Tryouts Day 2

Whew. I feel like a whirlwind has passed through. Our second open tryout session was, er, well attended with 29 tryouts present (40 players total). Which was great, except that we only had about 2 hours of practice time and I found it difficult to pay enough attention to everyone. Personally, I think I ran a better practice on Sunday, but maybe it's just that I felt more stretched during the second tryout.

What we did: Vertical offense - cutting, continuations, dumping.

The basis of good cutting relies on positioning so that you have multiple options, getting the defense to commit, and, finally, recognizing that.

Good positioning is dependent on where the disc is - you want to give yourself as many viable cuts from one spot as possible. Which means, if you start too deep, you're committed to only cutting in and a good defender will recognize that and shut you down. If you position well, you make it much more difficult on the defender and you can overcome an athletic difference.

Furthermore, you should note your defender's position as well - if she's backing you, see how deep you can start before she starts narrowing the buffer and fronting you. You can also change your angle of attack by changing your starting position, and oftentimes the defense doesn't adjust correctly and you now have a much easier cut.

Many players weren't getting separation because they weren't cutting aggressively enough to have the defender commit. Too often people are thinking "I need to fake" and therefore they move slower and are not convincing enough to fool the defender. If you've set up properly with 2 cutting options, and you cut hard one direction, the defender has to respect that or she'll be burned. This was especially apparent when we worked on dumping - both up the line and back towards the center are fine options, but the dumps needed to truly threaten going up the line, otherwise they'd be covered for the around and unable to get off the swing.

The last piece seemed to be the most difficult though - knowing when you have made your defender commit to your cut. My goal when cutting is to either get my defender to turn her hips fully in one direction or to get her back onto her heels. Either way, I need to pay enough attention to my defender to be able to see how she's reacting. I personally tend to watch her in my peripheral vision, so that I can still be looking at the disc or at my teammates if I'm cutting in flow. What I'm noting is the speed and quality of her movement - if she sits back on her heels, then there's an abrupt, jerky movement backward. If she's turned her hips, then she starts accelerating in the direction I'm headed, and that's when I know to change directions.