After day one, I ditched this tactic in favour of throwing hammers into crowds and at hot women.
The question I got asked quite a lot when meeting folk at Nats was 'so what sport did you play before frisbee?'. (soccer, for those of you playing at home). So here is my list of sports and what, in my limited experience, they can bring to potential ultimate players.
- Soccer. It brings fitness, footwork and has a similar stuttered sprint-stop-jog pattern of play.
- Netball. Girls who play netball don't travel with the disc, generally have wider pivots and better balance, but also generally have a truckload of injuries. Rapid change of direction is suited to Ultimate, but avoid juking! Netball helps the vertical.
- Ice Hockey. Brings field sense, insane leg strength for both sprint juice and vertical. Unfortunately brings the bad habit of full on contact when going for the disc.
- Athletics. Seem obvious? Undoubtedly, the fitness is a big plus. However, I know quite a few decent marathon runners who just can't adapt to frisbee. No point being able to run 100% on day four of Nationals if your 100% is someone else's 30%.
- Field hockey. Fitness, yes. Vertical, no. Field sense, yes, in a big way. The decent amount of hockey players that have turned to frisbee that I know seem to have an intuitive grasp of concepts like the stack, and zone defence. Whether this is because of their hockey upbringings or their athletic nature I don't quite know.
- Basketball. If someone has played basketball, recruit them. Chances are they are tall, fast, can jump and catch. Like netball, most do bring injuries with them.
- League/Union. League is probably more suited to Ultimate than union, just in terms of body type. Ultimate, being non contact, doesn't need the bulk of union but the sprinting and dexterity required to break through a line of defensive players translates very well in terms of cutting.
Examples of this in a juniors context: two guys on Thunder are from Geelong, Jake-as and Lewi. Both of them are consummate athletes, and definitely have the most potential to go far from anyone on Thunder. It's not just about genetics and physiology - though that supports them in spades - it's also about attitude and commitment. Phil White is our captain, and he is a phenomenal player, but I'm yet to see him get angry or fire up. He is a consistently amazing and consistently quiet team player. Tom 'Cupcake' Tulett is the opposite. He plays perfectly for his height (I think he's 5"6?) and can fire absolutely any of us up. He gets too emotionally involved - Barefoot syndrome - and sometimes can't cope when the chips are down.
Lewi and Jake-as sit somewhere in the middle of these polar extremes. They fire up, but I'm yet to see them lose their heads. When Fakulbee were up 3-0 against Heads of State in pool play, they kept their wits about them and played well. Jake seems to be a bit more nervous, and Lewi seems a tad more inclined to egoist ultimate, but they are both very good, and better yet, still have so far to go. Can't wait, Geelong.
T.
2 comments:
I got through your list of sports and was about to explode when you didnt have AFL down...i agree (somewhat biased i will admit) that it has the best transition to frisbee becaise of the feild sense, athleiticism, stamina and verticality element that are all required (and i wish i had more of).
However, as i am sure my teammates on fakulbee have noticed, it does bring with it a tendancy to jump with the knees raised, and a tendancy to foul in the air (something i am working to eliminate from may game).
Also i find the habit of 8 years of AFL mean that i have a very different conception of what a foul is in the air than other. If there is a legitimate contest in the air, which includes contact, as any contest in the air ineviatbly will, then i find myself much less likley to call a foul...i had a bid and i failed, irregardless of whether some guy knocked me over (which doesnt happen often becaus i am normally doing the knocking). I get very frsutrated at the nmber of "soft" fouls people call...there is an inherent element of contest and contact in the bid for the disc in the air which cant be denied depsite the best protestations of people. There were some really good and really bad examples at nats in our games of fouls called simply when people got beaten in a contest (including by our own players). I guess thats what often frustrates me about the lack of referees sometimes...there should be an implicit understanding that a contest in the air is inherently a physical one....
but i have promised to curb my more aggressive AFL instincts (although looking at some photos from nats..i still jump with the knees:)
I get what you're saying about contact in the air, Maple, but it's stated in the rules (somewhere) that players should avoid contact at all times. If all players are in a contest are jumping straight up, and there's some incidental contact...fine. If someone jumps in from the side, that is a foul, and thus shouldn't be regarded as incidental.
But on topic with the post...
Players from other sports bring over habits that are hell on an ultimate field.
- AFL players are easy to spot on an ultimate field - they're the ones running in big wide arcs instead of straight lines. Because an AFL field is twice as long as an ultimate field and, in places, five times as wide, they are used to running laterally for leads as well as vertically. They have a very hard time adjusting to 180 degree turns. Distance runners are the same.
- Netballers and basketballers are used to holding position instead of clearing out. Often they will cut in and then hang around.
- Touch, league and union players will try and force the disc into the endzone from the sideline rather than get it back to the middle of the field and score from there.
But you forgot the best sport of all for converts...
Tennis.
Forehands and backhands have similar actions to their namesake throws, and serves are similar to hammers. Explosive pace and agility, and endurance to last games of up to 3 or 4 hours.
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