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!
Showing posts with label clam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clam. Show all posts
Friday, June 26, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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