This was a great year for sMITe - we had a solid (though small) core of returners, and lots of amazing first year players who were able to step up and fill big roles. We had first year players be primary cutters, be (fake) handlers, and even play deep deep. They all threw upfield by Regionals and were able to dump fairly consistently, which is actually a big step up from last year's team when our offense was built around the dish.
That said, I do wish we had had more experience on the team - not so that we would do better, but so that the newer players would have more role models and see the structure of the game more easily. It's hard to learn to play a certain way if everyone is learning it, too, but dropping in 1 or 2 newbies with an experienced line would let them fit into the offense/defense more easily. Don't know where to stack? Just get in line with everyone else. Don't know when to cut? Your teammates will yell at you when it's your turn.
Our defense, I think, has actually suffered quite a bit from not having an experienced offense to play against. We still chase because we can get away with that at practices against ourselves. We haven't learned to anticipate the flow of the disc on defense because our cutters are still figuring out their timing. When we played a team like Williams (really really impressed with them, btw) who had great flow, solid dump/swing/continue and up the line/short away continues, we weren't able to stop them. We were repeatedly caught out of position because we weren't anticipating where the next cut was going. Sure, this takes experience, but I strongly believe that you get what you practice, and in our case, our practices just didn't have consistently good offense flow to defend.
Williams actually somewhat reminds me of Godiva's offense 5 years ago - very conservative and rarely struck deep (I can't remember who, but one of my Brute teammates or coaches told me to just front them because they never looked deep). They were very good at their offense, but because they didn't use the deep option, they also didn't defend the deep as effectively and Brute certainly took advantage of that. We're very lucky to have solid handlers and huckers so that our newer players all know how to cut deep and have been learning how to read the disc, which means next year, all the blades Michelle puts up will be caught! (just teasing, Michelle)
This was the last year for 4 of our players - Karen, Smeri, Amy and Agnes. Agnes had a breakout spring - she has developed a really big scary mark, and great field sense - her timing is impeccable, and in the past 2 tournaments, I cannot remember a single time that I thought she was clogging, or in the wrong space, or positioned improperly on defense. Pretty great for a 2nd year player! She has one of the hardest work ethics on the team - even when she was injured, she came to every practice and worked on her throws for 2 hours. She takes our feedback well and I can see her working on changing her play on the field based on what we said. We're going to miss our zone mark!
Amy has become a solid handler with consistent throws and beautiful dump cuts for resets. She doesn't make flashy plays, but when she is on the field, the offense flows a little bit better because she is doing all the correct things. This type of player is easy to overlook, but her quiet movement on the field is what helps the offense glide smoothly.
Karen I get to still coach because she plays for Hatch! Except for weird flick huck flubbing during the Harvard game (I hear a sprained thumb is to blame), she plays with a joy and intensity which is always fun to watch. She never gives up on a disc, O or D, and she had several great plays last weekend where I really thought she wasn't going to get there, but she proved me wrong. Yay track workouts.
Smeri...dith. Oh I am going to miss her. She tells me that she's never going to play ultimate again. (I hope it's not all my fault!) She has become an extremely versatile player - she can handle, she can cut, she can huck, and she's faster than everyone! I am reminded of a younger Rana Suh when I see her play - that girl that you just don't know how to guard because you'll just be beat either way. She continues to just get better and better, and I wish I could see what a few years would do, but alas, she's way too hard-headed to be swayed.
So ends another year of sMITe. Much has changed, and the future is bright. We're getting at least one experienced player (Claudia from Brandeis) and hopefully the HS girls choose MIT. In the meantime, it looks like most if not all of our players will be doing summer league, so I'm expecting big things next year!
Thursday, May 13, 2010
back in the saddle
here's the plan:
- sMITe regionals/season recap
- tryouts planning and evaluation of players
- fitness
but right now, it's off to ultimate. game against wuwu and (shhh!) celebrating shuangy's birthday on tuesday!
- sMITe regionals/season recap
- tryouts planning and evaluation of players
- fitness
but right now, it's off to ultimate. game against wuwu and (shhh!) celebrating shuangy's birthday on tuesday!
Friday, July 10, 2009
Boston Invite 2009
(oops, forgot that I hadn't finished posting this yet. sorry for the delay!)
After several weeks of practices and cuts, tryout season in the NE traditionally culminates at the Boston Invite, where the new players can demonstrate their abilities in a tournament setting.
This year, Hatch brought 25ish to the Invite, with 3 people not able to attend, and a couple who could only come for 1 day or play a few points. We were a little low on handlers, which was particularly problematic during the last game of the tournament when people were starting to drop.
Overall, I was pleased with how we performed. We had difficulty initially just getting into a groove, and I think we were struggling to move from practice-mode into tournament-mode. However, after some regrouping before the start of our second game, we went out and executed our game plan, with much improvement both on offense and defense.
The biggest areas that we need to work on are endzone offense, vertical offense, and dumping. Pretty understandable - in the 3 weeks of practices, we did a little review of those, but not enough to really change the way people play. And overall, we certainly spent more practice time on defense than offense and it showed - our D-line would get 5-6 turns each point (go D!) but that's a lot of times to turn it over again. Oy.
I do think we have a ways to go on defense, too, though - both man-ish and zone. We have been trying to work together on defense, which needs time playing together in order to build our trust and communication skills, and that sense of what our teammate is going to do. I also did notice a lot more help D being played at the Invite, which I think is the natural evolution of ultimate defense, as teams adapt to try to constrain horizontal offenses.
We made final cuts at the end of the tournament, and we've got 24 players - 9 handlers and 15 cutters. I am thrilled at the quality of our players - I look at the lines that we can put out and there is a lot of firepower. The hard part now is just to get them to work well together, but unlike last year, we'll have a full 3 months of practices to gel.
After several weeks of practices and cuts, tryout season in the NE traditionally culminates at the Boston Invite, where the new players can demonstrate their abilities in a tournament setting.
This year, Hatch brought 25ish to the Invite, with 3 people not able to attend, and a couple who could only come for 1 day or play a few points. We were a little low on handlers, which was particularly problematic during the last game of the tournament when people were starting to drop.
Overall, I was pleased with how we performed. We had difficulty initially just getting into a groove, and I think we were struggling to move from practice-mode into tournament-mode. However, after some regrouping before the start of our second game, we went out and executed our game plan, with much improvement both on offense and defense.
The biggest areas that we need to work on are endzone offense, vertical offense, and dumping. Pretty understandable - in the 3 weeks of practices, we did a little review of those, but not enough to really change the way people play. And overall, we certainly spent more practice time on defense than offense and it showed - our D-line would get 5-6 turns each point (go D!) but that's a lot of times to turn it over again. Oy.
I do think we have a ways to go on defense, too, though - both man-ish and zone. We have been trying to work together on defense, which needs time playing together in order to build our trust and communication skills, and that sense of what our teammate is going to do. I also did notice a lot more help D being played at the Invite, which I think is the natural evolution of ultimate defense, as teams adapt to try to constrain horizontal offenses.
We made final cuts at the end of the tournament, and we've got 24 players - 9 handlers and 15 cutters. I am thrilled at the quality of our players - I look at the lines that we can put out and there is a lot of firepower. The hard part now is just to get them to work well together, but unlike last year, we'll have a full 3 months of practices to gel.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Tryouts Day 8
Wednesday was review day. With so many people at practices, it's been difficult getting enough playing time for everyone, and I wanted to make sure we were all on the same page going into the tournament. I'd sent out a summary prior to practice, which I hoped would help decrease confusion on the field, and also catch up those who had missed some practices. Furthermore, I started putting people on O/D lines so that we could start building some chemistry between players.
We first worked on horizontal defense again - it'd been a while and I also wanted to try formalizing it a bit more. We tried straight-up to trap on the mark, and bracketing under/away, and I think the biggest difficulty was figuring out where we should be in the spectrum between strict man and zone. Wednesday was a little more zone-ish than I would prefer, with people guarding spaces rather than taking a person, and then switching. The mark I think was also too much for us at this point - to have to think about switching, and then also have to deal with a non-constant force... well let's just say we let a lot go. For this weekend I'll probably do one or the other, but not likely both together unless we're getting really comfortable at it.
Clam was the other defense we worked on since about 5 people weren't there for Sunday's practice. I was impressed by how much faster we were able to review it. I am also bemused by how many people had never even heard of it - not just not been taught clam, but just did not know about it as a defense. Well, the revolution is a-brewing. I think we'll start seeing it more in the college teams around here, b/c it's a great D at the college level.
****
For the Invite this weekend, we'll have 26 players. I'll be calling O/D lines, though the lines are definitely not yet set, and I'm sure I'll be moving some people around. We'll be working on all the things we've been practicing thus far, and probably some tweaks as well.
Schedule: http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=36&id=6536 Seeded 12th overall.
1st round vs Salty, 2nd round bye, 3rd round vs Virago, 4th round vs MissCONNduct. Then crossovers.
Weather may be foul, but if you're around, you should come out and check out the ultimate anyway!
We first worked on horizontal defense again - it'd been a while and I also wanted to try formalizing it a bit more. We tried straight-up to trap on the mark, and bracketing under/away, and I think the biggest difficulty was figuring out where we should be in the spectrum between strict man and zone. Wednesday was a little more zone-ish than I would prefer, with people guarding spaces rather than taking a person, and then switching. The mark I think was also too much for us at this point - to have to think about switching, and then also have to deal with a non-constant force... well let's just say we let a lot go. For this weekend I'll probably do one or the other, but not likely both together unless we're getting really comfortable at it.
Clam was the other defense we worked on since about 5 people weren't there for Sunday's practice. I was impressed by how much faster we were able to review it. I am also bemused by how many people had never even heard of it - not just not been taught clam, but just did not know about it as a defense. Well, the revolution is a-brewing. I think we'll start seeing it more in the college teams around here, b/c it's a great D at the college level.
****
For the Invite this weekend, we'll have 26 players. I'll be calling O/D lines, though the lines are definitely not yet set, and I'm sure I'll be moving some people around. We'll be working on all the things we've been practicing thus far, and probably some tweaks as well.
Schedule: http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=36&id=6536 Seeded 12th overall.
1st round vs Salty, 2nd round bye, 3rd round vs Virago, 4th round vs MissCONNduct. Then crossovers.
Weather may be foul, but if you're around, you should come out and check out the ultimate anyway!
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Tryouts Day 7
Today was rough. Wet enough that the disc was slick, windy enough that throws and catches were difficult. And then we played clam.
I've written before about my plan for this team: I want to mold these individuals into a cohesive unit, wherein the whole is much more than its parts. We've been working a lot on team defense recently, what with zone for the past week and horizontal defense before that. Today we came back around to team defense vs a vertical stack, but not as a willy-nilly switching defense on the fly - we'll play clam as a stepping stone towards being able to react as a team, but for now we need the structure that clam imparts in order to get us there.
We'd done a little bit of switching defense against a vertical stack a couple weeks ago, and it was pretty bad. But with the work that we've been doing since then, everyone has gotten a whole lot more comfortable and competent at switching effectively.
We had some trouble early on in the middle, and I think the hardest thing for people playing there was to remember to trust the mark. Protect the I/O lane, and don't follow people to the around side - pass those off to the break side defender and trust that the mark will not let an easy break off.
We also need to recover more quickly from a break. We should be thinking of it like any other break pass - push to the break side on defense to seal it and stop the flow on that side. Give up throws to the open side if needed - the clam is glorious when the disc gets trapped on the line, so let it get there.
People really picked up on how to play clam much more easily than I'd expected. That's not to say it's perfect - we'll certainly give up some easy scores next weekend playing this. But we're learning, and at the end of the journey I'm confident that we'll have become quite a formidable opponent.
****
We made our second round of cuts after today's practice. We had about 40 people still on our tryout list, and we'd like to get to 22-25 for the final team size. It was a difficult discussion - I could see potential and desire in every one of our tryouts, and they're improving so much that I want to hold onto all of them! But at the end of the day, we had to be realistic about who has the strongest chance of making the team given the talent that's present, and we had to let some great people go.
I've written before about my plan for this team: I want to mold these individuals into a cohesive unit, wherein the whole is much more than its parts. We've been working a lot on team defense recently, what with zone for the past week and horizontal defense before that. Today we came back around to team defense vs a vertical stack, but not as a willy-nilly switching defense on the fly - we'll play clam as a stepping stone towards being able to react as a team, but for now we need the structure that clam imparts in order to get us there.
We'd done a little bit of switching defense against a vertical stack a couple weeks ago, and it was pretty bad. But with the work that we've been doing since then, everyone has gotten a whole lot more comfortable and competent at switching effectively.
We had some trouble early on in the middle, and I think the hardest thing for people playing there was to remember to trust the mark. Protect the I/O lane, and don't follow people to the around side - pass those off to the break side defender and trust that the mark will not let an easy break off.
We also need to recover more quickly from a break. We should be thinking of it like any other break pass - push to the break side on defense to seal it and stop the flow on that side. Give up throws to the open side if needed - the clam is glorious when the disc gets trapped on the line, so let it get there.
People really picked up on how to play clam much more easily than I'd expected. That's not to say it's perfect - we'll certainly give up some easy scores next weekend playing this. But we're learning, and at the end of the journey I'm confident that we'll have become quite a formidable opponent.
****
We made our second round of cuts after today's practice. We had about 40 people still on our tryout list, and we'd like to get to 22-25 for the final team size. It was a difficult discussion - I could see potential and desire in every one of our tryouts, and they're improving so much that I want to hold onto all of them! But at the end of the day, we had to be realistic about who has the strongest chance of making the team given the talent that's present, and we had to let some great people go.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Tryouts Days 5 and 6
Saturday's practice was zone defense. We went over a basic 3-man cup zone, both force middle and trap, against a 3-handler set and a 2-handler set.
Responsibilities:
On offense, we have to adapt to the type of zone that is being played. For instance, with a tight cup, it makes more sense to try to swing the disc wide across the field in order to have an open look up field before the cup manages to catch up. For looser cups / 1-3-3s, we do better when the handlers crash the cup and break through the middle.
For trap situations, well, we'd ideally not get into that position to begin with. Handlers want to stay off the sideline and should keep targeting the break side to avoid the trap. If the disc does go to the sideline, we need to look to the middle quickly to move the disc before the trap sets up, and have people set up as options in the holes of the cup.
Most players have a background that they could use to allow them to play within this zone D, which was probably a welcome break from all the communication and switching work that we've been doing recently. However, I did want them to use the skills we've been working on and apply it to zone as well - you should always be thinking about who the threats are, and working together with your teammates to contain the offense. There is a lot of talk that needs to happen between the different positions, and I feel that was the part that was lacking most on the field.
Responsibilities:
- Deep should be talking and switching with the short deep and the wings (and vice versa).
- Short deep talks to the middle of the cup and the wings.
- Wings talk to the deep deep, short deep, and cup
- Sideline should be talking to everyone on their side of the field, especially the deep and the mark.
On offense, we have to adapt to the type of zone that is being played. For instance, with a tight cup, it makes more sense to try to swing the disc wide across the field in order to have an open look up field before the cup manages to catch up. For looser cups / 1-3-3s, we do better when the handlers crash the cup and break through the middle.
For trap situations, well, we'd ideally not get into that position to begin with. Handlers want to stay off the sideline and should keep targeting the break side to avoid the trap. If the disc does go to the sideline, we need to look to the middle quickly to move the disc before the trap sets up, and have people set up as options in the holes of the cup.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Tryouts Days 3 and 4
It was horizontal week at Hatch tryouts - worked first on the offense, then next practice on defense.
Last year we had taught the horizontal by running a pattern of cuts, but I felt it was too constricting and that people were getting hung up on when/where/who cuts, as opposed to seeing the spaces and flow. This year, I tried going the opposite route first - to explain the general principles of ho, and see if the players through repetition would be able to start getting a feel for how to cut.
It almost worked. We did start having a lot of nice cuts and continues, but people were not maintaining a disciplined stack distribution, nor were we getting both in and away looks for each throw. Part of this is that some of the tryouts have never played in a horizontal before - and it certainly requires quite a bit of field sense - and also that people have just not played together enough to get a feel for each others' preferences.
We switched halfway through to teaching a set of rules for cutting in the ho, which enforced the idea of always cutting when in the spaces, and also to give options for each thrower. This was better because it allowed newer players to have a framework and be able to cut with more confidence, and I think it wasn't so defined as last year so there was more freedom for those who are comfortable cutting in flow.
For Wednesday, we worked on defending the horizontal. This is trickier than in vertical, because the Ho is designed to isolate 1-on-1 matchups and to allow any cutter to cut both in and away. It works best in the middle of the field, where there is opportunity to throw to both the force and break sides, and without a huge sideline taking away the space.
Therefore, defensively we want to do the opposite - maintain a strong mark to shut down the breaks, and push the disc to the sidelines, giving up some yardage if need be. We also want to play more help D and do switches instead of relying on defenders to shut down their cutter by themselves.
It was difficult at first for people to widen their view to include more than just one cutter, but we got there. We had some really nice switches happen during the scrimmage, and it actually looked a lot more like a zone than a man defense, which is exactly where I'd like us to be - bridging the gap between strict 1-on-1 and zone.
This was a hard week for tryouts. We introduced a lot of new concepts, and also made people change the way they play. But I am really impressed by how willing everyone was to try what I was teaching and how much they were able to improve in two short practices.
We also made our first cuts after these practices, and it was difficult. There's so much potential; I can just see how good these women are going to be in a couple years (or less). I look at them and I want to keep them all!
Last year we had taught the horizontal by running a pattern of cuts, but I felt it was too constricting and that people were getting hung up on when/where/who cuts, as opposed to seeing the spaces and flow. This year, I tried going the opposite route first - to explain the general principles of ho, and see if the players through repetition would be able to start getting a feel for how to cut.
It almost worked. We did start having a lot of nice cuts and continues, but people were not maintaining a disciplined stack distribution, nor were we getting both in and away looks for each throw. Part of this is that some of the tryouts have never played in a horizontal before - and it certainly requires quite a bit of field sense - and also that people have just not played together enough to get a feel for each others' preferences.
We switched halfway through to teaching a set of rules for cutting in the ho, which enforced the idea of always cutting when in the spaces, and also to give options for each thrower. This was better because it allowed newer players to have a framework and be able to cut with more confidence, and I think it wasn't so defined as last year so there was more freedom for those who are comfortable cutting in flow.
For Wednesday, we worked on defending the horizontal. This is trickier than in vertical, because the Ho is designed to isolate 1-on-1 matchups and to allow any cutter to cut both in and away. It works best in the middle of the field, where there is opportunity to throw to both the force and break sides, and without a huge sideline taking away the space.
Therefore, defensively we want to do the opposite - maintain a strong mark to shut down the breaks, and push the disc to the sidelines, giving up some yardage if need be. We also want to play more help D and do switches instead of relying on defenders to shut down their cutter by themselves.
It was difficult at first for people to widen their view to include more than just one cutter, but we got there. We had some really nice switches happen during the scrimmage, and it actually looked a lot more like a zone than a man defense, which is exactly where I'd like us to be - bridging the gap between strict 1-on-1 and zone.
This was a hard week for tryouts. We introduced a lot of new concepts, and also made people change the way they play. But I am really impressed by how willing everyone was to try what I was teaching and how much they were able to improve in two short practices.
We also made our first cuts after these practices, and it was difficult. There's so much potential; I can just see how good these women are going to be in a couple years (or less). I look at them and I want to keep them all!
Friday, June 5, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Tryouts Day 1
Hatch had our first tryout yesterday with about 25 tryouts in attendance. I think I have about 80% of their names... we'll see if I can retain that to the next practice.
I wanted to start the year by focusing on my top priority for this season: the skills needed to play team defense. Yes, I know it's somewhat unusual to be teaching, say, switching in your first practice, but this is what will lay the foundation for more complicated skills later.
I chose to start with marking because holding a strong mark is essential to any defense. Most players can recite the key points (athletic stance on toes, bend the knees, stay balanced) but I've found that it's one thing to know it and another to do it. The most common error I noted was that players would lunge and step out with fakes, thus causing them to have a widened base of support that is too stable and does not allow them to be as agile.
We then turned to communication. This is the area that frustrated me most last year - I have expectations on what club players should be doing on the sideline, and I felt that I was just repeatedly telling them to walk the sidelines and talk to their teammates on the field. Then halfway through the season, I realized that most of the players just weren't comfortable talking, because they'd never been taught how to do so! Can't use that excuse again this year though; I'm making sure that everyone knows what they should be doing, and I'm (hopefully) helping them learn how to do that. (see below for exciting fun new drill!)
Lastly, we worked on switching between 2 defenders. I took the simplest scenario, with just 2 cutters, and had them practice being authoritative and clear in their switches. They did well in the drill, but as is to be expected, were much less successful in the scrimmage when there is so much more to pay attention to. It's a starting point, though, and we will be working on more complicated scenarios in future practices.
I was really pleased with yesterday's practice. I felt that I had a good plan, and was able to explain my thought process and the major concepts clearly. I am particularly tickled by my new marking/communication drill (perhaps because everyone feels so discombobulated while doing it) and I was definitely able to see some improvements in players even over the course of the practice. I hope the tryouts felt that they have learned something and got an idea of how great this team is. And I think the returners did as well. Yay Hatch.
Next tryout: Wednesday 6:30 pm at Daly field in Brighton!
*************************
Blind marking/communication drill
This drill is has 2 purposes: to teach players how to talk to the mark, and to teach the mark to listen and react to what her teammates are saying.
The drill has a thrower, a marker, a cutter, and a sideline talker. The marker sets up with a force, and then closes her eyes. The cutter cuts for 30 seconds to wherever she wants to go - break side, force side, in, away - and the sideline talker tells the mark what to protect. The key here is to communicate early to the mark so that she has time to react.
People were at first a little iffy on the idea, but the mark was surprisingly effective, even blind.
Have fun!
I wanted to start the year by focusing on my top priority for this season: the skills needed to play team defense. Yes, I know it's somewhat unusual to be teaching, say, switching in your first practice, but this is what will lay the foundation for more complicated skills later.
I chose to start with marking because holding a strong mark is essential to any defense. Most players can recite the key points (athletic stance on toes, bend the knees, stay balanced) but I've found that it's one thing to know it and another to do it. The most common error I noted was that players would lunge and step out with fakes, thus causing them to have a widened base of support that is too stable and does not allow them to be as agile.
We then turned to communication. This is the area that frustrated me most last year - I have expectations on what club players should be doing on the sideline, and I felt that I was just repeatedly telling them to walk the sidelines and talk to their teammates on the field. Then halfway through the season, I realized that most of the players just weren't comfortable talking, because they'd never been taught how to do so! Can't use that excuse again this year though; I'm making sure that everyone knows what they should be doing, and I'm (hopefully) helping them learn how to do that. (see below for exciting fun new drill!)
Lastly, we worked on switching between 2 defenders. I took the simplest scenario, with just 2 cutters, and had them practice being authoritative and clear in their switches. They did well in the drill, but as is to be expected, were much less successful in the scrimmage when there is so much more to pay attention to. It's a starting point, though, and we will be working on more complicated scenarios in future practices.
I was really pleased with yesterday's practice. I felt that I had a good plan, and was able to explain my thought process and the major concepts clearly. I am particularly tickled by my new marking/communication drill (perhaps because everyone feels so discombobulated while doing it) and I was definitely able to see some improvements in players even over the course of the practice. I hope the tryouts felt that they have learned something and got an idea of how great this team is. And I think the returners did as well. Yay Hatch.
Next tryout: Wednesday 6:30 pm at Daly field in Brighton!
*************************
Blind marking/communication drill
This drill is has 2 purposes: to teach players how to talk to the mark, and to teach the mark to listen and react to what her teammates are saying.
The drill has a thrower, a marker, a cutter, and a sideline talker. The marker sets up with a force, and then closes her eyes. The cutter cuts for 30 seconds to wherever she wants to go - break side, force side, in, away - and the sideline talker tells the mark what to protect. The key here is to communicate early to the mark so that she has time to react.
People were at first a little iffy on the idea, but the mark was surprisingly effective, even blind.
Have fun!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Game Planning
I have never put too much stock in getting scouting reports from other people and planning too much about one particular opponent or a group of opponents heading into a tournament. For one thing, the majority of the tournament experience has more to do with getting your team better than trying to adjust your game plan to stop what someone else is doing. Not to say that through the early and middle parts of a season you are going to be playing in a vacuum paying no attention to the other team, but I'm not going to use up valuable practice time based on the playing style of a single opponent.
As the season moves forward into the UPA Series, game planning for particular opponents can have you looking past other opponents and that is a big negative. Preparing for a tournament like Regionals certainly leads to some discussion about the teams we might play, but the double elimination format and the fact that New England has a supreme amount of parity means that we don't end up playing the teams we thought we might going into the tournament...so again, why waste too much practice time?
Last year at Nationals we really knew nothing about the three teams in our pool (UBC, Carleton, Oregon) as we had never been to a tournament with any of them and we had never played any of them. In fact, we didn't play a team we had even been at a tournament with until our 6th and final game of the tournament when we played and beat Maryland (who we had lost two twice, the second time being a 15-4 drubbing) 15-3. So, again, heading into Nationals 2008 I focused on just doing what the team could to put forth our best effort. We went in with no perceived notions about how teams played and did our best to adjust as the tournament went along. We won no pool play games but did go 2-1 on Saturday to finish in 9th.
Heading into Nationals this year we have been at tournaments with three of the teams in our pool (Michigan, UCLA, St. Louis) and have even played UCLA thanks to being able to get to Presidents Day and Centex. In talking with other people we know and having watched some games and other video I've been able to piece together things about each of the four teams (Washington being the other) we know we will play. I shared my thoughts on my initial game plan with the team and we have been working on skills specific to the teams we know we will match up with in the past couple weeks. Having the players thinking about each match up will hopefully have them more mentally prepared to start games and also have them looking to make adjustments or observations independently of coaches as the games and tournament progress. I have never taken such an aggressive approach to preparing for a tournament and am interested to see if knowing and talking about things prior to the tournament will help us in anyway.
We are the 18 seed out of 20 as we get ready to head to Columbus. Teams will be looking past us and rightly so. I'm just looking to put forth the best effort we can and see how we stack up with the best of the best.
We'll see how this works out...
As the season moves forward into the UPA Series, game planning for particular opponents can have you looking past other opponents and that is a big negative. Preparing for a tournament like Regionals certainly leads to some discussion about the teams we might play, but the double elimination format and the fact that New England has a supreme amount of parity means that we don't end up playing the teams we thought we might going into the tournament...so again, why waste too much practice time?
Last year at Nationals we really knew nothing about the three teams in our pool (UBC, Carleton, Oregon) as we had never been to a tournament with any of them and we had never played any of them. In fact, we didn't play a team we had even been at a tournament with until our 6th and final game of the tournament when we played and beat Maryland (who we had lost two twice, the second time being a 15-4 drubbing) 15-3. So, again, heading into Nationals 2008 I focused on just doing what the team could to put forth our best effort. We went in with no perceived notions about how teams played and did our best to adjust as the tournament went along. We won no pool play games but did go 2-1 on Saturday to finish in 9th.
Heading into Nationals this year we have been at tournaments with three of the teams in our pool (Michigan, UCLA, St. Louis) and have even played UCLA thanks to being able to get to Presidents Day and Centex. In talking with other people we know and having watched some games and other video I've been able to piece together things about each of the four teams (Washington being the other) we know we will play. I shared my thoughts on my initial game plan with the team and we have been working on skills specific to the teams we know we will match up with in the past couple weeks. Having the players thinking about each match up will hopefully have them more mentally prepared to start games and also have them looking to make adjustments or observations independently of coaches as the games and tournament progress. I have never taken such an aggressive approach to preparing for a tournament and am interested to see if knowing and talking about things prior to the tournament will help us in anyway.
We are the 18 seed out of 20 as we get ready to head to Columbus. Teams will be looking past us and rightly so. I'm just looking to put forth the best effort we can and see how we stack up with the best of the best.
We'll see how this works out...
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Coaching with the big picture in mind
Quick preface: Jin asked me to give some of my thoughts on ultimate and as Northeastern has just won the NE Regional title for the second year in a row, my approach to our season seemed an appropriate topic. On paper finishing 3rd at Sectionals and 1st at Regionals doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and if asked to explain that my short answer would be that we played better at Regionals, but my bigger picture answer is that we weren't trying to win Sectionals, we were trying to win Regionals...
In my opinion there are two ways of going about trying to accomplish something: you either take what you have and try to make things work to meet your needs or you look at the entire situation and figure out how to get from where you are to where you want to be. These choices are true of most any aspect of life, but can be overlooked when trying to think about something like how to build a successful ultimate season. The Engineer in me always has me looking at the bigger picture and trying to figure out the most effective way to solve something even if the solution takes longer to figure out.
I am a very big proponent of formulating a team goal (even if that goal is just in my head and not fully expressed to the team) and then figuring out how the team can best accomplish that goal. Coming off a Nationals trip last season we were returning a lot of players but lost our two primary handlers as well as a couple complimentary role players. We still had a couple of our top players and we could have just focused the offense of the team completely around them, but I wanted to take a bigger approach to the season because my goal was to return to Nationals.
Throughout the fall and into the spring I made a point of trying to develop more handlers to fill the void of last year's team. I could have just plugged in our most experienced cutters (who also happen to have handling experience from past seasons) but I saw our team being stronger if we could develop more consistent play from our entire roster. I identified a group of about six players to audition for two or three open handler roles and spent the end of the fall and the first couple tournaments of the spring seeing how each of the players worked within our team. I knew that shuffling players around and asking players to take on bigger roles maybe before they were ready would mean that our play early in the season was not going to be as good as if I went with the more sure thing of leaning on the players I already trusted, but I also knew that the maximum potential of our team would be achieved if our top cutters could stay as our top cutters and we could develop new handlers.
Our performance at each of our pre-Series tournaments (President's Day, Long Island Classic, Centex) was lackluster at best from a results stand point and I know many of our players were frustrated by our play. But as the season moved along, I kept telling myself that our finish at these tournaments was not the most important thing; putting our best team on the field at Regionals was the most important thing. As long as the team and the individuals on the team were progressing we were putting ourselves in a better position to win at Regionals.
As Sectionals rolled around, we were battling a couple key injuries and trying to re-integrate a couple of key players coming back from injuries and moving the team along as a whole became more important than any individual game at the tournament. Sure we needed to qualify for Regionals first and foremost, but I didn't want to risk complicating any existing injuries or aggravating any past injuries by playing people that we could afford to have rest. Additionally, by sitting out some of our top players, other players on the team were forced to step into a greater role on the field. My thinking was that Sectionals was a testing ground for the entire roster and that when we put everything back together we would be better than we had been going into Sectionals. Once we clinched our birth to Regionals, I shut some more players down and we ended up stumbling to the aforementioned 3rd place finish.
The next step in the big picture was trying to build up the mental strength of the team to a point where we knew we could beat the teams (like Harvard and Tufts) that we had just lost to, and could play with the teams (like Dartmouth, Middlebury, Wesleyan, Brown, etc) that we had not yet seen. I made a big point to express my confidence in the team more than I usually do because I was looking at our roster as a whole and had a lot more faith in our players because of their individual play at Sectionals and other tournaments than I had at the beginning of the season.
At Regionals we played a consistent rotation of 14 players and had 16 players get playing time in the semis and finals. Our rotation seemed much bigger than other teams and allowed our top players to play 2 out of 3 points or 3 out of 4 points instead of 25 out of 25 points or 25 out of 28 points like the top players on other teams played. Because they had been in big spots, our entire roster was able to contribute and make plays and we emerged as the Regional champs.
I am not sure where we would have finished if our season was just built on the top 8 or 10 returning players from last year, but I am happy with how things turned out doing things the way we did.
A couple keys to coaching with the big picture in mind:
Communication - while the team may not need to know every minute detail of a coaches goal, having all of the players understand what the team is working for is vital. We didn't go to tournaments with a goal of winning said tournament, and we didn't approach any games with the goal that "we have to win this game". We saw our goal as playing the best ultimate we could at the end of the season, and the entire season we worked to improve towards that goal regardless of results. Players have to be willing to work through the entire season in order for a team to reach their potential, and making sure they understand how you plan to have them working all season is a great way to help insure that.
Losing Is OK - nobody wants to lose an individual battle or lose on purpose, but suffering team losses in moments that don't truly matter is fine. If you attack every point of every game to win that point and win that game, you will be limiting the roles you let people play and that will stunt their growth and along with that the growth of your team. Early in the season I often tell my handlers that they have to throw deep in their first 5 touches of the disc. These throws are often turns, and sometimes completely the wrong throw, but they build an experience and skill that will be useful later. I'll keep playing a particular defense even if we are not getting turns and I know we could with other defenses because we need to improve on things that we can't do well. If you have a big picture constructed in your head for where you want the team to get to you can more than afford to lose points or games early in the season to get closer to those goals.
Make Sure You Let People Play - working on something at practice is a very easy thing to do. There is no noticeable pressure, a mistake is simply a mistake, and you can talk things out as much as you want because you control the pace. But everything meaningful that your team is going to try to accomplish happens in real life games, against an opponent, where a mistake can mean the difference between you scoring you getting scored on, between winning and losing. So, letting people get game experience, and big game experience at that, will put them in the best position for success when the games you need to win are actually being played out and you want them on the field. This pretty much goes hand-in-hand with my comment about losing being OK, but I can't stress enough how important getting your entire roster onto the field in big moments of games instead of just riding your best players will help later in the season. And if you want someone to handle at a tournament in April, have them handle at a tournament in February, because February is the time for someone to mess up, for you to be there to help them, and for them to get better for when April rolls around.
Formulate and Trust Your Plan! - if you are a first year or very new coach, you may feel very overwhelmed by the thought of planning out an entire season before the season even starts, and frankly you should be overwhelmed by that thought. My first year coaching was spent working with what I had and trying to scrap for every point we could. As I got a handle on the team and got a feel for the game I began thinking more in terms of how to approach an entire game instead of one point, then how to approach an entire tournament instead of one game, and finally how to approach an entire season instead of just one tournament. This progression will take time, but keep your eyes and mind open to how you can do things better. I keep a notebook for random ideas I get about practice or game play and that helps me refine my big picture.
Once you have built up your confidence in yourself and your knowledge of the team, and you are willing to think ahead and plan for an entire season, you need to be able to trust yourself to carry out that plan. If you think the team is best with player X as a handler, and player X is not playing well, don't have them ride the bench, make them a better player by helping them improve their play. If you want six to eight players you can have run cup and at the front of the zone, and you can get lots of D's with persons A, B and C at the front of your zone, don't just have them play at the front of your zone, try persons D, E, and F because you want to build a deeper rotation. If you want a deep game to feature multiple threats so another team can't key up on your primary players and Star 1 can throw deep to Star 2 at will, don't put them on the field together and force Star 1 to create a Star 3 and Star 4 with their throws. If your goal is to be a fresher team on Sunday by playing a bigger rotation on Saturday and you get down 4-1 early don't shorten your rotation, stick with the plan for a big rotation and see if people can step up. If they can, you just built a ton of confidence. If they can't, work with them so that next time they can.
In my opinion there are two ways of going about trying to accomplish something: you either take what you have and try to make things work to meet your needs or you look at the entire situation and figure out how to get from where you are to where you want to be. These choices are true of most any aspect of life, but can be overlooked when trying to think about something like how to build a successful ultimate season. The Engineer in me always has me looking at the bigger picture and trying to figure out the most effective way to solve something even if the solution takes longer to figure out.
I am a very big proponent of formulating a team goal (even if that goal is just in my head and not fully expressed to the team) and then figuring out how the team can best accomplish that goal. Coming off a Nationals trip last season we were returning a lot of players but lost our two primary handlers as well as a couple complimentary role players. We still had a couple of our top players and we could have just focused the offense of the team completely around them, but I wanted to take a bigger approach to the season because my goal was to return to Nationals.
Throughout the fall and into the spring I made a point of trying to develop more handlers to fill the void of last year's team. I could have just plugged in our most experienced cutters (who also happen to have handling experience from past seasons) but I saw our team being stronger if we could develop more consistent play from our entire roster. I identified a group of about six players to audition for two or three open handler roles and spent the end of the fall and the first couple tournaments of the spring seeing how each of the players worked within our team. I knew that shuffling players around and asking players to take on bigger roles maybe before they were ready would mean that our play early in the season was not going to be as good as if I went with the more sure thing of leaning on the players I already trusted, but I also knew that the maximum potential of our team would be achieved if our top cutters could stay as our top cutters and we could develop new handlers.
Our performance at each of our pre-Series tournaments (President's Day, Long Island Classic, Centex) was lackluster at best from a results stand point and I know many of our players were frustrated by our play. But as the season moved along, I kept telling myself that our finish at these tournaments was not the most important thing; putting our best team on the field at Regionals was the most important thing. As long as the team and the individuals on the team were progressing we were putting ourselves in a better position to win at Regionals.
As Sectionals rolled around, we were battling a couple key injuries and trying to re-integrate a couple of key players coming back from injuries and moving the team along as a whole became more important than any individual game at the tournament. Sure we needed to qualify for Regionals first and foremost, but I didn't want to risk complicating any existing injuries or aggravating any past injuries by playing people that we could afford to have rest. Additionally, by sitting out some of our top players, other players on the team were forced to step into a greater role on the field. My thinking was that Sectionals was a testing ground for the entire roster and that when we put everything back together we would be better than we had been going into Sectionals. Once we clinched our birth to Regionals, I shut some more players down and we ended up stumbling to the aforementioned 3rd place finish.
The next step in the big picture was trying to build up the mental strength of the team to a point where we knew we could beat the teams (like Harvard and Tufts) that we had just lost to, and could play with the teams (like Dartmouth, Middlebury, Wesleyan, Brown, etc) that we had not yet seen. I made a big point to express my confidence in the team more than I usually do because I was looking at our roster as a whole and had a lot more faith in our players because of their individual play at Sectionals and other tournaments than I had at the beginning of the season.
At Regionals we played a consistent rotation of 14 players and had 16 players get playing time in the semis and finals. Our rotation seemed much bigger than other teams and allowed our top players to play 2 out of 3 points or 3 out of 4 points instead of 25 out of 25 points or 25 out of 28 points like the top players on other teams played. Because they had been in big spots, our entire roster was able to contribute and make plays and we emerged as the Regional champs.
I am not sure where we would have finished if our season was just built on the top 8 or 10 returning players from last year, but I am happy with how things turned out doing things the way we did.
A couple keys to coaching with the big picture in mind:
Communication - while the team may not need to know every minute detail of a coaches goal, having all of the players understand what the team is working for is vital. We didn't go to tournaments with a goal of winning said tournament, and we didn't approach any games with the goal that "we have to win this game". We saw our goal as playing the best ultimate we could at the end of the season, and the entire season we worked to improve towards that goal regardless of results. Players have to be willing to work through the entire season in order for a team to reach their potential, and making sure they understand how you plan to have them working all season is a great way to help insure that.
Losing Is OK - nobody wants to lose an individual battle or lose on purpose, but suffering team losses in moments that don't truly matter is fine. If you attack every point of every game to win that point and win that game, you will be limiting the roles you let people play and that will stunt their growth and along with that the growth of your team. Early in the season I often tell my handlers that they have to throw deep in their first 5 touches of the disc. These throws are often turns, and sometimes completely the wrong throw, but they build an experience and skill that will be useful later. I'll keep playing a particular defense even if we are not getting turns and I know we could with other defenses because we need to improve on things that we can't do well. If you have a big picture constructed in your head for where you want the team to get to you can more than afford to lose points or games early in the season to get closer to those goals.
Make Sure You Let People Play - working on something at practice is a very easy thing to do. There is no noticeable pressure, a mistake is simply a mistake, and you can talk things out as much as you want because you control the pace. But everything meaningful that your team is going to try to accomplish happens in real life games, against an opponent, where a mistake can mean the difference between you scoring you getting scored on, between winning and losing. So, letting people get game experience, and big game experience at that, will put them in the best position for success when the games you need to win are actually being played out and you want them on the field. This pretty much goes hand-in-hand with my comment about losing being OK, but I can't stress enough how important getting your entire roster onto the field in big moments of games instead of just riding your best players will help later in the season. And if you want someone to handle at a tournament in April, have them handle at a tournament in February, because February is the time for someone to mess up, for you to be there to help them, and for them to get better for when April rolls around.
Formulate and Trust Your Plan! - if you are a first year or very new coach, you may feel very overwhelmed by the thought of planning out an entire season before the season even starts, and frankly you should be overwhelmed by that thought. My first year coaching was spent working with what I had and trying to scrap for every point we could. As I got a handle on the team and got a feel for the game I began thinking more in terms of how to approach an entire game instead of one point, then how to approach an entire tournament instead of one game, and finally how to approach an entire season instead of just one tournament. This progression will take time, but keep your eyes and mind open to how you can do things better. I keep a notebook for random ideas I get about practice or game play and that helps me refine my big picture.
Once you have built up your confidence in yourself and your knowledge of the team, and you are willing to think ahead and plan for an entire season, you need to be able to trust yourself to carry out that plan. If you think the team is best with player X as a handler, and player X is not playing well, don't have them ride the bench, make them a better player by helping them improve their play. If you want six to eight players you can have run cup and at the front of the zone, and you can get lots of D's with persons A, B and C at the front of your zone, don't just have them play at the front of your zone, try persons D, E, and F because you want to build a deeper rotation. If you want a deep game to feature multiple threats so another team can't key up on your primary players and Star 1 can throw deep to Star 2 at will, don't put them on the field together and force Star 1 to create a Star 3 and Star 4 with their throws. If your goal is to be a fresher team on Sunday by playing a bigger rotation on Saturday and you get down 4-1 early don't shorten your rotation, stick with the plan for a big rotation and see if people can step up. If they can, you just built a ton of confidence. If they can't, work with them so that next time they can.
Player development
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.
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.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Introducing Jason
I've been wanting to get some more voices on this blog for a while, and Jason Adams has generously agreed to share some of his knowledge and thoughts.
JYD has been the coach of the Northeastern women's team for the past few years, as well as the captain of Quiet Coyote and Metal club teams. He has recently contributed to The Huddle (see the Centex issue) and last weekend was leading the Northeastern women to their second Regionals win in as many years.
Jason is someone who I've long admired as a coach, and I am excited to have him join me on this blog. Look for him within the next week (I hope) and more to come in the future.
JYD has been the coach of the Northeastern women's team for the past few years, as well as the captain of Quiet Coyote and Metal club teams. He has recently contributed to The Huddle (see the Centex issue) and last weekend was leading the Northeastern women to their second Regionals win in as many years.
Jason is someone who I've long admired as a coach, and I am excited to have him join me on this blog. Look for him within the next week (I hope) and more to come in the future.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Thoughts as I'm planning tryouts
It's spring, which means the club season starts gearing up in the Northeast. Hatch has been planning tryouts for the past month or two, and I've got my practice plan all set for the first 2 weeks (open tryouts), and am working on the next 2 weeks. What is difficult right now is to determine how much redundancy to build into the plan. I don't expect that we'll be able to see everyone at every practice, which means that a lot of what we do has to either be fairly universal and basic, or that we need to review new or higher-level skills at multiple times during tryouts.
On the other hand, we are offering tryouts at times which should minimally conflict with other teams, and so I do expect that serious tryouts will be able to make most of the practices. Furthermore, I have big plans for the team this year, and we can't afford to delay building our new skills and working on our offenses/defenses for a month just to focus on basics. Sure, we could all use more work on fundamentals, but getting a newer team to gel together takes time and we need to be efficient about using our time together.
This is part of the reason why we declined doing combined open tryouts with Brute. There was initial appeal because we would be able to potentially see a larger group of women and it would also not force tryouts to choose between which tryout to attend. This is a format that is done elsewhere in the nation, and even the men's side in Boston is holding combined tryouts this year. But we have our own practice agenda to carry out, and we also felt that it would be hard to express our own team personality and to not be seen as a feeder team for Brute if we did combined tryouts. We are a legitimate 3rd option for women with a different experience to offer players; not a way-point or training ground on their way to play for Brute or Godiva.
I've had a number of people question whether the Boston metro-area can even support 3 competitive women's teams. Sure, we are on the smallish side of cities, but there are plenty of ultimate players - and colleges - in the area that feed into the ultimate scene. There has been an explosion in the number of women's programs in the local colleges, and I believe that having more women's club teams also help encourage and promote women's ultimate in this area (I looked around at Sectionals and every other team was coached by a Brute!), so I come down squarely on the side of the more the merrier.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Sectionals... and the year
Brief update: went 3-2 in pool play, making us 3rd in the pool. Lost the cross-over game vs Tufts, won the next game against Stonehill, and then lost the game-to-go in a rematch against Brandeis.
Which means that this was likely our last tournament of the year for sMITe. It's obvious that there has been an explosion in college women's ultimate in the past 5 years, with 12 teams in this section alone. When I was RC in 2004, I had trouble even getting 12 teams at Regionals! And so teams like MIT, Wellesley and BU who used to be able to almost guarantee a spot at Regionals now find themselves with a shortened season in a much larger field of competitors. All of this is great for women's ultimate though, and I'm really excited to have so many new players developing in this region.
Thoughts on the past year:
We knew coming in that it would be a very different season from last year. It would be a building year that would lay the groundwork for strong seasons in the following years. We graduated 6 of our most experienced players, then lost a 2nd year player to an ACL injury at fall sectionals, and a couple other 2nd year players to time/work constraints. Ah, MIT.
On the other hand, we now have a fantastic group of 1st year players. I remember being amazed at all the new players that showed up during the first weeks of the year, and who then kept coming back over the next 8 months. And while it was rough having so few returning players to help teach the new players, by the time Sectionals rolled around, I had trouble keeping in mind that these women had only started playing ultimate in September. This past weekend was a frustrating time for me, not because of how sMITe was doing, but because I kept needing to kick myself to remember that they were just first-year players. I am extremely proud of how sMITe played this past weekend, and that we managed to place 6th in a competitive section. I think we could've done better had Sunday been less windy (ie, harder on newer players), but this is the Northeast and you have to expect less-than-ideal conditions.
One of the highlights this weekend was watching Lydia defend Dory (Brandeis) and get a couple D's on dumps back to Dory. It's a shame that she's graduating this year and we've only had her for one year, but we're still trying to talk her into going for a PhD program :) Emily is going to be a great deep in the next years - her reading skills have improved a lot as has her timing. Kelly is like the Energizer bunny, but faster - she can run forever in the cup, and then still go deep and beat her man. Agnes' defense has become SO much better even in the past 2 weeks - she started with sMITe a little late in the season, but she's picked up a lot despite that. Mangpo (aka mango) had numerous run-through D's this weekend and manages to catch everything thrown at her. Becky was injured for a while this spring, but because of that, she started handling during practice, and her disc skills have become so much stronger for that. Heather was such a great pickup this year - she's played a little before, and is a natural deep with these graceful one-handed grabs, but her throws are so solid that we've making her handle a bit too. Sluts is aggressive and rarely drops the disc, and even started bidding for discs this weekend despite an injured back! I think she was inspired by Clare, despite her absence this weekend :( , who is the dirtiest player on the team solely because she lays out for anything and everything. AND, like Smeri, somehow manages to come down with the disc between 2 much taller defenders.
The returners, too, have all developed so much in the past year. Trisha has become a solid reset handler who regularly breaks the mark in zone and manages not to lose composure in the trap. Amy let loose with some beautiful hucks this weekend, and every single one was the correct decision. Karen amazed me by how much energy she still had in our 8th game of the weekend, after playing all but a handful of points. I don't know how she could still accelerate to get as many run-through D's as she did, or how she manages to be as aggressive at getting the disc when it means she's going to be knocked over again, but she does. Veena was a delight to have back - she's been regularly coming to practices this year and it shows - her timing and cuts are impeccable and she has a power backhand that she's still learning when to unleash. Meri is hucking! And if she isn't hucking, she's getting the D and then getting the score. Anne and Ethan are our second year players. Ethan came back from the summer with such improved throws and catching that we made her a handler, while Anne is a natural in the horizontal offense with really spot-on timing.
Next year is going to be awesome. We're returning all but 2 or 3 of our players (hopefully) and I can't wait to see how much everyone develops over the summer. Play summer league! (and let me know if you need a team).
Go sMITe.
Which means that this was likely our last tournament of the year for sMITe. It's obvious that there has been an explosion in college women's ultimate in the past 5 years, with 12 teams in this section alone. When I was RC in 2004, I had trouble even getting 12 teams at Regionals! And so teams like MIT, Wellesley and BU who used to be able to almost guarantee a spot at Regionals now find themselves with a shortened season in a much larger field of competitors. All of this is great for women's ultimate though, and I'm really excited to have so many new players developing in this region.
Thoughts on the past year:
We knew coming in that it would be a very different season from last year. It would be a building year that would lay the groundwork for strong seasons in the following years. We graduated 6 of our most experienced players, then lost a 2nd year player to an ACL injury at fall sectionals, and a couple other 2nd year players to time/work constraints. Ah, MIT.
On the other hand, we now have a fantastic group of 1st year players. I remember being amazed at all the new players that showed up during the first weeks of the year, and who then kept coming back over the next 8 months. And while it was rough having so few returning players to help teach the new players, by the time Sectionals rolled around, I had trouble keeping in mind that these women had only started playing ultimate in September. This past weekend was a frustrating time for me, not because of how sMITe was doing, but because I kept needing to kick myself to remember that they were just first-year players. I am extremely proud of how sMITe played this past weekend, and that we managed to place 6th in a competitive section. I think we could've done better had Sunday been less windy (ie, harder on newer players), but this is the Northeast and you have to expect less-than-ideal conditions.
One of the highlights this weekend was watching Lydia defend Dory (Brandeis) and get a couple D's on dumps back to Dory. It's a shame that she's graduating this year and we've only had her for one year, but we're still trying to talk her into going for a PhD program :) Emily is going to be a great deep in the next years - her reading skills have improved a lot as has her timing. Kelly is like the Energizer bunny, but faster - she can run forever in the cup, and then still go deep and beat her man. Agnes' defense has become SO much better even in the past 2 weeks - she started with sMITe a little late in the season, but she's picked up a lot despite that. Mangpo (aka mango) had numerous run-through D's this weekend and manages to catch everything thrown at her. Becky was injured for a while this spring, but because of that, she started handling during practice, and her disc skills have become so much stronger for that. Heather was such a great pickup this year - she's played a little before, and is a natural deep with these graceful one-handed grabs, but her throws are so solid that we've making her handle a bit too. Sluts is aggressive and rarely drops the disc, and even started bidding for discs this weekend despite an injured back! I think she was inspired by Clare, despite her absence this weekend :( , who is the dirtiest player on the team solely because she lays out for anything and everything. AND, like Smeri, somehow manages to come down with the disc between 2 much taller defenders.
The returners, too, have all developed so much in the past year. Trisha has become a solid reset handler who regularly breaks the mark in zone and manages not to lose composure in the trap. Amy let loose with some beautiful hucks this weekend, and every single one was the correct decision. Karen amazed me by how much energy she still had in our 8th game of the weekend, after playing all but a handful of points. I don't know how she could still accelerate to get as many run-through D's as she did, or how she manages to be as aggressive at getting the disc when it means she's going to be knocked over again, but she does. Veena was a delight to have back - she's been regularly coming to practices this year and it shows - her timing and cuts are impeccable and she has a power backhand that she's still learning when to unleash. Meri is hucking! And if she isn't hucking, she's getting the D and then getting the score. Anne and Ethan are our second year players. Ethan came back from the summer with such improved throws and catching that we made her a handler, while Anne is a natural in the horizontal offense with really spot-on timing.
Next year is going to be awesome. We're returning all but 2 or 3 of our players (hopefully) and I can't wait to see how much everyone develops over the summer. Play summer league! (and let me know if you need a team).
Go sMITe.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
More on defense
I feel I need to clarify my post on switching defense.
What I am advocating is a shift towards more responsibility on defense, not less. Each person not only has to cover her person, but also be able to pay enough attention to the disc and the other people on the field to be able to help each other effectively. I want to make explicit that if you happen to be the last back, and don't pick up on someone streaking deep, then you are responsible. If you are getting beat, and you don't communicate with your teammates to help you out, then you haven't done your job. If the person you are defending at the time is not a threat, and you don't pick up on someone who is, or you don't take that time to talk to the mark about the cuts developing, you haven't done your job. We are a team, and have responsibilities that go beyond "I need to shutdown my man" such that we as a team can play effective defense.
And that is also why I am not planning on running clam, per se. I feel that is a decent starting point in order to build the basis for a more fluid defense, but that it is limited by its structure and makes it too easy for any one person to say that she was doing her job as 0/1/2/3/4/5/6 and therefore did not need to look at the bigger picture. I want every person on the field to be able to fall into a help defense without needing to worry about what structured role she's supposed to be playing, and to adjust and evaluate such that the team as a whole can neutralize the biggest threats.
What this does, too, is take away the offensive advantage of knowing when/where they're going to cut or throw to. When a switch occurs, it takes the offense time to figure out what happened and if/where there is an open person. Throwers are used to seeing 1v1 matchups, and having that change mid-stride means that they hesitate, or the stall keeps getting higher as they try to find their next best option. This defense is meant to befuddle and stifle the offense, and there's nothing better for defense than a confused and panicking offense.
What I am advocating is a shift towards more responsibility on defense, not less. Each person not only has to cover her person, but also be able to pay enough attention to the disc and the other people on the field to be able to help each other effectively. I want to make explicit that if you happen to be the last back, and don't pick up on someone streaking deep, then you are responsible. If you are getting beat, and you don't communicate with your teammates to help you out, then you haven't done your job. If the person you are defending at the time is not a threat, and you don't pick up on someone who is, or you don't take that time to talk to the mark about the cuts developing, you haven't done your job. We are a team, and have responsibilities that go beyond "I need to shutdown my man" such that we as a team can play effective defense.
And that is also why I am not planning on running clam, per se. I feel that is a decent starting point in order to build the basis for a more fluid defense, but that it is limited by its structure and makes it too easy for any one person to say that she was doing her job as 0/1/2/3/4/5/6 and therefore did not need to look at the bigger picture. I want every person on the field to be able to fall into a help defense without needing to worry about what structured role she's supposed to be playing, and to adjust and evaluate such that the team as a whole can neutralize the biggest threats.
What this does, too, is take away the offensive advantage of knowing when/where they're going to cut or throw to. When a switch occurs, it takes the offense time to figure out what happened and if/where there is an open person. Throwers are used to seeing 1v1 matchups, and having that change mid-stride means that they hesitate, or the stall keeps getting higher as they try to find their next best option. This defense is meant to befuddle and stifle the offense, and there's nothing better for defense than a confused and panicking offense.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Dumping
sMITe has many young players, and therefore when we try to play possession oriented offense, we rely heavily on the dump. It's a fairly simple concept - give a short pass back to a handler, but there are many nuances and differences in how you can run the dump.
A classic dump is to stand about 10 feet away from the thrower, opposite the mark, and make a few jukes to either direction to lose your defender. The dump is usually given as a soft backhand. The benefit of this is that the dump throw is fairly easy - all the thrower has to do is recognize when the dump is open and throw a short pass in that direction. However, you often don't get enough separation to get a break swing off, so you just lose a few yards without the mitigating effect of gaining break side progress.
Another dump that many teams use is to stand on the break side of the thrower, about 10 yards away, with two areas of attack: up the line, or back towards the break side of the field. This dump results in either a power position for the handler when she gets the disc with momentum going up the line, or improved field position with the possibility of flowing down the break side. This requires a more reliable thrower, however, because the around dump is generally angled slightly away, and the thrower needs to be able to make that under pressure of the mark.
sMITe has started moving a bit more towards the first type of dumping, partly because of the increased ease of dumping for newer throwers, but also because with horizontal offense, not changing the position of the disc from the middle of the field is actually a benefit!
Points of note:
If the dump defender is face guarding, then the thrower should initiate the dump and put it to the easier side for the dump to receive the disc.
If the dump defender is looking only at the disc, then the dump makes the move away from the defender.
If you have the disc, turn completely towards your dump and stay turned to your dump until stall 8 (then turn upfield and huck it)
A classic dump is to stand about 10 feet away from the thrower, opposite the mark, and make a few jukes to either direction to lose your defender. The dump is usually given as a soft backhand. The benefit of this is that the dump throw is fairly easy - all the thrower has to do is recognize when the dump is open and throw a short pass in that direction. However, you often don't get enough separation to get a break swing off, so you just lose a few yards without the mitigating effect of gaining break side progress.
Another dump that many teams use is to stand on the break side of the thrower, about 10 yards away, with two areas of attack: up the line, or back towards the break side of the field. This dump results in either a power position for the handler when she gets the disc with momentum going up the line, or improved field position with the possibility of flowing down the break side. This requires a more reliable thrower, however, because the around dump is generally angled slightly away, and the thrower needs to be able to make that under pressure of the mark.
sMITe has started moving a bit more towards the first type of dumping, partly because of the increased ease of dumping for newer throwers, but also because with horizontal offense, not changing the position of the disc from the middle of the field is actually a benefit!
Points of note:
If the dump defender is face guarding, then the thrower should initiate the dump and put it to the easier side for the dump to receive the disc.
If the dump defender is looking only at the disc, then the dump makes the move away from the defender.
If you have the disc, turn completely towards your dump and stay turned to your dump until stall 8 (then turn upfield and huck it)
hatch tryouts!
Open tryouts will be held on:
Sunday May 31, 9:30 am - 1 pm at Donnelly field
Wednesday June 3, 6:30 pm - 9 pm at Daly field
Saturday June 6, 9:30 am - 1 pm at Pope John Paul field
Wednesday June 10, 6:30 pm - 9 pm at Daly field
Closed tryouts will be held on:
Saturday June 13, Wednesday June 17, Sunday June 21, and Wednesday June 24, ending at the Boston Invitation on June 27-28.
Please contact the captains (Bernie, Mabo, Shira) if you are interested in trying out for the team - team_leadership at googlegroups dot com.
Website: http://sites.google.com/site/hatchultimate/
Sunday May 31, 9:30 am - 1 pm at Donnelly field
Wednesday June 3, 6:30 pm - 9 pm at Daly field
Saturday June 6, 9:30 am - 1 pm at Pope John Paul field
Wednesday June 10, 6:30 pm - 9 pm at Daly field
Closed tryouts will be held on:
Saturday June 13, Wednesday June 17, Sunday June 21, and Wednesday June 24, ending at the Boston Invitation on June 27-28.
Please contact the captains (Bernie, Mabo, Shira) if you are interested in trying out for the team - team_leadership at googlegroups dot com.
Website: http://sites.google.com/site/hatchultimate/
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
The problem with man defense
Traditional man defense is 1-on-1. You've got your person to defend, and there's no real expectation that you will help or be helped out. And that is its flaw.
1-on-1 defense inherently gives the advantage to the offense - they know when and where to cut. The defenders can only dictate as best as possible, and then react. Sure, if your team is full of uber-athletes who can beat someone to the disc even if they began 5 yards behind, then man defense was made for you. But most teams aren't built like that.
I believe in a better way.
I believe that better, more efficient defense is one that relies on communication between teammates and an understanding of the relative threat level of each cut, and not solely on athleticism. I envision a team that can switch without hesitation, where defenders talk to the mark to take away open cuts, where as a unit they eliminate the best options until the opponent is left with a risky, low percentage throw.
1-on-1 defense inherently gives the advantage to the offense - they know when and where to cut. The defenders can only dictate as best as possible, and then react. Sure, if your team is full of uber-athletes who can beat someone to the disc even if they began 5 yards behind, then man defense was made for you. But most teams aren't built like that.
I believe in a better way.
I believe that better, more efficient defense is one that relies on communication between teammates and an understanding of the relative threat level of each cut, and not solely on athleticism. I envision a team that can switch without hesitation, where defenders talk to the mark to take away open cuts, where as a unit they eliminate the best options until the opponent is left with a risky, low percentage throw.
Clam is a defense that tries to structure this type of switching. It has a bad reputation - most people think of it as a junk defense that may create a few turns, but is fundamentally unsound. I think it hasn't been given a fair shake - think of how many practices you spend working on man defense. And compare that to the, maybe 1? practice that you had on clam. No wonder teams can't run it well!
Furthermore, clam/switching defense is harder than regular man defense to learn. It requires true teamwork, and therefore develops more slowly as the team gels. In the beginning, teams attempting this will likely be scored on a lot because the communication and field sense just isn't ready yet. In order to play it well, takes a commitment that most teams have thus far been unwilling to make.
But with Hatch, I have a certain freedom. We've got no reputation to uphold - we can lose a few games as we work on our defense and no one will be upset. They're also mostly young players who are more flexible in their ways and hopefully more open to trying something non-traditional.
I think it will likely take a season to gain a grounding in this defense, and at least another season after to hone it. But I believe that the rewards of this defense are worthy of the investment for both individuals and teams, and that the current imbalance between offense and defense will be lessened.
Furthermore, clam/switching defense is harder than regular man defense to learn. It requires true teamwork, and therefore develops more slowly as the team gels. In the beginning, teams attempting this will likely be scored on a lot because the communication and field sense just isn't ready yet. In order to play it well, takes a commitment that most teams have thus far been unwilling to make.
But with Hatch, I have a certain freedom. We've got no reputation to uphold - we can lose a few games as we work on our defense and no one will be upset. They're also mostly young players who are more flexible in their ways and hopefully more open to trying something non-traditional.
I think it will likely take a season to gain a grounding in this defense, and at least another season after to hone it. But I believe that the rewards of this defense are worthy of the investment for both individuals and teams, and that the current imbalance between offense and defense will be lessened.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
