Thinkulti

Specific feedback for your D game

2011-10-15T12:55:00.003+11:00

Following on from a List of Offence Skills in ultimate, here is a...

List of Defence Skills

Players create defensive pressure by

guarding cutters wherever they go (tightly guard deep cuts; guard in cuts; guard dump cuts; guard throw and go cuts)
marking the thrower (stop early throws by getting a force on early; hold a force to limit break throws; mark with agility and energy)
pulling the disc (throw into the alpha zone regularly; not give up bricks; pull strongly against the wind)
adjusting to where other defenders are (switch; push cutters into crowded places like the stack or someone clearing)
moving to defend other cutters (poach effectively when their cutter does not draw them away; clog the open side, break side, deep and under as needed)
moving at the right time (run down the field when the cutter watches a huck; defend the dump position early; adjust guarding position early so the cutter doesn't blow past)
being athletic (guard quality players for long periods of a game; block swill that is high or wide; outrun cutters; outaccelerate cutters)
working within the team D structure (know and use the team's patterns; don't require teammates to change their mark or guarding unnecessarily)

Most of these correlate with stopping the eight things the offensive player wants to do.

With eight categories listed, it is now easy to choose, say, two strengths and two aspects to work on. This keeps feedback concise, but more specific than "work on your throws and cutting".

Suggestions?

Playing styles at ECC 2011

2011-08-30T22:31:00.000+10:00

The Australian Open and Women's teams competed at the Emerald City Classic in Seattle recently.

In the Open division, Revolver and Ironside were the cream of the crop, with Ring of Fire coming back from losses to Maliki and Buzz Bullets to win the games that mattered, getting to the final, before falling to a dominant Revolver team.

Revolver play Ring of Fire in the Open final

The US teams regularly isolated a cutter of choice out in the strong side, while stacking other players right on the sideline. This usually gave them their first choice cutter and hucker combination.

In contrast, the Buzz Bullets played handler isolation against us for the first 20 points, until we switched to forehand (instead of backhand) force. They immediately looked for a few hucks from horizontal play. They were happy to grind it through handler play, as they were generally more nimble, and had real talent at that position. A couple of players on Buzz Bullets are there for their height on defence and are not as skilled at cutting or throwing (true for many teams, I guess).

Several teams also attacked through break throws, deliberately designing cutting angles to provide this option and looking for open side throws, inside breaks and outside breaks as the cutter moved laterally. Only an active and balanced mark would regularly hold up against this tactic.

The US teams were not overly physical, as a couple of teams have been in the past. All fair play. Except one Ring of Fire player who defends like a TSA security agent on speed, patting down his opponent with lovetaps, instead of working on his footwork.

It was a valuable tournament experience for the Aussie teams, playing against opponents for the first time in the lead up to Worlds 2012 in Sakai, Japan. With a chance to reflect on tactics and systems, and an opportunity to strengthen the rosters and our fitness, we'll be ready to match it with the top teams next year - several of whom we got to play in ECC.

Australia at ECC

2011-08-06T14:44:00.002+10:00

The Australian Dingoes (our representative team in the open division) are preparing for Worlds 2012 in Japan. As part of our plan, we are sending a squad to compete at ECC next week, as are the Australian Women. Watch out North America.

Here's a brief update.

Coach Hemphill has done a great job bringing everyone together, motivating us and keeping us accountable. We have a website, team goals, fitness program, nutrition resources, psychology resources, uniforms and a clearly articulated set of organisational and leadership roles.

Lots of people have volunteered their time to train us, transport us and feed us. They are awesome.

This is perhaps one of the most unified representative teams Australia has produced (and we've had some good ones). Everyone is pulling in the same direction.

We've drawn on tactics from numerous elite mens clubs around Australia and forged our own playing style out of it.

There are pleasant surprises we've noticed too: how far Mark Evans can huck, that there is a separate room for Denyer to snore in, Matty is off the injured list and on the field, and Woodley is on the D line.

Our training venue has been Canberra, where it is a little cool this time of year.

Specific feedback for your O game

2011-07-26T23:04:00.005+10:00

Giving quality feedback in ultimate can be challenging.

Here is a draft of a list that can help selectors, coaches and team leaders give more meaningful feedback to players than "work on your throws and cutting".

Each dotpoint has some specific examples after it.

List of Offence Skills

Players create easy offence by

throwing to teammates wherever they are (throw hucks; throw hammers)
throwing to make teammates open (throw break or open-side to favour teammates, not defenders)
throwing quickly (throw as soon as an opportunity appears; prevent the defence from getting a mark on, or being in position when guarding)
throwing safely (keep throwing completion rate high; seeing where defenders and help-defenders are)
moving to make teammates open (clear the break side, open side, deep and under as needed; regularly draw their defender with them)
moving at the right time (run downfield while their defender watches a huck; get to dump position early; cut one way then another at the right time for the next pass)
being athletic (catch swill that is high or wide; outrun defenders; outaccelerate defenders)
working within the team O structure (talk to teammates on field; know and use the team's patterns; don't ask teammates to make hard throws or cuts with your cuts or throws)

With eight categories listed, it is now easy to choose, say, two strengths and two aspects to work on. This keeps feedback concise, but specific.

Try them out on yourself now!

Any skills to add or change?

Positions on offence ain't positions on defence

2011-07-23T15:07:00.004+10:00

Just because you are a handler on offence, doesn't mean you will always serve your team best by defending handlers.

Just because you are a receiver on offence, doesn't mean you will always serve your team best by defending receivers.

Those were the main messages I got from this article on basketball matchups.

In fact, the traditional convention of 3 handlers, 2 mids/cutters and 2 longs/receivers might have served a purpose for assigning pull reception roles for a few plays in the past, but it doesn't describe what most players are doing in most systems these days.

I know that the 2008 Dingoes had a variety of roles.

Player A: on offence, a handler who didn't huck and was a semi-regular deep threat; on defence he defended handlers
Player B: on offence, a handler and in-cutter; on defence he defended handlers and under cutters, but got blocks when he could afford to poach off his man
Player C: on offence, an in-cutter; on defence he defended handlers
Player D: on offence, a long; on defence he defended handlers or cutters

So a different system might be needed to describe roles, particularly for defence. Being called a "handler" doesn't tell you what your role is on defence.

Motivation

2011-06-12T22:18:00.000+10:00

"You can motivate by fear, and you can motivate by reward. But both those methods are only temporary. The only lasting thing is self motivation."
-- Homer Rice, football coach

Fitness for ultimate athletes

2011-06-02T23:49:00.001+10:00

There is so much valuable information on ultimate fitness now online.

I have discovered lots of new ideas through Skyd.

Tim Morrill and Melissa Witmer make use of videos to explain how to build fitness for ultimate. They are both professional fitness trainers and ultimate players, who have investigated how to improve your conditioning specifically for ultimate. I haven't seen many others who can claim all three of these things, and are sharing their stuff with the world.

Here's a taste.

Signs of not using the elbow

2011-05-24T07:46:00.000+10:00

Here are some signs of a player not using their elbow when throwing a forehand

The disc turns over in flight (too much outside in)
The player thrusts their hips forward and shoulders back as they throw a forehand.
The elbow remains close to the waist before or after the throw.
The player cannot throw a wide forehand.
The player is using a split finger grip (so they can hold the disc out horizontally, without it flopping down). Holding the disc vertically removes this need.

Any others?

To correct this, the player can hold the disc vertically, with their elbow out from their body and back.

Practise a forehand throwing motion several times and then throw, emphasising two things:

Rolling your wrist under, not over, so it finishes palm up
Moving your elbow through

Practice your action

2011-05-14T19:54:00.002+10:00

Tiger Woods, maybe the best golfer ever, practises his golf swing action just before every shot.

Steve Nash, maybe the best shooter in basketball ever, practises his free throw action just before every free throw.

Here's the idea behind it.

What do you do before each pull?

Video analysis

2011-05-14T19:52:00.002+10:00

After 10 years of pondering why some people struggle to throw forehands, watching video gave me numerous new insights.

Every ultimate player who wants to play at an elite level needs to watch some basic footage of themselves. Start with throwing. Then you can move onto game footage, and footage of other skills like marking, guarding, positioning for high discs, cutting and laying out.

Even better: organise a videographer for your team for a training or tournament.

Replay and slow-motion give you a chance to see what you only glimpse in real time.

There's a reason dozens of people around the world get paid to edit footage of sports for coaches: video helps you learn how you and your opponents play. And feedback is critical to improvement.

Fixing that forehand

2011-05-01T16:33:00.005+10:00

There are 5 fundamental points to throwing a disc: grip, stance, snapping your wrist, angling the disc and pointing on the follow-through.

You can remember it as GSWAP.

Rob and Brodie have demonstrated these points or similar ones.

But have you seen players whose forehands curve over with too much outside in? Despite you mentioning these points? Do they look like this?

GSWAP needs an update.

Number 1: rolling your wrist under, not over

Number 2: moving your elbow through.

These two ideas are linked.

You can practice the first point now: hold a disc (or an imaginary one) in forehand grip, but hold it vertically so your palm faces down. Pretend to throw, and finish with your palm up. This counteracts the outside-in curve that is a regular problem.

To assist this correct rotation, you need to use your elbow. If your elbow is locked in next to your waist, rolling your wrist under is awkward - your wrist prefers to roll over from palm up to palm down.

So free your elbow!

Get into forehand stance again. Hold a disc in forehand grip with your palm down. But this time start with your elbow out, back and bent at 90°.

As you swing your elbow forward, you have more power. Your wrist will more naturally rotate under, from palm down to palm up. Follow through with your palm up.

It looks more like this.

Or you can watch Rob and Brodie.

Here are the 5 updated fundamental points to throwing a forehand: grip, stance, rolling your wrist under with snap, swing the elbow, and pointing palm up on the follow-through. You can remember it as GSWEP.

Thanks to Mama for demonstrating the throws.

What Xs and Os miss

2011-03-19T22:31:00.011+11:00

Consider a coach diagramming a play on paper.

For a 20 metre pass, whether the thrower has a backhand or forehand stance is usually irrelevant. The thrower is a small dot on a diagram and that is that.

But when the throw is 3 metres or even 1 metre, how the thrower is standing, or how wide apart their feet are, or exactly what angle the marker is taking away, are critical points. The Xs and Os of a written diagram don't point out where the thrower's left foot, right foot are, or where they are holding the disc.

Footwork becomes more critical when the throws are smaller. And where to land your feet. And where to hold the disc. And the reduced reaction time of defenders.

This is really apparent in the short range passing of popping against a zone. I've never used a diagram to illustrate tactics for popping. You cannot show the smaller scale, for instance, how footwork can move the disc 8 metres, even when the disc is only passed 1 metre.

Learning patterns

2011-02-22T07:33:00.001+11:00

My approach to team tactics has changed over the years.

I am now thinking in terms of patterns instead of rules.

In our club trainings, we train certain cuts for the dump for instance. But it is a pattern of behaviour that we encourage and repeatedly practise - not a rule.

We have patterns for scoring in the redzone, starting a defence point, playing in a zone, cutting to set up power position and cutting long. But these aren't phrased as rules or set plays. Big advantage - just about any one-off behaviour/cut/action is fine. What is focussed on is building habits we desire. We talk about and praise players using the patterns effectively, but we can improvise if needed. Our feedback conversations sound like "You can cut long using diamond cuts more. It was so easy when you did it that first point last game."

In contrast, a set play can set up teammates for criticism: "You were meant to cut break, then long." "But John cut to the wrong place first." Built into the feedback are ideas of what is right, and that one person did the wrong thing.

So many players accept entering a major tournament when a set play is barely mastered by half the team, and only sometimes successful. I want every completed pass to be viewed as a positive, and the best connections viewed as big wins for our team.

Only recently have I been able to recognise and articulate what this philosophy is: patterns instead of rules.

It works because we have an established group of players who have experience together. We can now predict where each other will go on the field, and we have made conscious decisions in planning sessions about the best positions to encourage players to go to.

Roles in a team

2010-11-21T18:28:00.000+11:00

Success for a team is about the team members working for each other.

Individuals taking it upon themselves to do the things that need doing. Now this can happen spontaneously in many cases. However, success comes along more often when these things are articulated, planned for and recognised.

I realised there a lot of roles that that can be filled in a team, and if you don't have a manager or coach, players step up to do them. Particularly when you let them know that the work is valuable and they are trusted to do it their way.

Player roles

puller
first cutter
dump denier
long cutter
hucker
aerial defender
finishers/goal catcher
disher
structure setter

Coach roles

skill teacher
motivator
organiser
optimist
reviewer
line caller
sideline talker
tactician

Manager Roles

finances
food
uniforms
venues
registration

At the representative level, Australia is steadily delineating these roles, and finding the people who will be managers and coaches, so the players can focus on their playing roles.

Got others?

Forehand grip angles

2010-09-30T17:21:00.001+10:00

Rob shows how lots of forehand snap equals more spin on the disc.

The part I am interested in is the plane of the disc: like many experienced ultimate players, just before throwing, the disc is held vertical or past the vertical. At release, it is horizontal.

Beginner forehands usually have too much outside in, because the thrower rolls their wrist over: palm up to palm down. Expert forehands are thrown flat, generally because the wrist rolls the opposite way: palm down to palm up.

Try it now without a disc.

Yet who has ever taught players this, after they have mastered the GSWAP basics of throwing?

My big question is how early (first lesson, first month, first year) do we need to teach this wrist roll to those learning ultimate? I know some experienced players who need to try it, to see if their forehands will benefit.

It starts with holding the disc vertical, or even partly upside down. Like Dan does here.

Have you ever played gritz?

2010-08-20T12:16:00.000+10:00

I have played mini, schtick, flutterguts and other games. I'll have to try gritz.

GritZ from GriTz on Vimeo.

Tournament wish list

2010-08-12T15:46:00.000+10:00

A few months ago, I got to attend two amazing tournaments: TEP and Lei Out.

Looking back, I would say they are definitely on my list of all-time great tournaments. So I started a wishlist of other great tournaments I wish to play at one day.

Bar Do Peixe (in Portugal)
Paganello (Italy)
Poultry Days (USA)

Any others that I ought to put on my list?

WUCC2010

2010-08-07T18:25:00.007+10:00

World Clubs 2010 wrapped up just over a month ago.

It was the biggest WFDF championships I can recall. I caught up with friends from Germany, UK, Canada, USA, Colombia, Mexico, Hungary, New Zealand, the Dominican Republic, the Netherlands and Italy. It's a great social event.

HoS and Skogs sky for a disc

USA won the Open, Womens, Mixed and Masters divisions. UNO from Japan and Onyx from Canada prevented American hegemony by making their respective finals, and preventing 4 all-American finals. UNO won over the crowd in the Women's final, and a dropped hammer in the penultimate point seemed to be the difference as Fury squeaked home on universe point (note - if you are playing league and it is 15-15 and next point wins, I'd call it golden point or last-point-wins. "Universe point" is better reserved for winning, say, the World Championship final).

The Spirit rankings are online too: Open, Women, Mixed and Masters.

Standout Australian spirit rankings ~~finishes~~ were Colony (6th), Heads of State (8th), Smurf (8th), and Eastern Greys (3rd). Unfortunately, Australian finally broke its run of winning Spirit in minimum one division. Meanwhile the Germans backed up a first and second in WUGC2008 spirit by winning spirit in Mixed and Womens in 2010.

The individual stats are at the bottom of those pages, lead by Masahiro Matsuno (Open), Becky LeDonne (Womens), Tim Lavis (Mixed) and Tom Rogacki (Masters).

The Open final between Sockeye and Revolver

Man on Wire

2010-05-29T14:53:00.001+10:00

Just saw Man on Wire. A story about a physical challenge as a creative act and a team project. Some overlap with team sport there.

At one point, Philippe Petit says:

"And slowly I thought, ok, now it is impossible. That's sure. So let's start working."

That's the mindset of someone really chasing their goal.

A first step in statistics

2010-05-09T19:37:00.007+10:00

In the NBA, they have shot charts for each game which show where each shot was attempted from and whether it was complete or not. Here's an example for a Cavs win over the Celtics.

In ultimate, when the statistical revolution gains steam, we should track how and where teams score with the disc and where they turn over the disc.

Where does the disc go dead/get dropped? Where is it thrown from? Are sideline hucks more risky? Is a team getting stuck on the sideline?

We could also log the time between throws and catches, to identify how quickly the disc is actually moving in an offence, and whether this correlated positively or negatively with scoring a goal, for a particular team.

Time caps and points caps

2010-05-08T23:12:00.001+10:00

I feel like I spend too much time during games checking what the time cap and points cap are, and calculating what my team is playing to.

Over the years, tournament directors have decreed too many different ways for games to end in their tournaments.

This is a call for two systems: we play with the official WFDF points cap and time cap at major tournaments, and we play with a simplified points cap and time cap at all other events. Call them Championship caps and Recreational caps.

It's tricky enough that we need two caps to decide when a game is over, without having multiple possible time caps, points caps, within-one-add-one, and within-two-add-one complications. I understand the reasons for having both caps - let's keep it as simple as possible beyond that.

Reviewing Australian Nationals 2010

2010-05-02T13:48:00.001+10:00

The theme for Nationals 2010 seemed to be getting the rewards for years of work.

In the open division, I-Beam from Newcastle were champions, with a 12-9 pre-semi win over HoS, a 15-14 semi-final win over Colony Pillage and a 14-13 win over Colony Plunder in the final. I think they are first open team to win a semi-final after playing a pre-semi.

I-Beam had an offense that hummed like a machine irrespective of the defence they faced. They had great throwing and receiving depth on their line, though they only had around 14 players at Nationals (an exception to my rule-of-thumb that more players = winning at Nationals). They went through two of the strongest teams at the tournament to win: Colony Pillage and Colony Plunder.

The final saw a more American style height range - lots of athletic guys six foot or under, which is how many US open rosters look. Only Ant Dowle and Tatts seemed to be the exception. Past dominant open teams seemed to always have a good number of giants on the field.

In the women's division, Team Box met Wildcard Clubs in the final, for the third time in four years. This time they had the deeper team, and dominated Wildcard to avenge the two finals losses of previous years.

Hard work and talent development pays off, kids.

How do you teach Spirit?

2010-04-17T19:42:00.001+10:00

I helped deliver 10 workshops on Spirit of the Game in Colombia last year through Project Play Colombia. I had never done anything like it before, and the experience has now given me a lot more food for thought on how you would teach Spirit to a team or group of players.

Possible elements:

practising how to learn the rules, through a role play of a scenario and then group discussion (either en masse or in pairs, then everyone)
discussion of the players' interpretation and understanding of what Spirit is
play a game with a prize at stake (or nominate an important game in the near future). Film the game, then watch the footage, discussing the calls made by both team
give each player a rule to learn, and refer to them when a relevant call arises during a scrimmage
discuss how you perceive your team's Spirit, and then bring in people external to the team (particularly rivals) for their perceptions

Some of these things can be done in a one-time event. However, like a lot of learning, many are best done on several occasions with the team or setting where you want to see it used.

Open Spirit winners of WUCC2006, Fakulti

Olympics and ultimate

2010-03-04T22:03:00.001+11:00

FFindr has a post on why ultimate is not in the Olympics.

I am not a huge supporter of getting ultimate in the Olympics. My goals for ultimate are growing the number of players at all levels, maintaining the positive aspects of our sport and improving the weaknesses.

Growing the number of players and public awareness is the path to getting to the Olympics. But the benefit of being in the Olympics is the same thing. Plus a slight sense of "ha, I told you I play a real sport on the weekends" which is pretty self-righteous, and worth avoiding.

Being admitted to the Olympics would likely mean changes to our sport that we may not want: different rules or refereeing, large corporations influencing the direction of the sport, people playing for the money, not the enjoyment or competition. There are some ugly aspects to the Olympics.

The Olympics are not the only time and place for great international sporting competition - the IOC and the funds of sponsors just work hard to make it seem that way.

10 metre throw

2010-01-31T21:43:00.009+11:00

Ok, here's the scenario. You're the thrower in the middle of the field. Your stall count is on 5.

The marker is forcing straight up on you, knees bent, his long arms spread out wide. A cutter is running straight at you from 20 metres upfield. He is very open.

A wide release backhand would be really tough because of another cutter clearing out nearby on that side with his defender, and your marker's large wingspan.

A wide release forehand would be tough as well, because your dump's defender is near that side. And you have the big arms of your marker to deal with.

Do you have a high release throw that can hit this cutter?

If your answer is "no", then you likely have to turn, engage your dump, and your team will reset the offence.

If your answer is "yes, I have a throw for this" then you can gain yards, and can attack (because throwing is a great starting place for a cut, whether it's cutting upfield 8 metres for a dishy pass back, or a long cut deep or flaring wide to draw your defender out of there).

The throw only needs to travel 10 metres. A little float to it will make it easier to catch. It is only a "twitch" throw (requires no significant wind-up, or repositioning of your torso by lunging etc).

Twitch throws give the marker no time to react if you have the disc in a position ready to release, and they don't have their hand in the way. Twitch backhands seem like a big new trend for North American elite open ultimate.

I have thought about this scenario a bit, and seeing how often a "no" slows down the offence can be painful to watch. I have thrown more and more scoobers in the last 12 months in this scenario, which is a throw from either forehand stance, backhand stance or while pivoting across.

And I am working on getting more and more high backhands and high forehands out (for the backhand and forehand stances respectively). One way to get there - lots of three man drill (aka thrower-marker drill), making sure you are in ready stance and with the stall count coming in on 9.

Spirit at TEP Medellín

2009-12-16T12:02:00.001+11:00

The final part of the academic program of TEP was a forum focussed on spirit and development of the sport. Eight presentations were given on ultimate and growth in Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, USA, Canada, the Dominican Republic and Australia. I gave a talk on Australian ultimate. My focus was basically the "other ultimate" that is a big part of our community, calendar and culture, as it is to varying degrees in many countries.

During the tournament itself, every game that I saw was a positive experience.

For the spirit prizes, the winners for TEP 2009 were Revolution in the women´s division and Sockeye in the men´s. The TD, Mauro, was very happy that two finalists took home the spirit awards, illustrating his point that spirit is compatible with high level play.

My personal experiences included calling, discussing, then withdrawing two fouls in the game against Kiê, and bottling up some serious frustration against Warao. That involved getting fouled on a throw (and feeling the smack firmly on the back of my hand), and then four Warao sideline players instinctively yelling "no" loudly when I called foul. The lack of perspective or trust from them had me silently jumping up and down for seconds, wanting to yell back.

My team Oso-Matanga had none of the really negative experiences of Nationals. The wish to play with spirit was repeatedly mentioned by several of our leaders. This really reaped rewards against a team like Warao who were motivated and who we knew to be a big challenge, but we seem to deflate them by discussing calls calmly and briefly, and even accepting some tight line-calls that weren´t in our favour. They lacked "fire" as a result, which helped us play our game, and win. I felt that we had decided to make the game spirited, and we controlled this.

I received the even more cheery news that Oso played a very spirited rematch against Euforia two weeks later, in the final of Disco Volador 2600. Without foreigners like Sockeye or Furious (or myself) around, and with some established hotheads back on both teams, these two rivals met in an important final and played a spirited game. I hope it is a pattern from here on in.

Day 3 of TEP Medellín 2009 - the finals

2009-11-30T17:14:00.002+11:00

The women's semis were up first. Riot toppled Wayra convincingly. The other game was tighter. Traffic struggled to contain the break throws of Revolution, and were pipped in the end - a North American team was defeated by a Colombian team. These are the milestones in the progress of South American ultimate.

The men's semis followed. Warao (Venezuela) threw everything at Sockeye, but Sockeye prevailed 15-9.

In the Oso - Furious match-up, we jumped to 2-0 lead, prompting an emotional timeout from Furious George. They pegged it back to 6-6, Oso's speed matching Furious' experience and height. But the story of the game soon matched that of many other previous games: a Colombian team unable to maintain composed offence and pressure defence once the legs fatigue slightly. Furious ran out 15-9 winners.

Oso working against the Furious zone

After lunch, the women's final took place before an audience of around 1500. Riot vs Revolution. Team names these days sound like everyone wants to fight the system...

Revolution have so many young players - almost everyone is a teenager. Their skills were so impressive. The score edged from 4-4 to 8-7 Riot, and then the North American dominance prevailed, as Riot pulled out the win 15-10. Awesome match for spectators.

Riot (black) and Revolution (pink) after the final

The men's final was a classic derby between Sockeye and Furious. I believe the first time either team took a two-point lead was Furious at 12-10. Then Sockeye stepped up. They clawed back points to come to 13-13. A Sam Harkness block of a huck to Andrew Brown helped them go to 14-13.

Then on match point, the primary handler for Furious, Mauro Ortiz, stayed on the bench. On the second pass, Skip Sewell read the throw of the replacement Furious handler to perfection, with a layout block. Possession to Sockeye. A pass or two, and the disc is on the endzone line. Is it in? Reminiscent of the final moment of 2005 World Games, the players finally agree it is a goal, and Sockeye are inaugural open champions of the Torneo Eterna Primavera.

Scobel photographs Hassell getting one over Seth

A great finish by Sockeye, with two athletic defensive plays on the end of a long and hot tournament, to cap a 4-1 comeback and win. An ideal spectacle of elite, spirited ultimate for Colombian players and fans to see at the conclusion of the biggest ever ultimate event in South America.

Big congratulations to Mauro Moore and his colleagues for creating such an impressive event. Can't wait to see it return in the future.

Day 1 and 2 of TEP Medellín 2009

2009-11-28T15:06:00.004+11:00

My team, Oso, has now completed the pool games at TEP Medellín after two days. Most of the results are online now.

We polished off Mamoots, Argentina, Warao (from Venezuela) on day 1, and defeated Caobos (Venezuela) to start day 2.

The Sockeye game was enjoyable. We took an early 3-1 lead, held on til 7-6 down, then faded in the sun, to lose 15-8. Sockeye used their aggressive zone fairly often, with four tall guys up front trying to trap the disc.

Euforia (white) play Sockeye (red).

The final game of Friday for us was with Medellín's strongest team, Kie. The winner would advance to the semis, as we had both lost to Sockeye and defeated other teams in our pool. We pegged out an early 6-2 lead and kept it throughout, winning 15-10. Our team had four spectacular grabs, rivalled today only by Seth Wiggins' layout fading blade catch in a different game. Certainly fires up the team and the crowd.

Oso (white) with Kiê (blue)

Tomorrow we will play our semi-final with Furious. Their points differential per game (+5.5) is worse than Sockeye's (+7.3), so we theoretically have a better shot at a win than ~~Euforia~~ Warao, who emerge from the other pool to play Sockeye.

Furious and Sockeye are heavy favourites to meet in the final of course, but I am keen to see what happens.

Meanwhile in the women's, Riot topped Traffic in pool play. Both were otherwise undefeated. Revolution gave the best showing among the Colombian teams, losing 14-13 to Riot. Tomorrow, Riot will play Wayra and Traffic will meet Revolution.

Tonight is trade night, so I am sure no North American will leave without having traded their much-coveted uniforms from teams past.

Opening Night of TEP Medellín

2009-11-27T15:48:00.002+11:00

The opening ceremony for TEP was equivalent to that of any Worlds: a parade of nations, freestyle demonstrations, dance routines, national anthems, thanks to the volunteers, and an audience hungry for the demonstration game.

The opening game for TEP was Canada vs USA, consisting of players from Riot, Sockeye, Traffic and Furious George.

The stands filled up so the spectators without seats were asked to sit down on the field too.

The match started strongly with barely a break for the first 8-9 points. Then errors crept in. USA proved too strong, and won by a few.

The best part was having a few thousand ultimate players and others getting to watch a high quality match featuring stars of the North American game.

6 days of coaching

2009-11-26T03:06:00.004+11:00

Just finished 6 long days of coaching in the TEP Academic Program.

First was a day coaching the sports teachers from the INDER Escuelas Populares.

Day 2 and 3 was training coaches from all over the country (and Mexico), along side players from Riot and Furious George. Without much background on the coaches or chance to plan together, we started with a session finding out what they wanted to learn. We explained many of the approaches and organisational systems of our teams. The second day was smoother, giving all the attendees opportunities to coach the others (who role-played beginner players) and then evaluate that coaching.

There is an insatiable thirst for ultimate knowledge here in Colombia - folks are keen to learn whatever they can. And when players from some of the strongest clubs in the world turn up, they will ask questions on everything.

I also discovered there are three accredited ultimate coaches in Colombia. They did a course in Bogotá through a state department. I'll find out more.

On Day 4 and 5, Alyson and I coached a high school team from Colegio de San José de Las Vegas. They were boys from 13-16 years old. We worked with them on their offensive cutting system (they have a fairly sophisticated set-up) and their marking of the thrower (they are lacking a lot of fundamentals). I think there will be more instances of this in the near future - Colombians implementing whatever new info they discover, when they haven't been presented with fundamentals first.

The lads had excellent patience to train for seven hours a day for two days. By the end, they had a dynamic zone offence, improved marking and guarding, stronger pulls and impressive O flow, due to the effort they put in. So impressive. And this was a team that was already one of the strongest high schools in all of Latin America.

In some ways, the Colombians have better development pathways than Australia. Three of the Las Vegas high school players train and compete with the senior men's clubs, and many clubs (men and women) here have junior teams (16-20 year olds). There are many instances of talented teenagers moving into the senior competitions with lots of tutelage.

Day 6 was a visit to an Escuela Popular. Picture 30 kids from 6 to 19 years old on a hot, dry, sand soccer pitch, plonked in the middle of a sea of three-storey housing. An occasional dog wanders through, and frisbees worn down to 3/4 of their original weight fly everywhere. Every kid has a solid forehand, but most have shoes that have seen much better days. The two teachers organised the introductions, then we spent two hours coaching and having fun. The level of chaos slowly increased, and we left to catch our bus at the end, with swarms of kids wanting autographs on shirts and shorts.

There are somewhere between 600 and 1200 kids in the region, learning ulti through these Escuelas Populares. Creating social change and teaching life-skills to overcome disadvantaged backgrounds are the main aims. The teachers are doing awesome work.

The INDER program in Medellín

2009-11-19T17:07:00.003+11:00

INDER is the sports department in the Colombian city of Medellín.

They manage lots of public sports facilities and programs, including Las Escuelas Populares, devoted solely to teaching sport to youth. There are about 50 escuelas here, and about 14 run ultimate. I am told that INDER love ultimate (well, they are certainly funding and supporting TEP).

They also offer scholarships to a selected 30 of the hundreds of students learning ultimate in the escuelas, many who are from disadvantaged backgrounds. The scholarships give them some funding for uniforms, travel, food and an invitation to play with the elite ultimate clubs in Medellín.

Basically its awesome. Four of the girls came along to today's coaching workshop for teachers from the escuelas populares today, and had fun. Ultimate seems to be a pretty fantastic aspect of their lives now.

The workshop itself was an chance for teachers to problem-solve their issues related to constructively resolving calls on the fields, gender inequalities, building comradery with other teams and teaching self-refereeing. Maddy and Loriana (from Riot), Eva (Traffic) and I were the organisers.

Also, 30 more people now know how to play schtick. They were possibly the best group of beginners I've ever seen playing schtick.

Today's workshop was one of the dozens of coaching sessions that 13 players from Riot, Traffic and Furious George (plus Nicky and I) are running during the 7-day academic program. Medellín ultimate is being bombarded with coaching. This is the epicentre of ultimate coaching anywhere in the world this week (maybe this year?), and the major cultural differences ensures everyone is learning something (have you ever coached with a translator?).

Tomorrow, and Friday, I am working with 30 university and club coaches of ultimate from around the country. Saturday and Sunday I help coach a university team, while Monday and Tuesday will be the big forum “Convivencia y desarrollo en el Ultimate: Respiraprofundo”. Monday will also see our North American coaches visit the 14 different Escualas Populares to run a session with the kids.

Torneo Eterna Primavera: TEP Medellín 2009

2009-11-08T16:05:00.007+11:00

TEP Medellín 2009 will be an impressive tournament. TEP is the biggest thing Colombian Ultimate has ever organised. It is effectively a Pan-American championships with teams coming from Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Canada and the US. It will be one of the best tournaments of the year, anywhere.

The Institute of Sport and Recreation, Medellín, is investing some serious funds into the tournament. These funds are supporting the travel and accommodation costs of Furious George, Traffic, Sockeye and Riot.

I stayed at the apartment of Mauro Moore, the TD, for a few days last month, and he has been working on this tournament since about March. There are mountains of discs, rulebooks, jerseys, cones and more, filling one of his rooms.

TEP is more of a gala event than just a tournament. Along side the main three-day ultimate tournament are a one-day mini-hat tournament, a three-day guts clinic, a three-day guts tournament, and the first Pan-American WFDF congress. A lot of things are on the scale of a Worlds or World Clubs tournament.

The venue for the ultimate is Unidad Deportiva Atanasio Girardot, the premier sporting complex in Medellín. Selected ultimate games will be broadcast live on TeleMedellín, a local TV station.

Additionally, in the week prior to the tournament, there is an academic program. This will involve seminars, forums and training sessions for new and experienced ultimate players and teams. There is even a workshop on ultimate photography, presented by the experienced Scobel Wiggins. I have been invited to contribute to some of these academic events, including a forum on international experiences of ultimate and community transformation through ultimate. That last topic may not mean much in a Western country, but in a country like Colombia it has relevance.

The ultimate starts on November 26th; the academic program on November 17th.

Exploring parameter space

2009-10-28T13:21:00.003+11:00

(Warning, this is post is nerdy, even for a blog about ultimate. Read with caution.)

There is a well-known throwing set in Australia. Part of it includes throwing forehands and backhands. For the backhands, you vary the angle: throw 10 outside-in throws, then 10 flat throws, then 10 inside-out throws. Then likewise for forehands.

There are two parameters at work here: backhand/forehand, and the throwing angle.

Someone chose two options for the first parameter and three options for the second. So in total we have 2 x 3 = 6 options, right?

Basic maths, but we often shun certain possibilities created by multiplying the parameters.

A few years back, some folks must have looked at the release points of throws: low-release backhand, I can do that, medium-height release backhand, check, high-release backhand, yep can do. Three options on that side. For the forehands, low and medium, yes - but who could throw the high-release? Wasn't that a bit hard or silly? But it was tested and practised and mastered and now there are 15 year old kids in Ibagué and Seattle and Osaka who can nail it, after we had spent years shunning that seemingly awkward corner of parameter space.

What else is out there?

Look out for reverse forehands. What's a reverse forehand?

Well, in the beginning there were right-handed people. And right-handed folk liked throwing right-handed. To reach wider, they pivoted by moving their right foot. And all was good. Then along came the lefty backhand, and these folk started using it - because the 3 metre forehand is so pesky when throwing a little dump pass. And this involved not moving the feet, because habits are habits, and it was hard enough to change hands without thinking about feet too.

Recently along came those right-handed folk who worked out how to throw lefty backhands and pivot with that left foot. And they had more options. And all was good.

However they were only using half the parameter space of left/right hand and left/right foot.

What about another point in this parameter space: moving the left foot to throw right-handed? We've all "corrected" a beginner who was pivoting that way, and we've pointed out that it was the "wrong" way to pivot, because it gives you less reach. Plus we humans find it comforting to tell others that they are wrong, especially when they say "oh, I see" shortly afterwards.

But what about when this "wrong" pivot gives you more reach? Stand facing your target, feet just over one metre apart, disc in right hand. You have a certain reach out to your right side for that righty forehand. But if, instead, you move your left foot to the right, voila, one metre more reach. And a marker caught off guard by a unsuspected pivot foot.

You get all the reach of a surprise lefty backhand, with the power and accuracy of your well-known righty forehand. The idea is to not commit to a pivot foot until you are ready to throw. Idris pointed out that you usually don´t need to pivot anyway.

Those who follow cricket might see an analogy with the sweep shot and the newer reverse sweep (which used to be "wrong", but now is important in one-day cricket).

And what about zone defences and parameter space? Zones are often described by a few numbers that add to 7: for instance, the 3-3-1 zone and the 1-3-2-1 zone. Why not try your own combination of numbers, then try to construct a zone out of it?

For me, this mindset of parameters moves me away from thinking "right" and "wrong", towards three approximate groupings: "tested and currently working", "tested and not working currently" and "untested".

Lastly, avoid facehorns from your teammates, and use the word "options" instead of "parameters" if you are throwing ideas around at a team training.

A week of clinics

2009-10-26T16:07:00.005+11:00

Lucho, Laurel, Nicky and I have finished our fifth and last clinic for this mini-tour. We now have lots of friends in the cities of Cali and Ibagué.

We aimed to leave the players with a friendly and positive experience of ultimate shared with players they usually only play against. We shared our perspectives on spirit from our three countries. And offered some tools for the future: proactive methods for learning spirit, tips for discussing calls on the field and activities to use after an ultimate match.

All the players were so welcoming of new ideas, and so many offered thanks for the clinics. The challenge now is to evaluate them and see what impact they make on the communities we visited. They can't just vanish into the past - the aim of the clinics is to help build the communication and spirit in ongoing local ultimate.

By the way, if one day you ever see that topless dude in this photo, holding up a trophy for winning a major tournament in the future, I met him when he was just learning to play ultimate in Cali, and moving like Bruce Lee.

During the week, we also got to participate in a demo-game during half-time of a Cali futbol match. A few dramatic macs and hucks entertained the soccer fans. It was a very exciting experience for the local ultimate players out on the beautiful turf under the big lights. It was eight minutes of fun before the paid professionals returned to play their sport and not layout.

There was also a day of ultimate in Ibagué on Saturday - hot, humid and fun.

Project Play Colombia

2009-10-20T12:19:00.000+11:00

Project Play Colombia is a project worth checking out. There is a blog and a facebook page.

The aim is to develop conflict resolution skills in ultimate players while teaching the skills of ultimate.

The project is run by Lucho, a mover and shaker on the Colombian ultimate scene who has recently returned from the fertile fields of Vancouver ultimate.

Laurel, Nicky and I will be his fellow coaches for a series of clinics this week in the cities of Cali and Ibagué. We will run clinics with established men's, women's and university clubs.

A proposal for building stronger spirit

2009-10-17T22:10:00.009+11:00

My last post talked about my observations with spirit in Colombia and, to an extent, Venezuela. Between my arrival here in Colombia, the recent Huddle blogposts on spirit and the discussion on line assistants in Australia, the topic seems, well, topical.

There are several factors at work when spirit goes bad.

I believe one of the key ones is a “them and us” attitude. A minority of players adopt a mindset that individuals, or other teams in general, have behaved poorly and are likely to do so again in the future. These other people are framed as “them” in comparison to “us”.

“They” are cheats; “they” often play dirty; “they” think “we” shouldn't have won that last match, but “they” are wrong.

This attitude is built by what ultimate is available.

In Australia, players train and compete with elite clubs during the elite season. It is “them” and “us”.

But, importantly, there is also Other Ultimate, which elite men take part in. There are weekly mixed city leagues. There are numerous mixed tournaments. There are hat tournaments. There are numerous training camps and selection events prior to World Championships. And Australia tends to do well in spirit scores at international tournaments. A bit of a leap to assume causation, but the extent of Other Ultimate in other countries and their reputation for spirit seems to roughly correlate, at first glance.

And this Other Ultimate forces elite players to play with, socialise with and befriend other players outside their club. Ultimate becomes a community, moreso than a collection of clubs where some players happen to know other players, and socialise when they happen to meet.

In a true community, “them” and “us” dissolve into just “us”.

So this is a theory. And there are some facts I have pointed out that seem to support it.

I don't think refining spirit score systems or adding observers address this underlying issue.

I have a different proposal.

The proposal is for the countries and regions that have the desire, to build community through “other ultimate”.

The national organisations and local leaders can build “other ultimate” through many means: ask elite clubs to host hat tournaments, build an annual calendar where mixed ultimate and open/womens ultimate doesn't clash, subsidise travel or minimise travel costs in general, expand selection and development events for National teams, hold gala dinners where a broad range of folk can attend, create incentives for the open club season to be restricted to certain months. When US players head to Kaimana and Paganello on teams with a real mix of players, as they regularly do, this is a positive thing.

And a big "goodonya" for everyone who has built and is building this ultimate.

In the end, with Other Ultimate in place, it's much less likely that Joe Handler will yell abuse at Fred Receiver and complain about Fred when he is in the pub that night, if Fred is on his mixed league team and played a hat tournament with him last year.

Spirit in Colombia

2009-10-16T02:04:00.002+11:00

In my two weeks in Colombia, I have seen some worrying incidents relating to spirit in the open division. I have also had a number of Colombians and non-Colombians recount incidents of very poor spirit to me, from intense arguing and border-line cheating to pushing, shoving and punching on the field.

My previous experiences with South American men's ultimate were playing a very fiery Venezuela team and a more subdued Colombian team at Worlds 2008. I also saw that South American teams had very low rankings in Spirit scores for Worlds 2008 in a number of divisions, particularly Open.

The poor spirit has arisen particularly in certain team match-ups and from certain players.

Many other games across Regionals and Nationals had excellent spirit, and this was acknowledged after the game within the teams.

But in a way, spirit is a chain as strong as its weakest link.

Immediately after those disappointing quarterfinals at Nationals, I started talking to players about spirit. It seems to be evolving into a social research project worthy of several PhDs. The more people I talk to, the more I learn.

Many players are aware of the issues with spirit, and have pointed out a range of factors: the strong focus on club ultimate, the culture and history of Colombia (as this Columbian columnist discusses, this country has had "una cultura de justificación de la violencia y de la venganza"), the isolation from other international ultimate, and the lack of restraints or sanctions on those given power within teams.

In my next post, I'll offer an inkling of a proposal aimed at one of these factors. I have started to share this idea with the movers and shakers of Colombia during my time here, and see what they think of it. So far the responses have been supportive.

Colombian Nationals

2009-10-15T16:39:00.003+11:00

The inaugaral Colombian National Championships wrapped up in Medellín yesterday.

This is the first time Colombia has had an official National Championships, and the tournament followed on from the series of Regional Championships held during the previous weekends.

The playing venues were across three locations: a university, a public recreation centre and the big sports stadiums of the city. Half were grass, half were astroturf (sintética).

Word of mouth culture is strong here. I briefly glimpsed a draw once, but otherwise it was a case of ask someone what the games were (much like driving around the city - you don't use a map, you just stop and ask for directions from strangers every few blocks).

Day 1 saw my team, Comunidad de Oso, win its two easier pool games. One comfortably and in the other we fell across the line to win. Playing time was shared reasonably equally across the team, so I got a lot of chances to get my frisbee legs in gear.

Every team seems to have 2-4 excellent throwers who can get open, and put up decent hucks or big hammers, plus lefty backhands. Its the quality of the upfield cutters and the consistency of execution that often determines the game.

Day 2 started well. We defeated another Bogotá team, Matanga. Their poaching was quite effective, especially that of one of their key defenders who got two blocks and was inches from two more. Personally I connected on a number of good breaks and hucks, so it was rewarding to make a big contribution to a team I was so new to.

Then came the quarterfinal. Oso were matched up against key Bogotá rivals, Euphoria, who we had beaten by a point in the Regionals final. In front of a vocal crowd in the stadium, Euphoria grab a lead early. Then trouble starts. One captain calls back-to-back travel calls on hucks from the other captain. The game is held up while one captain demands observers.

Almost ten minutes later the game restarts with the TD pulled in as an observer (he has never been one in his life - no Colombian has). But the calls and argue rain down with the actual rain that arrived. Fouls, yelling, travel, and no respect for the opinions or decisions of opponents. The issues derived from a few key players on each team, but no-one made any effort to cool down any of the hotheads.

Oso claw back to 12 all. However my interest in winning this game has dwindled. What incentive is there to win an arguing competition? I wanted to compete at ultimate. My thoughts circled around the question of what small contribution I, an Australian in Colombia, could make to address this abysmally spirited match. I resolved to talk with the teams post-game and see if they needed to talk to each other.

Euphoria win the last point, and celebrate with gusto, as Oso despondently leave the field. I asked a few Euphoria players post-game if they were happy to talk with Oso and they said yes. But Oso were scattered to the winds of dismay and the key players I found were in no mood to converse, as I judged it.

So I put my feet up, watched some ultimate, and pondered what I had just experienced. The game I watched was another quarterfinal: Matanga vs Aire. Unfortunately this was another poorly spirited game. The last two points took 20 minutes in total, and Aire won the game by a point, mostly because Matanga lost the competition of "who can call the disc back the most times with a dodgy call".

To top things off, there was no party at this tournament, unlike the vast majority of tournaments in Australia.

Day 3 was at least a new day.

Oso played off for 6th vs Mamuts, but we lost in a lacklustre effort.

The finals were in Estadio Atanasio Girardot (pictured), where Colombia had played Chile in the FIFA World Cup qualifying match the night before. It was a great venue but a crowd of 200 ultimate players in a stadium of 53 000 seats rattles around like a handful of marbles in a bathtub.

Revolution defeated Waijra in the women's final, while Euphoria toppled Kie, the top team in Medellin to take the men's title. Both games had decent spirit.

So the theme uppermost in my mind here in Colombia is Spirit of the Game. My next post or two will offer some more optimistic thoughts on spirit, and reveal some amazing work being done here in Colombian ultimate.

From the sidelines: The Unselected

2009-10-06T02:05:00.006+11:00

The first 13 years of my ultimate career were a bit of a dream run. A number of factors gave me the chance to appear on representative teams for my state and country. I was on University Green and Gold teams, the Dingoes, and was selected to the demo games that have been held at Halibuts, Nationals and Melbourne Hats.

The last 12 months have been a turn-around – I have regularly joined the ranks of the unselected and benched.

Despite being a perspective that hasn't changed my opinions on selection events, methods and selectors, it has given me experience with emotions and thoughts of being on the outside, looking in. Indeed, I regularly considered that perspective when writing the AFDA Rep teams policy and Selectors Manual for the AFDA recently (useful for any team!).

The current example is that I am here in Colombia playing with a club team, Comunidad de Oso. I am a big unknown for Colombian players – overseas pickups are rare here, in comparison, to say Australia, where almost every university and club team has a recently arrived North American player.

Adding to the mix is that in games, every line is called. This a change from the self-managed playing time systems that I have usually experienced. In the past, those times when there have been lines called, it has been me calling them most of the time, as a captain or a coach, so when I do go to the bench, I have at least consulted myself!

So a few poor points in one training and one game have seen me down at the far end of the bench. I have aimed to take constructive steps: get a clear picture from the leadership of their thoughts, dump my frustration on friendly ears who will listen, be present if needed on-field, get some sideline Ds with talking, and get ready and in the right mindset for the next opportunity to show my game.

Let's see how the situation pans out from here...

A first look at ultimate in Colombia

2009-10-05T16:47:00.003+11:00

Last weekend I attended the Regional Championships for Bogotá. The top bracket of teams played their games at the venue I was at.

There was parity among the men's teams unlike anything I have seen – the four games were each decided by one or two points, and no team dominated at any stage. The sponge effect (one team sucks up the strong players in its area) usually makes having multiple, even teams from one place very difficult – look at the US (especially the flux in the Philly to NY region) and Australia. But Bogotá has avoided this, which creates a great competitive environment to develop elite ultimate.

Colombian ultimate has a number of the features that are common hallmarks of well-organised, competitive ultimate: tape for sidelines, lush green fields, many coaches and stat-takers, and O and D lines. There were quirks though, such as sideline players regularly wandering up to 5 metres(!) onto the field during play, teams with only one water bottle between 20 players, and many teams with a hodge-podge of shirts and shorts instead of full matching uniforms.

In terms of style, the stand-out feature was a strong habit of poaching off dumps to defend the forward throwing lanes. Dumps could jog behind the disc to get a reset pass without breaking a sweat, and regularly did so.

And in line with wandering onto the field not being an issue, things that would elsewhere be called as travel and offside were ignored here.

Hucks were limited, most likely because of the consistent breezes. I want to see Colombian ultimate in still conditions.

The stereotype of short, layout machines applied to a good number of players, but they weren't necessarily speedier than Australian ultimate players, which was another stereotype I wanted to check out.

Nationals starts this Saturday, the first time Colombia has had an official National Championships, and is sure to be fun.

Bound for Colombia

2009-09-18T04:02:00.001+10:00

In Australia, there have been more and more Colombian players around. I've met a few, and now it's my turn to take part in the Australia-Colombia exchange, as I am going to Colombia for 6 weeks.

While there, I plan to play in the Colombia National Championships and in the Torneo Eterna Primavera Medellín. Both tournaments will be held in the city of Medellín (cool weather, 3 million residents, culture, 2nd fiddle to Bogotá - think Melbourne with mountains). But I'll spend most of my time in Bogotá.

I've been invited to play with Communidad de Oso by Julian Bocanegra, who played with Fakulti in 2008 (quite the international exchange). And I'm excited!

I aim to post here a bit about ultimate in Colombia - the style of play, the coaching, the competitions and the plans. And Colombia do have plans - they went from little ultimate in 2001, to fielding five strong teams at Worlds 2008. TEP Medellín is an ambitious tournament, judging from the invite list (Sockeye, Furious, Riot and Traffic are on board), the marketing and the website.

Have any other Australians played in Colombia? I know Ben Wiggins and Idaho (Sockeye) visited last year.

The tools for throwing a break throw

2009-09-14T07:09:00.002+10:00

Being able to break the mark whenever you like is invaluable.

Here are the physical tools that will really help you.

1. A wide release.
Don't be tucking that elbow into your body.

2. Hip flexibility
If you can't move your upper body out over your non-pivot leg, you won't get wide.

3. Leg strength
You need to be able to lunge out wide and be balanced once you are out there.

Tex and Jonno demonstrate the tools, even if these examples aren't necessarily break throws.

The fourth quadrant

2009-07-19T13:23:00.001+10:00

As a player on the field, you have two modes you can be in: playing defence or playing offence.

And you can be involved with the throwing of the disc or the catching of the disc.

So put simply, there are four quadrants for the on-field roles: thrower and cutter (on offence), and their defensive counterparts, marker and guarder.

It can be worthwhile to evaluate which of these are your strengths, and which you have to work on.

Obviously the thrower role is critical for every player - a team with mostly poor throwers is not a strong team.

I think that the skills of a guarder are under-evaluated. Many folks I know have a very simple approach to guarding: "stay open-side, chase my cutter, get a block if can". There isn't much adapting to circumstance, and while you won't go too wrong, that isn't enough at the elite level. The corresponding skills for throwing, cutting and marking are far longer lists in the conscious and subconscious minds of many players.

There are many small goals and skills for a guarder:

Unnerve the cutter with my positioning
Talk to teammates
Steer the cutter back to the other defenders in the stack
Choose when to look over at the thrower and their stance
Bait the huck
Take a charge
Look to switch with a mismatched teammate

Mackey covers some more of this.

Principles of athletic conditioning

2009-07-02T23:47:00.000+10:00

In the last 12 months, I've rethought a few things in ultimate, both from a player's and coach's perspective.

Identifying what works is key to any decisions a coach makes about his or her team.

And this particularly applies to athletic conditioning, which for a small, amateur sport like ultimate is key.

Concepts of periodisation, measurement, goal-setting and individualisation are important.

But getting players to train can be the first goal. This requires setting fitness training in accessible places, setting out clearly what is required, establishing clear reporting guidelines And managing and preventing injuries during a season of training.

When it comes to ways to make players accountable for the work they do, making fitness competitive can be a big step. Give those who make the biggest gains or attend the most, the bragging rights. Give 'em rewards. Put races and challenges into the activities.

The goal of winning your big comp in 3 months time won't drive most players on most nights to bust a gut. But knowing that coming second in the next sprint would mean giving piggybacks and losing the food reward does motivate.

And this can all be simple and fun.

Ultimate has what footy needs

2009-05-16T11:39:00.003+10:00

I read an opinion piece on male sporting culture and women, which was written in the wake of the latest footy player sex scandal in Australia.

Ultimate (the mixed version) seems to be an example of what John Fitzgerald seeks.

How to defeat a heavy favourite

2009-05-13T21:53:00.002+10:00

The recipe is basically here.

In the context of ultimate, this means change your game and make your opponents play a different game.

You can run and gun on every turnover, or huck incessantly, or zone every point, or do all three. Or some other tactic that effectively changes the game away from a conventional contest where the favourite is favoured.

Sophisticated forces

2009-05-11T22:26:00.000+10:00

When I first started playing ultimate, forces were simple: backhand, forehand and force middle.

Since then I have seen more complexity - specific defences to pressure certain options for the offence, such as straight-up into one-way forces to pressure hucks in general, and funnel (one-way force with straight up on one sideline in the far half) to pressure hucks down the trapped sideline.

In one game at Nationals recently, my team had big successes taking away an opposing team's down the sideline hucks, by forcing middle. But we also wanted to pressure the hucks in the middle so we went more straight up the closer the disc was to the middle of the field. Call it Mesa - flat in the middle and angled on the sides. As we were defending closer to our own endzone this transitioned into a one-way force (the huck threat disappears and having a one-way force to rely is more valuable for a guarder.

I can also see the converse being an option: straight-up in the middle, moving to straight-up in the middle, for teams that you want to see trapped on the sideline. Call it Valley (the converse of Mesa).

Have you used these forces, or anything more sophisticated than just switching a force when the disc moves more than X metres down the field (yet worth the added complexity)?

Where are we headed? Well, we have a long way to go before we reach 100+ year old sports like basketball. Check out just some of the defences you can use against the variety of screens (aka picks) the offence can try.

But as we see teams building deep rosters, engaging coaches, training more and investing time on the details of their defences, more and more sophisticated forces should arise.

Australian Ultimate Championships 2009 - a HoS perspective

2009-05-07T22:28:00.002+10:00

This Nationals campaign was a long and rewarding one for the young Heads of State club.

Our bronze medals were earnt through some hard yakka and good planning.

Here are some of the features of our campaign this year:

Our fitness program and training camps started back in November, making it a 6 month long journey to Nationals.
We articulated our goals for the season, revisited them and measured them.
Building on previous seasons, we had feedback sessions where players got considered feedback from the team selectors.
We again took a second team to Regionals and again helped turn around games with sheer forceful sideline support.
Kaimana Klassik (and Hollywood Husak) met HoS.
HoS also did some recruiting from overseas this year. Stout provided so much to our team in the few weeks he was in Australia - unending confidence, a head sock, humility, backhand hucks, and the desire and ability to guard every star cutter in the land. Check him out accompanied by Queen or Aladdin. And our other Yank, Eric was Mr Versatile Handler when he finally got back from injury. He also is a sideline maestro - unbelievable commitment.

At the tournament itself, I felt we had successes:

We had carved out clear expectations of playing time, and roles for players.
Boo Boo was our invaluable statistician and advisor at Nationals giving us valuable live stats on what was working and what wasn't.
Simple routines for timeouts (and regular use of them) without putting the team into the Chamber of One Person Talking Endlessly
We enjoyed the routine of getting in the cold pool each evening for recovery, even if certain individuals still squeal
HoS beat every team we played at least once, except the 4-time National Champions
Mixing up the defensive looks when our opponents got comfortable
Providing routine in our warm-ups that rehearsed how we wanted to play (there's that word again: routine)
Having predictable, rehearsed actions to take when we need to alter lines (for example, bringing certain throwers over to the D line in windy games, using crunch lines at certain points)

Good work for a team with an average age of 22 (sorry lads - with me on board, the average shifts up from 21).

OK, enough patting our own backs. There is a world more to learn in our next campaign: Nationals and then World Clubs 2010 in Prague...

Prague - Photo by pavelm

Australian Ultimate Championships 2009 - an overview

2009-04-27T22:27:00.004+10:00

Nationals wrapped up yesterday and it was one for the history books.

A smaller field of entrants this year (14 mens teams and 12 womens teams) and the massive fields actually made 450-plus players look small. As the venue for Clubs 2006, UWA Sports Park is huge.

In the women's final, Wildcard met Team Box, a rematch of the 2007 final. Both swam through the draw confidently to reach this game, and the game didn't disappoint. Box took half 9-7, but wavered thereafter as Wildcard pulled to an consistent 2-3 point lead. It seemed like Box fulfilled more of their promise this year - 6th last year was a temporary dip for a very talented club. However, Wildcard were too deep - even their young players are veterans.

Sugar Mags (3rd) and Honey (4th) attained club-best finishes.

In the men's division, a few teams from 2008 were missing - the Taipans (Aussie Masters team), New Zealand and Barefoot to start with. Higher spots were up for grabs for the keen, younger clubs out there.

Returning to an X/Y split, Fakulti didn't yield a top 3 finish for the first time in their club's history. Fakulti Y did fight hard though, falling 2 points shy of the 5th and 6th place finishers, Firestorm and Karma. Sublime were inches from their first return to the semis since 2000 (another WA-hosted Nats), losing to Heads of State in the pre-semi. JD pretty much played savage in that one.

I-Beam had the smoothest offence at the tournament, and claimed 4th. Heads of State pushed Chilly hard in the semi-final (leading 8-6 at one stage), but couldn't hang on. We then took 3rd with a barnstorming defensive run at the end of the 3-4 match vs I-Beam.

Fyshwick's win over Chilly in the rounds seemed to promise lots for them. But it wasn't to be in the final, as Gack hucked and hucked, and the other Chilly players shared the wealth, with every man looking like an option deep. Fyshwick's zippy handler resets of 2008 seemed absent, and they regularly hit 6-7 counts with the disc trapped on the line.

So where are teams tactically in 2009?

Karma and I-Beam ran sidestacks to then iso one cutter, with I-Beam also running split stacks (the "U"). Chilly ran everyone deep, with the occasional Gack feldrenner. Defensively, Chilly showed some 1-pass transitions. Fyshwick would bring out their super-saggy diamond zone as a mix-up D, which I first saw in 2007.

And on Heads of State we started to evolve a straight-up meets force middle, mid-tournament, to combat hucks down sidelines and from the middle of the field. Offensively, we brought in north-west American horo offence ideas.

Sublime vs Fyshwick United

Australian Nationals preview - Open division

2009-03-09T12:28:00.003+11:00

With one week til Regionals, its time to look at the top open teams lining up for Nationals 2009 in Perth. Once again they will be competing for the Mark Parilla Cup.

So far there have only been three tournaments on the calendar to judge how the teams are going: the BC Invitational in Canberra, Share the Love in Sydney and the Golden City Classic in Ballarat.

The top tier could include these teams (though not in this order):

Chilly
The Gack is back. No Kiwi pick-up sightings this year, so we'll see if they can push back to the top. Surely there will be a Sydney pick up or 2? Camby will check the eligibility rules to see who he can bring.

Heads of State
Still getting all our players on board (overseas and injury), but we like where we are at. A new offence, a deep, hard-running roster and a lot of noise.

I-Beam
Looked really good at the BC Invitational. Their uni talent has hit the bigtime (such as Chilly and Chris) and this makes them deeper than in the past, so we'll see if they can improve on the 3rd placing of 2008. They love their split stack.

Fyshwick
Didn't put teams away in Canberra like some were expecting, after their dominance at Share the Love. The addition of Waz and Matty is nothing to be sneezed at though. Lacking tall defenders (a lot sits on the shoulders of Jonno and Waz as Matt prefers marking handlers). Fyshwick set the standard for defining roles for players and building confidence in players - they regularly put 7 on the line without a big name, and still get the job done.

Fakulti X & Y

When I think of Fakulti I think of a river. You can throw anything at them, and they will calmly erode your defence and work the disc in for a score. When they are on D, they quietly apply pressure and wait for your errors. The Fakulti system continues to be able to split the club into 2 equal teams, and have both compete at a high level. Have lost Waz and Matty to Fyshwick, but have young guns Calan and Mark on board while Tex has taken it to the next level in the wake of Worlds 2008.

The next tier down could look like:

Sublime
7 of them made it out to the BC Invitational, but as usual we won't see the full picture until Nationals. I want to see the Eleys and Twiggy dominate on their home turf. If JD isn't marked up right, he will rip out some big hucks (Attention all - in 15+ years of disc golf, he has thrown more pinpoint backhands than any human in this country. Take away his backhand!).

Karma
If you believe Joel, their A team is so stacked that they will deserve better than 1st, and get platinum, not gold, medals. Hmmm. Need to see them at Regionals and find out if they can finally topple Heads of State or Chilly.

Firestorm
~~Winless at the BC Invitational?~~ One win at the BC Invitational. A young team that will need others to step up and help J-Mac and Mike. Jules - I am looking at you :)

There will be a number of B teams and others filling out the spots at Nationals.

All in all, the open club scene continues to get deeper.

Grabbing clouds

2009-02-08T22:47:00.002+11:00

You may have seen Beau jumping over a guy for a catch.

It got me thinking. Who are the players with the best vertical leap?

Post your link to the best photo/video of a player getting up.

I'll get you started with a photo of Matty catching one high at Seeds of Doom one year. For reference, his defender, Tim, is about 6'3" and in the air too.

Any photos or anecdotes of Dom Ventura back in the day?

The road to Kaohsiung

2009-02-02T22:14:00.053+11:00

AFDA held its selection camp for the 2009 Australian World Games team in Sydney this weekend. The Australian team will be announced in a couple of weeks, and will compete at the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung, Taiwan in July.

Here are a collection of thoughts from the weekend:

Crikey, I'm sore
The Aussie elite scene looks young. At 29, I was the second oldest male at the camp.
I believe the Australian scene is due for reinvention of offences. The offensive structures players use by default are not ideal: we don't gain enough yards per cut, and don't scare the defenders with numerous threats. Currently, making space relies on serendipity and the presence of those rare "space-thinking" players.
The wristy backhand is king. It is quick release, it can be thrown at a range of release points, it's ideal for using in a throw and go, and if you don't have one you can't hit as many cutters.
I liked the way our coaches started the camp with benchmarking of throwing, agility and sprinting. It revealed a few positive surprises to them, provided variety amidst the scrimmages, fostered competition, and set the tone for a focussed, accountable weekend.
Australian ultimate has really benefited from the value put on support staff. The players could focus purely on playing, when we had four selectors, two coaches, two managers and two assistants working to organise the fields, activities, food, rehydration, education and uniforms. Thank you Support Staff! We have made huge gains since my first Worlds campaign in 2000.

Elements of a ready stance

2009-01-28T22:43:00.002+11:00

Following on from the previous post on the ready stance, I want to look at how to hold the disc.

There are many folks who have commented, discussed and taught grips. I have spouted my 2 cents: use the power grips.

But there is very little understanding of how to hold the disc, relative to the ground or the thrower's body.

In a forehand stance (i.e. facing towards your likely targets, usually with a forehand mark on), you could hold it a number of ways.

In a wide, blade stance like Dan (or Jeff). The disc face is roughly vertical.

Or in a wide, flat stance like Liz. This disc face is horizontal.

Or in front of your body, with two hands like Kristy.

Generally, I think the wide, blade stance is best (the first photo). It is ready to throw in an instant. It is easy to hold with one hand since the thumb and webbing support most of the weight (a horizontal disc needs to be held level by fingers working sideways - this flops around for many players). And it encourages throwing with a short, quick snap of the wrist rather than a big body and arm wind-up, which is preferable for any pass under 20 metres.

For a backhand, the grip is stronger, so the "flop" is less of an issue. Holding it wide is still key, whether it is one hand or two hands.

Let's get the new players ready to throw the first time they are taught ultimate.

Ready stance

2009-01-26T14:01:00.000+11:00

Last weekend, the AFDA hosted a Coaching Development Course.

Idaho, from Sockeye, was the presenter for the weekend, and shared a range of concepts that he uses when coaching in Seattle.

One of them was the ready stance for a thrower - always having the disc ready to be released as soon as needed. This is useful if a cutter suddenly gets open, or the stall count reaches 9, or the marker starts bumping you. You can throw immediately.

Holding the disc with two hands by your waist - generally not good.

Having the disc out from your body in one hand - good.

This ties in with Idris' earlier point about not pivoting, unless there is a specific need to. Always be ready to throw.

Globalisation

2009-01-23T15:26:00.009+11:00

I've played ultimate in 10 countries, and I realised I have 5 more lined up to play in this year. So how many countries is it possible to play ultimate in?

WFDF has a list of member countries: basically a shortlist of where you can play ultimate on Earth.

Skimming through it, ultimate is more global than you realise...

Find out what turnyrai are on in ~~Latvia~~ Lithuania.

See photos of beach ultimate in Busan, South Korea.

Watch a video of Canada winning the World Championships - in a magazine.

Learn whether Gujarat defeated Tamilnadu in the final of India's 6th Senior National Flying Disc Championship.

Croatia's first ultimate team back in 2005 (including some Slovenians, Aussie Anita and me).

Wanted: Defenders

2009-01-21T08:25:00.000+11:00

Playing and watching games at Worlds, I saw a need for Australian senior teams to improve their defence. While the Junior Women were a defensive machine, due to well-thought out tactics and utilisation of players, getting stops in the Open division, for instance, depends more heavily on winning one-on-one matchups.

You need to be able to put players on the field who can really pressure a thrower or cutter, or are are really effective at getting blocks. As an example, when the Dingos played their pool game vs USA, we scored regularly thanks to an athletic offence. But we only produce two turnovers from the opposition. That won't win you the game.

This is a call for us to develop the next generation of shutdown defenders and blockgetters.

What does the Australian landscape of defence look like?

We have a culture of playing sport in this country.

We have good tactics. Many elite teams have a wide repertoire of man-on-man and junk defences.

We have athletes. We continue to recruit some very athletic people, either 6'4" aerial monsters or very speedy runners.

But there are some basic skills that don't appear often enough. Reading the cut of an offensive player. Guarding the dump. Running to the mark to prevent a huck. Not biting on a throwing fake. Spotting both where your man and the disc is, and where other players are. Not being deceived by a simple jab-step fake. Knowing how much or how little to turn your hips.

This is a call for existing coaches to develop these skills. And a call for more coaches.

Get famous online

2009-01-19T11:34:00.003+11:00

Have you got video footage of a tournament but aren't sure how to share it with a wider audience?

Shane at Asia Ultimate TV might be able to help. Asia Ultimate TV is online video, in regular episodes (similar to what Josh Seamon has done with audio podcasts at The Ultiverse). The episodes include game footage, interviews and reviews of ultimate from Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, the Phillipines and Singapore.

You can see highlights of the Hong Kong Pan Asian Tournament in Episode 3.

And Episode 5 includes a look at the venue for ultimate at the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung, Taiwan: the newly built National Stadium.

Asia Ultimate TV is a part-time, one-man effort, but you can see a lot of potential there, and it is handy to get an insight into current Asian Ultimate from a central source.

100 strong

2009-01-13T10:07:00.001+11:00

I'd like to celebrate a little milestone.

This blog is 100 posts old.

(Cue streamers and fireworks.)

What has been your favourite idea, issue or post raised on Thinkulti?

Photo by plindberg

The history of your sport

2009-01-11T13:35:00.004+11:00

The AFDA held a Gala Dinner back in July.

It was a fantastic event, where past Australian representative teams were celebrated and the current ones were introduced. As an amateur sport, recording the history of the ultimate community in Australia has been sporadic.

The speakers at the Gala Dinner were videotaped, so hopefully members of our community who weren't present will be able to learn about our sport. Where is that footage?

As someone who has worked in public institutions like museums, I am aware these days of how you need to consider not just having a record of history, but sharing it with the wider community, and have them contribute, comment and evaluate it.

With the world, and especially ultimate players, moving online for more and more of their life, sharing history has got easier.

AFDA.com has a list of Australian representative teams and a history page. We acknowledge contributors through the AFDA awards and the Rob Hancock award.

UPA.org has a Hall of Fame.

But the most valuable things are the stories - humans are storytellers, and story-listeners.

The book Ultimate: The First Four Decades is an example of a great collection of stories and characters.

More collections like this would be awesome. And if the Americans barely mention the existence of non-North American ultimate, it is up to those countries to share their history.

One project I have on my Someday/Maybe list is to interview and record the veterans of our sport about ultimate when they were younger. These chats could be published as podcasts. Give Greenie and Garvey a couple of beers and you'd get some great stories coming out.

The 1988 Australian Open team. Notice Michelle in the front row, right.

Way to represent

2008-12-09T17:27:00.000+11:00

I keep discovering ultimate players who have played other sports at elite levels.

Here's my list:

Liz - lacrosse for Australia
Alex - ice hockey for Australia
Sian - fencing for Australia
Brendan - junior volleyball for Australia
Aaron - water polo for Australia
Jane - Australian Netball League
Tom - NSW junior AFL
Jack - Victorian junior AFL
Ian - National Orienteering League

Any others?

Pathways

2008-12-04T16:59:00.004+11:00

The key to getting more people playing your sport is creating and publicising pathways. You want every player to start playing, and then move up to the next level of competition that suits their playing ability.

Some questions to spark your thinking on this:

In our region, how do players enter the sport?

How do we identify all talented beginners, offer them a taste of higher level ultimate, and ensure they can access the next level if they want to?

How does a player move from one team to another?

Are there pathways for both men and women? For 12 year olds? For those who start playing at age 30?

Do the coaches and administrators know what the existing pathways are?

Are there pathways within local clubs? Or leagues?

What is the best way to communicate with coaches and players?

On a related topic, designing pathways for administrators and coaches will help the organisation and coaching of ultimate. But we have even more work to do in that area.

Looking wider

2008-12-03T11:21:00.008+11:00

Its good to see ultimate communities getting new ideas from outside. Four examples:

For the upcoming Australian Juniors camp in January, the AFDA is flying in a US coach.

Ra from Singapore is planning to bring in foreign coaches to train up his coaches and participate in a junior camp in 2009.

I hear Colombians are flying in top coaches from the US Northwest.

The proliferation of blogs connects local communities to foreign ones.

So the clear message is that plane flights are more affordable in the twenty-first century? Well, that and the point that ultimate communities are learning from expertise outside their postcode, and outside their country. Drawing on foreign expertise is no longer just about playing foreign teams - there is more than that now.

The Australian Sports Commission is pushing sports organisations to use the resources and existing courses of other sports in their coaching programs - part of becoming a football coach can involve attending a cricket coaching course and doing an online ASC course. So ultimate may continue the trend of looking beyond conventional boundaries, in the field of coaching development.

Getting ultimate into schools

2008-12-01T16:27:00.000+11:00

On Wednesday I had lunch with Ra Resad, who plays ultimate in Singapore. Ra flew out here for the ASC conference.

Four years ago, Singapore had a few high school students playing ultimate.

Next year they will have 4000.

That's some awesome growth. How did they get there? I mean doesn't ultimate in Australia have more players, a bigger sporting culture, more keen volunteers to help?

Well...

Ra worked with the Singapore Sports Council and Singapore Ministry of Education to work out how he could get ultimate into schools. And he quit his previous job to be an ultimate coach.

He became an AFDA accredited coach. He set up SG Frisbeesports. He offered a coaching service that was better than other sports - "frisbee isn't a sport" isn't an excuse a teacher can use when ultimate has quality coaches, quality equipment, uniforms, a structured program, pathways for players and more.

Respect. One person can make a big difference.

Developing coaches

2008-11-28T16:02:00.000+11:00

I just got back from the National Coaching, Officiating and Club Development Conference run by the Australian Sports Commission (ASC). Nothing like two days of workshops, networking and discussion to get your mind buzzing about possibilities...

After speaking to AFDA's ASC liaison, and participating in a couple of the workshops, I really like the direction of coaching accreditation in Australia. Flexibility and recognition of current competencies are two key issues the ASC is supporting, so they are encouraging most sports to be innovative as opposed to restricting how they grow coaching.

There are lots of possibilities in how we design our new versions of Australian coaching programs. What would you like to see?

More thoughts sparked by the conference coming soon...

The Hat

2008-11-25T12:16:00.000+11:00

Each year at the start of December, the Melbourne Hat rolls around.

There is the Friday night disc golf, the Hat draw, unpredictable weather, hats (I remember Jim Garvey bringing a horrible hat each year), an inevitable stacked team, foreigners flying in from the distant corners of the world, the crowd cheering for a role player who wins their hearts, and a couple of Normands commentating the final.

There is always someone complaining about the uniform colour that their team chose, although these days black, white, green, red and blue get fewer complaints than than some of the beige, pink, brown and lime combinations of the past.

My first Hat had Simon Gorr as the TD. I played on a white team with Dave Mac, I believe. We were winless, in part because the team wasn't very deep (I was a teenager and was unfortunately our second best player).

Were you playing that year?

Photo by Laineys Repertoire

Never clear again

2008-11-23T13:23:00.005+11:00

If I was to play a game of word association with you, and I offered the word "clear" (in the context of ultimate), I wouldn't be surprised to get some of the following replies:

"jog"

"unsighted"

"not open"

"finished"

The habits that players learn as beginners persist as players move into elite ultimate.

The slow jog back to the stack after not receiving the disc on a cut may be useful in beginner ultimate. But it is a big handicap in elite ultimate.

The offensive player who is clearing is generally not moving fast enough to pull away from their defender. They are not looking at the thrower. They have no body language that says "you can throw the disc to me now, and I want it".

Personally as a defender, I will regularly interfere with the offence when my player decides to "clear". I will float off them and look to get an intercept, or help shut down the cuts of others. Sometimes I will use this as a chance to take a shortcut to where they are heading, and take a rest on the way.

And as a thrower, I like to throw to teammates who think they are "clearing". You may have finished a cut and are jogging away from me, not looking back. But I may still throw to you, and then let you know the disc is coming.

To summarise: always be a receiving option. Cut in, cut out, cut left, cut right or wait in position. Cut slow or fast. But never clear again.

Starting a season

2008-11-21T11:29:00.006+11:00

Last weekend, Heads of State had their first event of the season, a training camp out at Halls Gap.

Our season will culminate in Nationals at the end of April: about 5 months long in total.

Having a camp to start the season is great because you can set your team up for a successful campaign. You've got a whole weekend to work with, and a chance to be with your team without the daily distractions of life.

We set goals for the team, we planned, we did skill and fitness benchmarking, we welcomed and introduced new players, we set expectations for training commitment, and we got excited about what we're gonna do.

If your team doesn't start the season with a plan and expectations that the team knows, you are playing blind.

Ro and Dan atop the mountain we climbed

Fans and friends

2008-11-21T11:20:00.000+11:00

In ultimate, we players do a lot. We are the players, the administrators, the coaches, the tournament organisers, and the league commissioners.

And we are also the fans.

It can be little complicated when you are a fan in ultimate. The people you are discussing are your teammates or potential future teammates.

I mean, its fine to say that Buddy Franklin is a crap kicker and shouldn't make All-Australian, if you're a random member of the footy-watching public. But you wouldn't catch his teammates doing that publicly, and probably not other footy players, who might find themselves alongside him in the locker room one day.

In ultimate, when we are the fans who love to watch the big guns, and get to play along side them, there can be a little backdraft on occasion.

I can see why keen fans like to speculate about who will make this team or that. Indeed, I like to do it myself. But I check myself first before doing it publicly - you never know who you will be playing with or against. Its best to speculate on players and potential teams offline, with a small group of good mates.

Your defensive mindset

2008-10-21T10:04:00.005+11:00

Each time you play defence, you should have a focus for what you, as an individual, plan to do on defence.

There are many factors that influence your choice: previous points in the game, what your leadership has set as a focus, what the offence is trying to do, who you are guarding, and what your personal strengths and weaknesses are.

Some guarding tactics are:

cover my player cutting under
cover my player cutting deep
look to be a help defender on deep throws
look to be a help defender on short throws
stay physically really close to my player
clog the passing lanes
interfere with the offence's set plays

And there are marking tactics too:

stand off the thrower
bait a handblock
force to make the inside break harder
force to make the around break harder
hold a constant force
move around with the thrower as they rotate to find a dump
hassle the hammer
go clown-crazy hyperactive
change the tempo of your mark (from a passive, flat-footed stance, to an active, moving stance as the count increases)

Know what you want to do. Smart defenders will think about what approach they can use, reflect on how it worked, and adapt.

Just chasing your player around the field produces seven games of one-on-one. Team defence is far more powerful, and it starts with individuals having flexibility in how they play defence.

Hint

2008-10-16T17:28:00.000+11:00

I like how every time I am writing a new post for this blog, I see a link next to "Posting" and "Settings" that reminds me to "Layout".

How to present to humans

2008-10-15T10:17:00.004+11:00

I have an amateur interest in graphic design.

I figure that this ties into ultimate. Ultimate is quite the grassroots sport - the players are the administrators, coaches, referees, and recruiters. And when it comes to recruiting, you need to communicate clear ideas to the ultimate community or wider world, often through print, powerpoint, websites or video.

Most of us have zero training in design. If we design something, we just dump the information into the Word document or PowerPoint template, fiddle with a couple of borders or pictures til it looks a little nicer, and go with it. Passion for your topic will partly make up for lack of expertise!

But if you would like to really make your message more powerful, a few simple principles can make a big difference. And help you stand out from the crowd.

So from one of the blogs I read, Presentation Zen, I thought I would share an intro to presentation design and delivery.

It is a short pdf, that is a great reference for when you design your next PowerPoint, poster or flier for ultimate.

If you have to give a presentation, talking and visuals, and you decide to use PowerPoint, then you need to learn about Really Bad Powerpoint (and how to avoid it), from Seth Godin.

We can do better than this.

The biggest idea I took away was knowing the difference between what an audience member hears in your presentation, what they see in your presentation, and what they physically take away (e.g. a handout) from your presentation.

These three things should be very, very different, but with a cohesive overall message. Using the advice in the above pdfs, preparing your materials will actually take less time.

Personally, I have sat through too many lectures this semester where the lecturer shows slabs of text on a screen, read the same slabs of text, then hands out those same slabs of text as printouts. Has this happened to you?

I may as well print them out and read them at my own pace at home (and have actually taken that option regularly)!

If I give you my presence and attention, make it worth my time to be there!

2008 Uni Games Part 3 - the point differentials

2008-10-14T00:31:00.001+11:00

In Part 2 of my Uni Games review, I looked at the five teams with the best point differential per game.

Team A: +7.9
Team B: +5.4
Team C: +4.6
Team D: +3.5
Team E: +3.5

These teams were, in order, Sydney Uni, Flinders, Monash, UWA, Adelaide.

Most folks guessed Sydney at the top correctly, then it was a mix of correct and incorrect guesses.

Here is a graph. All game results and the graph are here. Scores came from AFDA.

The teams are ordered left to right by where they finished the tournament. So Flinders (1st) is the left most column, Sydney (2nd) is next, then Adelaide, Melbourne and so on all the way across to QUT (19th).

The point differential measured here is good predictor of ability, in a single number.

Let's look at an example. Deakin had 5 wins and 6 losses for the tournament. Meanwhile La Trobe went 5-5. They seem pretty close? I mean La Trobe only finished one spot higher. Actually, La Trobe was losing games to the best teams by only a few points, and generally thumping low teams. While Deakin never got closer than 6 points to a top 8 finishing team.

The point differential shows this: La Trobe +3.1 and Deakin -2.6.

What else do we notice?

Flinders had a point differential of +5.4, lower than Sydney Uni (+7.9), who had swept through all their opponents more easily than anyone else. So Flinders' win in the final can be considered an upset, given Sydney's scoring ability.

Melbourne Uni, the team that finished 4th, finished higher than point differential would predict, while Monash finished lower (7th). Melbourne's one-point victory in the quarterfinal (the single game that changes final position the most) over Monash was responsible for that.

Point differential isn't strictly comparing apples with apples. Some players get injured. Some teams rest their stars for parts of games. And the teams did not play all other opponents.

What is consistent is that the top 8 teams played 3-4 pool games, 4-5 crossover games against strong opponents, and then 3 games against strong opponents. So comparisons between them are pretty reliable. Latrobe, Deakin, Murdoch and Ballarat had a different run, playing 3 weaker opponents to finish the tournament. La Trobe, in particular, feasted on RMIT and ECU on Thursday (15-2 wins both games) while the top 8 teams were playing strong opponents.

The remaining 7 teams had weaker opponents for the majority of the tournament.

A glance at the graph of point differential does show 9 elite teams though, that matches well with subjective observation at the tournament.

And the graph does point out how much better ANU were than their final finishing place of 15th.

Is point differential useful? Well, next time you are at tournament and want to predict the outcome of key games such as semis and finals, check out the scoring margins from previous games. There will always be occassional upsets, but on average, the team with a higher point differential goes through.

2008 Uni Games Part 2 - the stars and the final

2008-10-05T20:33:00.014+11:00

I only got to see some of the players in action at AUG, but I was impressed with BJ and Karen on Adelaide. Chris Lavis, Ellie Sparke and Tegan were guns for Newcastle - a team I thought would do strongly in the semis, but never made it. Twiggy was a standout for UWA. And Gamble was potentially the best player at the tournament.

I was really looking forward to watching Sydney Uni in the final. I hadn't got to play or watch them all week during their undefeated run. Plus I coached them for over four years, so I have lots of connections to the club. The game itself was a surprise, or it least it seemed to be.

The Sydney Uni team that had walked over every other team at the tournament wasn't to be seen. Flinders got on top and never let up. Sydney Uni couldn't stop the Joel to Alec connection, either by 1) stopping Joel catching the disc, 2) hassling Joel's throws with the mark or 3) guarding Alec up field.

They clearly didn't have anyone who could do 3), and the zone they used wasn't as useful as, say, a straight up force for acheiving 2). But failing to do 1) was a mystery. Joel doesn't have a single healthy leg joint, and barely made a strong cut to get the disc. Sending one or maybe even two strong defenders after Joel would have at least pushed Flinders to change their offence a little.

The way Joel threw over the zone to a running Alec irrespective of the defenders made me analyse how I have played against zones. Perhaps this is a new tactic I will try: float looping throws to an elite receiver who is running straight line cuts upfield, and bank on the receiver skying the static zone defenders. I can add it to the list.

An elite male thrower with some targets will trump a deep team in the mixed competition of AUGs. Check out the history: Joel Pillar, Johnny Mac, Matt Dowle, Pete Gardner, ~~and Jonno Holmes~~ have lead their teams to almost all of the last 10 titles, irrespective of who had the deeper team or better women.

Perhaps the surprise wasn't Joel's team triumphing, but why they lost to Sydney in the pool rounds.

Now on to some team stats.

You can compare teams by looking at the points scored for and against them.

The AFL shows this as a percentage (%), ie points for divided by points against, multiplied by 100%.

The NRL shows this as points differential (PD), ie points for minus points against.

The NBA shows this as a differential (diff), ie points for minus points against, divided by games played.

Since teams at AUG 2008 played different numbers of games, I'm going with the NBA format.

The best five teams' differentials at AUG 2008 were:
Team A: +7.9
Team B: +5.4
Team C: +4.6
Team D: +3.5
Team E: +3.5

Your challenge: guess who teams A, B, C, D and E are.

Post your guesses in the comments.

In my next post, I'll reveal the team's identities, and explain more about the strengths and weaknesses of this stat.

2008 Uni Games Part 1 - my personal rollercoaster

2008-10-05T18:13:00.009+11:00

This week just gone I played at the 2008 Australian University Games in Melbourne. It was an amazing rollercoaster of a ride, and one of the most memorable ones ever. I entered the week thinking it would be another enjoyable tournament, with a little more excitement than usual, and came out of it emotionally and physically hammered (in mostly satisfying ways).

Uni Games should be old hat for me: I have attended 8 out of 11 Uni Games or Uni Championships, as either player or coach. Across the years, the teams I have been on have won medals of every colour, or come close. Every year I meet old friends and make new mates.

But this year was incredible. My team, Monash, bought into the team vibe in an big way, from their enthusiasm for warming-up to their constant cheering of each other. The rookies and veterans both inspired me with their dedication. There was banner-making, dancing, cheering, glowsticks and team dinners. We had an Indonesian fanclub.

My teammates improved in amazing ways through the tournament. On Wednesday morning, I was grinning in delight to myself at their ability to consistently execute a warm-up drill in the blustery wind. A warm-up drill!

We all put a lot of energy into preparing, playing, cheering, and recovery. Not to mention a bit of partying. After playing limited field time in my previous two tournaments, I played a lot at this one, with fatigue only really hurting my play in the last few points of Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.

My team played five nail-biting last-point-wins games during the tournament, including a 6 point comeback win over UWA. Exhilirating and exhausting. We lost only two games all week, by 1 point and 3 points. But they were the wrong games - we finished 7th out of 19 teams.

We invested a lot into this team, and I wanted to see my teammates rewarded with a good finish for their effort, but it didn't happen this time.

After such effort and to miss out on the semi-finals, my mind has constantly been replaying those little factors in those 2 losses, and pondering the what-ifs. Normally I am pretty good about accepting a loss and moving on. After the 2005 Nationals final (scoring 4 consecutive points with Fakulti to draw level with Chilly then losing that last point on a hail-mary throw to Gack), I was at peace. There were two good teams, we had our chance in the last point with the disc, and I was proud of our efforts. No regrets.

Likewise after losing the 2005 World Games final. We had only 5 turnovers in the game. I didn't throw or catch a goal, but was proud of my team's efforts and my performance. That silver medal was a big accomplishment for Australian ultimate.

Those Uni Games losses though: a heavy weight. The support that Monash gave each other during the week is a mighty salve though.

We must be cool

2008-09-26T16:34:00.004+10:00

Look what image is being used to sell Apple computers these days...

I guess their marketing department thinks we're not PC. And that we play in jeans.

"But I thought we would..."

2008-09-19T00:13:00.005+10:00

Sometimes you experience several lessons on a topic before you feel you learn something.

I think Worlds 2008 gave me a few more lessons on a topic I thought I knew, but actually have much more to learn about.

Expectations.

Each of the six Australian teams at Worlds had to deal with unexpected surprises. Things that threatened to put a spanner in the works. In fact, the ones I am thinking of are six very different surprises.

The teams got to North America... and boom!

Events happened. People reacted. And for some teams, the players weren't clear on what should be done, or what others expected to happen.

Setting expectations is a key task for a coach. There are numerous ways to do this.

Have a team meeting at the beginning of the campaign. Ask players what they want out of the experience. What would be unenjoyable? What would be exciting? What are the risks?
Draw on past experiences. Discuss what happened last year with leadership.
Group discussion of scenarios. Print out simple, realistic scenarios on slips of paper. Discuss in pairs, then come together to discuss as a team.
Meet with coaches of other teams and find out what they have experienced, and how they plan.

You need mental toughness, but you also need systems. What have you seen go wrong? What steps have you taken that will ensure your team knows what to do if the wheels fall off?

Getting functional

2008-09-18T23:16:00.001+10:00

I am really interested in doing more functional training.

Here's one quote from this book: "In functional training, it is as critical to train the specific movement as it is to train the muscles involved in the movement."

For instance in Monash's training today, we incorporated sprints with turns (for cutting in the game) and skipping (for jumping in the game).

We then did the kill drill, for a full body workout and to condition the body to throw when fatigued.

I think I really have to go make that weighted disc, even it is a hack job, and not useful for throwing...

End the dump squad

2008-09-18T10:57:00.000+10:00

If a team has swung the disc across the field twice (across and back), it hasn't gained ground. Unless there is good reason to do so (e.g. it puts a strong thrower in position for a big gainer), you have risked turnovers without heading to the place you want to be: the endzone. Ideally your offence is structured so this happens a small number of times.

And I feel this is best addressed at the origin: beginners.

For the beginner, they need to build the confidence to throw forward. Being regularly urged into a 3 metre back pass by a nagging veteran is not useful. Each mistake throwing forward helps them throw better. If they can't complete simple forward passes more than 50% of the time, they need lots of throwing practice. But that is a steep learning curve they will quickly rise up.

Training beginners to only look for a backwards pass makes them predictable, limits their throwing range, puts blinkers on how they see the field (and don't we all want better field vision?), and discourages them from looking to break the force.

There are few games where a beginner is playing, and it is critical they throw their safest pass every time. If they are in a game, it is probably a good place to develop their throwing skills.

The backwards dump has its place as a reset of the offence, but only as an occassional tactic.

What's in a name?

2008-09-17T12:19:00.000+10:00

I like how Australian representative sports teams have nicknames. In ultimate this gives you more identity.

At Worlds 2008, I was playing with the Dingos. But someone from, say, France was simply on the French Open team. Having a nickname makes your team more iconic.

Our Aussie teams are Southern Terra, Thunder, Dingos, Firetails, Barramundis, Taipans, Crocs (World Games), Salty Crocs (Beach Worlds) and Wombats (Asia-Oceania Championships).

I thought I would dig out some team names from other sports. I'm sure you can guess most of these sports if you are Aussie. Dear foreign readers - think of it as a cultural quiz.

Hockeyroos, Kookaburras
Rollers (gold in Beijing!), Gliders (bronze in Beijing!)
Boomers, Opals (silver), Emus, Gems, Boomerangs, Pearls
Kangaroos, Jillaroos
Wallabies, Wallaroos
Matildas, Young Matildas, Olyroos, Joeys, Socceroos
Steelers (silver in Beijing!)
Diamonds

Generating spin

2008-09-17T11:24:00.001+10:00

Over at The Huddle, Paul Vandenberg talked about generating spin to throw further. He mentioned being able to flick cards sharply which can improve backhand snap.

I was reminded that we had a competition to do this at the Mundis fundraising Trivia Night. Most people, frankly, weren't very good. I think I'll bring a pack of old cards to AUGs...

The other key part to generating backhand spin is cocking the wrist back. Ken does it like crazy. He can throw a soft 5 metre pass with some major revolutions on it. I feel I can do this too, both forehand and backhand, but I lose the snap on my hucks. So I have made it a focus of my pulling practice. When that pull comes out with extra snap, the disc flies beautifully.

Mental skills

2008-08-26T16:56:00.005+10:00

Elite coaches recognise that at the top of their sports, athletes need a large toolbox of psychological and mental skills they can draw on: adaptability, the ability to only focus on the controllable elements in the immediate present, the ability to manage emotions, mental stamina and self-confidence.

And like the physical skills, these mental skills are trained. You may luck into individuals with these skills already well developed, but you can be pretty certain that a majority of the athletes holding up medals at the Olympics this year trained their thought processes. You cannot tell an athlete to be "focussed" - it requires ongoing teaching, communication, review and appropriate challenges.

I enjoyed reading how one coach, Bob Bowman, deliberately exposed his athlete to hiccups, hurdles and pressure. He didn't comment when he noticed his athlete forgetting to take equipment to a key event. He damaged other equipment so it would be faulty during a race. This was all followed up with constant communication with his athlete about how to manage adversity.

So at the Beijing Olympics, when his goggles filled with water mid-race, and with the unbelievable expectations of winning eight golds on his shoulders, that athlete, Michael Phelps, swam on to claim the fourth gold of an eventual eight. He had faced pressure before and knew it well.

Bob Bowman has been crafting the skills of Michael Phelps for years.

And I am keen to learn about the training of Zhang Juanjuan of China, who won the Women's individual archery, to break open the 24-year long stranglehold that South Korea had held on the event. Her quarterfinal opponent was the 3rd seed - a South Korean. Her semi-final opponent was the 2nd seed - a South Korean.

Her finals opponent was the number 1 seed, reigning Olympic champion and Olympic record holder, South Korean Park Sung-Hyun. Zhang defeated her by a single point. Quite a story for someone who used to suffer target panic.

Has your team been trained to handle a wet disc, lost cleats, small fields, late transport, changing opponents, missing players, broken limbs, cyclones and anything else that happens?

The stars of Worlds

2008-08-20T16:25:00.013+10:00

Strap on your helmet, fasten your seatbelts, we're entering Stats World...

Here are the player statistics for WUGC2008. I have put the data online as a spreadsheet too, for anyone to analyse. It is a list of the players, in order of goals caught plus assists thrown, per game played.

You can pull some interesting stories out of these numbers, despite their limitations.

Lets sift through this data a bit to find the stars of Worlds 2008.

Firstly, Juniors should be in a separate category. The junior divisions are still mostly uneven playing fields, with a wide range of abilities and athleticism on many teams. Some junior players will go on to become superstars but don't show it now, whereas the older divisions have a bit more "what you see is what you get". Many of the non-North American juniors have only been playing for 1 or 2 years.

So we'll pull them out of this list, and put them in their own category.

Now to the level of ultimate played. The big stats from players on weak teams are less representative of elite play. There is a decently sized pool of players who could throw or catch numerous goals playing with weaker players against weaker teams. But only the best can do so on a strong roster in the top pools. So I have pulled out players whose team finished in the bottom third of their division, an arbitrary cut-off point (I'm all ears for a more objective method for filtering out weak games).

Those left behind are the stars.

Somewhere down the track, WFDF may put in the manpower to track who plays which point, and we can get more reliable goals per point (GPP) and assists per point (APP) stats, as opposed to the current per game stats. Actually these current numbers are not even true GPG and APG stats as we don't know who sat out games in this list.

In this statistically measured future, I feel we need a scaling factor to account for the far larger number of possessions a player starting a point on O faces compared to a D player.

Alternatively, we need to separate the stats into Goals per Offensive Point (GPOP) and Goals per Defensive Point (GPDP), and likewise for assists.

I'll finish with some questions.

How good an indicator of player performance is points plus assists per game? I did a simple comparison to subjective opinion in 2006. The Australian selectors for World Games 2005 picked 6 men from across the country in that year. One year later, 5 of those players were in the top 6 Australian male scorers at World Clubs (I'll try and put those stats online soon too). That's a solid correlation. I am certain we can find better measures though.

How does Ultistats show this info? Does it have different stats? I can't remember what it showed when I last used it.

And lastly, does this list have anyone at the top who looks ridiculously out of place?

I believe it passes the "laugh test".

Rank	Division	Team	#	Name	Goals	Assists	Points	Avg
1	Open	JPN	12	Yohei Kichikawa	23	35	58	5.8
2	Masters	GBR	80	Merrick Cardew	23	29	52	4.73
3	Masters	NZL	46	Gary Jarvis	5	44	49	4.45
4	Open	JPN	10	Masahiro Matsuno	23	20	43	4.3
5	Masters	NZL	47	Shane Vuletich	20	26	46	4.18
6	Women	JPN	8	Sanako Inomata	12	29	41	4.1
7	Open	CAN	7	Michael Grant	21	19	40	4
8	Women	AUS	14	Diana Worman	20	22	42	3.82
9	Women	GER	44	Sara Wickström	14	24	38	3.8
10	Mixed	CAN	98	Brendan Wong	28	10	38	3.8
11	Open	VEN	11	Pablo Saade	5	32	37	3.7
12	Women	COL	37	Andrea Trujillo	15	22	37	3.7
13	Women	AUS	2	Lauren Brown	28	11	39	3.55
14	Open	SWE	17	David Wesley	31	8	39	3.55
15	Women	JPN	9	Eri Hirai	31	4	35	3.5

Footwork

2008-08-19T23:12:00.000+10:00

Sure, you can improve as a player by getting faster, throwing further and jumping higher. But if you have a capacity to learn, working on simple unnoticed skills can make a difference too. Like footwork.

I can think of 6 instances where good footwork can give you an advantage.

When catching a pass on an in-cut, twist in the air so as to land ready to throw upfield. Basically you are performing a 180 degree turn as you catch. Only use this when you know the defender cannot bid on the catch, and when you are catching at less than 50% of top speed.

When popping, step in past a cup or wall from the blind spot of a defender, to receive a short pass from the thrower.

When catching a simple dump or swing pass against an approaching zone cup, jump a little to catch the disc, and stick your pivot foot out as you land. The defence will come up to mark where your torso is, but you can step back wider than they predicted, because your pivot foot is already stuck out.

When you want to keep a catch in-bounds, toe-drag. Practice. And watch Rueben.

When guarding a cutter, slide step, rather than turning to move forward or back. Avoid turning your hips and shoulders until you really have to.

When cutting, decelerate in a straight line, turn, and accelerate out in exactly the opposite direction, retracing your last 4 steps. There are still Worlds reps out there who don't use this simple vertical cutting skill in a game.

The teams in the Open division - Part 2

2008-08-19T21:15:00.007+10:00

Following on from Part 1...

The teams we Dingos didn't play. Obviously I have less to offer, having not played them, so if you saw them play (or even played them) add a comment.

Japan
There was a lot of hype, but in the end they only squeaked home twice over GB, and lost by quite a few to the US in the semis. They had a crazy distribution of stats. Guess which 2 guys were running the show? Deserving bronze medallists.

Canada
Bam. Canada went undefeated for the second Worlds in a row. The final between the US and Canada was their first meeting of the tournament. Canada punished USA's errors and a home turf advantage probably helped. USA pegged the early 4 point lead back to 2 points by the end, but Canada held on, in no small part because of Mike Grant's strong second half. All that disc golf paid off.

John Hassell was a strong addition to the Furious roster. Mauro Ortiz seems to be the alpha handler for Canada. Like the US, the pull reception play seemed to be pass it to the alpha handler in the middle of the field, and let him have a 5 second look at a huck of his choice.

The Open final, viewed from the grandstand.

Dominican Republic
Beat Mexico twice and even toppled the Netherlands. Got at least 6 points off everyone. What were the bookie's odds 2 years ago on DR being a) a nation that could send a team to Worlds and b) not coming last? Who can fill us in on all this new Central and Southern American ultimate?

Mexico
Wooden spoon. Developing. They were in the running for best name at Worlds with Tomas Bartolome Garcia Nathan. Though Venezuela did offer two Jesuses and an Elvis.

Italy
They needed Diego :) But they did have Alex on board.

Switzerland
Came in 9th, following on from their strong 3rd placing at Euros 2007. After a 10th placing in 2004, I would think they would like to taste the quarters next time...

Netherlands
They had Wombat Mike at least, who joined the elite 30+ assist club.

South Africa
Didn't see them, or hear much. Good to see they got a team over here. I wonder if our flight home was longer, or theirs...

New Zealand
Dave S said they had three practice matches in the week before Worlds, and needed them as they were integrating the overseas-residing half of their squad into the team. Their first game against Finland was a flop with nothing going right. They finished the tournament with a solid win over a South American team (for them, Venezuela) as did Finland, so they righted the ship as the tournament went on. With Shane and Gary in the Masters, this was probably a more rounded team than some previous Kiwi teams.

Like the Dingos, they had very few games that finished with a margin of less than 5. It was either win by a few or lose by a few.

Missing
Brazil, Russia, Lithuania, Denmark and the Republic of China all made it to the Open division in 2004, but not this time. Obviously Turku, Finland was on the doorstep of three of these countries, so here's hoping future Worlds can bring them back.

The teams in the Open division

2008-08-16T12:31:00.011+10:00

Searching for a format to spill some of my thoughts on Worlds, I read Gwen's post on the Women's teams.

So here is my take on the teams in the Open division that we Dingos played. The other Open teams will be in Part 2.

Ireland
Ireland have improved rapidly over recent years, from playing in the UK Tour events and, I presume, European tournaments. While they only got a few points more off the Dingos than in 2004, they were much stronger: an aggressive long game, a innumerable number of handler dump reset passes, that were painful to chase in a zone, and a clever iso game that often isolated one receiver upfield (but not too deep) for a strike when the defence was out of position, German-style.

These folk were deserved Spirit winners and their supporters were fun-loving too.

Venezuela
We played Venezuela on the stadium field, and even with only a few dozen spectators, the echoing concrete steps and roof made on-field communication hard. Along with the language barrier, and Venezuela's fiery style of play, this was a heated game. There were fouls on the mark. Venezuela used a surprising number of injury subs. Catches close to the line came along to keep both teams discussing more than playing. Gav even passed a disc back to the thrower, and unwittingly hit a distracted Venezuelan in the back of the head. Fortunately that didn't get taken the wrong way.

Germany
This European powerhouse has slipped - they finished 13th out of the 18 Open teams. Phillip, their go-to guy got injured during our game, and their competitiveness in our game slipped after that. Hans was the source of a lot of their offence. Their defence was more opportunistic than block-seeking. Hopefully they can develop their young players and rise up again.

Colombia
Venezuela's neighbours would have been equally fiery on a typical day, but they met us shortly after a close loss to Venezuela. And so they looked a bit flat, despite still being an animated and speedy team. We won by a similar margin to that in our Venezuela game, but felt more in control in this one. Colombia finished the tournament in 8th position at their first Worlds. An awesome, and probably unprecedented, effort. I hope the South Americans can make future Worlds (the exchange rate probably isn't nice to them), as they bring a different style of play to the tournament.

Great Britain
GB had high hopes for this tournament after beating up on most of Europe for the last few years. I felt we established ourselves as a notch above them during our pool game - we won almost all the aerial contests, and felt dominant on field. Yet they faced us again in the quarterfinals and beat us convincingly in the more important game. They didn't push Canada in the semi but did come close to Japan twice - I think Japan weren't the force some were expecting, rather than GB pushing up enormously.

Sweden
The Swedes played a short rotation. Short, as in "the sun is beating down, its the last game of the tournament, the ground is baked hard, we're losing to dozens of fired up Aussies, and we're still only using 8-10 guys in this game" short. In the rematch for 5th place, they found ways to save their legs against us by hucking very often, and going to transition zone on D, but couldn't prevail. Like in 2004, we beat them twice. This time the first match was the argumentative one, and the second one was even-tempered.

USA
Our D didn't get it done in this game on the show field. Only one break at half (USA lead 9-7), but then their D put pressure on our O after that, and we didn't do likewise. Some spectacular plays from both sides (Mr Nord, I believe Mr Neild has that disc you are looking for) and hard running made for a game the crowd really enjoyed. Sockeye didn't really have a lot of tall timber outside of Chase and Nord - they'll happily put 4 guys around 6 foot on the line as their cutters. In comparison we Dingos could field at least 4 guys who were 6'4" downfield.

USA's offence relies on 7 guys running really hard to keep their defenders occupied, and spacing the field well. This means the defence can't help out on hucks, and the moment a defender is wrong footed, the cutter is on the move to get open. One point I marked Tim Gehret and he made about 12+ cuts non-stop before the chance came to cut up the line for a pass.

And the offence really runs through Ben W a lot.

JJ's photo of USA with the disc

Finland
The wind had picked up so we played some Pommy zone early vs Finland. It got us 6 straight points. Mikko Paanasalo seemed to be the man they wanted to attack through, but they couldn't move upfield. After half they put him behind the wall to attack from upfield, and their handlers seemed to move the disc quicker, with more success.

The Finns have a crisp style of play, with their sharp looking forehands. A bit of a contrast to the athletic power style game of we Aussies.

Dan with Konstantin, who we reckon looks like Frankie.

Worlds begins

2008-08-04T03:57:00.000+10:00

I have been in Vancouver for almost 2 days and North America for over 2 weeks. And I'm finally about to actually play.

So what's going on?

Due to some construction (installing artificial turf fields) some of the fields are a short bus ride away, which is a little more hassle for getting around, as Parinella points out.

Dorms are nice and simple. The lads with laptops are delighted to have internet access in their rooms. All the Aussies are in one building, spread across 4 or 5 floors. The stairwell is an echo chamber where you meet the others going up or down.

Its great to catch up with faces from the distant ultimate past - it is a big part of the buzz of the start of Worlds.

Weather: delightful. Food: close by but dormitory. Fields: lush but in some spots, need to dry out in and get smoothened. Colombians: loud and in party-mode.

For the Dingos, we have all our support staff on-board now: assistant coach Rueben, physio Bianca and medical assistants/general support Chaddy, Katie and Emma. And I think Abra's dad will be our team photographer.

In terms of the ultimate, the Mixed showcase game between Canada and GB was entertaining. An impressive standard, which the Canadians pulled out in the end. I saw the end of the Australia - Hong Kong mixed game this morning, which the Barramundis won comfortably. Their deep stack gives them lots of nice space for the in-cut. They played on the stadium field, and I hope it survives the week until Saturday (such fields are usually rested as much as possible for the finals).

On Tour

2008-07-30T17:37:00.014+10:00

We Dingos have been touring the US for over a week now.

We have played Jam, Revolver, Condors and Johnny Bravo. These are 4 of the strongest teams in North America, and hence the world.

There is more to our Worlds preparation than the actual games. Though I hope to come back and discuss those.

This pre-tour has put us in the right timezone earlier, letting us adjust our sleep cycles so we are all set to go for game 1.

We have gotten to know each other better. The long car trips, hikes in the mountains, and shared beds (sometimes you have two Dingos and one queen size bed, and that's life) have lead to shared experiences, and we understand each others' hates, likes and quirks more now. There is time for team discussions of expectations which are great to sort out before the tournament, rather than those key times when you want to warm-up, play and recover in Vancouver.

The food, driving, weather, accents, street signs and ridiculous number of small useless bronze coins are all familiar to us, and will not be distractions for anyone to marvel at come Worlds. One Dingo, who had never been overseas before, will certainly feel more comfortable at the tournament, having gone through these experiences.

On top of this, the chance to play elite ultimate for the sheer challenge, joy and experience of it has been valuable. And it is a holiday to remember, as my photos show me.

Max tees off in Golden Gate Park

This rodent kindly posed in front of Half Dome for me.

Kobe Bryant (10) and the USA Mens Basketball team playing Canada in Las Vegas, in preparation for the Olympics.

Southern Terra and Seattle's Junior Women representative team, post-game.

How they play in the US

2008-07-30T16:46:00.001+10:00

For those who have never played against North American teams, here are my observations about the differences between US teams and Aussie teams. I am in the US, having just played against Jam, Revolver, Condors and Johnny Bravo. I have also watched 4 Junior teams play.

The Yanks like to throw flat inside forehands more. They don't necessarily try to have a low release like we do. I was impressed seeing a 16 year old girl do it in-game today, effortlessly.

Their backhand hucks are harder to stop - they are thrown from wider. In fact, some teams, like the Condors, almost don't huck flicks (odd to Australians, who almost always have 1 or 2 flick happy throwers, like myself).

They layout cleanly. From a young age, they layout out in a straight line, usually landing on their chest, whether it is an O catch, or a D bid. For years, I have been a mess of elbows and knees, landing on my joints and hips. I have been improving this, but the US sets the standard.

They don't pop. Zone O is a game of patient passing for them, looking for open players as if it was man-on-man D they were facing. The wily popper who "posts up", or the deliberate, planned give-and-go between 2 handlers is far rarer Stateside. So it seems they may have things to learn from Aussies, as well as the many aspects we can take from US ultimate.

Training loads

2008-07-14T11:00:00.001+10:00

Any coaching or teaching requires planning.

Some folks confuse planning with being rigid. Planning actually means having prepared ideas and the appropriate resources to implement them before an event, and having contingencies available. You need to have flexibility in what you plan. You need to have examined potential scenarios, and have Plan Bs ready.

This applies especially to strength and conditioning training. Obvious example: if you are planning conditioning work for a season, you need to have contingency plans if you, for example, roll your ankle and cannot run. How will your season plan be different if that happens?

But there are more subtle flexibilities, and that includes adapting the workload to the athletes' condition. Are they strong enough to increase their sets? Are they tired? Are they flexible enough?

Aaron Coutts gave one of the talks at my Level 2 Coaching General Principles course back in 2005, and he explained his solutions for this challenge. Aaron has worked for the Essendon Bombers and the Parramatta Eels.

He is one of the authors of this paper.

The guts of it is that if you ask athletes to rate their perceived exertion on a scale of 1-10, it is a good indicator of how hard they physically worked. The key idea that Aaron uses in his work is to use this surveying after training sessions, and use it to vary the intensity of trainings. If you ensure there is a constant variation in training intensities, athletes are less likely to fatigue or disengage. Following harder competitions/trainings with relatively easier ones, and vice versa, keeps athletes focussed, fitter, and more able to achieve the goals of trainings.

The adoption of these concepts means that AFL teams no longer belt their players with a hard fitness session on the Monday after a hard weekend game. Recovery and variety in training load is essential to peak performance.

This one's for Camby

2008-07-08T10:40:00.018+10:00

Now, I reckon that a lot of the latest "technology" in cleats has no significant impact. Football boot companies issue new technologies to sell this season's boots, and convince buyers they are missing out on a large leap forward in stud pattern, mid-sole support or upper material.

Once you have found comfortable cleats that feel good to play in, you are better off investing your time and money on training or high level competition, instead of spending an extra $100 on fancier cleats. Camby may debate this...

I thought I would share what cleats I use. At the moment, I own several pairs. I have a few pairs in the cupboard, buying when I see a sale rather than when I need a new pair. I am banking on the fact I will be playing ultimate for more than 12 more months (seems likely!).

Gaia Ion Flame

These cleats are well padded everywhere inside - easy on the feet. Probably good for those prone to blisters. It also means your feet don't move around at all. The upper is kind of plonked onto the sole - not much design to minimise the inevitable splitting of sole and upper.

Also, the bulk of the shoe and depth/position of the studs makes me feel I am a little more likely to roll over on my ankle. Available for quite a low price.

Nomis Rapid FG

Nomis, an Australian based company, have a sale on now (the rugby league State of Origin models are now $100, down from $300). The Rapids are the cheapest in the Nomis range and are the newest addition. Nomis started with models only over $200 but are now entering the $100 price point too, after building an identity as a "deluxe" brand.

The Rapids don't have any special upper surfaces for gripping soccer balls in the wet or dry. But I don't kick soccer balls, so nothing lost there. Other cleats from Nomis (not these though) claim they are less likely to pick up mud on the cleats, reducing weight on muddy fields. So these ones still pick up mud. The inner sole is also cushy and removable. Basically these are conventional leather soccer cleats without Nomis' extra "technologies".

Nike Vapor Jet 4.2

I don't own these cleats. But I may buy a pair when I visit the States, since they're not sold in Australia. These are American football cleats, and I would like to see how, or if, they are noticeably different to soccer boots.

Soccer boots are designed for running, turning and kicking soccer balls. American football cleats for big linebackers have protection, support and traction, while cleats for nimble wide receivers are designed for running and turning. They are also allowed to have a toe cleat (soccer boots aren't).

Asics Gel Lethals

I don't wear these cleats much. They have lots of cushioning - good for hard ground or training. However, they are noticeably heavier than soccer boots - I feel slightly faster in soccer boots. Also, Lethals all seem to start from $130, and the shoes above are all cheaper.

Also, now is a good time to buy cleats, with some sports stores having mid-year sales. August to September are also good times when stores clear winter stock out to make room for summer sports gear.

Dingo Central

2008-07-01T23:03:00.003+10:00

Check out the new Dingos website.

Lots of stuff to check out: our history, our roster, who we'll play on the pre-tour, our merchandise.

Plus we'll have photos and news as we play all our games in the US and at Worlds, in Vancouver.

And for old times sake, here is a photo from the Dingos pre-tour in 2000. Yes, we did enjoy having a lakeside bbq in the Swiss sunshine, in case you were curious.

Special offer on ankle insurance!! Buy now!

2008-07-01T21:54:00.000+10:00

Step right up!

If you're going to Worlds, we've got insurance for you!

Eliminate the number one ultimate injury from your list of worries!

For not $20, not $15, for less than $8 per week, we offer full ankle insurance. No concerns about sitting on the sideline after paying $3000 for that airfare!

Over 120 Aussie players are heading to Worlds - the odds are good that a few of you will roll those unstable ankles in a pothole in the next few weeks. I saw a Mundi go down just last week!

Just pay now and you can be sure those ankles are good to go on the fields of Vancouver.

Where do you sign up, you ask? Where can you take great advantage of this deal?

Well, wait one second, we've got more!

For a limited time, we won't just offer insurance - we'll guarantee no ankle injuries. That's insurance plus!

Sign up folks, sign up.

(Ankle insurance available from your nearest pharmacist, chemist or Yorston. Just ask for "tape".)

Digg meets ultimate

2008-06-05T14:31:00.002+10:00

To quote their self-description, "BananaCut is the Digg of Ultimate content. It's a socially driven Ultimate Frisbee news, video and photo site."

Anyone want to get some Aussie content on there? Surely Roger's photos should get into the photo section.

Who can make next week's training?

2008-06-03T18:45:00.011+10:00

Ultimate teams are far easier to manage when you have simple ways to communicate. How did we do anything before email and mobiles?

Its worth thinking about a website for your team - not necessarily a public place for outsiders to see a few photos and your roster, but a private hub for organising trainings and attendance, sharing tactics, discussing uniforms and upload photos.

The simplest comparison is Facebook (uh-oh, half my readers just went to play Scrabulous or throw a zombie...) Facebook is a starting point for a user: your friends' details, photos, news and latest actions all come to you. And are easily found with one search box.

Here are some ready-to-go team website tools on offer:

Google Sites
Only been out for 2 weeks. We Dingos are using it. The pages are editable by anyone, and you can put in many widgets, tables, videos and photos. Limited integration with all the other useful google tools (calendar, groups, docs, gmail).

Teamtastic
~~Used~~ Tested by the Firetails, used by Iceni and even UK Ultimate. Free, but ad-supported and there are limits on photos and pages. Designed for sports teams. You can manage news, photos, polls, roster, schedules, and more.

TeamSnap
Looks slick, but I can't find any ultimate teams using it yet, unsurprisingly. Free for now, but down the track they will have free and paid options. You can manage pretty much the same things as Teamtastic, plus team stats, who has paid and even the roster for who is bringing the esky. Who wants to test-drive this one?

FreeTeams
Looks outdated.

MyTeamCaptain
Ditto

Online learning

2008-05-28T16:47:00.003+10:00

This is the first in a short series of posts on technology.

Dan Cogan-Drew has set up a new online tool.

It is openultimate.com

Check it out. You can enrol in a "course", which is a collection of photos, videos, blog posts and expositions built by the public. I believe you pass a course by contributing to the course discussion online.

You can create an online space for your team, where you can structure a course with the content you want. The US Junior teams have their own courses on there.

Reflections on Nationals 2008

2008-05-03T10:52:00.017+10:00

Firstly the fields. Crikey, I'm not sure I'd take the gamble. Excellent fields assured 80% of the time - when there is good weather. But when there is heavy rain - you get a mud farm. And that did not make for quality ultimate.

The Friday morning rain hit as we played the Masters. Our first point involved Cleetus getting 3 layout blocks. This was because a) Cleetus can run faster in the mud than Masters, and b) we turned it 3 times in the terrible conditions in the first point. Not a pretty game.

Its tough finding good fields in this sunburnt country (see Sydney Nats 06). I guess we've got to keep working at it.

On Friday night, it was great to watch the match between the Aussie Firetails and the Kiwi women's team. Australia are fielding more and more athletes these days. It seems to be an aspect where the North Americans really have it over us, so it is good to see us close the gap. However, the number of turnovers was a bit discouraging. Too often the Firetails took 3+ possessions to score, despite the Kiwis not being in the same class as them.

And I must have a word to Tom about their zone offense.

Heads of State had a solid tournament. There were some pretty disappointing moments, in particular losing a see-sawing, winner-takes-all last point vs Fyshwick and the pre-semi to I-Beam. But being the 4th best men's team in Australia (NZ pushed us down to 5th) ain't all bad, considering it is the first or second Nationals for most of our team. This is only year 2 of our journey. But we are hungry to improve and win more.

Surprises of the tournament (though not all that surprising):

Box
Box finishing 6th. Last year they made the final. In 2008 they return with the same young talented squad enhanced by an extra year to improve their teamwork and grow their rookies. So how did Factory Girls and Southside overtake them?

Barefoot
They collapsed. Winning all the games on Day 1. Losing the rest to finish ~~11th~~ 12th. Wow. We need an insider's story on this. But the results of Regionals held up at Nationals overall. We knew they weren't great after finishing fifth at Easterns. So not the biggest surprise in one sense. In those immortal words "they are who we thought they were"

The men's final
Fakulti looked shaky, unlike every other game they played in the tourney. An unprecedented number of unforced throwaways. Fyshwick on the other hand played pretty much to their potential (a very strong potential I should add), and so were lurking there at the end, despite never being able to take the lead. Perhaps Fakulti felt the obligations of being the bookie's favourite, with a lot to lose. But they stepped up to claim the title in their 5th final appearance, and perhaps their first one as favourites.

I am particularly happy for Kenny, Fatty ~~and James~~ - their first title after so many years of putting hard work into the Fakulti club.

All in all it was an entertaining men's final. Great to watch. I got to commentate. Subscribe to the podcast here.

Kenny and national champions Fakulti

Rethinking aerobic and anaerobic training

2008-03-14T10:53:00.003+11:00

As someone who has a background in exact sciences (physics), the fuzziness of sports science and physiology sometimes leaves me uncertain about what we know or why in sport.

Here is more to throw into the mix. A blogpost on Establishing an aerobic base. The article addresses training from the perspective of a range of team sports that ultimate would definitely fit into.

Is more rethinking needed here Australia?

Aspects of throwing practice

2008-03-12T16:17:00.024+11:00

Many of you may be familiar with the standard set of 100 throws: 10 flat backhands, 10 flat forehands, 10 outside-in backhands, 10 outside-in forehands, 10 inside-out backhands, 10 inside-out forehands, 10 scoobers, 10 hammers, 10 long backhands, 10 long forehands.

What variations in throwing are used in this set?

Basically, grip (forehand vs backhand vs hammer), angle of throw (inside-out vs flat vs outside-in) and distance (short vs long).

But there are other aspects we can vary:

speed of throw (fast vs slow)
height of throw (low vs normal vs high)
width of pivot (normal vs wide)
angle of pivot (step forward vs step sideways vs step back)
width of pivot (step out a little vs step out a lot)
catching aggression (let disc come to you vs sprint to catch it at earliest moment)
after the throw (stand and watch vs cut left vs cut right)

So here are two other sets of throws you can use.

Break Throw 100

This set will work on your break throws.

10 backhands, 10 forehands: flat, normal height release, step sideways as far as feasible, slow disc speed(should arrive gently in receiver's hands)
10 backhands, 10 forehands: flat, low release, step back 45 degrees with a medium pivot, slow disc speed
10 backhands, 10 forehands: inside-out (disc must arrive at receiver inside-out), low release, step sideways with a medium pivot, slow disc speed
5 forehand blades: pivot from backhand stance, throw very vertical blade
5 scoobers: pivot from forehand stance, throw scoober
10 hammers: fake forehand, throw hammer
10 long backhands: pivot from forehand stance sideways, wide into the backhand huck
10 long forehands: pivot from backhand stance sideways, wide into the forehand huck

Throw and Go 30

And here is a set that will warm you up before a game, and teach you to give-and-go. It also doesn't take long. After the first throw, jog to your left for five metres.

After the second throw, jog to your right for five metres. You'll end up roughly where you started after every two throws. The aim is to start running in the throwing motion. Leave more time between each catch and throw, if you want to improve focus and completion rate. If you do it at maximum speed it is basically the kill drill.

This set will cover all combinations of throw forehand/backhand and run left/right.

5 low flat backhands (slow jog)
5 low flat forehands (slow jog)
5 outside-in backhands (fast acceleration)
5 outside-in forehands (fast acceleration)
5 inside-out backhands (fast acceleration)
5 inside-out forehands (fast acceleration)

A new coaching textbook: Essential Ultimate

2008-02-21T09:48:00.006+11:00

There are two folks in the US I would like to meet.

They are Michael Baccarini and Tiina Booth. Both are high school ultimate coaches. High school coaches who have coached teams to multiple National Championships and World Championships. They also run cutting edge youth camps and train up ultimate coaches.

So I really enjoyed reading the book they have just written: Essential Ultimate. It is a fantastic resource for coaches and players alike.

My review is at Amazon. I make a few comparisons to Parinella and Zazslow's "Ultimate Techniques and Tactics" in the review, in case you have seen that book.

Essential Ultimate is available through Amazon, or through the publisher Human Kinetics here in Australia.

Growing pains

2008-02-01T14:20:00.002+11:00

Down under, we are facing some growing pains.

In the old days, if you wanted to compete in an event, you pretty much could, whether that was league, or playing for Australia. No broken hearts back then, but no World Championship medals either.

But now some of our players and teams who make a concerted effort (time, effort, money, dreams) are missing out. There is more competition among players seeking to play at certain levels: leagues, club teams, demo games, representing Australia, even getting to play the Melbourne Hat.

We have partly addressed or dodged this problem at times as our sport grows: increasing team numbers at AUGs, larger Nationals, more players per team, more Australian representative teams (six this year compared to two in 1998).

And it isn't comfortable to turn away someone when Aussie ultimate is such a social community, the player is a mate, and they are used to playing if they want to.

But I do feel we can move to accepting the systems where teams and players have to qualify to play. It will require bringing more professional approaches into our volunteer organisations: documenting and publicising qualification requirements, using late fees to encourage early payment/deposits, giving volunteers clearly defined job descriptions and responsibilities, writing selection policy, etc.

I've missed on Australian teams and Green & Gold teams. And I know that not all my friends can be selected to represent Australia at WUGC2008.

So how to deal with not achieving a goal which lies partly in the hands of others?

I feel that Americans often embrace the story of the comeback - a player who doesn't make the cut on a sports team recognises that competing for spots makes the team strong, and will work hard to qualify next time. And this is a good thing. Many of their cultural stories and touchstones relate to falling short then getting back up again: Michael Jordan, John Travolta, Al Gore, Apple and Steve Jobs. Writers can even see such stories coming and how they will turn out.

So for the individuals missing out on qualifying for Nationals/making an Australian team/playing Division 1 league, what now?

There are others in the same boat - chat with them.

Get feedback on how to improve your chances next time.

Readjust your goals. If your team doesn't qualify for Nationals, plan for NZ Open, Kaimana, or Walkabout events. If you don't make an Australian team in 2008, think about joining the support teams, or going to Asia-Oceania Championships or Beach Worlds (as some folks did). Or reset your focus on the next opportunity to make that team/tournament.

And keep working.