rookie offense

We took a gamble in the fall, and came out teaching a horizontal offense. And we taught it to a team composed of 2/3 rookies and 1/3 returners, only one of whom had even played ho before.

My reasoning was that we could isolate our more experienced cutters to make better use of the field and maintain the disc with the stronger handlers for more of the time. Furthermore, we would hopefully be able to avoid the swarm mentality that so easily occurs with vertical, especially given how many new players would be on the field.

To a degree, this worked okay in the fall - we were able to build a foundation for cutting, and ensured that their vision of the field is not solely fixed in vertical (or solely in ho), but by the end of the semester, we stopped using the horizontal as much. Part of the problem was that because we were working with players whose field sense had not quite developed yet, we had to teach them a more structured pattern of cutting, which took a lot of cognitive processing (but we're MIT, so that actually went more smoothly than I feared), and they had difficulty recognizing the open spaces and timing their cuts to those spaces effectively. Vertical was easier for them because it was simpler to determine who was supposed to be cutting, and to where.

Now fast forward a couple months. It's the start of the spring semester, and after we wrapped up our team defenses unit, we started back on the ho stack for 3 practices thus far. The difference is astounding.

I don't know what clicked, exactly, or how, but during the scrimmage today I saw two cutters work together to get the disc in flow without cutting each other off, I saw another make a perfectly timed fill cut from the sideline position when she saw that both middle cutters were out of position, and there were multitudes of isolated deep cuts off of dishes with the correct timing. And yes, these were all first-year players.

One thing that may have helped was spending a lot of time doing a 2-cutter ho stack drill, where the second cutter has to react to the motion of the first and give the opposite option for the thrower. In that way, we reinforced the importance of isolating cuts into the two cutting areas (in and deep) and trained them to pay attention to each other's cuts and position.

Their own steep learning curve, too, has much to do with the improvement compared to the fall - their sense of the field is continuing to develop with every point they play, they are starting to learn how to pay attention to their defenders and their teammates when they cut, and they have more confidence in what they are doing and so every cut is that much more aggressive.

Things are beginning to click for this very young and promising team, and I think our gamble is starting to pay off. Let's just hope that the challenges of being outdoors (wind, larger field) won't be too much for us to handle.

The twist

The power of a backhand comes from the twisting, or rather, untwisting of the body, which creates a wave of energy flowing from the ground, through the hips and core, and out to the fingers.

This idea of a twist or whip is actually pretty common across sports - it's the same principle that golfers and batters use to power their swings, that soccer players use to kick the ball, and that volleyball players use to slam the ball. Arms are little, with little muscles. The power has to come from the large muscles of the body, ie, the core and legs, while the whipping motion allows the disc to accelerate through the entire throw.

So to start the backhand, you need to first wind up your body. Take a moderate step out, and twist so that the disc is far behind you.

You lose the additive advantage of the twist if you unwind your body all at the same time. You want to untwist one section at a time, so that the power and momentum of each part can fuel the next. The legs go first - they grip into the ground to power the uncoiling, and then the hips rotate, and moving upwards through your core, and finally the shoulders open up, the arm extends and the wrist snaps.

Easier said than done, especially if you have been used to throwing with only your arm, so get in front of a mirror and watch your throwing motion. Then practice - first slowly, and exaggerate each step of the untwisting, and then speed it up. You don't even have to actually throw the disc at this point - just practice the motion and keep watching the mirror to check your form. And when you feel confident that you can coordinate your body for the (un-)twisting, then go out with a friend and practice hucking.

sMITe bake sale!

Come support sMITe (MIT Women's Ultimate Frisbee)!

DISCS - $10 each (comes in white, night-glow, or blue sparkle)

BAKED GOODS - (chocolate chip cookies, fudge, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, brownies, banana bread, cupcakes, apple walnut bread, etc...) - ALL HOMEMADE!

Wed. Feb. 18 (Tomorrow)
9-5pm in the Student Center Lobby
(outside La Verde's)

Drill: grr and long-grrr

We use this drill to train aggression, going-to the disc, boxing out and catching. Lots of things for one simple drill!

Basic setup:
- 2 cutters, starting shoulder to shoulder either 20-ish yards away for the basic grr drill, or more like 40-ish yds for the long-grr (haha, get it? longer...)
- Thrower taps the disc in, and the two sprint towards the thrower, calling for the disc
- Thrower throws the disc towards both cutters
- Cutters go get it

I usually do the grr drill after having them practice claw catches for a while, and emphasizing how much further in front you can catch the disc. It's also good for those times that everyone is slowing down on the catch and nothing has worked.

I use the long-grr drill to demonstrate the power of body positioning and how even getting a shoulder or hip in front of the other person is enough to block their chance at the disc.

And above all, both these drills train players to catch under pressure - a most useful skill indeed!

Ultimate Peace

In support of two awesome ultimate players and their worthy cause...

Ultimate Peace is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to promote peace through Ultimate. Their first initiative is to hold a 5 day clinic & hat tournament teaching ultimate to Palestinian, Arab-Israeli and Jewish-Israeli youth. The coaches provide instruction and role modeling focused on the athletic, recreational, and character building aspects of Ultimate. The organization does not have a political agenda - we are driven by the principles of mutual respect, friendship, non-violence, integrity, and fun for all.

If you'd like to support the organization, please donate any amount you feel comfortable at http://www.ultimatepeace.org/donate

There are also gifts for donations over $25
• Ultimate Peace pendant with a $25 donation
• Ultimate Peace key-chain with a $50 donation
• Ultimate Peace collectible disc with a $100 donation

You can also become a fan on our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ultimate-Peace/42420530587

Wing wing wing

Playing the wing position in zone is my absolute favorite position on D. There is a great deal of freedom in what the wing can do, and you can cause a lot of chaos for the offense if you play wing well.

The basic instruction given to most people is: "Stay on your sideline and cover the defender coming down the line." That's okay - yes, please do protect your sideline when the disc is swinging to your side of the field, but there's no need to stay there all the time. That's both predictable and a waste of defensive resources.

Think about it - zone inherently forces the offense into a slower, (usually) more conservative pace. It's also often played in poor weather conditions which makes throws and catches harder. The options handlers are looking for are therefore close and high-percentage passes. Which means, if the disc is near your sideline, then your line is a threat, but if the disc is on the far sideline, it's going to either be a big cross-field hammer (risky), or at least 2 passes to get to your sideline. In either case, you'll have time to get back to your sideline, or it's the low-percentage throw that your team is trying to bait.

So how does this work in practice? Well, any time the disc is far from your sideline, collapse to the middle of the field and help out the short deep. When the disc starts swinging towards your sideline, find the sideline threat and run to cover her. Be unpredictable. Take a popper sometimes, take away the swing handler at other times. Hide behind the cup and bait throws. Pressure the easy options and make them think twice about throwing.

Furthermore, you've got a great view of the field, which means you can talk your head off to the short deep, to the cup, and of course to the deep. Tell them where the threats are, tell them how you can help out, and make sure you never ever leave a woman deep without getting confirmation from your deep defender. Communicate with your teammates both so that they understand what you're leaving open, and also so they can capitalize on the advantages of your defensive positioning.

C is for Contain

We're starting off the spring semester with a bang - ZONE!

I love team defenses because it can offset discrepancies in athleticism with intelligent decision-making and communication. When a team plays zone well, every position knows their role and responsibilities, as well as the goal of the specific type of zone that is played, with the overall effect of the zone moving as one organism that is able to intelligently decide which risks to take and threats to stifle.

Let's talk first about the cup. The cup is a group of usually 2-4 players who act as one mini-unit. They never stray too far away from each other, and are pulled into position by one another. The cup's job is to contain. Keep the disc at or behind the level of the cup, and always look to stop the next throw.

The biggest mistake I see new cup players make is to run after the disc, as opposed to anticipating where the disc will be going next. Take a 3 handler set: If the disc is thrown to from a side handler to the apex, well, they're next going to want to swing it across the field, and so anticipate and stop that next throw across the field. If you can stop that throw, you've just forced them to lose yards and to keep the disc on the same side of the field, and thereby also making you run less. And even if you can't stop the swing, by anticipating that throw, you're already on the way over there before the pass even goes up, and so you're able to more quickly put on the mark and contain from there.

The other job of the cup is to harrass the thrower. Put on a big solid mark, set up close enough to one another (or on the poppers, depending on the type of cup you're playing), and make it hard to throw. Pressure the handlers and make them hesitate before throwing, because that in itself can create turns. And especially for the middle of the cup, check behind you and figure out where the threats are, so that you can better position yourself to take them away - or to bait it.

Next up: Wing

Injuries

Injuries are the bane of my existence. 2 ACLs, recurrent shoulder subluxations (and probably rotator cuff/biceps tendinopathy by now), ankle sprains, muscle pulls... You'd think I'd have it down by now. And in principle, the formula works: Rest, Ice/Ibuprofen, Compress, Elevate. But when you're training and you have practices 2-3x/week and workouts 2x/week and a tournament coming up on the weekend and you don't want to fall behind - well, it's hard to pull back. So what should we do?

Prevention is easier than rehab - do the weight lifting, learn the correct form and use the appropriate equipment, take the time to build up your base, and ease into the training. Many injuries come from trying to do too much too soon. Furthermore, lifting can not only help with muscle strains, but also with traumatic shoulder and knee injuries like dislocations and sprains by strengthening your muscles to improve stability at the joint.

Now what happens if you do get injured? Stop immediately and don't make it worse. You need to give yourself a chance to heal: acute injuries + immediate rest/rehab = a whole lot less time off than if that injury becomes chronic. I've had many players nurse an injury through an entire season - they try to come back too soon, hurt themselves again, take too little time to recover again, and repeat. It's frustrating as a coach, and even more frustrating to feel as if you were never at 100% the entire season. Take the long view, and stay off the field.

Rest is important, but it doesn't have to be total bed rest. You can still work out with most injuries, as long as you avoid aggravating the injured area. Knee problems? Swim or elliptical. Ankle sprain? Bicycle. And so forth. But if what you are doing causes any pain to the injury, then stop. Don't be bull-headed about it. Respect what your body is telling you and find an alternative.

Rehab is the other key component. You need to strengthen what has been injured, recover stability to your joints, and work on altering your biomechanics so you'll be less prone to reinjury. If it's your first time (or a chronic problem), getting checked out by a physical therapist will help you learn what to do. And on behalf of PTs everywhere, do your home exercise program! We give you specific exercises with the purpose of getting you back to playing sports, but you have to do the exercises to have progress.

As a coach, part of our responsibility to manage our players' fitness. So I am not shy about telling players to stay on the sideline, to use alternative workouts and get into rehab. I'd rather have them miss 2 weeks at the beginning of the season than 4 weeks during the Series.

As a player, you need to figure out what works for you. Are you someone who needs to be held back? (probably) Then tell your coach/captain/teammate to help keep you in check.

Final notes: If it hurts, ice. If it's swollen, RICE. And above all, give yourself time to recover.

Communication

Communication sets the great teams apart. It takes 7, no, twenty-seven people, and turns them into a unified whole, acting with one intent and one understanding. You hear it all the time - talk more, talk to the mark, talk to the thrower, talk to the deep, talk talk talk.... but the problem is not the act itself, but rather what does one say to be an effective communicator?

Let's break it down:

First, you need to know your team strategy. You need to know the plan in order to weigh the choices in what to say. Are you a team that baits the deep throw, or one that forces all cuts under? If the mark gets broken, will it be the inside-out or the around?

Second, what terms does your team use? "Home/away" has become nearly standard, but even 5 years ago it was still "force forehand/backhand." Learn (or establish) the lexicon for your team so that we're all speaking the same language.

Third, what are you trying to tell your teammates? Make sure the information that you give is useful and clear. "No break" is a pet peeve of mine; for goodness sakes tell me which break (the inside or the around) is the threat, because my reaction to each is different.

Last, learn to call it early. You need to give your teammates time to react, whether you're calling for a switch, the dump, or "man!" Start to recognize patterns in ultimate and see the entire field - it is extremely hard to communicate with others when all you know is the location of your cutter/defender and the disc.

So how do you actually start communicating well on the field/sideline? For me, I started emulating others - I would watch the men's team in college walk the sidelines, talking to the mark and the deep, and I started doing the same. Unfortunately it seems that the default these days is a more silent player/sideline, and especially as I've begun coaching club women's, it's become apparent that many players are coming to the club level without this important skill.

For less experienced players, they need to first learn the lingo, and learn to see the field. For more experienced players, I incorporate communication into drills: practice talking to the mark during marking/breaking drills, talking to the thrower during cutting drills, calling "switch" can be integrated into multi-player defense drills. I also expect that they practice talking to the mark/deep during scrimmages and games - not necessarily loudly yet, but at least begin verbalizing because it does take practice.

But for all that, unless communication becomes part of the team dynamic and a skill that one is expected to develop, there is little incentive for a player to focus on this. And that lies upon you.