Mental Game

Tiger was telling me about how he didn't feel quite ready mentally like he knew it was there just it hadn't struck him.

For all the juniors and rest of Australians (mostly Juniors) who are going to represent. I wish everyone the best of luck and good health no injuries etc...

Reminded me again of that glowing gem waterpolo handbook:


Effective Preparation for Competition
Effective preparion for competition is a matter of luck for many athletes. Maybe this, maybe that and lets hope that ti works.

For Elite Athletes however, control and consistency are the hallmarks of their preparation.

Would Keiren Perkins live in hope that allw ould come together at the appropriate moment on finals day for him to win Olympic Gold?

**Successful atheltes have well developed competition preparation SKILLS

**Skill is not something you are born with you are born with ABILITY

**Ability is transformed into skill with PRACTICE

Some atheltes are fortunate enough to have so much ability that they need only limited practice to acquire effective skills. For most athletes however, including professionals, considerable practice is neccessary before they acquire these consisten preparation skills.

Effective mental peaking is an acquired skill - acquired with preparation and evaluation.

1/ ATTITUDE
A successful athlet views competition as a challenge and a chance to reap rewards from the hard word and dedication. Their focus is not only on the outcome but the process of the contest. Winners have a balanced attitude between the competition and the realistic goals which they have set.

2/ CONSISTENT ROUTINE
Athletes need an established routine which they can utilisde automatically to have them peaking at the right time. This routine can sometimes take years to refine.

3/ READINESS - NERVES
Obviously it is important for athletes to have the adrenalin pumping, to have high energy for competition. The skill in preparation is controlling the gradual increase in arousal so they can peak at the right time.

If they peak too early they burn precious energy - if they are under aroused then they may find it too hard to compete at the right intensity. Preparation skill should include short term techniques to either pump up or calm down.

4/ SELF CONFIDENCE
A confident athlete is composed, relaxed with a high degree of certainty. They strive to reduce uncertainties or doubts as well as being completely realistic about their chances.

They should be willing to let go of worries, doubts about wether they have trained long and hard enough. They should be focused on the fact that the competition is now - the moment of truth.

5/ CONCENTRATION
Concentration literally means to focus all attention onto those factors that are most appropriate to performance.

However, the duration of concentration is limited so that it is neccessary for athletes to pace themselves before competition. Relax both physically and mentally and have the focus of attention gradually narrow as teh competition comes closer.

The most common forms of disruption to concentration are external ones, such as friends in the crowd, or internal ones such as negative thoughts. The most effective method of blocking out these disruptions is by focussing on something that will assist performance an by deep breathing or using a buzz word.

Summary:

** Effective competition skills are developed over time with planning and practice.

** Athletes should continually fine tune their organisation and concentration routine.

**They need to become skilled at fixing their attention at each appropriate moment.

**They need to develop the instinct to pace their physical and emotional build up.

**They need to be willing to accept their current standard and trust themselves.

Finally they need to achieve that fine balance of:

**Striving for a good outcome
and
**Focusing on the process.

STAY WITH THE PROCESSES UNDER PRESSURE AND TRUST THAT THE OUTCOME WILL TAKE CARE OF ITSELF

Here's Looking At You, Kid

So, we all know how to bust a zone.

(If you don't, consider this)

An entirely different problem is working out where to put people of lesser experience when running your zone offence. This is a scenario I'd imagine quite a few teams have to deal with in the uni season (and to a lesser extent the mixed season) of Australian ultimate, as there are always new recruits who have to learn as they go, a fair amount of experienced-but-not-superstar players, and generally not that many World-class athletes who can demolish one all by themselves for the entirety of the tournament.

So:

What seems to be the temptation in the teams I've played with is to stick the inexperienced players as wing/deeps or popping, and have the experienced players as handlers. Consequently, a lot of teams of this skill mixture generally have an okay time dumping and swinging, but their middle of the field really fails to engage and so they have a harder time scoring. Here are some alternative mix-ups to this formula, assuming a mix of 3 experienced players to 4 not so experienced, and a zone defence that is not overly impenetrable.

The Risky
Have three inexperienced players handle, two experienced players popping, and the remaining one good one not so good players act as wing/deeps. If necessary, have one of the experienced poppers receive the pull and pass it to the handlers.

The Pro's:

• The inexperienced folk get more disc time than they normally would, increasing their confidence and handling ability.
• Once the disc gets to the experienced poppers, they will have the confidence to give-go or look for decent upfield options. Most inexperienced poppers, once they get the disc, just give it straight back. Basically, once it gets to the middle, expect the zone to be broken permanently.

The Con's:

• It's not called 'The Risky' for nothing: three inexperienced handlers could spell death if they are caught in, say a sideline trap.
• Much more pressure on the experienced folk (poppers) to bail out in situations like a high stall count or aforementioned trap.

The Talk Show
Place one inexperienced player as the axis handler, with the other two handlers being experienced/inexperienced respectively. Poppers and wing/deeps are made up of one good and one not-so-good player each. The idea generally is that, just as a good zone defence revolves around a lot of on-field communication, so does this zone offence! The experienced handler is there to guide the other handlers, and the popper/wing-deep pairs have one experienced player each in their to guide the other one.

The Pro's:

• The inexperienced players are getting lots of advice as events occur, as opposed to after the point or on the sideline where recalling the situation may be difficult.
• Equal spread of experience all the way down the field, to ensure continuation and flow.

The Con's:

• Relies heavily on calm, measured and timely communication to newbies, which can be quite difficult in the heat of the moment. (Think 'Turn to face your dump, Sarah.', not 'SARAH DUMP DUMP DUMP!')
• Once again, new folks handling presents a little bit of a liability. Make sure the experienced handler is prepared to work to give the inexperienced handlers safe, easy options to reset the count.
  

Not Happy Jan

Woken up this morning by a call from the Physio.

I tore my ACL, and need surgery.

Boo.

The Kids Aren't All Right

Youth Nationals is a very different event to Opens and Womens, and it's a very difficult to satisfy the interests of all involved.*

Junior Worlds players are the driving forces behind most of the teams, so ensuring their attendance is pretty vital. But in a Worlds year (which come twice as often for the little tykes) fitting them in the actual tournament is testy: you are competing with training camps, as well as the usual school/uni timetables. Hosting Youth Nationals at a date that does not coincide with a training camp means excessive travelling/money/effort/time, whilst hosting the event at a date that does coincide with a Worlds training camp runs the risk of the event being a complete write-off.

There is also the question of what we want out of Youth Nationals: should it be focused on development, or high-level ultimate, or both? If it's the continuation of the Sydney-Victoria (or Sydney-Sydney) hegemonic ultimate then by all means, hold the event away from a training camp somewhere in Sydney or Melbourne. In terms of development, though, there are two major complications I can see that prevent Youth Nationals from reaching its full potential as an event on the ultimate calendar:

1. Recruitment infrastructure: currently, the majority of players are there on a friendship circle, word-of-mouth basis. At this year's event, one team was there because of the ultimate program in place at their school. That is where I see the future of youth ultimate's recruitment - high school. Especially in regards to states that do not have historically strong youth development (here's looking at you, TAS/SA/WA/QLD/NT) and weaker (or geographically less fortunate) players who have not been snapped up by club teams in their respective states. At the NSW High School Gala Day, a 'Merit Team' is selected from the best players. This team serves no function, at present. Imagine if the merit team from the SA High School Gala Day were selected to compete as a team at Youth Nationals - the words 'representing the state' add a lot of legitimacy to a sport like frisbee, and you could bet parents would be more willing to shell out the cash if this were the case.
2. Pricing. Last year, we got a hat, a disc, two days of high-level coaching and two days of ultimate for about $80. This year, we got two days of ultimate, a hat, a disc and a party for $75. Unfortunately, swinging the tournament fee either cheaper (for development, talking $20-50 just for fields for two days) or more expensive (for discs, hats or social events) runs the risk of alienating either entire teams of prospective new players (as was the case this year, with the cost for just the tournament being prohibitive enough to ensure at least one team didn't attend) or the hardcore travellers who want the extra tidbits to show for their journey.

So that's about all I can think to say on the matter right abouts now.

*This isn't a dig at how youth nationals was run this year or last. I had an absolute blast this year, Lisi did an incredible job and was amazingly patient and deserves to be thanked with a big big hug if you see her in Vancouver. Also, the party venue was amazing- it had showers, a movie theater, a sound system and more hot pizza than the hungry youth crowd could eat.

Day 2 Youth Nats

Well, today wasn't really as good as Day one.

First game against HOSY half our team was away getting the youth nats medals in neutral bay, we lost they played very well and we played horribly, we lost pretty badly.

Second game against Chatswood well spirited fun game they have al ot of surprisingly good up and coming kids I think Eshan was the best of the new group of CHS kids. We won that one.

Last game against Big Mac Small Fries, fun game they surprised me with how well they handled just they had no real strong receivers to back it up and we won.

Semi-finals were HOSY (1st - Undefeated through round robin) against Discgraceful (4th) and In-Tents (3rd) vs PUMSAT (Princess Unicorn Magical Sparkle Action Team) (2nd).

Hosy won their game and PUMSAT vs In-Tents was probably the worst game for us all tourney. In-Tents took 15 minutes to make the first pull, meaning it was only a 30 minute match, time cap score was 5-2 (In-tents) 6-2 game to 7, we lost i think 7-4 or 7-3. They played about as well as they did the last game, but we played a lot worse. Noble played for them that game and made some excellent throws. He has improved a lot as a handler. This game wasn't anywhere near as angry as the last game, there was some extremely bad calls during the game but everyone on PUMSAT had no heart since the start of the day. Tiger probably gave them another 10 for spirit.

The highlight was probably a catch from tom tullet managed to catch some crazy blade throw completely vertical on the trailing edge with his knuckles facing towards his body (if you can imagine the crazy position you would have to be to get a lay out catch in yoru hand with your knuckles facing down and towards your body on the trailing edge)

After a quick chat with Discgraceful there was no 3/4 play off.

HOSY vs In-tents was a great final HOSY dominated with their awesome lineup, Lewis Broad pulled some awesome forehand hucks and not so good backhand throws, Buttons and Tarrant were solid and great. Jake-as was huge. Lochies were strong stringy receivers.

Lex was absolutely amazing pulled probably the best and most beatiful d's of the entier game with some hectic layout blocks. he is going to be a huge asset for Thunder... as long as he doesn't injure himself!

I think the only bad thing about this youth nats was probably the timing.

For most of the worlds players on our team it was something none of them really cared about as much as the non-worlds players. For the worlds players it became a tourney that was just exhausting and could injure them, so they had much different expectations to the other players on the team and its pretty hard for a team to play to its potential when half of its players dont give a crap about the outcome. This was reflected by the lack of girls games where sydney was too injured.

Good tourney, good fun, well organised and the last youth nats for a lot of us.

I am a mean bastard who should not play Frisbee... on the upside though...

Day 1 of Youth Nationals...

All the worlds players were groaning in pain saying how much they weren't looking forwards to playing and how no one was taking it seriously and how bad it was going to be becuase they were all sore and not wanting to play.

First game against G-Stanes the u/17 champs pretty quick easy game. We put all our newer players on, Dan was a surprisingly good cutter, Evan was getting some sweet D's, Hingo was throwing well, our pickup Dan Clenton was throwing a bit tooo much (he stopped in the next games when he stopped stuffing around).

Our game against In-Tents as usual another game with absolutely no rivalry at all, not many foul calls but a bit of dirty play (but nothing was called) 2 things really annoyed me was their first pull of the game was so bad that they were able to hit it down, annoyed me becuase it would have gone about 5m towards their endzone if he had left it. A quick look at wfdf rules I can't find the penalty for interfereing with the pull beyond:

Interference: No player on the throwing team may touch the throw-off in the air before it is touched by a member of the receiving team.

The other one that annoyed me was there was a giant pick that left one of our players bleeding becuase he got decked, and so someone called pick on it. In-tents had managed to get a long throw off the pick and started complaining and swearing, I was pissed off, I saw Graham swearing at us I yelled out in the most ironic comment of the day "Come on show some fucking spirit!" (very angrily) before people laughed and pointed out Graham didn't know what happened. I felt bad and apologised to him at the end of the game.

They also tried to call a Dans winning score out who left a large skid mark from a slipping cleat whose mark started and finished in. Surprisingly it was Jackson who called it in. Thanks Jackson.

Lex again did some amazing layouts, Peley got some sweet D, Tiger is laying out a lot more, Calan surprsied me with some very good one handed sprint catches into fast throws and was a solid game.

Funny thing is, it was probably all a 2 way thing and I just see one side.

Last game was against Discgraceful, all our newer players and pickups played fantastically it was a very fun and a lot more spirited game we won.

I'm thankful there is no zone in this tourney becuase on today when it was windy and full of inexperienced players woudl have torn apart our team.

see how it goes!

youth nats party was fun
nathan is an alcoholic.

Tomorrow is the rest of the teams including HOSY who I'd tip to see in the finals and chatswood then semis and finals.

Go PUMSAT.

My mean funny for the day:
Nathan made a sweet bid for a disc, got absolutely decked by another player laying out into his legs, and it looked like a very painful hit, I think i said something like "HAHAH OUCH THAT LOOKED PAINFUL THATS EXACTLY HOW I GOT INJURED BUT I CAUGHT IT"










Friskee!

I couldnt help it, I went along to a game with Friskee and came on a few points...

It was a sad reminder of what I'd been missing out on.

Played a bit of zone handler, I was happy with my throwing and catching. It was against the bad beats and they had a pretty solid line up. (When everyone arrived... we started playign 4/2 with them only 4/1). It was probably a good experience for our less experienced players running into their zone.

Seeing some of the guys on my youth nats team come up against their first semi decent zone, I found out why they don't allow zone in youth nationals, it would completely invalidate a lot of inexperienced players despite their athleticism and disc skills.

Thanks to Bad Beats for letting us pick up about 4-5 players...

We had 2 new girls come along and play Bella and Laura, Bad Beats were very friendly and nice to them I think it was a good first experience at a competitive game of frisbee.

It was also Mark Evans last game with Friskee before he goes away to Europe and England, he did a couple of very nice catches, his pulling was pretty solid but his hucking wasnt too good that game. It was also the first game I had a chance to play on the same field as Brett Matzuka, hes a very fun guy to play with, has lots and lots of crafty handler moves and very friendly. Unfortunately the points we did play were sort of short... probably because I could play close to zero d due to my knee still and not running at all.

Came away with a few assists I was overall happy with my hucking, bad choices at the time (he wasn't really that open) on a few of them but they still came off. Equally there were some very good choices and good throws that became dropped pancake catches... I also tried to huck a backhand as a fast break throw off a turn, a mark come on at the last moment and i didn't follow through properly and threw a huge inside out backhand blade, funny thing was the 3 offensive guys becuase 2 misread it managed to completely box out Tim Gee to give mark a relatively easy catch. I guess thats totally buzz bullets style hucking blades to make position matter more compared to height!

Simon Talbot also made a guest star appearance since hes here for ECC's, was fun having a bit of a chat with him, and he had some very nice faking happening when he went on for a guest star point with 100% completion and points scored when on the field.

I also had my first taste of an assassination zone since our first season of friskee (no one has used it against us for a while) and this time it was me that was assassinated. When I realised I tried to stay behind the disc, and then started running around sort of directionless just tryign to keep my man away from the action.

Brendon the fantastic cool and all around nice guy Frisbee player came and had a chat to me about it saying why I was assassinated (passing to girls) and what I should have done, which was basically just keep moving and try and pop to stay useful and mess aroudn with their zone.

I really like it when people teach me very important stuff like that!

At the end of the game had a chat with Brett and Alex Allen about the future of ourselves in frisbee with a very positive outlook!


Thanks to bad beats for a very fun game with plenty of pick ups, pretty good spirit i think.

Damn.
I forgot the score.