I think that completing the swing pass is a hugely under-valued skill, yet it separates the good handlers from the bad handlers, and the great teams from the average teams. There is little doubt in my mind that Jam's success in the finals (and the rest of nationals) this year was due in large part to their ability relentlessly swing the disc and constantly change the field giving them easy, low risk throws.
This year's version of MIT is pretty young and inexperienced, and we really only have two handlers who have played a handler role in our system for more than two years.
With that said, I am having trouble getting across the huge value of swinging the disc. We have worked a lot on dumping the disc (since being able to consistently dump the disc the most important skill you can possibly develop), and we add the swing component into that dump swing drill, but, for some reason, in real game situations we struggle to throw the swing.
I feel there are 3 reasons for this:
1.) Front of the stack isn't paying attention.
2.) The dump feels it is better to have the disc in his hands than the swings hands, so he greedily holds onto the disc.
3.) The dump is slow in the transition from the catch to the throw.
I will address each scenerio:
1.) The front of the stack (in our system, the front of the stack gets the swing the majority of the time) should always, always be looking at the thrower. I can't possibly think of a reason why he shouldn't be.
If the thrower turns to the dump, there are only 2 possible situations that the front of the stack is going to do: a.) be the swing, or b.) be the other dump option if the first dump doesn't get the disc.
Both of these options are easy to see and time if you are looking at the thrower. Always, always be making eye contact with the thrower as the front of the stack. Period. If you always make it a point to do this, you will always be ready to cut.
Nothing is more crushing to a coach than when you see a rookie work really hard to get a great dump throw off that goes to the dump, and the dump catches it and is in perfect position to throw, and there is NO ONE cutting to the break side. Crushing.
2.) Lack of trust with the front of the stack, not being prepared to throw, not thinking about throwing to the break side.
for some reason, especially in tight games, MIT's handlers this year, when they catch a dump, are not looking to swing the disc. They simply catch it, and make no effort to even look to the swing side immediately, some go in-so-far as to pivot back to the open-side.
This, as a whole, helps no one, and leads to an inordinate amount of turns. For one, you are turning back towards the person who just threw you the disc, and he, generally is already covered by the way the mark was set up on him. he is typically clearing out, which forces the thrower to have to either throw around him and his defender to an in cut, or, to hold the disc for an extended amount of time to wait for the throwing lanes to open again. All this does is lets the defense set up again.
If you are a good thrower and the swing cutter for some reason is not, it still should not stop you from throwing that pass. What you are doing is opening up the field by moving the disc horizontally, making the defense have to adjust, and, chances are, you are going to be the dump for the next throw.
A bonus to completing swing passes is that for every swing pass you complete, your mark is going to have to respect that swing throw more and more which will lead to the mark playing off of you more and more to try to stop the around. This will lead to some i/o looks to the front of the stack, some give-n-go opportunities, and easier throws all around.
3.) I think a lot of people think swinging the disc requires break throws. It actually doesn't at all. Most of the time, if a proper dump is given, you will have enough separation where all you have to do is throw a very simple, uncontested throw to space.
I think the trick comes in the preparation. When you catch the disc, you want to come out of the catch and be in proper throwing position, so, if it was force flick, when you pick your head up to look at the breakside, you want to already have your backhand ready to be released. What I mean by that is that you should NOT catch, look, windup, release. It should be catch, windup, lookup, release. this minor difference in the order of those things is HUGE.
Also, remember as well, you are throwing to the space where you want the swing cutter to be, you are not waiting for the swing cutter to get to a space and then trying to drill the disc at him.
I could go into the minutea of which foot to try to come down with first when catching and the angle you should attack the disc, or how to minimize the windup (something my club coach constantly tries to have me work on since I have tennis style backswings which no one needs), but, all you need to do is do what is mentioned above, and completing the swing pass will be really simple.
There are two things that really helped me learn how to swing the disc. When I played on a club team in philadelphia, the captains stressed the importance of moving the disc horizontally on the field and would swing the disc even if we lost some yards on it. They would stop drills if you didn't try catch the dump and come up ready to throw the swing.
The second thing was that I have practiced decoupling my lower half of my body from my upper half when throwing. This helps throwing on the run and I don't have to be fully planted to releasing the disc. I practiced this after reading something idris nolan wrote about him practicing throwing with his non-pivot foot off of the ground when throwing. Try it sometime; it will change the way you look at throwing.
Anyway, I am very hungry and it is food time. We are going to continue to work on this at practice, and I think that the kids are starting to understand the importance of swinging the disc because when they do it, they are starting to score much easier and they are opening up the field a lot more.
-josh
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Away I go...
So, yesterday MIT had the last practice i will be at for over 2 weeks (st. lucia here i come!!).
There is still a lot to work on, and we have very far to go if we want to meet our goal of being a regionally competitive team.
The captains and leaders of the team sat down with me and we figured out a game plan for the next couple of weeks.
We need to work on zone offense as we haven't really taught it in full yet. MIT runs a two handler offense (they sort of ran a bad 2 or 3 handler offense in vegas), and we use a lot of handler motion to break the cup.
We have a couple good handler's this year that need to learn the system for it to be effective.
We also need to work on cutting in flow. The handlers are hesitant to throw the swing (note to aspiring college/club handlers, always be that guy who throws the swing....), and the cutters don't cut off of each other well. We have some drills lined up to do that.
The biggest hurdle we face as a team is taking the majority of the team who have played little to no organized sports before and having them see the field, see the patterns, and use the patterns to get d's. Right now, everyone just reacts a step slow.
okay, i have a wedding to get ready for, so, I will get back at this in 2 weeks. with what we are doing to help raise people's field awareness (can you?). Any thoughts on this?
-josh
There is still a lot to work on, and we have very far to go if we want to meet our goal of being a regionally competitive team.
The captains and leaders of the team sat down with me and we figured out a game plan for the next couple of weeks.
We need to work on zone offense as we haven't really taught it in full yet. MIT runs a two handler offense (they sort of ran a bad 2 or 3 handler offense in vegas), and we use a lot of handler motion to break the cup.
We have a couple good handler's this year that need to learn the system for it to be effective.
We also need to work on cutting in flow. The handlers are hesitant to throw the swing (note to aspiring college/club handlers, always be that guy who throws the swing....), and the cutters don't cut off of each other well. We have some drills lined up to do that.
The biggest hurdle we face as a team is taking the majority of the team who have played little to no organized sports before and having them see the field, see the patterns, and use the patterns to get d's. Right now, everyone just reacts a step slow.
okay, i have a wedding to get ready for, so, I will get back at this in 2 weeks. with what we are doing to help raise people's field awareness (can you?). Any thoughts on this?
-josh
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Sick Day Post....
So, I am sitting here at home sick with my washing machine still in a dismantled heap in the basement, and me losing a days worth of work to sleep off a nasty cold.
Yep, that means time to update the blog. It has been a while.
MIT is currently in IAP. I have no idea what it is, but apparently only about half of the students opt to do it, and the half that are here, take a weird gaming class where they essentially spend every waking and non-waking hour programming to compete in some weird virtual game. Lame.
We also are having a fairly bad winter with lots of ice and snow keeping us indoors. Indoors is bad because we don't get any time (1 hour 2 Xs a week). Some parent of an MIT student just spent a lot of money on a new nexturf soccer field on the inside of the outdoor track. The next logical step would be for them to put a bubble over it so people can run indoors and play indoors. ..... maybe next year. As for now, it sits, unplowed. And although the team has offered to shovel it in return for some field time on it, the athletics department declined the offer.
So, for now, we are stuck doing track workouts, weight lifting, shuttle runs, and then as many drills as you can smash into 1 hour of time on about 80% of the available space in the area inside of an indoor track.
I am working on getting the handlers to be aggressive with their upline dump cuts. I am also working on getting the cutters to respond to those cuts with deep cuts for them. If we are aggressive with the upline cuts, we will either get a lot of upline dumps, or a lot of non-contested swings. If we get the upline throws, I want the handlers hard work to be rewarded with a viable deep option. I am hoping this will increase our deep look percentages and completions as well as opening up the underneath game.
I think it is hard for cutters to get a feel for how easy it is to throw a huck making an upline cut as opposed to hucking from a handler spot. Cutters normally have worse marks and more separation than handlers do allowing most of their throws to be easy. Handlers are rarely more than a couple steps open on their defender, and the defender is relatively fresh to put on a hard mark. Getting it upline with all your momentum with no mark is like christmas, even for a shitty deep throwing handler like myself - you have to try really hard to NOT complete that look no matter what dog meat you normally put up.
I am trying to get the team ready for vegas, but I am afraid that by the time they go there, they won't have played on more than a 40X 40 yard patch of indoor space for only an hour at a time.
Will catch up later, but time to sleep.
-josh
Yep, that means time to update the blog. It has been a while.
MIT is currently in IAP. I have no idea what it is, but apparently only about half of the students opt to do it, and the half that are here, take a weird gaming class where they essentially spend every waking and non-waking hour programming to compete in some weird virtual game. Lame.
We also are having a fairly bad winter with lots of ice and snow keeping us indoors. Indoors is bad because we don't get any time (1 hour 2 Xs a week). Some parent of an MIT student just spent a lot of money on a new nexturf soccer field on the inside of the outdoor track. The next logical step would be for them to put a bubble over it so people can run indoors and play indoors. ..... maybe next year. As for now, it sits, unplowed. And although the team has offered to shovel it in return for some field time on it, the athletics department declined the offer.
So, for now, we are stuck doing track workouts, weight lifting, shuttle runs, and then as many drills as you can smash into 1 hour of time on about 80% of the available space in the area inside of an indoor track.
I am working on getting the handlers to be aggressive with their upline dump cuts. I am also working on getting the cutters to respond to those cuts with deep cuts for them. If we are aggressive with the upline cuts, we will either get a lot of upline dumps, or a lot of non-contested swings. If we get the upline throws, I want the handlers hard work to be rewarded with a viable deep option. I am hoping this will increase our deep look percentages and completions as well as opening up the underneath game.
I think it is hard for cutters to get a feel for how easy it is to throw a huck making an upline cut as opposed to hucking from a handler spot. Cutters normally have worse marks and more separation than handlers do allowing most of their throws to be easy. Handlers are rarely more than a couple steps open on their defender, and the defender is relatively fresh to put on a hard mark. Getting it upline with all your momentum with no mark is like christmas, even for a shitty deep throwing handler like myself - you have to try really hard to NOT complete that look no matter what dog meat you normally put up.
I am trying to get the team ready for vegas, but I am afraid that by the time they go there, they won't have played on more than a 40X 40 yard patch of indoor space for only an hour at a time.
Will catch up later, but time to sleep.
-josh
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Mini: Getting the Maximum Out of Indoor Practice
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
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
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)