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.
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4 comments:

  1. Sean June 1, 2010 at 9:29 PM

    How to maintain intensity. Hmm.

    I was a section leader in my marching band for two years. The way we got pumped up was through traditions. In fact, when we lost a few competitions, the directors blamed it on our lack of practicing traditions before performance time. I agree that tradition is and can be an integral part of inciting and maintaining intensity.

    In a lot of ways, we lack a sense of tradition. Yes, we have gone to nationals before and done well. But we dont look back on that with honest admiration. It's mentioned only off hand. People are hesitant to take up the name of nationals teams in the past, "Dark Horse". These few are afraid that we wouldn't do the name honor, that we are no longer a dark horse team. Needless to say, that kind of mentality is only self-destructive. In the future our team should look back on our history with a sense of pride. We need to emulate our predecessors successes. Why not contact the players of these nationals teams and ask them how they achieved success, how they kept up their intensity. I do not believe that we can go on into the future without acknowledging our past.

  1. Bobby June 2, 2010 at 12:41 AM

    You guys hit the nail on the head, so ill go in a little bit of a different direction:

    I feel that a major aspect of maintaining focus and intensity is the preparation, as you said intensity in practice will transition to intensity in games as practices are the preparation for games so the best thing that you can do is come into practices with the same mindset. This means eating right, sleeping well, talking about the game outside of practice, and even reading up on the game in free time. One of my favorite of Zip's Tips is where he suggests caring a frisbee with you almost everywhere as just having it in your presence and playing with it can make you a little bit better. This is might be a lot to do so obviously balance yourself, but if you want to play Ultimate and play it well it has to become part of your life, just something you do at 3:30 every tuesday and thursday. You have to treat Ultimate as the real sport that it is, a HUGE problem we had this year was with people taking the team as a joke or something that they would do if they had time for it.

    To get personal with our team I am hoping that next year the team is a little bit more serious when it comes to the devotion to making it to practice and preparing for practice, I think the biweekly workouts that AC wants to add to our schedule will go far in doing this, and the team needs to crack down on people not coming to practice a lot more.

  1. Niji June 2, 2010 at 10:49 AM

    Speaking of Darkhorse...

    http://www.ultimatehistory.com/teamcityrankings/Pg/bestcollegeopenteams.html

    I feel a little bit of pride when I see William & Mary in the 2002 semifinalist column.

    Interesting takes for both of you.

    Tradition, or culture? I definitely agree that WM ultimate has to build a tradition, a culture, of ultimate. I think it starts with doing things that forces everyone to think about it everyday. I think something like making everyone have to walk around with a frisbee in their hand all day (for a week?) would be a fun sort of "hazing"* assignment. Other activities similar to this should be implemented. I mean, if people can bond over something like a socially created organization centered around, well, partying, then it should be easier to create a stronger bond over a sport where the common denominator is something little more (in my opinion) real, right?

    - * Note: Hazing sucks.

    I think building a culture of "TEAM" quickly would help too. We rely too much on people bonding over practice time: The reality is that it doesn't really happen like that. Figuring out a way to get the newbs to bond quicker would make them more likely to come out to practice and stick with the program through the hardships. Something I noticed was once your class started to bond, the guys who bonded stuck together and improved quicker. This comes down to: you started throwing with each other in your spare time, talked about ultimate with each other, and developed friendly rivalries. Food for thought.

    But most of all, in my opinion, it comes down to each individual. Each person has to set an example, and constantly think about how they are setting an example. Each player, regardless of what year, must set an example by keeping the intensity up at every practice. Not just when they are playing, but when they are on the sidelines. They have to cultivate a culture of intensity. Going balls to the wall. Encourage others, encourage individuals, to be loud on the sidelines, to get involved in the play, to yell up calls IN PRACTICE. Intensity on the field starts on the sideline and ends on the sideline. I really need the both of you to try to cultivate this sort of intensity next year, and the years to come. Get loud. Talk to your peers, to your youngsters, to the upperclassmen. Build it up. No one listens better than a freshman. No one provides a wake up call better than underclassmen. If you make some noise, on the field and off, and rile up your teammates, intensity will follow naturally.

    On top of this, the captains, every year, must lay down not just the way they intend the team to play, but the *characteristics* of the way they intend to play that year. It'll come down to the leadership in a team to set the tone right, the first day of practice. It's simple. All one has to do is for them is to adamantly state:
    "Welcome to the team. We are a team of hustle. We are a team of intensity. We play smart, we play quick, and we are the dark horse of this college season. We are WM ultimate.."
    Or something cool sounding and awe-inspiring like that.

  1. Niji June 3, 2010 at 12:09 PM

    Sumon just wrote a very relevant post about Nittai's practice, concerning intensity.

    Read it here: http://highreleasesharktopus.blogspot.com/2010/06/very-loud-barbarians.html

    Food for thought:
    "I wonder if high vitality brings about high performance, or if high performance brings about high vitality. Or is it both ways, and a positive cycle? It’s something to consider."

    Sumon also pointed out in an IM to me that perhaps his post "goes with the 'tradition' aspect: being loud both on and off the field is nittaidai's 'tradition'"

    So perhaps we need to make this a WM tradition.

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