Santa Barbra Invite

SB Invitational is this weekend and I am not sure how I am feeling. Last year, the Squids won this tournament; it is my only competitive tourney win. This year we are seeded low, are a different team, and have high aspirations. I am thinking about receiving the first pull on Saturday and seeing 70 yards, 7 defenders, and 15 other teams standing between me and my goal. To be honest, I feel a great deal of gravity surrounding the situation - more than you'd think would be surrounding a Ultimate Frisbee tournament.

The truth is, I have never been a vital part of a team before. Last year (and in previous years) I played my role, but because of the other throwers we had on the team, my role was minor. In soccer, I never was good enough to be on the starting line up. My whole life, I was a secondary player on the team - I was able to watch my teammates wrap up the games we won and be responsible for the games we lost. But not this year. This year I am the veteran, I am the quarterback, I am the thrower. I take full ownership in my team's performance.

So I actually have some jitters. Butterflies. Yeah, im actually a little nervous. But its a good nervous. Its got to be that same nervous that comes before any performance - a test, a show, a date. The key thing is to let body do what I know I have trained it to do.

So I focus in. Yeah, winning the tournament is the outcome goal (and it is attainable), but thinking about that goal isn't going to help me do that - that thinking is the opposite of focusing on the moment, the task at hand.

How can I find this focus?

I think about the physical game.

• What are the particular physical actions I will be taking this weekend?
• What state is my body in? Where are my injuries and how can I work around them?
  
• What will I be doing on offense to get the disc?
• What cuts will I be looking for? When? How will I communicate to my cutters?
  
• What throws will I need to make?
• How will I play downfield defense on particular matchups?
• What will my mark look like? How will this change with field position? With team strategy?
• How will I fuel my body with food and liquid? How will I rest it? Help it recover?
  

I think about the mental game.

• How will I eliminate distractions durring warmup?
• How will I avoid frustration on offense and instead of throwing up prayers, keep doing the hard work till we score?
• How will I react to teammates screwing up?
• How will I react to lucky or unlucky breaks?
• How will I participate from the sidelines?
• How will I act when we are up by a lot? Down by a lot?
• How will I coach/teach younger players?
• How will react to a win or a loss?
• How will I feel about playing teams I am rivals with? Playing teams I have friends on?
  
• How will I know when to talk to my team and when to shut my mouth?
• How will I prepare to feel the unexpected?

By asking myself these questions I put my mind exactly where it should be before this tournament. With each answer, I put myself on the fields in Goleta - I am ready for what is going to happen there. Instead of some far off thing to think about ( like defending our title), I have concrete, individual thoughts that I actually can grasp and wrap my head around. I said earlier that I felt a lot of gravity surrounding the tourney and that may not be particularly helpful; I don't know. I do know, however, that there isn't any gravity surrounding my thoughts of what its like to throw that IO break up the lane after a swing where my mark has to blast past me to stop the around. There aren't any butterflies surrounding thoughts of how I am going to be warming up. I know how I am going to react to a teammate turfing a throw at 10-10 and I know how I am going to react to bad calls and I know how I am going to react to game point.

I am ready

The Inner Game of Ultimate

Remember when I was praising the writing of Jim Parinella (of Boston DOG fame) and I linked to his blog but couldn't find the link to the essay I really liked? Well here it is:

The Inner Game of Ultimate

This was the essay that got me really thinking about the power of focus (broadly conceived). I know that if any of use thinks about it, we have seen and experienced the situations Jim talks about. Confronted with his analysis, and the recognition of the importance of Focus, it is just willful ignorance to not aim to improve aspects of the mental game in addition to the physical game.


This may be one of the top 3 the most important paragraphs of "Mental Game" writing ever:

The brain needs to keep out of the way of the body. The individuals need to remove judgment about whether something is good or bad, and just be aware of it happening. Trust in yourself, and allow the body to perform actions that it knows how to do. Remember, you learned how to walk pretty well without needing to make conscious statements about how straight your leg should be or where to position your arms. After enough practice, your muscles develop memory of how they should be acting. Equally important, the brain needs to practice winning. Visualize events before they happen. While practicing your throws, visualize the path the disc takes, see the label spinning as it releases from your hand, and see it going directly to your target, all of this happening in your mind before it happens. Then execute the throw exactly as you had envisioned it. Similarly, picture yourself winning a big game, and catching the winning goal, and then going on to win your next contest against another team that is supposed to be better than you.

He explains clearly. It seems hard to misconstrue what he means and harder still to not get anything useful out of the writing.

Check out his exacting synthesis of offensive ideas. I love the five rules:

BASIC RULES

On an extremely simple level, offense can be broken down into five rules:

1. Take what they give you.

2. If you really want something they're not giving you, try to fake them into giving it to you.

3. If you’re not sure exactly what you want, fake until they give you something, then take it.

4. Actively get out of the way when someone else is making a better cut.

5. Make smart choices with your throws.

Both the mental game and offense ideas seem a little too simple. "Everyone already knows that" you might say. Yeah right. These simple concepts ARE not obvious and people do NOT know them. They only seem obvious now that Jim has pointed them out because he is so correct. I know that most everyone will improve dramatically if the actually think critcally about these things and not just assume we all know how to think about the game

X-men

Last night I made a awkward bid on a poach attempt. I was amped up because I was angry at how I was playing and how my team was playing. I landed hard on my side with my right arm fully extended above my head so that the impact hyperextened my shoulder. A sharp, piercing sting blasted through my shoulder for a millisecond........ and then it just hurt. And hurt. And hurt. And slowly subsided but maintained a baseline ache. Did the right thing and stopped playing, iced it, took anti-inflammatorys.

Went to the trainer today, they checked it out. Thankfully, nothing is torn, ripped or sprained. Its just inflammation and nerve pinching. If I treat it right, ill be better in 4 days.

This great prognosis confirms my suspicion that I am part of the X-men:

• I heal at outrageous speed. Did you see my bleeding ax wound at the Santa Cruz tourny? [no, not that one, the other one I got from laying out]. That wound is now completely gone. It was literally gushing blood and now the skin is merely a little discolored. I landed, with all my weight, on my very fragile rotator cuff and am going to be totally fine? I am Wolverine.
• I can fly. It really isn't a conscious thing. In fact, it subconscious. Whenever I think about wanting to fly, I don't seem to do it right. The instructions Douglas Adams gives in "The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" on how to fly are spot on. You can't think about it. You just have to throw yourself at the ground and miss. When I am covering an in cut tightly and the thrower puts it up anyway, there is no thinking. My body just responds by throwing itself out there. The first time you fly, and you will fly if you want to play defense correctly, is absolutely amazing. You will be in the Zone [which is just a word to describe being 100% focused]. You will layout, be successful and then go on running. You will get up without noticing it as if your laying out was just a continuation of the trajectory your body had the whole point. Then when the point is over, you will go to the sidelines and get some water, you will slow your motor down a little, take a breathe and say to yourself: "Holy Shit, I Just Flew!" I am Rouge
  
• Blades, with uncanny and deadly accuracy, come out of my hands without me having to think about it. I am Gambit. [God he is such a badass.]

Ultimate allows me to be superhuman. When my laser beam locks onto my receiver and i blast a shot to him with supercomputer-precision, plastic-burning, and opponent demoralizing skill, I am reminded why I love this game so much: It makes me feel invincible.

R.I.P. "Clearing" Dec 3 2008

Never "clear" ever again.

Many players know the perscribed cuts taught:
-back of the stack in-our or out in
-front of the stack fill
-front of the stack continuation
-ect...

and they feel that the way ultimate offense works is that they make these cuts and then stop cutting, start "clearing" and wait until they are supposed to cut again.

This is the wrong mindset. This is the mindset of : "I decided what cut to make, did it, didnt get the disc so now i go to the place where I que up till the next time I can get to decide what cut to make." This is the mindset of : " Now im ON, now im OFF, now im ON, now im OFF."

Let me clear this up: from the pull to the score, YOU ARE ALWAYS ON. You are always an option. It is critical for you to always be involved, attentive and aware. No more jogging back to the stack- tunnel vision set on exactly where you are suppose to end up.

No more "Clearing". The word implies that you are just getting out of the way. Saying "make the clearing cut fast" is redundant at best and defeatist at worst. How 'bout this: after your cut, make another cut and then another ect. all the while setting up the cuts with head fakes, jab steps, misdirection moves.

This is not to say that you should be sprinting always. There is a time for physical rest, but there is no time for mental rest aka being lazy. When it is obvious to your defender that you are taking that mental rest [and it is obvious to any good defender] he is able to play off you, poach the lanes and better adjust to cover you when you do decide to go back "ON". If you are always cutting, even if its purposeful walking, your defender's job is all the more hard and the offense flows better because all its players are paying attention.

break on through to the other side,
pumba