On Tour

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Digg meets ultimate

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

One Percenters - Chapter 2

Following on from Rueben's list of one-percenters, here are my additions to that list of the little things that help your team. (Read Rueben's first.)

Moving your defender
When you see a teammate about to cut long, and you are standing near the back of the stack, a little movement in to the disc can draw your defender's attention so they can't help defend the teammate's deep cut.

Not getting in the way
If the thrower has engaged the dump, you need to leave the space around the dump and thrower for the dump to cut into.

Motivating the team
If you or a teammate do something good, let the team know. Get excited. Celebrate. Motivate. A huge layout goal is a very valuable spark that your team can use.

T-minus cuts
Distract and draw the defence by starting your cut before the disc gets checked in. The defence will be less likely to help defend the main cut, and the thrower can throw earlier to the main cut (or even you!). T-minus, because you cut at T-minus 5 seconds, for example.

Look around
See what the thrower, cutters and defence are doing, by constantly turning your head. Have no blind spots.

Share your observations
Let your teammates and leadership know about any tactically useful observations: "Fred has only thrown forehands this game", "Don is poaching a lot".