Personal Ultimate Fault 1 - Forcing it

The biggest thing that I do wrong while I have the disc, is to get mad that an option isn't there that should be {or that I want to be there. I get angry the cut isn't in the right place, sometimes yell at the fish to make said cut, and sometimes throw to it just to proven that it was a good cut to have made.

This is THE definition of 'forced'. Sometimes I make the throw and feel very right about my thoughts about how people should cut. Sometimes, however, I turn it because I was not focused on the exicution of the throw but on my upsetness at the cuts that are coming. When this happens I instantly recognize that I fucked up [both in throw execution, judgment and focus]. Sometimes I swear at myself audibly. Phase 2 of this destructive cycle is to fixate on how its really the cutters' faults for doing the wrong thing. Then I get a little depressed when I remind myself to stop blaming my team mates and work on my focus. By that time Ive been fuming about the situation, in one way or another, long enough to TOTALLY remove any focus I had previously. Even when I 'force' a throw [yelling for the right cut optional] and it is completed, my mind gets wrapped up in what the cutters should/shouldn't be doing.

Angry Kevin [one of our coaches] said something really good to me last night. After a point with one of these occasions when the break lane cutter was just jogging his cut, probably because he didn't realize it was the right cut, and I shorted a flat-io forehand to him {and then openly yelled at myself for it}, Kevin said to me "You don't need to do everything for the team". This meant a lot from someone who makes it known he is a hard ass.

Forcing it sometimes scores goals but is ultimately unproductive. When its not there, its not there. Figure out what is there. There is no point in getting mad about the situation.

Lastly, a note on yelling at ones self. It is horrible. Stephen, stop that. It is totally the wrong way to practice or play.

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

Fran

The Crossfit WOD is Fran. I want to do it as RX'ed. Gotta build up the balls first (gotta take my lab final beforehand)

Anyone want to join me?

http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFit_SpealFran205.mov

Writing about Ultimate

I am going to write about Ultimate more, and hopefully, more consistently.

I have been very enamored with the great frisbee bloggers and have always wanted to be one.  My very open finals week and the holiday, combined with my complete and utter inability to focus on anything besides frisbee for over an hour, will hopefully allow me the opportunity to get all these ideas about disc out on the page. In addition, i want to become a better writer in general (yeah, way to wait until im almost done with school) - writing about ultimate, with The Elements of Style tucked under my arm, will help me do that.

I have yet to decide whether I should start a new blog for only ultimate stuff. If I do, i think ill call it "The View from the Breakside". Whata ya think? The tag line could be "Break on through, to the other side - The Doors" 

For my first post, I want to have a list of all the great frisbee blogs that have inspired me. Here is what I got off the top of my head:

• Dusty's Ultimate Journal - followed this through its prime when he was updating daily. he doesn't post much anymore, but this was the blog that really got me thinking deeply about the game. This is where i got the deck of cards. He is the reason I got into crossfit .
  
• Jim P's - the grandmaster, author of the essay "the mental game of ultimate", a brilliant   piece
  
• Matt Mackey's Thoughts - my current favorite. He is lucid, straightforward and clearheaded
  
• Match's- I always was a fan of high level ultimate. he showed me how to take my fanhood to the   next level
  
• Idris's - just found it recently but he has been writing at a very high level (he is a pillar of Jam's   offense) for years. The archives are a goldmine
  
• Peter Jamison's The Cultimate Opinion - he posts almost every single day. It seems   Ultimatetalk.com is just a nice way to collect his posts.
  
• 808's - good thoughts, its clear he loves the game very much. great photographer, great thrower (he was a potlach all star, half because he has amazing confidence and poise with the disc and half because he hits on and befriends any and every ultigirl, especially BLU ) and great guy
• lastly, The-huddle must be recognized for bringing some of the best minds together to write about ultimate. what they are doing there is awesome.

One thing that has worried me about writing about ultimate is that I won't be able to communicate my ideas effectively, as sometimes i find to be the case in life,  and will get frustrated. This, i think, is one of the reasons I haven't been blogging for the last few years (sorry LiveJournal) and I want my ultimate blog to help me with that problem, even if its messy.

Ok, im gonna end this entry. I think the links work but ive never used them before. 

-break on through to the other side,

Pumba

ps-its always fun to stumble across an old blog such as kd's or this . learn your history, youngins'

sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Squid Peeves

General trends about communication that upset me about Squid ultimate:

-Players (in game and on sideline) yelling "No Break!".
Does this mean that its ok to get broken other times? No, I think that what people mean is "No Arround ! Cause now there is a guy there". "No break is meaningless and it doesn't help the mark at all (unless we are so well (poorly) trained to know that "No Break!" means shift around. Lets change the way we talk so that ambiguity is eliminated and so that we can communicate more efficently

- Instructing the mark with calls of "No IO!" or "No Arround!" when "IO!" and "Arround!" will suffice. Why waste the extra time to say "no"? Again, we could communicate to our players more effienctly.

-Saying things to the players on the field, before the point is over, like :
Nice cut!
Sweet break!
Yeah!
Stop getting broken!
Come on! You gotta catch that !
All of these things take the player's focus off the game they are playing. When someone gets broken, THEY KNOW. There isnt the need to tell them, it only serves to get them thinking about how poorly they are doing which does NOT help future perfomance.

-On the line, saying "Look at this great line we have". This unfocuses the players from the point about to start: we should not be thinking about how great we are before the point. Expectations kill.

- In a huddle, there are often to many people with something to say. Perhaps when everyone is silent its the right time to butt in with some meaningly saying: "Work harder!" (Even that is useful compared to "We have to suck less") but when the coach or captains or vets has something really insightful to say, following it up with "run more, we have subs" just takes the focus off the insightful thing.

-At halftime, we should all emediatly get water and cool off and THEN bring it in for a huddle so that we arent stuck talking, then doing the cheer and then waiting 4 minutes for the other team.

-Arguing a call from the sidelines. Keep it on the field - its says so in the rules.



More to come, this is quite cathartic

Fuck my life