHlV1WjMk&feature=related

I do not step out like he does, but I set posture and run up for my pulls in the exact same way. My hope is that my consistency increases due to a routine much like Hamilton's.

And I had two sick flick pulls. I'm looking at you Bobby.

Got nailed in the kidney today as I got a D. Hurt/s like hell. Pissin' blood tonight beeches. The kick who tackled me in the kidney traveled big time on a huck assist. Pisses me off. I called travel, but no one cared haha. That's good 'ole pickup.

If this same group of people do this again, I am going to try to teach them a ho stack so I can have more fun. Not gonna teach them a vert. Thoughts on Hofense over vert? Might not work because only 12 people showed up. Hard to do a Hofense with six people.
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The Single, Biggest Liability: Revisited

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So I was watching a highlight clip from some random college team (I think it was the University of Washington in St. Louis) and at the very end of the clip, there was a shot of the coach saying, "At practice, every drop, the whole team runs." Now that would be a very good incentive to stop dropping huh? Not only that, but its simple, not too time consuming, yet I would imagine that its quite effective.


Discuss.
2 comments

Sean: Wendigo Tryouts 6/2

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1) I almost passed out after warming up. I felt like i had just given blood. I sat out for awhile, missed the first and only drill. This all happened because I didnt get enough sleep, eat well or drink enough water beforehand. Never gonna make that mistake again.


2) On one turn (which I caused) I spent time regretting rather than getting into position to make the D. Essentially, reverse bookends. No fun at all. Next time transfer the intensity of regret into defensive intensity. I wouldve gotten the D if I had made the transition to D quicker.

3) So after turning the disc over twice, I came back and scored the next six of eight points. Almost all on D I believe. The points that I remember scoring on were the result of two things: 1. The beloved S-cut 2. and more importantly, positional awareness. Immediately after a turn, pivot towards the crowded space then cut towards the open space. Easy as that. Another time I was out of position behind the handler in a vert stack in the endzone. I sprinted to the front of the stack. No one was cutting from the back so I continued to sprint to the force side for an easy score. On a different point many of the opposing team clustered toward my handler because they were following their man in on an in-cut. I quickly cut deep for the score. All about positional awareness.

4) Starting to cut before the disc is in catches the defender unaware much of the time.

5) It is hard to put much else down because the team captains for Wendigo taught me a new offense: "Colorado Offense". As you might be able to glean, one of the captains recently graduated from Colorado Mamabird.

The offense is a hybrid of every defense we know at WM. Iso, vertical and horizontal.

There is a strong side of the field and there is a weak side of the field. On the strong side there are two iso's who take up all of the cutting space on the field. Their cutting works much like the 2 and 3 (middle guys) in a horizontal stack in that one man cuts in and another cuts out. On the weak side three players setup vertically, hugging the sideline in order to give the strong side room to cut. Only when a strong side cutter calls "fill" does a weak side cutter recycle into the cutting space. Theoretically a strong side cutter could cut forever because of this.

There is one handler in the middle of the field slightly behind the weak side stack, which is slightly behind the strong side cutters. A dump is 10-15 feet directly behind the handler. Rarely does he come into play. Same with the weak side. In a perfect world all disc movement is carried out by the handler and the two strong side cutters. Three guys.

Strengths: TONS of cutting space. Players who need rest in a game long and point long sense get to rest as dump or weak side cutters. If your cutters are really good, the point is over quickly. The best defensive players on the other team get tired out quickly.

Weaknesses: If your strong side cutters suck at cutting, the offense falls apart quickly. Chemistry between these cutters and the handler is a must.

Got to play this defense for two hours, not enough time to truly evaluate it. Regardless, it seems to have strong advantages. Something our team should experiment with next season.

I asked one of the captains about what I should do better next time. All stuff I have heard before, but as the Hagakure says never shun an elders advice even if you have heard it time and again. Don't round off cuts and work on throws. I thought I learned all this stuff awhile ago haha. An ongoing process for throws. Not so much for rounding off cuts.

6) Put a huck to space in which the cutter to run onto. Try not to throw the disc directly over the cutter, the one place he cant get it.

7) Having trouble with my flick lately. Tends to bounce. Experimenting with the grip. Throw it flat stays flat!

Might join two leagues (Advanced and Rec) and a club team this summer. The cost of traveling into DC a four times a week is a consideration though. Meh.




5 comments

Bobby: Summer League- 6/2

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Finally got to play some real ultimate today for the first time since regionals, it was pretty awesome, took a bit to get back in to the swing of things but going into half and afterwords I asserted myself into the game and began kinda dominate on both sides of the disc, I'm pretty sure I am the best player on the field for my team and we aren't a bad team; this is definitely a nice feeling, I'll have to use this opportunity well. Anyway, we won 15-6.

Some quick things that I'm gonna write down real quick before I head to bed, I will come back to this and expand on it later.

1) I threw a bullet flick for a score today which was the best option at the time, which reminded me there is a time and a place for almost every throw and working on developing all throws is an important goal

2) I wanted to work on cutting so I kinda didn't speak up when they asked if I could handle (probably a mistake) but I'm pretty sure that I have some of the better throws on the team so I'm gonna speak up for next time, I should try to step into the handler role a little bit while I'm playing with this team, also shows how much you can improve throwing if you put the time in, as there were people who had been playing for more than 7 years that I had better throws than

3) I kinda realized how incredibly important athleticism is for cutting, I am definitely one of the more athletic people out there on the field and I was able to cut rather effectively, need to continue to build this up especially on my direction changing

4) If I bid a step earlier and make the first step to try to make a play a second earlier I will start to come up with a lot of plays, bidding is a ton of fun but it still sucks to just miss. In general decision making and my first step needs to be just a little bit faster, when the game slows down you need to think about what your doing, but the second action begins you need to put this behind you and just react.

5)A bit of a side note, I need to try to remember how I was pulling today as I started to put some really good air underneath them and we were able to get down to our men before the disk even dropped a lot of the times, which is truthfully an amazing advantage

6) My mark was actually pretty decent today, kinda went with a new approach of jumping around a little bit and trying to distract the thrower also i took a half-step back, seemed to work to some degree and the extra motion that I was making definitely made me quicker on my feet, something to work on is knowing when to use different kinds of marks on different throwers

7) Concerning your last post Niji i realized that one of the best ways to get others to play with more intensity is to have intensity yourself, it is awesome to see the entire team pick up their game a little bit after you make a sweet bid or a great throw you can communicate the need for intensity with actions almost as well as with words

8) I feel like there is a way that everyone should be able to talk about the game while in a game, for now I will call this captain speak. Basically in my view it is either when you are just intense enough about the game so that you keep everyone focused or you are able to keep the team loose while not distracting them from the game at hand, but the best of this is when a person can do both and know which of these approaches to go for in different circumstances in games. This is something that I want to develop personally, as having the ability to keep the team in the game through talking to your team is a vital aspect of frisbee and is something everyone should work on.

On kinda a random note, any frisbee that isn't William & Mary frisbee (all of it) for me right now is practice and although I want to win just like in practice I treat it like practice in a lot of ways. It is important in frisbee to set your priorities and goals and then work towards them, mine being making myself better so that I can make W&M frisbee better next year, this should be the goal of all members of the team this summer.

Also a bit of house keeping here, I don't know how to title these so that its easier to tell whether whose it is just by the title, cause if we are all writing about summer league/practices once school begins again it may get confusing... thoughts? 1 comments

Practice: Maintaining Intensity

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Maintaining intensity; how do you do it? During practice, one pet peeve of mine was that we would never be on the sidelines the way we would (or should) be at tournaments! Practice is practice: Even if you aren't on the field playing as one of the 14, you better get wise to the fact that you're still playing as a part of the team on the field. People sitting down, n00b who aren't watching, talking idly, wasting time, dicking around... Pay attention to your teammates, pay attention to the game. You're fully expect to help out the defense by yelling up calls, to help out the mark by telling him what to watch out for, and help out someone stuck with the disc without any options. If we don't do this during practice, we wont be able to do it properly at a tournament.


So then what? How do we do this? I have some theories of my own, but I'll let you guys come up with some ideas of your own first.

So, maintaining intensity during practice: Discuss.
4 comments