I remember when I first played club after graduating college. All the college kids would come back the next summer and they'd be leaps and bounds beyond where they were last season, and I felt like I'd made no progress whatsoever. Quite a shock. They were forced to play bigger roles on their college teams and therefore were able to develop all aspects of their game, and also given free rein to do so.
In the club season, it's harder to expand your game because (at least in the NE) there's a conservative mentality towards possession and playing within your role. I feel that it is short-sighted to train that way, but it is hard to balance the short-term decline in level of play which tends to be discouraging, with long-term improvement. And of course everyone wants to win.
One of my personal goals for Hatch is for every player to feel that she has improved, in some fashion, by the end of the season. It's too easy to pigeon-hole players into roles for the sake of early success, and then never get to work on the other aspects of one's game to bring up your overall level of play. I certainly could have done much better last year, and I think with a longer season this year and less pressure to establish ourselves as a "legitimate team" I'll get closer towards my goal.
I have been fixated (well, for the past few days at least) by having "show me your worst" practices. Most of the time, people like to do the things they do best - you look good and therefore you feel better by doing it.
I want to do the opposite.
I want my handlers to cut, my cutters to handle and my deep defenders marking up on handlers. I want my cup to play in the back in zone, and poppers to handle and wings to pop. I believe that cutters need to handle in order to know where they should be cutting, handlers should cut in order to understand the timing of cuts, and defenders need to think like the offense to know where the threats are.
It's not just that I want to make our general skill level higher (ie, better throwers, better receivers, better defenders) - I want to expand how my players see the field and get them to understand what the other positions see and are looking for. Efficiency comes when these 22-27 players all have the same expectations on the field and know what every other player is going to do, and that is what I strive to create.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
i wish all teams played like this. also, a suggestion: how about running some drills to practice for mismatches? easiest examples being differences in speed and differences in height. i'm just thinking of a good man defense, where even if someone switches onto a mismatch, they still have a good chance of successfully defending.
ReplyDeleteAnother topic i think about is directing the person you're guarding towards help d. i feel like this is a basic bball tendency, but may be more difficult in ultimate due to a larger field.
While I agree with your general point that players need to develop skills they are not particularly strong at, I disagree that less development of players occurs in club than in college. I was inclined to think the opposite was true, and I think anyone on sMITe who saw me return after playing with Godiva would agree that huge improvements can result from playing club. A big thing I learned my first season was simply how to follow faster play, and see more on the field.
ReplyDeleteWhen you play against top-level marks and defenders, you are forced to make better fakes. When you defend high-level players, you have to get smarter. Plus, interacting with your teammates, especially ones trained by different coaches, can open your eyes to the different things they were seeing in the same situation.
Also, requiring more conservative play forces a player to figure out what she can do reliably, which helps identify things she needs to work on, while at the same time providing an opportunity to learn from teammates who do it well.
I think that both seasons have the potential to greatly improve a player's overall ability, and playing conservatively shouldn't be an excuse.