The RISE UP World Tour

Right now RISE UP is on its world tour, visiting these five countries.

Mario O'Brien is the RISE UP founder. He is joined on certain legs of this tour by Alex Snyder and Ryan Purcell.

RISE UP is all about teaching ultimate communities the skills and drills used by the best teams in the world - through videos and in person.

But there is a second goal in the pipeline: build coaching and leadership skills. Both of these aspects were in play at the Australian clinics.

In their Melbourne clinic, Mario and Alex spent Saturday coaching around 40 female players.

Also, ten coaches attended. They weren't playing. They were observing the coaching practices of Mario and Alex, reflecting on them, and identifying the important features of team culture, drill progressions, focussed scrimmages and providing feedback.

This development of coaches is critical. More and more teams recognise the value of coaches, and have appointed them. Mario writes about this from the American perspective, while in Australia, the Dingoes, STBAU, Heads of State, Chilly Masters and Rabble have all recently appointed head coaches after not having one.

Appointing coaches is only the first step.

There is a need in ultimate to explicitly train those coaches into expert coaches, by giving them communities of coaches. These coaches need to peer observe, and reflect and plan together.

Many aspects of ultimate have lots of time and effort put into them: intercity and international competition, fitness, videos, news/blogs. But what programs or resources exist for turning adequate coaches into fantastic ones?

Well, not much. So Mario is stepping up to that opening. And he has the leadership training and ultimate experience to build something great.

Who else will step up?

Learning patterns

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.

The road to Kaohsiung

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.
  

Ways to attack a zone

Here are some ways to attack a zone. I didn't realise there are so many ways to attack a zone until I stopped to count them. Anyone got more?

1. Sneak in and pivot through
The poppers step just inside the wall or cup, lean forward to receive a short pass (less than 1 metre), and pivot past a defender to throw to a teammate. The disc is not thrown through the cup - it is carried through by a legal pivot step of the popper. This requires footwork not used anywhere else in ultimate, so it takes specific practice.

2. Stand in space
Poppers stand behind the cup or wall in space. If the wing defenders are kept preoccupied, at least 1 of the 2 poppers should be free enough. The handler throws a hammer, blade or scoober to the open popper.

3. Decoy runs to make gaps
One popper moves through the cup to move a defender. The handler throws through the gap they leave to the other popper, who has positioned themselves where they think the gap will appear.

4. Flood the weak side
Position a handler on the opposite side of the field to the disc, and have 2 poppers nearby. Leave the handler with the disc all alone with 4 defenders near him/her. When the disc is swung with a hammer or dump-swing, the poppers are ready to give-go, as the disc should arrive before the cup, clam or wall arrives. Frisbees are faster than feet.

5. Flood deep and hammer
Put 3 or 4 players deep, each trying to draw a defender. One offensive player should be left open for a hammer or blade.

6. Dump and swing until a wing is open
This is the status-quo. It is simple and so is usually the first tactic taught on zone offense. It uses the assumption that "the cup will get tired and slow down and we can then pass up the wing, before we make a mistake". This assumption is usually false in beginner and intermediate ultimate. My reasoning: if you throw just 7 passes sideways, each of which is 90% safe, you are more likely to turn it over than not. And you haven't even gone forward towards the goal. And isn't that the aim of offense?

Guidelines to popping

Here is the first in a series of posts about popping. Why popping? Cos I like it :) Popping requires very different tactics to man-on-man offence - which we play 95% of the time.

The National Junior Training Camp was on this week in Melbourne. You have never seen such a standard of professional training in ultimate. The coaches and athletes there are building a new culture of elite ultimate. I foresee big things for the U-19 Australian teams that emerge from this camp, and the rest of the campaign.

I was guest coach on Thursday morning, coaching the Junior Women on zone O.

The junior women played three mini-games, rotating through the roles of handler, popper and deep in their team. I gave them two guidelines to follow in each role:

Handlers
1. Look after the disc (i.e. throw safe throws, don't get stalled)
2. Keep the disc in the middle of the field (because the zone they faced was a line-trapping pommy zone)

Poppers
1. Always watch the disc (as the angles and defence constantly change, and you can be open at any moment. You can no longer afford to clear long for three seconds, head down, arms pumping.)
2. Stay within 10 metres of the disc (for the offensive style I wanted, the poppers break the zone with small passes through the wall, so they have to be near the disc)

Deeps
1. Pull defenders deep (to give the poppers space)
2. Cut in at the right time (to keep the disc moving upfield before the wall and chaser can contain it again)

Teams can choose different offensive styles against zone, that may not include these guidelines.

But for the junior women on Thursday, I felt these six guidelines gave them an instant structure.

The hardest one to follow was Keep the disc in the middle of the field. It is a very human tendency to throw where the force lets you. But against a trapping zone, the sideline takes away space to throw into, and lets the defenders crowd in. It is clear it takes a fair bit of practice to ignore an open teammate on the sideline and break the mark to a hit better positioned teammate.

Symmetry

When playing against an inexperienced team, have you heard teammates say this:
"We should should force forehand, because their forehands are weaker"?

I have. Lots.

This makes sense if your aim is to choose a D that will make it harder for the opponents. The forehand force and backhand force will produce different results. In this situation, the two options are not equal or "symmetric".

Yet experienced teams sometimes forget this when designing or choosing other tactics.

Examples

• which is harder to throw: a forehand dump, or a backhand dump?
  
• if you put the disc into play on the left hand side line, should your horizontal stack have the receivers equally deep on the left and right hand sides?
  
• if a player has better offence than defence, should they start more O or D points?
  
• if an elite player can have more impact on offence than defence (since they can throw up to 50% of the passes, but can only defend ~1/7th of an opposition team), should they start more O or D points?
  
• if the disc is put into play on the sideline, should your zone's wings be equally deep/in-field?
  
• if a zone defender is covering two opponents, should they stand closer to the deeper player or shorter player?
  
• if your team is forcing straight-up, and you are guarding a cutter out in the open, should you position yourself between the cutter and the stack, or position yourself so the cutter is between you and the stack?
  
• if your team has a handler with a strong forehand, should they play more left point or right point?

To summarise: if there is a imbalance in some team strength or weakness, consider choosing an imbalanced tactic that advantages your team. Instead of just choosing the default symmetric option.

The distribution of playing time

In an elite ultimate team, how should the team's minutes be distributed among the players?

Note that I have deliberately not used the phrase "how should you distribute playing time" since that assumes the process should be determined by one person.

This article gave me insight.

There is a lot to be gained from keeping everyone focussed on the team's aims, and away from comparing their performance relative to others.

I have always tried to keep stats of individual players away from the players, whenever I have been responsible for them. Team stats I will happily share.

To get briefly political, it seems like this applies to the "how shall we pay teachers" debate in Australia.

For me, the important issue is not who gets rewarded, but where the focus of the people doing the work is - on contributing to the effort, or on how they compare to their neighbour. We know the approach of the US, in the teacher pay debate.

Parinella says (and debate follows his post):

the player has to draw one of the following conclusions, depending on how the subbing is done: either whatever I do has little effect on my playing time, in which case I don’t have to play smart, or I am going to be benched if I make a mistake, in which case I probably should play so conservatively that I’m not going to help the team.

I believe, if you can reduce the focus on "how am I doing" and bring it to bear on "how can I help the team more", better results will follow.

And calling lines most points, where you are disappointing several keen players every time you call them off, seems to push the focus in the wrong direction.

So what are the alternatives?

One is self-managed playing time. If your team plays lots, players should have time to get comfortable with their roles. The coach or leadership should make suggestions to players chiefly in non-crucial tournaments and in scrimmages ("play more zone", "make sure we have 3 handlers on", "play less this game, more next game", "play more on O, less on D"). So when you hit the big games, roles are set and players can focus on cheering and getting ready to play, rather than listening for their name, and not hearing it.

Any exceptions e.g. "our strongest lines will be called in crunch time, or to take half", should be established in preparation games too.

Bottom line is, if you use pay or playing time as the carrot, then you need to devise a better carrot - such as seeing how you contribute to success.

Triggers for transitions

What are all the possible triggers for a transition from one defense to another defense?

• Nominated on-field defender decides
  
• Disc reaches a pre-determined part of the field
  
• Offence makes a pre-determined number of passes
  
• Stall count reaches a certain number
  
• A certain offence player gets possession (eg a weak thrower)

Any others?

Which do you like? Which ones have you seen (and not seen)? I've used the first three triggers over the years.

10 Things instead of Drills

Here is a random collection of 10 activities that are not conventional join-the-back-of-the-line drills. Try one next time you are running a training session. It may spark some new ideas for you. The activities are suitable for most abilities.

1. Modified-scoring ultimate
Scrimmage with a modified scoring system, eg 1 point for a break throw as well as 1 point for a goal. This well help you practise and focus on using break throws (and stopping them). You can assign points for anything you want to focus on: blocks, dumps, hucks, hammers, open side cuts, you name it.

2. Unlimited turnovers
Scrimmage with the offense getting the disc back after each turnover. The offense can repeatedly practise their O, and the defence their D.

3. Play schtick
Schtick uses many skills used in Ultimate. But it is a good change up from ultimate.

4. Play mini-ultimate
Play ultimate - but only one aspect. Examples are offense starts 10 metres outside the endzone, or 4 on 4 zone, or 3 on 3 where the only aim is to dump and swing the disc.

5. Team goals
Have a fishbowl, brainstorm or think-pair-share about what your team wants to improve on or achieve.

6. Play disc golf
When every throw contributes to your score, you work hard at your throws. Try a discathon for a faster activity.

7. Tag
Great as a warm-up or energiser. Helps improve defense. Variations: frisbee tag, stuck-in-the-mud, bullrush, octopus.

8. Juggling
How many passes can 2 people complete in 30 seconds? Using 2 discs? 3 discs? Consecutive passes?

9. Feedback
Organise activities for players to get feedback on their play, and perhaps off-field roles too (social co-ordinator, treasurer, leaders, etc). Feedback can have different formats: anonymous/open, from teammates/leaders/self, one-on-one/group/team, talking/doing.

10. Learn the rules
Hands up if you are confident you know what stall count a contested travel now comes in on? Some ideas for learning the answer are here.

Observations from Clubs - new tactics

I think the Buzz Bullets set the standard. I heard second-hand of their zone-to-man transitions on set counts, ie only transition when the count gets high. Transitioning in advantageous situations seems like a positive evolution from what I have used the last few years - transitioning after a predetermined number of passes.

Now that I think about it, some of my teams from years and years ago would transition on someone's call. I wonder why we drifted away from that? Maybe because we were trying to implement the non-audibled transition, after 4 passes, for example. And that devolved into a vocalised 4 pass transition.

The approach of the Buzz Bullets strikes me as more valuable.

The Bullets were also very threatening with their skills: sharp hucks, quick disc movement, agile pivoting, lurking poachers. They never looked like losing, despite their height mismatches against many teams.

Introduction to Risk/Reward

Jim Parinella talks about risk/reward for offence and defence.

I thought I would do a little intro to risk and reward.

And you get to participate!

Scenario 1
Team A can reach the endzone in 10 short passes, each with a 90% probability of completion.

What is their probability of scoring? (hint: 0.90 x 0.90 x 0.90 x ...)

The same team can also reach the endzone in 2 long passes, but each of these has a 70% probability of completion.

What is their probability of scoring in this case?

So should Team A use short passes or long passes?

Scenario 2
Team B can reach the endzone in 10 short passes, each with a 95% probability of completion.

Or Team B can alternatively reach the endzone in 2 long passes, each with a 60% chance of completion.

Should Team B use short passes or long passes?

These two scenarios illustrate risk and reward. Every pass has a risk, but some passes have a greater reward relative to their risk. Basically, break throws and long throws will have a greater risk than a simple 5 metre open pass, but sometimes the reward more than justifies that risk.

When I am playing defense, I think mostly about how to make the opposition (who are on offence) choose the wrong option, ie I first try to cover the potential passes that give them the best reward for risk.

The 7 Postulates of Pulling

We undervalue good pulls. A quality pull will put the receiving team on the back foot, in their endzone, with time to get maybe one uncontested pass off.

A bad pull from your team says "We don't really care about defence, and we are happy to let our opponents start 44 metres from this endzone, instead of 60 or 70 metres downfield."

So pulling needs to receive more attention, more allocated time in training and more recognition by the pullers and the rest of the team. Not just occasional hollow support such as only saying "yeah, let's try and do better pulls".

The following 7 Postulates of Pulling are up for debate - but the need for more respect for pulling is not.

1. Only a designated puller may pull. (A designated puller is one chosen before training or the game, and has had pull training)

2. If there are too few designated pullers, the pulling captain chooses the substitute(s).

3. The puller must pull from the left or the right of the field, not from the middle where they would have teammates on either side.

4. The six teammates must stay on-side, so as not to get in the way or distract the puller's pull.

5. A puller shall throw a backhand.

6. A puller must have a pulling routine.

7. Pullers must be one of the four deepest defensive players (ie they are not asked to run down and contest the first couple of passes, by being in a cup, or marking a handler).