Specific feedback for your O game

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

1. throwing to teammates wherever they are (throw hucks; throw hammers)
2. throwing to make teammates open (throw break or open-side to favour teammates, not defenders)
3. throwing quickly (throw as soon as an opportunity appears; prevent the defence from getting a mark on)
4. throwing safely (keep throwing completion rate high; seeing where defenders and help-defenders are)
5. moving to make teammates open (clear the break side, open side, deep and under as needed; regularly draw their defender with them)
6. 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)
7. being athletic (catch swill that is high or wide; outrun defenders; outaccelerate defenders)
8. 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

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.

Never clear again

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.

Up the line

I am a well-known advocate of the dump cutting up the line. To clarify, I mean the dump cutting forward of the thrower, when the thrower is on the line and being forced line.

The advantages seem numerous:

• many defenders are used to dumps catching the disc behind the thrower
  
• catching the disc up the line puts you in the power position (ie you have a 1 second window where you can throw anywhere upfield, including long, since your defender is behind you)
  
• it is a simple way to score when you are close to the endzone
  
• other defenders are often not in a position to provide help defence
  
• it opens up the backwards dump, once cutting up-the-line is an established threat

This last point is one I tinkered with yesterday at the Heads of State training camp. If you cut up the line, and then come back for a backwards dump, you can leave your defender far behind.

I realised that this is generally true only if you go far enough up the line.

So clearly we need a name for this.

When the dump has cut forward far enough that the thrower can throw to them, the defender has to commit to defending up the line.

Basically, the dump needs to enter the up-the-line throwing lane. I shall call this the Wedge (coloured orange in the diagram). It looks wedge-shaped.

To summarise: to open up your dump, Enter the Wedge first. Very Zen.

Measuring a good pull

How do can you tell if you have improved?

Sometimes it seems obvious to you.

But other times you need to measure that skill or aspect of your game.

Here is how I measure the quality of a pull. It is a useful system for pullers to compete against other pullers, or to compare their own pulls over time. This follows on from my 7 Postulates of Pulling.

Alpha pull - disc lands in the endzone, more than 5 metres away from a sideline.

Beta pull - disc lands in the field, but not in the alpha zone.

Brick pull - disc lands out of bounds.

Alpha (green) is better than beta (yellow) is better than a brick (white).

Take 10 pulls, and see how many alphas, betas and bricks you get. Maybe 6-3-1. Which is better than say, 4-2-4.

"But hang on a tick!" you say. "Why is it less valuable to land the disc near the back of the endzone? Isn't a disc that lands 1 metre from the back left cone a fantastic pull?"

The problem with such a pull is that you can't do it regularly. If you aim there 10 times, a bunch of pulls are going to land out, giving your opponents bricks. (Unless you are the most accurate thrower ever, in which case you are earning money playing disc golf in the US, not reading this blog.)

Aiming well within the bounds of the endzone should mean that almost no pulls land out. And that is far more valuable than 5 pulls in the corner and 5 bricks.

This is why I don't congratulate pulls that do land 1 inch from the back left cone. The puller is lucky the risk didn't backfire that time - they're not worthy of "Wow! Great pull!"

Addendum: Tao calls alpha pulls with lots of yummy hangtime "Alpha pluses". Making it a 4-tier scoring system.