what separates the great teams

So one of the things I wanted to consciously look for at worlds was what separates the great teams from the not-so-great teams (otherwise known as most of the teams I've played on). Since I'm a guy, I mostly looked at Open and Mixed games. I'm also playing mixed for the club season, so I wanted to see what the best mixed teams did. I've come up with a few things, and I'd like to see if people on the great teams agree.

1. Sidelines - every high performing team at WUGC had sidelines that were very involved in the play. Having active sidelines is something that is kinda mentioned off-hand on most teams. On some low-level teams this is limited to loud, obnoxious cheers.

All the great teams do the obnoxious cheers, and then actually help the players on the field. Every great team I watched made sure that the sidelines knew the D and O strategy before each point. They generally had special names or hand signals to communicate. The sidelines also had players specifically talking to players on the field, actively helping on defense. I think the most influential of these is talking to the mark, in any defense. Yelling "inside! inside! inside! around! around! around!" seems to really help the mark stop some break throws. Also, yelling "Under!" and "Out!" to a defender on a cutter is sometimes helpful. "Last Back" is a common call from the sideline, as well as counting throws for transitions.

Another interesting thing I heard from the Sockeye sideline was "Touch him, Touch him." I got the impression that the touching was more to keep the defender in position within arm's reach of the cutter, and not solely to instigate physical play. Although, close positioning and physical play generally go together quite well.

I know as a player it is tough to stay completely involved when you are on the sideline, but if you have a communication job to do, I think it would be easier. Perhaps there should be "sideline captains" that assign specific talking tasks to people standing on the sides.

2. Physical play - at a high level, physical play is much more common and generally more accepted, at least in the men's game. Throwers will play through a lot more fouling on the mark, presumably because they don't want to stop the offensive flow. This is something I think I will need to get used to rather quickly as I go to playing in the club series. How do players/team determine what is "acceptable?"

3. Different international strategies - Here in the US, I haven't seen very many new strategies since I started playing. It's always vertical or horizontal stack on offense. Very rarely I see some split-stacks or side-stacks. On defense, it's nearly always man or 3 or 4-man cup. Sometimes a junky 1-3 type zone, but not as often. International play shows a lot more strategic differences between countries and regions.

Australia (and I think GB) use a very aggressive puppy-fence (1-3-2-1) zone defense and hardly ever use 3-man cup. Japan uses a very loose 2 person in front zone. I saw the US and Canada with a 3 man cup, but I think the 3-man cup is useless without trapping.

The German teams use a lot of space throws and isolation set-ups. The Brits and other euro teams threw blades a lot more often as zone-breakers than other countries, which I assume they acquire from playing indoors a lot. On vertical stack, most teams I've seen in the US use only 2 handlers back, but a lot of other countries use three handlers across for vertical stack.

4. Hammers - Not sure why, but I didn't see as many hammers as I expected. For the most part the conditions were light wind, and I thought all the high level players would be able to throw them fairly easily.



Strategies I'd like to see implemented more
1. Changing direction of attack on O - I didn't see very much of this. I saw a lot of swing-swing-continue cut, but the continue cut would be shut down by D that expects it. It leaves the far side of the field open, but very rarely did I see anyone cutting to the newly created space. As a handler, I often look for that throw because the mark will over commit. An O that consciously tries to change directions immediately on each catch could be effective.

2. Different zones - In mixed, the puppy-fence zone is very effective, because even at worlds it is possible to identify weak throwers (stereotypically women) to trap. With a gangly guy on the mark, it is hard to throw around. I think teams that use the puppy-fence a lot should have a method for the mark to switch with one of the fence players, to keep the legs rotating on the mark. Penn State tried to do that when we ran junk zone, but there was no specific method.

post worlds - volunteer review

So I went to worlds to volunteer and watch some really high quality ultimate. Also, I was there cheering for the australians that I had known from studying abroad.

First the volunteering - I quite enjoyed it. It is really a worthwhile way to go, because you can get free food and housing for volunteering at least 1 shift per day. There were a ton of volunteers, which was definitely a good thing. It made for a nice community. The volunteer central area was very nice, with food/coffee/massages. I think it's a sign of a good event that they take care of the volunteers well.

My job was general field services. I also did the line painting for the end zones and brick marks at the main field site. It was interesting to see that every team that was warming up would watch me as I went across the field, and inspect the straightness of the line. Jim Parinella did say the lines were getting fairly worn by the end of the week. Not sure what field site he was referring to, but I think we did pretty well at the main site. I repainted those lines at the beginning of each day of play. I don't think it's very reasonable to repaint them more often than that, considering the time and resource constraints. My criteria for repainting was whether the line was solidly visible from one sideline to the other when standing at one sideline. Crowd control lines were painted less often. I also had other glorious jobs such as making sure the porta-potties were fully stocked with toilet paper, and making sure field tents didn't blow over.

The port-a-fields were definitely a great thing to use. They were made of slightly stretchy poly/plastic material, with rings for stakes at each corner. Pull the sides tight and, presto, instant field outline! And fairly consistent too because each field used the same system. They also had marks on each side for the end zone and the brick marks. They have a big advantage in flexibility over painted lines, if you need to move a field a few meters one way. Only one broke during the week, during the Australia-USA open showcase game. Others were showing signs of wear such as holes and fraying, but I patched them with duct tape, and I like to think that made a difference in preventing more breakages.

end of college season thoughts

This should have been written a while ago. Penn State at regionals.

Our performance at regionals was average. It wasn't bad, we didn't play terribly. It also wasn't consistently good enough. We had some very nice moments of greatness to come back and win a game when we were down at half time. We ended up placing two higher than our seed, which is a nice measure of success.

I suppose you can't expect too much when it is your first year back to regionals after being suspended. I suppose it is also very hard to expect high results (playing on Sunday, being in the run for nationals) when only 10 of your 18 players come to practice on a regular basis. That is probably one of the most frustrating things for me this year, and I know it was for the two captains. When you see a team with good on paper potential, but then no one comes to practice, you can't get results.

adaptability

I read (on a DoG blog, I think) that a sign of a great team is a team that adapts and changes strategy when they are being beaten. I think that same principle can be applied to players too. So one thing I'm going to focus on this year is changing my defensive playing when I'm being beaten. I had a chance to work on this at summer league a few weeks ago. I was guarding a good lefty handler who was touching the disc every other pass and killing us with his high release backhand. I didn't do anything during that game to change my defensive strategy and I started thinking about it on the car drive home. During the next game I had to guard a very similar player, so I tried some of the strategies I'd thought of to stop him.

The first strategy was to force the handler away from the disc. This strategy did work several times. His team threw some up to him but I won the air battles twice. One problem was that when I did get beaten back to the disc, he had wide open throw options for a few seconds.

Our other team strategy for this guy was to change the force from flick to backhand. This makes righty hammers and flick hucks harder to get off, and backhand hucks take more wind-up. It also makes the one lefty throw flicks and neutralises his short inside-out, high-release backhand break throw. This one worked okay too, but it's harder to evaluate from a personal performance point of view.

urgency and intensity

When Sockeye and Furious play crap teams at sectionals, do they bring the same intensity and urgency that they do when they play each other? If they do, how they mentally maintain that high level for an entire tournament?

We had sectionals this weekend, and we played the first two games on Saturday fairly easily. Then in our last game of pool play, we played Bucknell. It was to win the pool and be in the championship bracket on Sunday morning. We were down by two points somewhere around half time, then we went on a run and ended up winning the game. Won our pool.

Next day - we know if we win our first game against Edinboro we are a lock to go to regionals. We play hard, bring the high intensity, but we don't win. All our big players made mistakes in the first half, and they capitalized and took the lead. I think we traded points in the second half, but they win. So know we are in the backdoor games. We play CMU and we know we have to win to keep going. We play hard, get an upwind break in the beginning of the game and keep that lead the whole time. We win, securing ourselves a bid to regionals.

So the next game is against Bucknell again, and it is for seeding at regionals. We know it's important, but I don't think we brought the same do-or-die sense of urgency that we had in the earlier games to go. Bucknell got the first upwind break, and essentially kept the same lead to start. We had our chances, but couldn't break back. Is this our fault? Of course it is, but how do we bring our play up to the same intensity we had in the two other games? We were still playing hard, but something was different. I'm not entirely sure what it was, or how to fix it though.

Personally, I guess the question will be answered for me if we bring our best playing to regionals, where every game will matter.

weather

I'm going to say that the main defining reason for teams from the ME, NE, not doing well at nationals is that the weather here sucks. Look at the weather for West Penn sectionals this weekend - low of 31 degrees F and rain/snow showers. That is horrendous.

The weather at Spring Phling that we (PSU) hosted last weekend was the first time in my three years that it hasn't been cold and rainy or worse. My first year it was terrible, we got suspended and didn't have it the next year, and again last year we cancelled play after 1 round on Sunday. Even this year we had to use backup fields.

We can't practice outdoors in this weather at all. The school won't give us fields and it would be miserable anyway. We have a total of two weeks of outdoor practice before sectionals. Any school from warm climes (Florida, Georgia, Texas, NC, California) has the great advantage of being to practice outdoors all year round. When people discuss why those teams are good, I think they underestimate how useful it is to play outdoors all the time.

When I studied abroad in tropical Australia, being able to throw around outside year round was one of the main reasons for my skills improving drastically.

Of course, this doesn't fully explain some anomalies like Wisconsin which has terrible winters. But maybe their school likes them and gives them plenty of indoor practice time in the winter, rather than 2 hours a week in a basketball gym.

Ironic that a farmer would talk about weather, hey?

A distinction on layouts

Here is where I am on layouts

"I will layout if it is the only way I will catch the disc"

Here is where I need to be

" I will layout to catch the disc before my opponent does."

A small distinction I guess, probably rather obvious to D-machines who think about it, but important. As it is, I layout on deep throws, on throws that are to the side of me, but hardly ever on direct in cuts. Because on direct in-cuts, I know I am going to intersect the flight path eventually. I need to get to the point of laying out around people, to get to it sooner and increase my odds of getting a D.

Things I need To work on

After the tournament this weekend, here are things I want to work on personally.

- I find that if I can't get a huck off after one or two tries/fakes, then it is pointless to keep trying. I definitely throw better hucks after catching a flip and have some momentum going into it. I need to work on getting hucks thrown with a tough or straight up mark. I felt I did well on throwing break throws though. How do you move from throwing breaks to full-on hucks? The huck through a mark is essentially a huge break throw?

- Baiting D's. I got beat once on a scooter cut that I knew was coming, but I wasn't fast enough to get the D. Need to work on getting an extra step and a layout. I think I did well on other poaches, getting a D once and preventing some throws.

hammers?

Seems every ultimate blog has an obligatory post about hammers? Here's mine

Anyone know why some people/teams have such revulsion to hammers? I guess it's because lots of people throw them at the wrong time, and it's a harder throw. The problem I see is that people don't see when the hammer is an appropriate throw, and it is a perfect throw in some situations.

I see a high correlation between people that have good hammers and people that play tennis. The service motion for a topspin serve is quite similar to the full motion for a hammer. At least in my experience, that's how it goes. You can have a good hammer without playing tennis, but it sure helps. The slight knee bend, arching the back, the fluid motion, the arm going up, and all of those in sync so the hammer or serve goes up at full extension.

I definitely agree that throwing blades helps with flight path control. I see people throwing hammers that unintentionally double-helix because they can't control the entire throw. They use too much power and not enough control.

I also think hammers, and also other throws could be like medieval siege weapons. Good analogy? Bad analogy? But funny anyway. The elbow-locked-to-your-side flick is like a ballista: can do the job, but takes a while and is underpowered. Getting the arm out a bit more and pivoting is a step up like the catapult. But the real winner is the trebuchet. All the energy in the core is built up as the motion starts and when it all lines up the energy peaks and the huge throw is released. Or rock destroys the castle wall, whichever.

thanks to other blogs

I want to say a note of thanks to other blogs I've read for getting me to think about how to improve my game. I read a lot of archives in the fall and tried to put things into practice. Particular things that helped

Idris's blog - posts on disc flight path control, isolating your throwing motion
Jim Parinella's - posts on decision making, risks, and handler mentality
Oshep's - posts on good pulls, throwing stances, defense
Aussie blogs - keeping me updated on the country I visited for far too short a time
Goody - giving me strategy tips for indoor, and showing me the glory of the blade and hammer
Many others I can't really remember right now

Hah, of course some people I play with would say these are terrible influences because now I throw tons of blades and hammers, and in unconventional situations (more on that later). But there were definitely points in the fall season where I would do something, say throw a flick while moving backwards or to the left, and it would be because of things I practiced from blog post ideas.


Now to those people - write more! I can't read archives all the time!

hiya

Hi, Welcome to my ultimate frisbee blog. I'm sure it will be a possible waste of your time.

I'm gonna use it as a place to write down things that have or haven't worked in ultimate games. Also to write down some of my pet peeves about some tactics in ultimate.

I currently play at a uni in pennsylvania, and have plans to try out for a club team in the spring. I've also played in australia, at world clubs, and two kaimanas.

Leave comments! If you're an experienced player, I'd love to hear your input on what I've said. If you're like me and you're a good player and rapidly learning to play at a higher level (ie, upa clubs), I'd love to have discussions with you.