Saturday, February 28, 2009

A new beginning for the old

Sydney Uni's oweek has just finished and the first week of uni is about to start. Suufa had a club meeting last weekend just going over plans for the year. More people, more tournaments, and more teams (with more spirit) were the main things on the agenda, as well as the super 3 year plan. Its really good to be working with a bunch of people so dedicated to improving the club and the game, a lot of planning and work went into o-week preparation and recruiting was (in my opinion) the best by far out of any of the sport clubs, mostly becuase suufa was willing to do the things the union said we couldnt, like walk outside of our stall and hand out pamphlets.

There was few new recruits but there was a few things I noticed and had Brett point out to me as we spoke about it during out learn to play session (with free pizza and drinks on the thursday afternoon).

The first thing I noticed at the learn to play was the amoutn of experience showing, there has been some successful high schoo development coming through. there was 5-6 peopl from my old school north sydney boys, i ran into a couple of girls who when asked if they knew what ultimate was their reply was "We already had too much at highschool." They were from north sydney girls. Brilliant.

There was a lot of people who could throw reasonably well and I asked a few ofthem and the common one was 'oh we used to throw a frisbee around at school but it was lighter than this one,' and a lot more people know what this sport is. Even my sister who had some americans come to her school in year 8 can throw a forehand now becuase of that, there is going to be a lot of talent coming through in the next fews.

Most of the people who have joined were not completely new to frisbee, with some experience and knowledge of the game before.

oh yeah.

At the learn to play we had a few fun games, brett calls 'hey all in for the spirit circles!'

"A spirit circle is something we have at the end of every game ... "

At the end of one, i over hear someone in an american accent: "I've been playing ultimate for 4 years and I've never been in one of those." as he walked away laughing and smiling.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

One Size Fits One

A major factor in the development of your skillset depends on your base athleticism - specifically, height. I think a lot of people overlook this. A lot of training for ultimate could be more efficient if players are willing to think about their physical limitations, and how it will effect their game.

Players of different height should approach areas of ultimate differently, especially at a more elite level where nobody is aware of where their opponent's strengths lie.

Consider breaking the mark, as both a tall person and a short person. As a taller player, you are going to have more reach and a wider pivot, making both the forehand I/O break and the step-around-the-mark-break-backhand that much easier.

Taller players have longer limbs, and can use their wide pivots and extensions to break the mark easier. When practicing throwing they should focus on this. Conversely, shorter players who do not have the luxury of simply stepping around their marker should instead focus on speedy pivots and greater balance to get their break throws off.

When it comes to cutting, the difference is a bit more psychological: as a BFG, the defense is going to view you as a bigger threat long. Play on this to get easier in cuts. One advantage of being fun-sized as a cutter is that you are hard to see in peripheral vision. This comes as a great advantage, particularly when trying to get open as a dump or a primary wing, where the guarder's attention is most usually divided between you and the disc.

I see a lot of shorter players trying to adopt skillsets that suit the taller folk or vice versa, where really it's more worthwhile to develop a style of playing that will work for your body type.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Hiding those deep down urges...

Perfect. Dealt aces on the button.
UTG limps, MP raises.
Check again for aces. Yes, still there, always three bet aces.
SB calls, you sense danger. UTG calls... MP calls, you sit nervously in your chair for a moment, this hand is not so dreamy after all.
Flop is ten, jack, queen suited.
You cringe as SB raises, UTG all in, MP calls.
UTG just pulled a near perfect squeeze on you, and besides that probably has the goods.
Top pair top isn't looking so good right now. Don't go broke with aces.
Hide the disappointment, its an easy fold. (utg villian was 22/18 for anyone that it means anythign to)

Later that day, you end up at a frisbee field, stall count is on 2, against moderate winds, shortest, slowest, least athletic person has managed to cut stupidly deep of his man, who happens to be the fastest, tallest, most athletic person on their team. A gust of winds pick up as you hear the word '3' and you cock your wrist back and the wind tugs at the disc causing it to flutter in your hand. You stop for a moment as you realise this probably isn't the best spot to make a move. '4!' This is an easy dump.

Being the complete degen you are, you're back at a poker game, its 4 handed, meaning you can open raise about 40% of hands pretty safely. The dealer min raises to 2 bb, sb folds and you are sitting on king queen off suit. Dealer has been playing junk all night, making nonsensical money losing plays. This is an easy spot to raise or call. But as you look at your cards you feel a little a shudder down your spine and for some reason you throw your cards away without thinking. You are startled by the way you had no thought in this decision. You look up and see the other person wince at your play and angrily flips over kings. Completely dominated you were 9:1 to lose and would have been in huge trouble if a king had hit. Good fold.

The next morning is day 2 of the tournament, you broke even last night and are in a happy mood looking forwards to getting onto the field. A short warm up and you're in, line is called you're handling. Max is primary cutter, he cuts in towards you, makes eyecontact and gives you that wide eyed smile screaming to you "I know what you're thinking right now, whatever you are thinkign just do it!" You smile back as he busts deep. You pull the disc back ready to go and suddenly you get a little shudder down your spine, you see Max busting deep but something isn't right. You decide to throw the disc, but not that long huck everyone else is expecting. Max plants his foot down and cuts hard back in, he doesnt even get 2 steps before the disc lands confidently in his hands.

Frisbee is still a very young sport, and the nice thing about it is really anyone can get to a high level of ultimate as long as they are able bodied, willing and commited to training hard and improving their game. Its good in that some sports your physicality will restrict your level of competition, Lee Baker from the mixed team and Chilly from Melbourne who billeted me one juniors camp told me how he used to play State Volleyball as a spiker but was too short to advance any further. He is by no means a short person, but still too short for volley ball.

Frisbee is a long way off getting to the stage where your coach will be trying to add a 0.3 degree tilt to your wrist when you throw, and I always think its a fun experience to compare and contrast ultimate to other sports to see what can be gained.

I am reading a book called Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0141014598/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1234256083&sr=8-1) and is just about those 2 second snap judgements that people make for reaosns beyond their control, some are bad, some are good, but the whole point is at the moment we have little control over our response.

In sport we train to turn the game to a point to where the optimal decision is the one that we always make, and we train our bodies how to do this, and we do drills to create situations that when we see them in a game we are to respond in a certain way. The whole point is to get to a stage where our unconscious can take over the thousands of small decisions the body can throw perfectly without us needing to put any thought into it.

Gladwell recalls a story of people trying to learn how to forehand properly from some perfect tennis star. (apparantly) people are too often taught to roll their wrists over the ball when they hit forehands as some tennis pro believed that was how he gained his killer forehand. Reality was that he was turning a total of a third of a degree when contacting the ball, and people tryign to turn their wrists as they hit overtook some ridiculous percentage of tennis injuries of people trying to imitate this. Funnily, the tennis player didn't really know how he was making these great shots, his unconscious mind had taken over and he had no clue consciously how he was doing it.

I remember being told by someone at some time that it is harder to unlearn something than it is to teach yourself something new.

Equally are those times when we see someone cutting deep, they are busting their guts and you know they deserve the throw, but you also know you relaly cant take that risk then before you realise it the disc is already up in the air and turned, and you are scored on for double unhappiness.

It can be really hard sometimes to fight these urges we have, and so often they can be correct...

Time to find that perfect balance!