Email About Not Resting On Our Laurels

My last year of college ultimate we had a ton of talent and I felt that we could push ourselves harder. I drafted this email to the team leadership about making sure we don't simply accept how good we are for enough. After the season, I still think we could have been better, but doesn't any team who doesn't win the championship think that to some degree? In sum total, the 2010 Air Squids where the team I was most proud and honored to be a part of and probably represent my greatest athletic accomplishment to date. Thanks to those guys.
Anyway, here is the email:
 --------------------------------------------

Bobble, Kattan, Forge, Kenobi, Brooks, Metz, Kevin and Kevin,

 I wanted to email you all to start a semi candid discussion: we are the leadership of the team and we should talk as a group - hopefully this email thread can start that. The first thing I want to talk about is my uneasiness with the way we are talking about Nationals. Many people have bought their flights and are talking about it like a trip to Centex. Yes, I understand that its the smart thing to do to buy them now and get a refund if we don't make it, but I feel that the hole tone is a little too cavalier concerning qualifying. We should look past no one: we have looked past SDSU ever time we have played them and they are only getting closer to knocking us off; we have only a small glimpse of what teams will be bringing to regionals.

 Another reason for me being wary of ready-for-Nationals thinking is that it is exactly what the Squids had my freshman year. The year prior we had finished 3rd with the Squid's best final ranking ever and returned the large majority of the players from that team. With 3 bids, we KNEW we were gonna make Nationals - tickets were booked way in advance. We did indeed beat Tide for the 2nd bid who beat Clairemont for the 3rd. The problem I had was that I felt that we could have done much better had we pushed ourselves ( we started track practices 3 weeks before regionals). There was SOOOO much talent on that team, it was NUTS, but we were satisfied to let that innate talent carry us to Nationals. Once there, I got the feeling that we, in some ways, were happy just to be there. Dollar, I know you were on that team, and maybe I am wrong or misinformed and you might have a different opinion, but you can't deny that we could have worked harder and been better: we had one practice on Warren where we just practiced retarded hammers.

 What I am trying to say, is that I want to to take the innate talent we have and build on it like we have to fight and claw our way into a National's bid. I don't want to be just good enough to take a bid. I want to be so good that we crush everyone in our paths at regionals; when we play, I never ever want there to be any doubt (see last year's State game) that we are a great great team. This means we may not rest on our laurels. That Saturday practice in the rain really kicked my ass and made me realize a lot of the hole in my game that I have been overlooking because I could just get by under most conditions: I've got work to do. The team needs to continue to seek out our weaknesses and improve them - not just rely on our strengths.

 Ok, how do we accomplish this continued improvement?

12 Things I Learned from TDing Presidents Day 2012

Congradulations to Dartmouth Pain Train, you guys are an awesome team and it was a pleasure to watch you win the tournament. 

Here are some lessons I learned from TDing this year.

1. Nothing Between the Fields. 

           Some of the teams though this was weird given that there was more room between fields than most tournaments; I had to tell a couple people twice. But overall, the fields looked great, and much more importantly, everyone was safer and no one layed out into a cooler or chair. The walk to behind the endzones really isn’t that far for players that need something from their bag.

2. Whistle Instead of Air Horn

         Instead of spending another 35$ on two air horns that are annoying to carry around and end up running out while blowing the softcap of the quarters, I used my soccer referee whistle. 1 long blow to start a round, 2 for soft, 3 for hard. I showed the captains on Saturday morning and there were no misunderstanding the entire weekend. Make sure to get a loud, shrill whistle – look for the Fox 40 brand. The biggest plus? It tied nicely to my shorts (yes shorts, this was San Diego after all) so that I could announce cap from anywhere at the field site without running back to tourney central to get the horn.

3. The More You Pay for Backup Fields, the Better the Weather Will Be.

       Oh man were the backup fields we secured expensive, and oh man, the weather was perfect. Oh well, better safe than sorry.

4. Long Rounds, Time In Between Rounds

         Longer rounds with more time before softcap, and more time before hard cap meant that teams could actually finish their games and have time before the next one to relax a little and refocus. With a 20 team format, many teams had 8 full games to 15 for the weekend but the quality of play was still very high, even in the consolation brackets.

5. Print the Bracket; Give It to the Winning Team.

         I had the score reporter page made into a pdf, added the USAU, Sky’d, and Breakmark logos and printed it on a large poster paper and then fixed this on a piece of cardboard. More than anything else, teams want this at tourney central. This can seem slightly expensive, but well worth it in terms of improving organization (over single sheets of the schedule that we also had for all the captains and coaches)

 6. Athletic Trainers Make the Tournament.

      UC San Diego is blessed with outstanding Athletic Training staff and provides excellent care for visiting teams. More any anything else, getting quality care form ATs is what people appreciate the most from a well-run tournament. Payment to ATs should be of highest priority when budgeting for a tournament.

7. Lou Burruss is Yoda

        It’s not an act; he really does speak in that probably-being-metaphorical-but-you-can't-be-sure kind of way all the time. No offense to him; wish half as profound as him I do. 

8. Rookies Need to Steal Metal Knives From the Dining Hall (Be Explicit with the Details)          All the tourney food responsibilities were delegated to a sophomore who did a decent job getting all the food to the right spots at the right times, but one of the most critical things for food is to have metal knives from the dining halls. They are much better than plastic and they can just be returned (albeit covered in peanut butter, cream cheese, and grass) after the tourney. This thing is, I didn’t tell this sophomore to tell the rookies this specific thing, and the lack of metal knives at tourney central ended up being the thing most often complained about by teams on Saturday. Don’t expect your helpers to remember the same little thing you remember being important last year. Make it explicit. In the same way, saying “if you can come help set fields on Friday afternoon” is not the same as “You 8 rookies are going to be here at 2 to help me set the fields." Make it explicit, make it specific. 

 9.  Line the Fields WITH the Girls

      The guys and the girls used 1 field site each on Saturday and the switched on Sunday, we lined all the Saturday fields for the men’s games, they did the other field. What we go were fuller fields on Saturday and smaller fields on Sunday. (Girl sized paces just aren’t the same as guys). I ended up resetting and respraypainting all the fields 20min before the prequarter on Sunday morning with 1 helper. What should have happened is we all should have gotten together, lined one field site and then the other.  A little interteam bonding and consistent field placement for only a little more organization.

10.  What Sky’d is Doing is Really Cool, Help Them Out.

      I loved Bryan Jones’ and Maya Ziv’s reporting on the tournament and am happy to see all the things Sky’d is doing to increase coverage of college tournaments. I introduced Bryan in the captain’s meeting and everywhere we went while together. Parents, athletic trainers, random students walking by, university sports directors – everyone was really impressed that there is serious reporting of our sport going on. If you want to gain more respect for Ultimate, showing them the work of the reporters at Sky’d will impress a lot of people.

11.  You Need to Fight to Raise Attendance at the Observer Clinic

       I am proud to say there was an observer clinic at Presidents Day. I am ashamed to say that the attendance of the clinic was low. I tried decently hard to advertise at all the pickup games in San Diego and a little bit online, but from what I’ve found, getting people to sign up can be like pulling teeth (you have to drug the person first.) It’s pretty frustrating that most of the people who publicly criticize the Observer system because of the quality of observers in general are the quickest to decline the invitation to become one. If we want LOTS OF GOOD observers, first we need LOTS of observers.

12.   Teams Still Don’t Know the Rules to Their Extreme Detriment.

      DGP. Team A’s huck goes too far. Team B runs the disc up to the goal line but instead of throwing the wide open huck, the thrower waits for Team A’s player to get up to the line and check the disc in. B WANTED to throw the huck, was visibly frustrated that A was taking so long to check it in and then forced the huck anyway 3 seconds too late. Turnover. Team A works the disc back up for the win. How is it 2012 and players on top tier teams don’t know they only have to ground tap the disc when walking it to the line? Seriously!!! How can you put so much time and so much effort into practice and so much of your student loan money into flights to tournaments and still not have studied the rules that obviously effect whether you win or lose?

13. Under Promise and Over Deliver

                            In everything (See post title) you do, this is the way to happy customers.

14.   I Miss College Ultimate.

    The joy of being mobbed by your teammates and O-chem lab partners after winning. The agony of knowing you didn’t come down with your dorm roommate’s huck and will make it up to him every day by practicing harder for 3 weeks before the next tournament. Pretending to study during the bye. Sleeping on the Tournament Director’s living room floor. (Always happy to house you, Burning Skirts).  Piling 8 sweaty players, covered in grass stains and ice bags, into the van as the sun lowers over the fields for a 7 hour drive home. That 7 hour drive feels like a long time to go over every mistake you made – an eternity if you had your team’s last turnover of the weekend.  But know this, College Ultimate is a gift and even if you are blessed with 5 years of it, it goes by in a heartbeat. Cherish it, earn it. It is one of those rare things in life that you get more out of it than you put in and I have yet to find someone who has reached a point where that stopped being true. When you are done, you are done, so make the most of it.

Hubbard Strength and Conditioning Interest Form

Impressive Defense From Sockeye

A recent highlight clip of (the awesome) Timmy Perston of Portland Rhino from their recent upset of Sockeye at Labor Day:


http://www.ultivillage.com/index.php/COTD-2008/Timmy-P.-hammer-catch


The catch was cool but what really impresses me about that clip is Sockeye's defense. The disc moves a couple times but there was no flow. No continuation passes. Flashy is fun, but consistent and fundamentally sound defense wins tournaments.

I am really happy that more full-game video is becoming available. Highlights are good recruiting tools, but full field coverage that can show how team defense shuts down individuals and forces them to make tough plays like this one is what is really worthwhile as a teaching tool.

I would go so far as to say that I WANT to see more clips-of-the-day that show great team defense even if they don't include amazing feats of athleticism. A Streetgang'10 teammate,Matt  Welsh, helped me understand by explaining his defensive philosophy at our end-of-the-year party:

If everyone is working hard to shut down their man, eventually a bad throw go up that someone might have a chance to make an athletic play on. If everyone plays so that their teammate will get the D, someone will get the layout D.

Yes, this will get you turns, but not as many as coordinated team defense, and really, you only get the chance to do cool stuff like this if your teammates are working equally hard off the disc.

For a great exposition of the Sockeye team defense, check out the (almost full) gave vs Chain Lightning  in the Semis of Worlds in Prague. Most every time their D comes down on the pull they have a coordinated poaching strategy that becomes more strict ManD as the point goes on. Also, a beautifully executed vertical handler switch. Its too bad Ben Wiggins played O handler the last couple years, because while i like watching him play Handler, I love watching him play D and playing fast-break O after they get the disc back.



PS- If my total fanhood for Sockeye hadn't already reached tween-girl-for-Justin-Bieber status, I just found their awesome mix tapes that they make before each tournament and release to the pubic.

Advice for those new to training

Squat. Deadlift. Bench Press. Overhead Press. Pull Up. Box Jump. Run.

These are the important movements. Most everything else (without cleats) is a waste of time. To be honest, the rep and set and weight scheme for these movements are not nearly as important as the fact that you do them and you concentrate and focus on the form. Im talking, Get Anal Retentive About Form. I'm talking, Get a well trained coach to watch you and train you. Im talking, video tape yourself and study your to compare against competent people you find online. Having good form in these movements will: 1) help you train hard and effectively while avoiding injury as effectively as possible and 2) teach your body the right mechanics for on-field movement.

THIS GAME SUCKED: Great Britain vs Sweden in the 2011 European Championships

In addition to the travesty that is this goal, the whole game was full of shitty, shitty outcomes inter-spaced with MINUTES of stoppage for players to talk about stupid, trivial shit. It's mindnumbingly boring to watch, but more importantly, I've experienced games like these, and they are boring and frustrating and funless to play it.


The commentators point out a few times that, despite the shittiness of the game, that

"This is what the game is about: self offication even at the highest levels"

Well I say:

Fuck No it's not, Ultimate is about Throwing and Catching and Running and Laying Out.

When self-offication gets in the way of these thing in such a disgusting way, we, as a community, have the responsibility to CALL PEOPLE OUT.While I am pro-third party, Im not NECESSARILY insisting on them in this post. Im saying that WE, as a community, can mold our games into whatever we want. And the way we do that, is by actually criticizing the stuff that fucks our game up. And criticizing harshly at that.

I'm not saying that the individuals who:

Squabble about coming back to the field .5 meters away from where you were going to be:

Argue about whether to come in at Stall2 or Stall3 for a WHOLE MINUTE:

And mark like this ensuring a marking foul on most every turnover:

are necessarily bad people, but the community must harshly criticize the behavior and the culture that leads to that behavior being accepted as normal. It doesn't have to be normal if we stand up and say we don't want to play like that. Lets take the SOTG requirement for inter-community critique seriously.

Fuck. That. Lame. Bullshit. 

Not Knowing the Rules IS REALLY UnSpirited

JohnAllan's RSD post about whether lacking rules knowledge is unspirited:

...the very best professional refs make terrible calls all the time. if your standard of 'good' vs 'bad' spirit relies on the absence of terrible calls, then no one that plays ultimate has good spirit. your standard becomes meaningless.

My response:
Professional refs may make terrible calls, but it is about bad perspective. They make bad calls because they saw something the wrong way; they go to great lengths to avoid these mistakes, but they are going to happen. The bad calls are NOT, however, due to a misunderstanding of the rules. I guarantee you that they could sit down and pass a written rules test with A+ every time because they TAKE THEIR RESPONSIBILITY SERIOUSLY.

I trained as a soccer referee for 8 years and we were constantly being evaluated, trained, tested and observed. When a bunch of us would get together for dinner at the end of a tournament, you know what we would talk about? The finer points of positioning on Corner Kicks from right footed players vs left footed players. Why? Because refs CARE and TAKE THEIR RESPONSIBILITY SERIOUSLY.


When and Ultimate player doesn't know where to set up after a pick or doesn't bother staying on sides, or contests something they shouldn't because they "don't know the rules" , I see that they do not take the heavy responsibility of Self Officiation seriously. It just blows my mind that people spend thousands of dollars a year and all their free time and don't spend the time to practice being a good referee. Read th fucking rules

Watch. Study. Adapt.

Simon Montague- brings the disc over the head when pivoting backhand to forehand against a tight mark.

Mike Caldwell -  push passes against force forehand near the endzone.

Brodie Smith  - stands tall and relaxed before making a juke to lull defenders into raising their center of gravity making them less able to react.

Spencer Wallis - lays out with 2 hands.

Jack McShane - hammer fakes as soon as he catches the disc

Andy Collins (and some of the other Furious guys) - fakes the forehand and follows through past the marker's head.

Parker Krug - low and wide stance with the disc forcing the mark to jump far is response to small hip movements

Ben Wiggins - sets up the throw-and-go by slowing down his pivoting and setting his grip with the left hand

Mark Sherwood - shifts his weight right, then left, then right again without really moving his feet when he wants to throw his inside forehand (which is all the time.)

David Billings - stand tall in forehand and throws the low release backhand with dipped left shoulder during the pivot, before the right foot gets all the way around.

Steve Prodan - fakes inside or openside backhand, 360 pivot to around flick huck.

Alan Kolick - Leans back before throws to that the marker comes with him to set up his throw and go.

Cole Sullivan -  does a really violent and quick shoulder pump when pivoting from forehand to throw the backhand huck.

Masahiro Matsuno (and lots of other Japanese players) - cock back the forehand high near their head like a blade.

The loaded flick.

If you aren't watching and studying your opponents and the best in the game to understand what they like to do and what they are uncomfortable with, you are missing out on the best way to get better. If you can't tell me at 12-12 what their main throwers like to throw, you aren't doing the mental work it takes to be a great defender. If you get broken the same way at the beginning of the season and at the end by a team you have seen multiple times, you can do better. To improve all the little things in your game, observe how other players do them.

Good Decisions

How many Good Decisions do you think you should HAVE to make in a point for your team to score?

Trick question.

If you are ever thinking "I just threw 2 sweet breaks in a row, my team should be able to score now" or "My cutting has been flawless, I've been roasting my man all point, we deserve to score"  then...

You don't throw with good form because that's what is going to score for you,
you do it because that's simply what you must do.

...you might as well quit.

When you step on the line, you don't deserve anything. There is no "good enough to score" unless your team actually scores the point.

When you step on the line, you commit to the whole point, not to just a few good plays.

A Culture of Excellence

Ultimate teams take note. This video, along with Sockeye's awesome website  ( www.seattlesockeye.org - check out the player bios), is how to build a fan base and establish a culture of excellence. That culture of excellence is what makes them great year after year. Big props and much love to my favorite Ultimate Team, and my favorite sports team in general, Settle Sockeye.

Perfectionism is a Curse

Perfectionism can be a curse (and for me, is). Putting a large mental emphasis on things going just right has been bad for me in a few ways.

1. Very detailed mock ups of a project beforehand lead to disapointment. Nothing ever turns out the way its planned. Sometimes the end result looks very similar to the plan, sometimes they are worlds apart. Either way, the more one has invested in a very specific outcome, the more disappointed they are when it inevitably isn't so. Further, thinking about how the reality is unfortunately different than the mock up can cloud one's ability to see all the good of what actually is.

2. Perfectionism actually reduces the amount of productive output. I have twice as many blog posts in the drafts folder than I've actually published. If a project must meet an arbitrarily high standard for public display, sometimes only gold comes out ("To Kill a Mocking Bird"), but most times nothing comes out (after TKaMB, Harper Lee never published again and while she has been given numerous awards and honorary degrees, she always declines to give a speech). The thing is, most of us perfectionists have never written To Kill a Mocking Bird.

3. Perfectionism actually reduces  the quality of one's work. The perfectionist's head is filled with swirling, ebbing, and developing notions about how to make something just right.

"This part should be after that one." "Change the punctuation to this." "An additional explanation for this possibility is necessarily." "But what if they come with this response?" "Maybe I should wait to release this until later so that it will be received better?" 'This needs another edit." "What if this sounds too wordy?"

The perfectionist misses the forest for the trees. There is a time for all this mental drifting - normal people call it "Brainstorming". But such a process negatively effects the finished product -sometimes drastically so - when a perfectionist's head is full of these sorts of things while their word processor is empty the night before the due date. When that first daybreak chirp-chirp of the birds breaks through my window following the first few rays of the sun, I know perfectionism has screwed me again. The rough draft that was never done a week before because it wasn't even good enough for a rough draft would have been better than what a coffee-fueled insomniac can produce hours before the deadline. 

4. Perfectionism makes group-work very hard. Good groups work well because they develop ideas together. Everyone can buy into something they had a hand in creating. This process can be long, but its the right way to go. The perfectionist throws a ratchet in these gears because his is very uncomfortable sharing his half-formed ideas; he is very rude about pointing out the obvious faults in the half-formed ideas of  others. The perfectionist says: "If you want something done right, do it yourself." The person who enjoys sleeping at night and being friends with their coworkers is not as foolish.

5. Perfectionists can be made to feel bad when a flaw is found in their perfect idea. If a perfectionist manages to make something good enough to get past his own personally applied censors, there is a sense of pride that can be easily injured by any critic. If one gets in the habit of only expressing ideas of well-formed perfection, it can be a personal insult to take issue with them. Perfectionists can view their projects as children and a parent's blind love for child often clouds rational thought about that child after it has left the womb.

6. Habits of perfectionism promote habits of delinquency. More times than I care to count, I've have read an email, looked it over again, and put it away for later because I couldn't immediately come up with an appropriately perfect response. Then, it gets filled away again after a 2nd look the next day because I can't come up with an appropriately perfect apology for why I didn't respond yesterday. Talk about vicious cycle.  

In conclusion, perfectionism brings serious problems with it. Perfectionism ins't who I am, but I do notice perfectionists tendencies in myself sometimes and I am realizing how more often than not, they effect me adversely.

I realize the way to improve one's perfectionism is to practice just getting imperfect end-products out there. Hit SEND. One piece of advice I that seems apropos is:

 "For a clean desk, only touch each piece of paper once" 

This applies to incoming and outgoing office paperwork (and emails). But I think it applies much more broadly to mental paper.  A perfectionist holds onto all his ideas until they seem just right and the only result is that their mental desk is full, cluttered, and unorganized. 

Quite upsetting. 

Well screw that. This blog post went from idea to published in 1 hour. Perfectionist demons, take that.

Crossfit Open Workout

The Shubbard Workout: Crossfit Open WOD 2 from Stephen Hubbard on Vimeo.
As part of the nationwide Crossfit Open Competition, Stephen Does:



As Many Rounds As Possible in 15 Minutes of:

9 155# Deadlifts

12 Pushups

15 24in Box Jumps



Final Score: 7rds+ 6 DLs



Thanks to http://pbcrossfit.com/ for letting me work out at their awesome gym.



For more on the Crossfit Open, check out: http://games.crossfit.com/



Music: Party Rock Anthem - LMFAO

The Hubbard Workout of the Week: Special Guest

The Hubbard Workout of the Week 10: Special Guest! from Stephen Hubbard on Vimeo.

Stephen and Ben do:

As Many Rounds As Possible in 15 minutes:
5 Deadlifts
5 Pullups
5 Box Jumps
5 Dips

Cutting is a Race

Cutting is a race to a spot.

And only the offense knows when the race starts.

And only the offense knows where the race ends, something that may change at anytime during the race.

So how can the defense possibly ever win this race?

By guessing when and where the race will go or by just being a very very fast racer. The only advantage the defense really has is that they many start anywhere on the race track they please.

Heaven help the offensive cutter who, before the fact, tells a defender when the race will start and where it will end.


Offense: Dont give up your advantage by telling the defender the race specifics beforehand.

Defense: Accept that you can only win races through the mental skill of guessing the race details - a skill that can be trained.

Its especially hard to win the race if the guy you are guarding is a track star.

Defense at a High Level

Well, since next week's Poaches topic will be defense, there is no better time to transcribe some thoughts that have been floating around about defense...


I have always been primarily a offensive player - I "get" offense at a much higher level so I have always been playing catch up in my D skills.

The first thing I really realized, is that someone should have told me how hard defense is. Its not as though I actively believed it was or should be easy, it is just that I had no idea that one must EARN turnovers at a high level. A defense that relies on being given the disc on unforced errors will not do very well.

So in that light, I will attempt to record some of my insights on how high level players and teams earn turnovers.

First, defenders must realize that the deck is stacked against them. The rules and insedentals of this sport heavily favor the offense retaining possession. One of my coaches is fond of saying "If your guy touches the disc, you fucked up" and I disagree with this. I know why he says this to his college age players: it works to fire people up. But its just not true - the offense will move the disc. Additionally, it must be accepted that it is impossible for a single defender to shut down every single option his assigned O player potentially has: defenders MUST work as a team. Seems obvious - but the recognition of this fact leads to the following conceptual shift:

Instead of thinking that one should be focused on how he can intercept the next potential pass, we must think about removing many of the offense's options before they take advantage of them. Every D is a team D.

Philosophical and wordy, yes, but hopefully enlightened.

So D is not primarily in the business of getting Ds, but of removing options. How do do D's remove options?

More of the answer to come in later posts.

Final Team List for Pres Day Qualifier and Pres Day Classic

February is going to be awesome in San Diego!


Pres Day Qualifier February 5th, 6th Santa Clara
UC Irvine
USC
Cal State Long Beach
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
Cal Poly Pomona
Arizona State
University of Arizona
Caltech
Occidental
Claremont
UC San Diego B
UC Berkeley B
UC Los Angeles B
UC Santa Barbara B
San Diego State B


Pres Day Classic February 19th,20th,21st
Minnesota 
Cal
Texas State
Kansas
UC Santa Barbara
Illinois
Oregon
UC San Diego
Washington
Texas
Davis
San Deigo State
Dartmouth 
University of British Columbia
Texas A+M
Carton GOP
UCLA
Cal State Chico
Colorado College
Qualifier Winner Team

San Diego Night Beach Pickup

Mondays and Wednesdays. 8:30-11:00pm. Under the bright flood lamps of the Capri Hotel at the end of Missouri St.

Soft sand, good friends, high level of play, beautiful weather even at night.

Really looking forward to Lei Out this year.

Goaltimate League

Tuesday night Mens Goaltimate League in San Deigo. A bunch of  SD Streetgang guys, a bunch of Masters guys, the cream of the pickup-game crop and a bunch of the guys who invented this game 15 years back. A bunch of Goaltimate professionals (the first couple big Goalti tournaments had cash prizes)!

It feels pretty good to be the newb. To be the rookie. To be the willing listener and learner.

The obvious thought that comes after playing 3 times is that EVERY ultimate player needs to play Goalti a few times as cross-training for ultimate. The cuts are quick and short and the throws are different so you can't translate too much of that stuff over, but one touches the disc 10 times as much as in Ultimate and everything happens faster. That reaction time training, the confidence that comes from catching zippy bades, can and should be an addition to everyone's disc related arsenal.

The real insight I *think* I've had about this game is that teams actually need to be aggressive, they have to take percentage looks. In Ultimate, I always got the distinct impression that offense should score every single time without nary a turnover or stoppage. The fact that we didn't was a big fault of the offense. In Goaltimate however, you are not going to win vs a good team if you look to play the the possession offense. Even the best shooters cant be 100%. Shoot 70% in the NBA and you are a star, likewise in this game.


I wonder how many other cities have organized Goaltimate. I have heard of Seattle and Atlanta and Boston and SF. Someone said something about someplace in Texas. But where else? What is the cross over from the best Ultimate players? What percentage of the dudes at Club Nationals have wicked scoobers and blades that they only unleash in the offseason through the big PVC hoop?

Loving it for right now (though, like Ultimate, this sport could really benefit from some impartial arbitration.)

The Shubbard Workout: SDHPs, K2Es, PPs

The SHubbard Workout of the Week 26Nov2010 S.D.H.Ps from Stephen Hubbard on Vimeo.
Stephen does
3 rounds for time:

7 Sumo Deadlift High Pulls (110#)
7 Knees to Elbows
14 Push Presses (65#)

Time : 5:03


Went too heavy on the SDHPs, too light on the presses. Probably should have been 4 rounds, but i'm a wimp.

The Shubbard Workout of the Week #6

Check It:

The SHubbard Workout of the Week 7/11/10 from Stephen Hubbard on Vimeo.
Stephen does a 3 round circuit of

5 Deadlifts (175lb)
5 Pullups
10 Push Press (90lb)
10 Box Jumps
20 Anchored situps

Final time : 6:48


I am loving the effect at the end. Comment with any questions and remember to post your time.