We played mini tonight after reviewing the mid-field dump system today. We worked some kinks out with getting the swing off and second options, and then on to mini.
I think mini is a great game for player development. The ironside guys started doing it later one night a week in august, and when I played on metal, we the local guys did that as well.
you get a ton of touches, get put in a lot of difficult throwing situations, and you learn how to play defense.
And, if anyone has ever played a good game of mini, you know how hard it is to run.
I promise to get back to the x's and o's of everything later, but this week is crazy at work.
-josh
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
The good and bad of inside out throws
One of the challenges of coaching is having young players as well as older players understand the difference in the window of opportunity of i/o throws and o/i throws. Especially break throws.
No matter what level of team here in the northeast, at least once a game, there is always the dreaded i/o break turnover to someone making a cone cut from the back of the stack. Their trajectory is never really narrow enough to shield the defender, and it never had a chance of being completed, but people will always, always try it.
The above is my poor attempt to draw an accurate representation of the temporal and spacial windows of a cutter and of a thrower's two main break options, the around and the inside break. I say poor because I think I have only depicted the spacial windows, and some can debate about those as well.
The setup is your typical endzone cut. A person is cutting from the back. Ideally, they would be starting their cut at the very end of the endzone , but this is showing the typical poor use of endzone real estate. The cut begins in the middle of the field and about 5 yards from the back of the endzone. This is a typical endzone offense.
Because he is cutting at the cone, he is cutting at a 45 degree angle (20 yards from sideline, 20 yards back from cone). This is a much more horizontal cut than people normally cut when they are cutting on the field, and, because of this, the window for the i/o is smaller and shorter than it normally is.
The above diagram is not perfect. I am using it merely as a visual aide to get my point across.
The point:
1.) The I/O Break window normally in the endzone is EARLY in the cut.
2.) Most turnovers on I/O breaks happen because people throw them too late in the cutters cut. Most turnovers happen because people typically aren't throwing the disc to get to the receiver in the of the red. They typically are throwing the disc by the time the receiver has ran into the i/o throwing lane. By this time, it is too late.
3.) I think the around break is more successful because the temporal window to throw happens later in the cut, so a thrower can decide to throw the break later in the cutters cut. It also gives more leeway to people with slower releases.
I think, in college, the turns happen because they decide to throw the throw too late and then either wind up throwing behind the receiver, or trying to make up for lost time by throwing it fast and hard which makes the throw unpredictable and uncatchable.
Aside: I wanted to put a third layer on top of the two layers that demarcated the temporal windows of when to throw the throw, but that confused even me and I thought of the idea. It would be sweet if I could do a 3D one with that though!
-josh
p.s. I am going to draw a couple diagrams containing situations where i/o breaks are sweet later this weekend.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Brown Tourney Thoughts...
MIT went to Brown today for a tourney. We were missing some key players because of fraternity obligations, and we were missing a very good, promising young handler because "sleep caught up to him". But all in all, I thought Saturday was a pretty good.
Aside: I could write an entire post on MIT and Lehigh's fraternities and how the are the bane of my coaching existence, but that is another time, another post. I could also write a whole post on how, in the age of cell phones, can people not wake teammates up to come to tourneys. If you know you are going to have trouble waking up, sleep on a friends couch, use the buddy system, etc.
Okay, enough of that, onto the tourney.
We went down to the tourney with 4 seniors, 1 new grad student, 2 3 year members, 4 2nd year members, and 5 rookies. We had a pretty good mix of new vs. experienced, but we were definitely missing some offensive power, especially on the D side of things, and it showed.
Game 1: Wesleyan.
This was probably our worst game of the day. We were playing fine defensively the first half, and Wesleyan was helping us out too with some pressured drops. Our O was scoring, but not playing very well. Our handler motion was poor all day. This is something we will have to work on at practice.
We got up 2 breaks, everyone was playing well and feeling well, and then we lost energy and focus during halftime. We didn't get another break after that, and we forced very little turns. It was capped at 10-9 us, and then we get to 11-10 us I think before we get broken twice on nervous play and then poaching off to help other players out on D. That was it. Lost on double game point receiving. We have to learn how to want to win.
The good part of this game was that the rookies played good defense, and they got to play a lot.
Game 2: Brown Y or X.
We go up early, and stay up. The newer players got a lot of experience, and the rookies were cutting very well after a turn. They were aggressive and hungry when cutting. The only downside of this game is that the points take a long time because of the bad handler motion and people do not want to swing the disc. Just painfully grind it up the openside.
We use half to talk about dump swinging some, and we come out and it's better. Game ends 11-3.
Game 3: WPI.
I got to play with two WPI players during Boston tryouts this summer and they were athletic, had good throws, and had a good mind for the game. MIT played them in a night scrimmage in the fall and lost to them pretty handedly and they were looking for some revenge.
We start out on D and get a turn and keep rolling. Everyone is playing well, WPI isn't hitting their hucks, and they obviously are missing some players. I would like to think that we got a little better as well. I thought our D was good, and our O started to click. I think we win 13-4 or something.
Game 4: Bye.
It had been rainy and slightly windy all day, and during our bye everything let loose. I was watching UMass and WPI slug it out with hellish zone points. It was a really strong crosswind with a steady rain. After sitting in cars for a little and getting warm, the MIT kids came out and we used this bye time to work on throws in the wind, and then we discussed zone.
It is uncertain if the bye won or not.
Game 5: UMass.
UMass looked like a combination of their A and B squad, or maybe it was some veterans with some rookies mixed in like we had. Regardless, they weren't the veteran heavy squad that UMass is known to have year after year after year.
We somehow decide to start on defense going upwind. I thought I taught the kids to choose downwind when it is windy. Crap.
We start out, UMass hucks it, they score. They come down in zone. We turn it two feet from our endzone doing nothing we talked about in the bye about zone.
I think we turn it again giving up the upwind and downwind. We then score on their zone by going over the top downwind.
I am now left in a situation that a coach has to be in. If we win this game, we are in the winner's bracket tomorrow, and if we lose, we are in the loser's bracket. It would be nice to play against the toughest competition we could tomorrow, but, at the same time, it would also be nice to be able to continue to play the rookies and sophomores as much as I have been throughout the day.
I decide to stick thrower heavy lines in (i.e. the veteran lines). This doesn't pay out until we get a break right before half to make it 7-5. We start out on O and score.
We then go out and get 3 breaks in a row because we have worked on becoming more active on the mark and helping some on D. It seems to be paying off, and some rookies are being put on the veteran lines. I think it is 9-8, and then they score to make it 9s at softcap.
MIT then starts dancing instead of cutting on the dump cuts, and we are making too deep out cuts and stranding the thrower. We turn it, they score. We then have to score an upwinder. We work it up halffield and then turn it over throwing to a covered man incutting on a high stall. They score on a huck that we thankfully covered very well (we have been working on protecting the deep after a turn).
Henry from UMass really took this game over the last couple of points; he played great D and you could see him impose his will onto the game. I hope more of our players learn how to do that this year. We already have a handful that can do it, but it is awesome when a whole team wants to.
We have a lot to work on, but there is a lot of promise. The D was better now than it was at regionals last year and we were missing some good defenders today. Our offense had some hiccups. The biggest ones came once the softcaps went on. I think once we work out our handler movement a little better the hiccups should happen less and less.
I wish I could be there tomorrow,
-josh
Aside: I could write an entire post on MIT and Lehigh's fraternities and how the are the bane of my coaching existence, but that is another time, another post. I could also write a whole post on how, in the age of cell phones, can people not wake teammates up to come to tourneys. If you know you are going to have trouble waking up, sleep on a friends couch, use the buddy system, etc.
Okay, enough of that, onto the tourney.
We went down to the tourney with 4 seniors, 1 new grad student, 2 3 year members, 4 2nd year members, and 5 rookies. We had a pretty good mix of new vs. experienced, but we were definitely missing some offensive power, especially on the D side of things, and it showed.
Game 1: Wesleyan.
This was probably our worst game of the day. We were playing fine defensively the first half, and Wesleyan was helping us out too with some pressured drops. Our O was scoring, but not playing very well. Our handler motion was poor all day. This is something we will have to work on at practice.
We got up 2 breaks, everyone was playing well and feeling well, and then we lost energy and focus during halftime. We didn't get another break after that, and we forced very little turns. It was capped at 10-9 us, and then we get to 11-10 us I think before we get broken twice on nervous play and then poaching off to help other players out on D. That was it. Lost on double game point receiving. We have to learn how to want to win.
The good part of this game was that the rookies played good defense, and they got to play a lot.
Game 2: Brown Y or X.
We go up early, and stay up. The newer players got a lot of experience, and the rookies were cutting very well after a turn. They were aggressive and hungry when cutting. The only downside of this game is that the points take a long time because of the bad handler motion and people do not want to swing the disc. Just painfully grind it up the openside.
We use half to talk about dump swinging some, and we come out and it's better. Game ends 11-3.
Game 3: WPI.
I got to play with two WPI players during Boston tryouts this summer and they were athletic, had good throws, and had a good mind for the game. MIT played them in a night scrimmage in the fall and lost to them pretty handedly and they were looking for some revenge.
We start out on D and get a turn and keep rolling. Everyone is playing well, WPI isn't hitting their hucks, and they obviously are missing some players. I would like to think that we got a little better as well. I thought our D was good, and our O started to click. I think we win 13-4 or something.
Game 4: Bye.
It had been rainy and slightly windy all day, and during our bye everything let loose. I was watching UMass and WPI slug it out with hellish zone points. It was a really strong crosswind with a steady rain. After sitting in cars for a little and getting warm, the MIT kids came out and we used this bye time to work on throws in the wind, and then we discussed zone.
It is uncertain if the bye won or not.
Game 5: UMass.
UMass looked like a combination of their A and B squad, or maybe it was some veterans with some rookies mixed in like we had. Regardless, they weren't the veteran heavy squad that UMass is known to have year after year after year.
We somehow decide to start on defense going upwind. I thought I taught the kids to choose downwind when it is windy. Crap.
We start out, UMass hucks it, they score. They come down in zone. We turn it two feet from our endzone doing nothing we talked about in the bye about zone.
I think we turn it again giving up the upwind and downwind. We then score on their zone by going over the top downwind.
I am now left in a situation that a coach has to be in. If we win this game, we are in the winner's bracket tomorrow, and if we lose, we are in the loser's bracket. It would be nice to play against the toughest competition we could tomorrow, but, at the same time, it would also be nice to be able to continue to play the rookies and sophomores as much as I have been throughout the day.
I decide to stick thrower heavy lines in (i.e. the veteran lines). This doesn't pay out until we get a break right before half to make it 7-5. We start out on O and score.
We then go out and get 3 breaks in a row because we have worked on becoming more active on the mark and helping some on D. It seems to be paying off, and some rookies are being put on the veteran lines. I think it is 9-8, and then they score to make it 9s at softcap.
MIT then starts dancing instead of cutting on the dump cuts, and we are making too deep out cuts and stranding the thrower. We turn it, they score. We then have to score an upwinder. We work it up halffield and then turn it over throwing to a covered man incutting on a high stall. They score on a huck that we thankfully covered very well (we have been working on protecting the deep after a turn).
Henry from UMass really took this game over the last couple of points; he played great D and you could see him impose his will onto the game. I hope more of our players learn how to do that this year. We already have a handful that can do it, but it is awesome when a whole team wants to.
We have a lot to work on, but there is a lot of promise. The D was better now than it was at regionals last year and we were missing some good defenders today. Our offense had some hiccups. The biggest ones came once the softcaps went on. I think once we work out our handler movement a little better the hiccups should happen less and less.
I wish I could be there tomorrow,
-josh
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Good Defense Happens BEFORE the Disc Moves
My first year on a club team, we had some smart older players on my team. One of them was somewhat of a D specialist, and he would say: "90% of defense happens before your man gets out into the lane."
This took me a long time to learn or even understand what he meant because I was young and fast, and could just run past my man for blocks (note: we didn't play too many good teams). Especially in college, I would just stand on the breakside of my man, follow him in to the disc, bait the throw, and get the block. This works extremely well when you play on a mid-tier college team. However, if you ever want to play after you graduate from college, you need to learn how to actually and properly play defense with proper positioning.
One of this season's goals for MIT is to learn how play defense with the same fundamentals as a club team would. I have talked to some people about it, and they think that this endeavour is crazy, that the dictation concept will be lost and it will simply become, stand 7 yards behind your man and give him the free in pass. But, they don't coach you guys, and they don't understand how hard you work at this sport.
The following is are excerpts from emails that the coaches on my club team have sent to us about how to play good, fundamental defense. They actually can write in real sentences and have mastered basic punctuation, so, if anything seems a little off, or words have been left out, it is probably me adding stuff in.
************************************************************************************
1.) Good D Happens Before the Disc Moves - Dictate
This is a lot of stuff to digest. When it comes down to it, it all is pretty simple, and we are going to spend a lot of time honing our dictation skills. I think we are capable of being the best, most physical defense by the end of the season, but it starts at practice. Commit yourself to working hard, and commit yourself to learning these fundamentals.
If you have any questions, just write it in the comment section and I will get back to you.
-josh
This took me a long time to learn or even understand what he meant because I was young and fast, and could just run past my man for blocks (note: we didn't play too many good teams). Especially in college, I would just stand on the breakside of my man, follow him in to the disc, bait the throw, and get the block. This works extremely well when you play on a mid-tier college team. However, if you ever want to play after you graduate from college, you need to learn how to actually and properly play defense with proper positioning.
One of this season's goals for MIT is to learn how play defense with the same fundamentals as a club team would. I have talked to some people about it, and they think that this endeavour is crazy, that the dictation concept will be lost and it will simply become, stand 7 yards behind your man and give him the free in pass. But, they don't coach you guys, and they don't understand how hard you work at this sport.
The following is are excerpts from emails that the coaches on my club team have sent to us about how to play good, fundamental defense. They actually can write in real sentences and have mastered basic punctuation, so, if anything seems a little off, or words have been left out, it is probably me adding stuff in.
************************************************************************************
1.) Good D Happens Before the Disc Moves - Dictate
- Be Aggressive. The nature of the sport of ultimate is pretty unbalanced, the offense has a huge advantage. Don't give it an even bigger advantage by playing passive defense - chasing your man around - dictate where you want him to go, take control of that, and tip the scale over towards the defense.
- Re-adjust Your Defensive Position Constantly. In a perfect world, all you would have to do is dictate slow, fat handlers out, and tall, fast, goal scoring idiots with no throws to speak of under, and we would win.
That would be a nice world to live in, but it isn't real, instead, how you dictate your man is usually more about what your team is doing, what you are trying to take away, where the disc is.
Good defenders re-adjust their position over and over throughout the point. Kevin and I, try to make it a point at practice, to keep saying in our heads where we are forcing our men. Try to do this at practice and in games until it becomes natural.
- Physically place yourself in the path between the person you are covering and where they want to go.
- Example 1.) To stop the upline dump, you must place your body between the dump, and the area upfield where he wants to go (normally a diagonal path).
- Example 2.) When guarding a deep threat, you want to stand blocking him from turning and sprinting deep towards the endzone.
- Example 3.) When guarding the last people in the stack near their scoring endzone, you want to stand in their path between them and the cone they are trying to score at.
- Example 1.) To stop the upline dump, you must place your body between the dump, and the area upfield where he wants to go (normally a diagonal path).
- Take Micro-Charges. For dictation to be effective, you have to keep your cushion small.
Reach out and touch someone small, but you can't just stand and expect them to run into you and stop. Your body weight should be towards where you want to send them. The more micro-charges you can take, the better.
Micro-charges are just what you think they would be - You are "standing", someone turns to run into you, you absorb it, and then move your body once again in the path that they want to go, and they run into you again. By standing I mean bouncing on your toes, weight towards the direction you want them to go.
- See the disc and your man. This is much harder to do when you are fronting your man or "faceguarding" i.e. playing people who play close to the disc.
- Don't give up the easy out cut if you are forcing in. And vice versa for if you are forcing out. Dictation does no good if you simply let your man run by you.
Watch people make out cuts. 9/10 of them will involve someone running in hard, and then pivoting toward the openside and sprinting deep. If you were dictating your man under, and sprinting with him on his outside shoulder, when he turns to plant and sprint deep, you are in his way, blocking his path.
If you decided to stay on his inside shoulder since that is easier to get layout blocks on shitty throws, if he plants to go out, you are left just sprinting in.
- Win the Race. Dan Cogan, the old MIT coach used to tell his kids that offense is a race that the offense decides when it starts, and where it ends.
The concept of dictation on D is to make this race a bit more fare. Instead of letting the Offense decide where the race will occur, place your body in a way that limits the offensive player to one direction. Now you know where the race will end. Stay close on your man, and when the disc is thrown, win the last part.
This is a lot of stuff to digest. When it comes down to it, it all is pretty simple, and we are going to spend a lot of time honing our dictation skills. I think we are capable of being the best, most physical defense by the end of the season, but it starts at practice. Commit yourself to working hard, and commit yourself to learning these fundamentals.
If you have any questions, just write it in the comment section and I will get back to you.
-josh
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Nationals: A Quick Rundown
Wednesday: Fly into Sarasota with MIT alum Dave H. Dave and I go to the store, I buy food for my room, we check in, and then we find some food to eat. After that, we do a macc line on the beach. I am pretty terrible at anything that involves co-ordination, it isn't like I fail to comprehend which direction or which hand should brush the disc, it just gets to me and BAM! into the ground.
Oh well. I also threw on the beach some. The wind was really strong, so that is always good to get some touches in. At night, we ate lasagna that mccarthy and funboy (the harvard and tufts coach for you guys) made. It was awesome.
By the way, simple life lesson for the day. If you buy your ticket 4 or so months in advance like Emily did, the airline can change it's flight times and layover cities on you. You should check into that so you aren't in chicago for 3 hours flying to florida from boston.
Thursday: Wake up, go to the fields. As usual, dewy, flat, and level. We get start active warmups 1 hour before game time.
We play the Condors 1st. The have some athletes, and 2 good handlers. I covered some guy named Steve Dugan for a little this game. Apparently he has a big backhand (besides just being a really good handler), which people informed me of after the point in which I flashed over to the open-side on a no huck call, and then he bombed a beautiful backhand bomb upwind to a cutter in stride. After that, I tried to stay at home on his backhand, and when we forced backhand, I marked pretty flat and straight up.
I forced him out some, our zone was getting blocks, and our O line was in stride. We won pretty comfortably by 15-12. I think our O line got broken maybe 2 times in the last couple possessions to have the Condors make the game close.
Second game was against Bodhi. It is tough playing against some of your friends and old teammates, but I really thought it was best for everyone if we came out and played them as hard as we possibly could. I think we did. We won 15-8. They made some drops and throw aways, and our zone lines worked pretty well against them, except against Bill Stewart who cranked out a huge thumber over our cup. Somewhere Cy Prothro was smiling.
The third game was against Jam. They run a really pretty offense where everyone is a cutter, handler, and deep threat. Some people do it more than others, but it just seems like the flow positions more than other teams do. I guarded Gabe for most of the game, and I thought we had a pretty good battle. He is really fun to cover because he does everything, and he does everything well, so you have to always be on your toes ready for a deep strike after he was the dump, or a give-n-go, or some crazy off hand throws. We again win 15-12, but it felt close except for the fact that I don't think our O line was broken once (I might be wrong about this though... I don't really pay too much attention to our O line).
Friday:
With Thursday's performance, Ironside and Jam move up to the winners bracket. Bodhi and the Condors, who Bodhi "upset" dropped down to the losers bracket.
First game Friday, we play Goat. Ah Goat, how many times can we play them in the season? They are off playing their normal Goat game (which they do very well), which is small pass, small pass, pass to Hassell, bomb. This works 90% of the time. I believe we go down early in this game, and then our D line catches on fire. Think of Hassell as a cross between andrew and cody. baller.
At some point in the game one of our D cutters gets stagnant on the line and I realize I am making a double cut with Funboy and start to curl away when he throws it which my defender makes a fantastic layout for and hits the disc, unfortunately for him, I clap it at about the same time and then he hits my elbow with his still laying out body which not only knocks me forward, but I lose possession. I call foul, they flip out. I go to the observer, and he couldn't see it. Redo. I felt bad, but the play wasn't over after he hit it, he still hit my body.
I think I score a couple goals this game, including the game winner. I have been scoring goals all weekend which is weird since I handle and "should" be throwing them, but people seem generally disinterested in guarding the ole' upline cut.
The next game is against Sockeye. It starts out well, I think we go down a break maybe on the second O point (an O cutter gets hit with the disc on the pull!!!! Watch the disc! It can happen to you), but then the D line I am on gets the turn and I score. I am feeling good this game and finally throw a goal instead of scoring it, and feel very in control on Defense. They take half I think, and we are at 15-14 sockeye pulling and we turn it over. They score to make it 16-14 sockeye.
We find out that there was a lot of craziness that happened in the other pools, and that Bravo is playing the prequarters for the right to play Sockeye in the morning and we will play Ring of Fire in the morning. I am not sure what the weather will be like, but for some reason I think Ring would be more vulnerable to our zone than Bravo, so I like that draw.
I watch Brutesquad play the prequarters game. It was AWESOME not playing in the prequarters. You get unbelievably tired in that game.
They looked pretty good when I was watching, but Emily finally had succumbed to the "i broke my foot and could only aqua jog for 8 solid weeks before nationals" heat sickness and tiredness. Apparently she played great in the two games before that, so she was pretty content laying in the shade and trying to not spend the night in the hospital while watching her teammates clean up.
Saturday: Get up, get ready to play ring. I like playing ring. I played against their captain, jared inselmann all throughout college, and was his teammate on Rage. He is a great player and an even better teammate. I covered him for a lot of the game, but since our zones were working, we played a lot of zone. Everyone likes zone, except for the cup. I am the cup. The game was pretty contentious since we didn't have observers and there was a lot riding on this game.
Ring played a pretty physical game where they forced middle / clogged middle. Their strategy seemed to be to bump early in the count, and then back off. Unfortunately for them, when they backed off, they stopped being active on the mark, and their flat marks were very easy to break.
Both sides got a little chippy, and by the time observers came from god-knows-where, they were a welcome sign no matter how bad at observing they might be.
We won this game 15-11, and then got to sit around for a long time. I ate food, sat in the shade, and walked around if I got nervous. I also got my hamstrings and calves worked on by our PT guy. It was painfully awesome. He breathed some life into my legs.
The Semi's were next, and it was against Chain. We are 1 and 1 with them this year, and last year, they beat us in a very sketchy way on a botched observer ruling (play needed to stop, and they let it play on). We played a lot of zone on them. Even if we didn't score or get the turn, we made the point happen slowly. This was especially important because sometimes their D line would force a turn and then almost score, or we would score but they would be drapped all over us, and then the D line would go out there and throw zone and make them throw 100 passes, and by the time their D line was back out there, our O line was no longer feeling the pressure from the last point, and their D line had forgotten their intensity from the point before.
I think we take half on a huck to Colin Mahoney. The second half, we play a lot of man, and when we get the turn, the upline is open a lot. I don't know if this is a new trend in club teams, but they seem to leave the upline cut open a lot, especially when forcing backhand.
This might be an O's D thing since they can't fathom not having people that can't complete flick dumps out to space, but, with a strong crosswind, the upline throw was really easy compared to the dump out to space.
At one point I score on an upline cut, and in a moment of passion and idiocracy, I spike the disc next to my laid out defender (getting a TMF). It was a very assclown move, and about 2 minutes after it happened I felt like a complete assclown.
I rightfully got sat for a couple points after that to get my head back to get my head back in the game and to remind me that our goals for the season were to be the best team in the country and the best team to play against in the country. Not only did I let them down a little, but I also represent you guys as well as lehigh, and I don't want to be known as "that" douche.
We finished the game on D, with a huck from George Stubbs to Colin. I was running to give george a dump when I realized that he wasn't at all looking dump and just kept on running down field to see if I could catch some swill.
Sunday: My normal Saturday night routine at nationals is normally a blur, and I wake up with two sprained ankles. This saturday night, I went to eat with my condo mates, we talked about Sunday, we bought food for the morning, and we cleaned the condo to be ready to check out.
Oh, and we took ice baths. Well, at least Colin and I did. Kevin and Brent were too pansy. Refreshing isn't the word for it. My left calf was cramping all night before the bath, and it helped some.
Sunday we got to the fields and were the first people there. Then Jam showed up. We all throw around, do active warmups, breakmark drill, hucking drill, O vs. D endzone drills, and then we get our game faces on.
I was pretty pumped for this game. I thought I played Gabe pretty well on Thursday and was looking forward to the rematch, but he apparently hurt his hamstring something fierce and could not play today. That was unfortunate.
The game started out pretty well, and then Jam got a break. The first D point, we got a turn, worked it down about 60 yards, and then seigs threw a swing pass a little too far for me to get. I sprinted as hard as I could, and layed out pretty strong, but it dinked off my finger tips and I slammed my face into the ground hard enough for my ears to ring. Jam promptly scores.
In the first half, we get another turn on a Damien Scott dropped pass in the zone. We move the disc up to about midfield, and I am actually cutting downfield because we were fast breaking. I then find myself poached off of, and curl back towards the disc. I set up as the dump to get the swing, and the disc hooks on funboy's finger and knifes into the ground for another missed opportunity on D. crap. What is promising though is the fact that the D line seems to be getting turns fairly readily, and when we have the disc moving, Jam's O line seems to not want to run with us.
Unfortunately our O line is not playing as clean as we have been all tourney. Jeff is hurt from the Chain game when he was tackled at least twice on fairly late hits, and Jam is putting good pressure on our handlers to have to work to reset the disc.
I think they take half 8-6. At some point, we get a break on a huck to kevin to pull within 1 or 2. We have multiple chances to score on D now, but we are being hesitant and not fast breaking at all. We instead are cautiously walking to the disc, and we seem to be stranding the throwers.
At 12-11 Jam, we get a turn off of a George Stubbs layout. I have been covering Damien Scott this point, and I am the front of the stack (the dump). Seigs wants to get it off line, and decides to throw it quickly to me just as I am getting ready to cut for an I/O from him. It picks up a in the wind, and unfortunately for me Damien is about 6 inches taller than me and I see his hands reach over my head as I am jumping and reaching up for it, and he just comes to the disc smacking it out of the way before it is even in my catching wheelhouse. I then get bowled over by him only to get up and see them scoring on a fast break. In hindsight, I should have called a foul to stop the fast break (he cleanly d'ed it, and I had no chance of catching it after before he hit me), but him knocking me down prevented me from helping out seigs who was caught in a 2 on 1 situation.
Damn. 13-11. I think we must turn it 2 times on O to lose the game then. It all went by so fast, but I am glad that it was a very clean and very fast paced game with not many calls at all. I think this game will actually be watchable.
The game seemed sort of surreal. I didn't feel nervous at all playing it, and I thought we were playing well, but we just weren't clicking as team; that is for both the O and the D lines.
After the game and the awards ceremony, I went over with emily and we looked at the UPA trophy. It only motivated me more to get ready for next year. Pretty soon I am going to write down my list of goals so that next year, it will be ironside that wins.
So that ends my club season, so I guess that means I have to start coaching you guys. Let's make it a good year.
-josh
Oh well. I also threw on the beach some. The wind was really strong, so that is always good to get some touches in. At night, we ate lasagna that mccarthy and funboy (the harvard and tufts coach for you guys) made. It was awesome.
By the way, simple life lesson for the day. If you buy your ticket 4 or so months in advance like Emily did, the airline can change it's flight times and layover cities on you. You should check into that so you aren't in chicago for 3 hours flying to florida from boston.
Thursday: Wake up, go to the fields. As usual, dewy, flat, and level. We get start active warmups 1 hour before game time.
We play the Condors 1st. The have some athletes, and 2 good handlers. I covered some guy named Steve Dugan for a little this game. Apparently he has a big backhand (besides just being a really good handler), which people informed me of after the point in which I flashed over to the open-side on a no huck call, and then he bombed a beautiful backhand bomb upwind to a cutter in stride. After that, I tried to stay at home on his backhand, and when we forced backhand, I marked pretty flat and straight up.
I forced him out some, our zone was getting blocks, and our O line was in stride. We won pretty comfortably by 15-12. I think our O line got broken maybe 2 times in the last couple possessions to have the Condors make the game close.
Second game was against Bodhi. It is tough playing against some of your friends and old teammates, but I really thought it was best for everyone if we came out and played them as hard as we possibly could. I think we did. We won 15-8. They made some drops and throw aways, and our zone lines worked pretty well against them, except against Bill Stewart who cranked out a huge thumber over our cup. Somewhere Cy Prothro was smiling.
The third game was against Jam. They run a really pretty offense where everyone is a cutter, handler, and deep threat. Some people do it more than others, but it just seems like the flow positions more than other teams do. I guarded Gabe for most of the game, and I thought we had a pretty good battle. He is really fun to cover because he does everything, and he does everything well, so you have to always be on your toes ready for a deep strike after he was the dump, or a give-n-go, or some crazy off hand throws. We again win 15-12, but it felt close except for the fact that I don't think our O line was broken once (I might be wrong about this though... I don't really pay too much attention to our O line).
Friday:
With Thursday's performance, Ironside and Jam move up to the winners bracket. Bodhi and the Condors, who Bodhi "upset" dropped down to the losers bracket.
First game Friday, we play Goat. Ah Goat, how many times can we play them in the season? They are off playing their normal Goat game (which they do very well), which is small pass, small pass, pass to Hassell, bomb. This works 90% of the time. I believe we go down early in this game, and then our D line catches on fire. Think of Hassell as a cross between andrew and cody. baller.
At some point in the game one of our D cutters gets stagnant on the line and I realize I am making a double cut with Funboy and start to curl away when he throws it which my defender makes a fantastic layout for and hits the disc, unfortunately for him, I clap it at about the same time and then he hits my elbow with his still laying out body which not only knocks me forward, but I lose possession. I call foul, they flip out. I go to the observer, and he couldn't see it. Redo. I felt bad, but the play wasn't over after he hit it, he still hit my body.
I think I score a couple goals this game, including the game winner. I have been scoring goals all weekend which is weird since I handle and "should" be throwing them, but people seem generally disinterested in guarding the ole' upline cut.
The next game is against Sockeye. It starts out well, I think we go down a break maybe on the second O point (an O cutter gets hit with the disc on the pull!!!! Watch the disc! It can happen to you), but then the D line I am on gets the turn and I score. I am feeling good this game and finally throw a goal instead of scoring it, and feel very in control on Defense. They take half I think, and we are at 15-14 sockeye pulling and we turn it over. They score to make it 16-14 sockeye.
We find out that there was a lot of craziness that happened in the other pools, and that Bravo is playing the prequarters for the right to play Sockeye in the morning and we will play Ring of Fire in the morning. I am not sure what the weather will be like, but for some reason I think Ring would be more vulnerable to our zone than Bravo, so I like that draw.
I watch Brutesquad play the prequarters game. It was AWESOME not playing in the prequarters. You get unbelievably tired in that game.
They looked pretty good when I was watching, but Emily finally had succumbed to the "i broke my foot and could only aqua jog for 8 solid weeks before nationals" heat sickness and tiredness. Apparently she played great in the two games before that, so she was pretty content laying in the shade and trying to not spend the night in the hospital while watching her teammates clean up.
Saturday: Get up, get ready to play ring. I like playing ring. I played against their captain, jared inselmann all throughout college, and was his teammate on Rage. He is a great player and an even better teammate. I covered him for a lot of the game, but since our zones were working, we played a lot of zone. Everyone likes zone, except for the cup. I am the cup. The game was pretty contentious since we didn't have observers and there was a lot riding on this game.
Ring played a pretty physical game where they forced middle / clogged middle. Their strategy seemed to be to bump early in the count, and then back off. Unfortunately for them, when they backed off, they stopped being active on the mark, and their flat marks were very easy to break.
Both sides got a little chippy, and by the time observers came from god-knows-where, they were a welcome sign no matter how bad at observing they might be.
We won this game 15-11, and then got to sit around for a long time. I ate food, sat in the shade, and walked around if I got nervous. I also got my hamstrings and calves worked on by our PT guy. It was painfully awesome. He breathed some life into my legs.
The Semi's were next, and it was against Chain. We are 1 and 1 with them this year, and last year, they beat us in a very sketchy way on a botched observer ruling (play needed to stop, and they let it play on). We played a lot of zone on them. Even if we didn't score or get the turn, we made the point happen slowly. This was especially important because sometimes their D line would force a turn and then almost score, or we would score but they would be drapped all over us, and then the D line would go out there and throw zone and make them throw 100 passes, and by the time their D line was back out there, our O line was no longer feeling the pressure from the last point, and their D line had forgotten their intensity from the point before.
I think we take half on a huck to Colin Mahoney. The second half, we play a lot of man, and when we get the turn, the upline is open a lot. I don't know if this is a new trend in club teams, but they seem to leave the upline cut open a lot, especially when forcing backhand.
This might be an O's D thing since they can't fathom not having people that can't complete flick dumps out to space, but, with a strong crosswind, the upline throw was really easy compared to the dump out to space.
At one point I score on an upline cut, and in a moment of passion and idiocracy, I spike the disc next to my laid out defender (getting a TMF). It was a very assclown move, and about 2 minutes after it happened I felt like a complete assclown.
I rightfully got sat for a couple points after that to get my head back to get my head back in the game and to remind me that our goals for the season were to be the best team in the country and the best team to play against in the country. Not only did I let them down a little, but I also represent you guys as well as lehigh, and I don't want to be known as "that" douche.
We finished the game on D, with a huck from George Stubbs to Colin. I was running to give george a dump when I realized that he wasn't at all looking dump and just kept on running down field to see if I could catch some swill.
Sunday: My normal Saturday night routine at nationals is normally a blur, and I wake up with two sprained ankles. This saturday night, I went to eat with my condo mates, we talked about Sunday, we bought food for the morning, and we cleaned the condo to be ready to check out.
Oh, and we took ice baths. Well, at least Colin and I did. Kevin and Brent were too pansy. Refreshing isn't the word for it. My left calf was cramping all night before the bath, and it helped some.
Sunday we got to the fields and were the first people there. Then Jam showed up. We all throw around, do active warmups, breakmark drill, hucking drill, O vs. D endzone drills, and then we get our game faces on.
I was pretty pumped for this game. I thought I played Gabe pretty well on Thursday and was looking forward to the rematch, but he apparently hurt his hamstring something fierce and could not play today. That was unfortunate.
The game started out pretty well, and then Jam got a break. The first D point, we got a turn, worked it down about 60 yards, and then seigs threw a swing pass a little too far for me to get. I sprinted as hard as I could, and layed out pretty strong, but it dinked off my finger tips and I slammed my face into the ground hard enough for my ears to ring. Jam promptly scores.
In the first half, we get another turn on a Damien Scott dropped pass in the zone. We move the disc up to about midfield, and I am actually cutting downfield because we were fast breaking. I then find myself poached off of, and curl back towards the disc. I set up as the dump to get the swing, and the disc hooks on funboy's finger and knifes into the ground for another missed opportunity on D. crap. What is promising though is the fact that the D line seems to be getting turns fairly readily, and when we have the disc moving, Jam's O line seems to not want to run with us.
Unfortunately our O line is not playing as clean as we have been all tourney. Jeff is hurt from the Chain game when he was tackled at least twice on fairly late hits, and Jam is putting good pressure on our handlers to have to work to reset the disc.
I think they take half 8-6. At some point, we get a break on a huck to kevin to pull within 1 or 2. We have multiple chances to score on D now, but we are being hesitant and not fast breaking at all. We instead are cautiously walking to the disc, and we seem to be stranding the throwers.
At 12-11 Jam, we get a turn off of a George Stubbs layout. I have been covering Damien Scott this point, and I am the front of the stack (the dump). Seigs wants to get it off line, and decides to throw it quickly to me just as I am getting ready to cut for an I/O from him. It picks up a in the wind, and unfortunately for me Damien is about 6 inches taller than me and I see his hands reach over my head as I am jumping and reaching up for it, and he just comes to the disc smacking it out of the way before it is even in my catching wheelhouse. I then get bowled over by him only to get up and see them scoring on a fast break. In hindsight, I should have called a foul to stop the fast break (he cleanly d'ed it, and I had no chance of catching it after before he hit me), but him knocking me down prevented me from helping out seigs who was caught in a 2 on 1 situation.
Damn. 13-11. I think we must turn it 2 times on O to lose the game then. It all went by so fast, but I am glad that it was a very clean and very fast paced game with not many calls at all. I think this game will actually be watchable.
The game seemed sort of surreal. I didn't feel nervous at all playing it, and I thought we were playing well, but we just weren't clicking as team; that is for both the O and the D lines.
After the game and the awards ceremony, I went over with emily and we looked at the UPA trophy. It only motivated me more to get ready for next year. Pretty soon I am going to write down my list of goals so that next year, it will be ironside that wins.
So that ends my club season, so I guess that means I have to start coaching you guys. Let's make it a good year.
-josh
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Guest Topic: Catching
I have invited one of the best people I have coached to write about catching. When I say best, I by no means imply the most athletic. I mean it strictly on a coachability and student of the game standpoint.
Pete makes up for being, um, being dealt the short, squat card in life for having a great mind for the game, and for learning how to milk every bit of his athleticism out of his body. He definitely isn't the quickest or fastest on the field, but he rarely gets blown up on an in cut because he shields the disc well and catches the disc fully out in front of him.
It is a great read.
Pete makes up for being, um, being dealt the short, squat card in life for having a great mind for the game, and for learning how to milk every bit of his athleticism out of his body. He definitely isn't the quickest or fastest on the field, but he rarely gets blown up on an in cut because he shields the disc well and catches the disc fully out in front of him.
It is a great read.
Claw Catching: It’s Ergonomic
The purpose of ultimate is to score goals, by passing and passing alone. Passing is throws and catches. The "best practice" of catches is the claw catch. Let us set that aside momentarily and slam down the basics of catching.
Circumstances will require receivers to make plays by whatever means are necessary. It is correct to catch the disc however you can. It is wrong to habitually use bad form. In general these rules apply. First, two hands all the time; be professional. Second, run through the disc. Never slow down to catch a disc. Slowing down before possessing the disc is how defenders run past or layout and get blocks on you. Think about running through the disc like this - your fastest stride should be the one immediately after the catch. This guarantees that you are moving as fast as possible and have reduced to a minimum the defender's efforts and window to break-up this pass. Third, greet the disc. Do not stab, slap, smack, or punch the disc. Do not wait for the disc to come to you. Catch the disc firmly with the whole of your hands. Fourth, watch disc while catching it. This basic rule of all sports is as deadly as it is simple. Taking your eye off the disc will cause you to drop it; not every time, but every time you do lose it it's a soft turnover - a stupid, preventable drop that fucked the team
The claw catch, put bluntly, is the way Frankenstein's monster would play ultimate. However, please promise to play with the athleticism, coordination, fluidity, and grace that Mary Shelley's classic monster cannot summon. What follows are the basics. Form your hands like sock puppets - fingers together, thumb opposite them forming a 'C'. Fully extend your arms away from the body at chest height. Catch the disc in front of your chest keeping your thumbs down. If the disc is below your chest bend your knees and drop your hips to keep the disc in front of your body. When the disc is too low to catch like this, flip your hands such that your thumb is up and your fingers are down. If the disc is in danger of hitting the ground either layout or baseball slide with your thumbs up to meet the disc before a turnover. Claw catching is the best catching form because it is aggressive and fast. Aggressive and fast makes good ultimate.
Aggressive: Attack the disc and keep it away from the defender. Shoot both hands out and snare the disc at the earliest possible moment at the point furthest from your man. When claw-catching, I end up with the disc, snug in both hands, facing the path it flew; in shooting out and grabbing the disc, my wrists rotate through the catch and point the disc's edge towards the ground. Claw catching is ergonomic. The disc fits right into the padded palm, the fingers mold to the disc's face, the thumb latches onto the rim. Fast: the claw catch's form keeps you moving fast and prevents you from slowing down. Proper sprinting requires a runner to pump his arms, adding momentum. The claw catch extends one's arms forward to make the catch. This is close to proper sprint form and is an easy motion/transition in a full sprint. Keeping your arms forward moves your center of gravity forward. All human motion is essentially a controlled fall. The claw catch helps keep the body moving forward.
A word on clap catching: Clap (or pancake or alligator) catching is a good way to catch a disc, especially in wind. In wind, clap catching is the superior catching form. When cutting, however, the clap catch suffers. First, the clap catch is close to the receiver's body. This decreases the distance between the defender and the disc, and increases the chance of a block. Second, my considered and corroborated observation is that almost all receivers slow down to clap catch. Receivers perform a hop a half-step before clap catching. This hop steals that last step's push from impelling the receiver toward the disc and spends its energy on a slowing hiccup to make the mechanics and position of the clap catch a little easier. The claw catch improves upon the clap catch by making the receiver faster, increasing the distance between defender and disc, and catching the disc earlier in its flight If you have any questions, thoughts, barbs, or criticism please leave them in the comments. My thanks to Will Hall, as told by Josh, for the title.
Pete
October 28, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
Trust
I have the unique opportunity this year to play on a team with 25 ballers on it. Top to bottom, bottom to top, we are all solid players. What makes us even better though, is the ability to trust each other and utilize each player to the fullest.
College is a little different because you have players at various stages of development playing on the same field together. You have the club calibre kid playing with the kid who learned a forehand 2 weeks ago and has shakey at best catches. I am going to try to make it my mission this year to utilize each and every player this year to maximize our ability as a TEAM.
This task also falls on the shoulders of the veterans on the team. By my 4th year at lehigh, I was a good player, but I didn't make others around me better. It wasn't until my 5th year that I began to do that. I enlisted the help of my friend and fellow 5th year player who would tell me when I was not playing within the flow of the team. He made me concentrate on putting others in situations where they could succeed. This might mean making sure you make a good soft throw to a younger player. Setting up a dump cut early, or not trying the hard break, but rather trusting others to be able to take 2 more passes to score. Most importantly for me, it was trusting my teammates to play good D and not try to play everyone's D for them.
It's the little things that develop trust. It can be as simple as looking a teammate in the eye in big games letting them know that you believe in them and the team. Most of it, however, is done not at tournaments, but in the car-rides to tourneys, track workouts, lifting sessions, and most importantly, practices.
Your goal for every practice should be to make your teammates better in every drill, every sprint, and every scrimmage. If you play your hardest, most physical D on a player, you are going to push them to get better. Likewise, on Offense, if you make it your goal to punish whoever is covering you by making hard real cuts, they are going to learn how to play better and better D. Challenge them to get better. Set the bar higher and higher for them each practice, and through these battles, you will get better by them pushing you to do the same.
Look your teammates in the eyes at the end of practice. Look at them with the pride of knowing that you pushed them and they, in turn, pushed back. By the end of the season, when you look them in the eye, you will also see the complete trust in knowing that no other team is going to push as hard as you pushed each other. That is a wonderful and unstoppable feeling.
-josh
College is a little different because you have players at various stages of development playing on the same field together. You have the club calibre kid playing with the kid who learned a forehand 2 weeks ago and has shakey at best catches. I am going to try to make it my mission this year to utilize each and every player this year to maximize our ability as a TEAM.
This task also falls on the shoulders of the veterans on the team. By my 4th year at lehigh, I was a good player, but I didn't make others around me better. It wasn't until my 5th year that I began to do that. I enlisted the help of my friend and fellow 5th year player who would tell me when I was not playing within the flow of the team. He made me concentrate on putting others in situations where they could succeed. This might mean making sure you make a good soft throw to a younger player. Setting up a dump cut early, or not trying the hard break, but rather trusting others to be able to take 2 more passes to score. Most importantly for me, it was trusting my teammates to play good D and not try to play everyone's D for them.
It's the little things that develop trust. It can be as simple as looking a teammate in the eye in big games letting them know that you believe in them and the team. Most of it, however, is done not at tournaments, but in the car-rides to tourneys, track workouts, lifting sessions, and most importantly, practices.
Your goal for every practice should be to make your teammates better in every drill, every sprint, and every scrimmage. If you play your hardest, most physical D on a player, you are going to push them to get better. Likewise, on Offense, if you make it your goal to punish whoever is covering you by making hard real cuts, they are going to learn how to play better and better D. Challenge them to get better. Set the bar higher and higher for them each practice, and through these battles, you will get better by them pushing you to do the same.
Look your teammates in the eyes at the end of practice. Look at them with the pride of knowing that you pushed them and they, in turn, pushed back. By the end of the season, when you look them in the eye, you will also see the complete trust in knowing that no other team is going to push as hard as you pushed each other. That is a wonderful and unstoppable feeling.
-josh
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Handler Cuts
I am not very good at throwing, but I am an adequate handler. I make up for my throwing shortcomings by moving well when I don't have the disc (that isn't to say that I don't actively work on making my throws better). There are basically two types of handlers - ones that handle by moving the disc around the field using their legs, and then there are the types that move the disc around the field with their throws. Watch a club game sometime, and you will see what I mean. The throwing handlers seem to get more comfortable and in control the longer they hold the disc (they also give more possessional dumps since they get field position by throwing), and the ones who use their legs rely on catching the disc in a spot on the field that puts them in an aggressive position to release the disc quickly before the mark gets there, and then moving to receive it again.
Ideally, a handler should be able to do both. One of the hardest things I had to learn when I started playing club was dumping since my college team never played with a dump (our captain was a volleyball player who we just floated a throw up high to the breakside when we got in trouble and he came down with it).
At first, the motion seems very strange, and hard to throw to, but after a while, once I learned to recognize the different dump patterns and worked on throwing to space, I begin to realize the merits of dumping. For starters, a properly executed dump cut is pretty much unguardable as long as the throw is out to space. This allows for easy resets and even more important, if a dumping system is properly integrated into the teams system, it is a predictable and dependable way to gain more advantageous field positions and help take take the force side advantage away from the defense.
It might just be that I am a handler now, but I feel the dump cut is the most powerful cut you can do in ultimate. If done correctly, it is the backbone of all club level offenses, and done incorrectly, it can lead to soft turnovers and breaks.
Below is a slide showing the various different dump movements and cuts. Read them, understand them, and we will be incorporating most into our offense this year.
-josh
Friday, October 3, 2008
Sphere of Influence
I don't remember much from high school, let alone history. But I do remember about spheres of influence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_of_influence#Post-Imperial_China . I always thought it was an odd term because although countries had "influence" they definitely didn't have spheres.
Anyway, one day when I was coaching lehigh about dumping, we kept having downfield cutters cut into the dump area. Finally, I came up with a concrete visual that I think helped people realize the handler area and the cutter area.
Picture the field with the thrower trapped on the sideline, now imagine him with a 10-15 yard sphere around him. This is the dumps area. The dump has a 10 yard sphere of influence around the thrower. Cutters, generally, 99% of the time, should NEVER invade this sphere.
This 10 yard sphere exists around the thrower at all areas on the field. Let the dump be able to get to the dump. Leave those 5-8 yards in front of the thrower open for the dump to get it upline in the power position. This is a great position to huck from, and everyone loves to score goals.
Maybe i will draw a picture sometime..... probably not.
-josh
Anyway, one day when I was coaching lehigh about dumping, we kept having downfield cutters cut into the dump area. Finally, I came up with a concrete visual that I think helped people realize the handler area and the cutter area.
Picture the field with the thrower trapped on the sideline, now imagine him with a 10-15 yard sphere around him. This is the dumps area. The dump has a 10 yard sphere of influence around the thrower. Cutters, generally, 99% of the time, should NEVER invade this sphere.
This 10 yard sphere exists around the thrower at all areas on the field. Let the dump be able to get to the dump. Leave those 5-8 yards in front of the thrower open for the dump to get it upline in the power position. This is a great position to huck from, and everyone loves to score goals.
Maybe i will draw a picture sometime..... probably not.
-josh
Handler Area
Click on the picture to enlarge and read up a little. I stole this slide from Geoff Buhl (with his permission). He was the coach of Rutgers when I was at lehigh. Rutgers was not very athletic, but Geoff managed to eek every ounce of athleticism and ultimate IQ of these guys to make a run to sunday of regionals every year.
Anyway, basically what we did well 2 years ago was that the handlers and the cutters understood what part of the field was for handler motion, and what part of the field was for big cuts. This lead to cutters setting up for large in and out cuts, and the handlers working to get easy throws off by using their legs.
I am going to post another post on handler cutting.
-josh
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
On Improvisation (i suck at spelling)
I hate the concept of "plays" as in, player 1 does this, player 2 does this, we throw to player 3. I feel as a team, we are very robotic and don't do a good job of reacting to stimuli (i.e. making minor adjustments offensively or defensively in a game. This is especially evident when we play teams that throw shitty, bladey hucks, or playing against teams that poach or play a clammy defense).
In the past, we have gone over flow drills and split the game down into the small parts (various dumps, etc.), and we have even had plays. But, when we call them plays, i feel people don't realize that the best plays are really just patterns or situations that arise depending on your situation on the field. Also, I feel it teaches people to not throw to the OPEN man, but rather the man they think they should throw to.
Most college teams in the Northeast have coaches. Most of those coaches really know their x's and o's. They might have slightly varying O structures, dumps, defenses, but, for the most part, they are mostly based on the same fundamentals: throw the disc out to space, cut to get the disc AND make space, on defense take away the option the cutter wants, make the thrower break you with their 2nd best break throw when marking.
A good college team will execute their team's system well, a great college team will know how to improvise within a system when their first and second options are shut down. I am not talking about flashy scoobers and stall 9 blades (although every throw has it's place somewhere for a certain situation); I am more talking about, if someone is poached, where should he go, if they are back marking the thrower, how should he react, should our dumps change, and, if people are throwing bladey flick hucks on us, how should we defend differently.
I feel last year a lot of the freshmen and sophomores were good at playing D against MIT (squirrely handlers cutting upline, big cutters who jack it to other big cutters out of the ho stack). We were not good at playing against hippie ultimate.... no real stack and big throws. We also gave up 2 breaks every time a zone was put on us because our handlers would either miscommunicate and have a soft drop, or the handlers couldn't figure out if the cup was loose or tight and how to attack each one.
This stuff takes time to learn, and playing against colleges of all sizes and playing styles gives you much more experience than a watered down O line of MIT. This is why I have been pushing for you guys to play in as many tourneys as possible. I cannot teach you guys to play against every type of zone out there. We barely have enough time to learn how to run 1 effective zone. It is only through playing against different teams that you will begin to see the different patterns of O's and D's and then learn how to make adjustments on the fly about how to counter them. This is what I have been hinting at all season about the veterans learning pattern recognition.
Anyway, you guys are playing WPI tonight. They have 2 good players I know of, and both of them like to throw deep and run deep. I am assuming you will have a zone thrown against you and on offense they will run some sort of ho stack and throw it deep a lot with outside/ins. Be prepared to counter this by starting the game off dictating your man under. If they are going to score, make them score with 30 in cuts. If they do it the first time, make them do it 3 more times, I promise you that they will get frustrated and jack it deep the first second they think their man has a 50/50 shot at it.
no more mr. roboto, from now on, react to stimuli!
-josh
In the past, we have gone over flow drills and split the game down into the small parts (various dumps, etc.), and we have even had plays. But, when we call them plays, i feel people don't realize that the best plays are really just patterns or situations that arise depending on your situation on the field. Also, I feel it teaches people to not throw to the OPEN man, but rather the man they think they should throw to.
Most college teams in the Northeast have coaches. Most of those coaches really know their x's and o's. They might have slightly varying O structures, dumps, defenses, but, for the most part, they are mostly based on the same fundamentals: throw the disc out to space, cut to get the disc AND make space, on defense take away the option the cutter wants, make the thrower break you with their 2nd best break throw when marking.
A good college team will execute their team's system well, a great college team will know how to improvise within a system when their first and second options are shut down. I am not talking about flashy scoobers and stall 9 blades (although every throw has it's place somewhere for a certain situation); I am more talking about, if someone is poached, where should he go, if they are back marking the thrower, how should he react, should our dumps change, and, if people are throwing bladey flick hucks on us, how should we defend differently.
I feel last year a lot of the freshmen and sophomores were good at playing D against MIT (squirrely handlers cutting upline, big cutters who jack it to other big cutters out of the ho stack). We were not good at playing against hippie ultimate.... no real stack and big throws. We also gave up 2 breaks every time a zone was put on us because our handlers would either miscommunicate and have a soft drop, or the handlers couldn't figure out if the cup was loose or tight and how to attack each one.
This stuff takes time to learn, and playing against colleges of all sizes and playing styles gives you much more experience than a watered down O line of MIT. This is why I have been pushing for you guys to play in as many tourneys as possible. I cannot teach you guys to play against every type of zone out there. We barely have enough time to learn how to run 1 effective zone. It is only through playing against different teams that you will begin to see the different patterns of O's and D's and then learn how to make adjustments on the fly about how to counter them. This is what I have been hinting at all season about the veterans learning pattern recognition.
Anyway, you guys are playing WPI tonight. They have 2 good players I know of, and both of them like to throw deep and run deep. I am assuming you will have a zone thrown against you and on offense they will run some sort of ho stack and throw it deep a lot with outside/ins. Be prepared to counter this by starting the game off dictating your man under. If they are going to score, make them score with 30 in cuts. If they do it the first time, make them do it 3 more times, I promise you that they will get frustrated and jack it deep the first second they think their man has a 50/50 shot at it.
no more mr. roboto, from now on, react to stimuli!
-josh
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
From the Archives - Throwing to Space
This is one of the first emails I wrote MIT. Still applies....
Guys,
I want you all to concentrate on throwing to space. This is a very difficult concept to grasp, but once you understand that you don't actually WANT to throw to the man who is cutting, but rather, you want to throw to an area which will allow him to easily run upon the disc with his defender in a position to not have a play at it, the easier the game will become to you.
i think for a lot of people, throwing is very difficult because they feel that they actually have to throw directly to someone when they are running, like, hit them in their bread basket at some exact instant in time. in actuality, you have a spacial window and a temporal window that if you line them up, the pass will be completed.
in other words, you have a general leeway, and people normally wait way too long to throw the disc which then causes them to rifle the pass into a hard cutting player giving the receiver too little time to adjust and since you are throwing it with a limited time frame, the spacial window has become very small making it very easy to underthrow someone.
In general, for in cuts, the earlier you can throw the disc to a spot on the field where you want the receiver to go to, the less velocity you will have to throw the disc at making the receivers job even easier. Remember, there are two things that give the disc inertia and make it stable for catching(i.e. makes the disc feel heavy and less likely to doink off your hands), translational velocity and angular velocity, translational velocity is how fast the disc is traveling through the air, and angular velocity is how fast it is spinning in the air. If you put adequate spin on the disc, you can throw as soft as you want and still have a "heavy" disc to catch.
For away cuts, the sooner you can throw a disc out to space that no one occupies, and out in front of a receiver, the easier it is for him to read and run down on it.
in other words, you have a general leeway, and people normally wait way too long to throw the disc which then causes them to rifle the pass into a hard cutting player giving the receiver too little time to adjust and since you are throwing it with a limited time frame, the spacial window has become very small making it very easy to underthrow someone.
In general, for in cuts, the earlier you can throw the disc to a spot on the field where you want the receiver to go to, the less velocity you will have to throw the disc at making the receivers job even easier. Remember, there are two things that give the disc inertia and make it stable for catching(i.e. makes the disc feel heavy and less likely to doink off your hands), translational velocity and angular velocity, translational velocity is how fast the disc is traveling through the air, and angular velocity is how fast it is spinning in the air. If you put adequate spin on the disc, you can throw as soft as you want and still have a "heavy" disc to catch.
For away cuts, the sooner you can throw a disc out to space that no one occupies, and out in front of a receiver, the easier it is for him to read and run down on it.
i will talk more about throwing to space at future practices, and show you a demonstration of what i mean. also, if i can find video of it, i will show it to you. it won't have all the bells and whistles of dan cogan's video's but, what can you do.
-josh
Monday, September 29, 2008
First Post...
The purpose of this blog will hopefully be for me to keep write down all my thoughts in one place, hopefully be able to download some video clips for instructional purposes, and to keep alumni and fans in the loop with the current team.
Let's hope I make it through more than 4 posts before this falls by the wayside.
-josh
Let's hope I make it through more than 4 posts before this falls by the wayside.
-josh
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