Ultimate
FWD>>Week 3
2009/04/27 19:57
Last week, we continued to work on our horizontal stack offence, while emphasizing our handler resets and moving the disc to the centre of the field. Overall, we did a good job, but there were definitely areas for improvement:
Last game it felt as though our biggest areas of weakness were our defence and our end-zone offence. This week, we're going to focus on defence, and we'll save end-zone offence for next week. First, I'll discuss our individual defensive position, then I'll get into team defence.
Individual Defence
So much of defence requires understanding your strengths and weaknesses. I can't tell you how to play D, only some of the things to think about while playing D. These are suggestions, not rules.
As a defensive player, you have to take something away from the offensive. If you're trying to stop everything, you're out of luck, because you're always going to be a step behind, reacting to the offensive player. Instead, you need to force the offensive player to react to you. If you don't want your defensive assignment to cut in towards the disc, you have to force them out. If you don't want them to beat you deep, you're going to have to force them in. In a sideline force, we should always be trying to force the cutter to the break side, but this isn't enough.
Of course, if you're taking away the same thing for the entire point, you're going to get burned. Force your man deep all the time, and eventually he'll beat you deep. Force your woman in on every cut and she'll get the disc every time. You need to take away different things depending upon the situation. Where are you on the field? Where is the disc? Where does the cutter want to go?
Recognizing the threats takes a lot of experience and requires a lot of field awareness. Sometimes it will be obvious (such as when there's no space for a deep cut or the offensive player is already too deep to make a good cut), but sometimes you're going to be wrong.
Once you know (or have guessed) where the cutter wants the disc, you have to position yourself between them and that spot, while staying close enough to them that you can still challenge other cuts and adapt to changing situations. What types of throws are a threat. Close to the disc, quick, direct throws are the biggest threat, so you're going to want to play the cutter very aggressively, staying between them and the disc. Further away, the bigger threat is going to be bigger, loopier throws, so you're going to want to give the cutter a little more space and put yourself in position to see the disc.
Click on the tiny images to see a full-size version.
Team Defence
It's impossible as a defender to take away everything, so if left alone, you're always going to get burned. This is where team defence comes into play.
There are really two key elements of team D: anticipation and communication. On the field, both before the disc is in play and as the play develops, we need to identify opportunities to help each other and communicate them to our team-mates. If my assignment gets too close to another cutter, I might say something like "I've got the in, you get the deep", shifting to a position where I can cover either cutter on an in-cut, while my team-mate shifts over to cover either player's deep strike. Against a vertical stack, we always need to identify and communicate who our deepest defender is, so that this person can anticipate helping out against a deep strike, while everyone else can anticipate helping if this person's cutter cuts in towards the disc.
Most basic horizontal stack plays involve the last man in the stack cutting in towards the disc. Without defensive help, this usually results in either a free open-side cut, because the cutter's defender is playing behind them, or a free deep strike, because there is no longer a defender positioned at the back of the stack. The defenders need to anticipate this cut and communicate a defensive switch so that the deep defender is not covering the in-cut.
A lot of the poaching in these examples is very (perhaps excessively) aggressive. This is meant to illustrate some of the options you have as a defender, not to tell you what to do every time.
Similarly, at the front of the stack, one player may shift over to cover break-side cuts, providing he has communicated this to his team-mates and they are prepared to help if their cutter cuts to the open side.
Against the horizontal stack, if two cutters are close to each other, one defender can shade in while the other shades deep.
- Cutters need to be careful not to clog the space near the handlers. This is true all the time, but is especially true when the disc is near the sideline. If you find yourself within 5-10 yards of the handlers, you're already too close. It's time to plant hard and clear out, hopefully setting up your next cut in the process.
- I forgot to emphasize the importance of eye contact. If you have the disc, once you get about half way through your stall count (or earlier if you wish), make eye contact with the handler who should be providing you with a reset, and lock onto this person. This signals them to give you a good reset cut. Given about 5 seconds, they should be able to get open for you.
- The positions in our horizontal stack are dynamic. Just because you start as the left side handler that doesn't mean you're the left handler for the entire point. We need to be constantly readjusting to maintain our formation. If a cutter comes in and gets the disc on the sideline, the near handler needs to rotate to the middle, the middle handler needs to rotate to the far side, and the far side handler needs to move up to join the stack. Handlers as well as cutters need to clear out to create space. If you're hanging out behind the disc, you're just clogging. If this is confusing for anyone, let me know, and I can do a little diagram.
Last game it felt as though our biggest areas of weakness were our defence and our end-zone offence. This week, we're going to focus on defence, and we'll save end-zone offence for next week. First, I'll discuss our individual defensive position, then I'll get into team defence.
Individual Defence
So much of defence requires understanding your strengths and weaknesses. I can't tell you how to play D, only some of the things to think about while playing D. These are suggestions, not rules.
As a defensive player, you have to take something away from the offensive. If you're trying to stop everything, you're out of luck, because you're always going to be a step behind, reacting to the offensive player. Instead, you need to force the offensive player to react to you. If you don't want your defensive assignment to cut in towards the disc, you have to force them out. If you don't want them to beat you deep, you're going to have to force them in. In a sideline force, we should always be trying to force the cutter to the break side, but this isn't enough.
Of course, if you're taking away the same thing for the entire point, you're going to get burned. Force your man deep all the time, and eventually he'll beat you deep. Force your woman in on every cut and she'll get the disc every time. You need to take away different things depending upon the situation. Where are you on the field? Where is the disc? Where does the cutter want to go?
Recognizing the threats takes a lot of experience and requires a lot of field awareness. Sometimes it will be obvious (such as when there's no space for a deep cut or the offensive player is already too deep to make a good cut), but sometimes you're going to be wrong.
Once you know (or have guessed) where the cutter wants the disc, you have to position yourself between them and that spot, while staying close enough to them that you can still challenge other cuts and adapt to changing situations. What types of throws are a threat. Close to the disc, quick, direct throws are the biggest threat, so you're going to want to play the cutter very aggressively, staying between them and the disc. Further away, the bigger threat is going to be bigger, loopier throws, so you're going to want to give the cutter a little more space and put yourself in position to see the disc.
Click on the tiny images to see a full-size version.
Team Defence
It's impossible as a defender to take away everything, so if left alone, you're always going to get burned. This is where team defence comes into play.
There are really two key elements of team D: anticipation and communication. On the field, both before the disc is in play and as the play develops, we need to identify opportunities to help each other and communicate them to our team-mates. If my assignment gets too close to another cutter, I might say something like "I've got the in, you get the deep", shifting to a position where I can cover either cutter on an in-cut, while my team-mate shifts over to cover either player's deep strike. Against a vertical stack, we always need to identify and communicate who our deepest defender is, so that this person can anticipate helping out against a deep strike, while everyone else can anticipate helping if this person's cutter cuts in towards the disc.
Most basic horizontal stack plays involve the last man in the stack cutting in towards the disc. Without defensive help, this usually results in either a free open-side cut, because the cutter's defender is playing behind them, or a free deep strike, because there is no longer a defender positioned at the back of the stack. The defenders need to anticipate this cut and communicate a defensive switch so that the deep defender is not covering the in-cut.
A lot of the poaching in these examples is very (perhaps excessively) aggressive. This is meant to illustrate some of the options you have as a defender, not to tell you what to do every time.
Similarly, at the front of the stack, one player may shift over to cover break-side cuts, providing he has communicated this to his team-mates and they are prepared to help if their cutter cuts to the open side.
Against the horizontal stack, if two cutters are close to each other, one defender can shade in while the other shades deep.
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FWD>>Week 2
2009/04/22 07:59
Week 1 never got a strategy post, as I was too busy trying to put together a roster at the last minute. We tried to introduce a basic horizontal stack offence, but it sort of degraded as we ran up a lead and our opponents stopped playing defence. It isn't always going to be that easy.
First I'll go over the basic horizontal offence that I attempted to introduce last week. After that, I'm going to go over getting the disc off of the sideline and handler resets, which should be our priority this week. Read More...
First I'll go over the basic horizontal offence that I attempted to introduce last week. After that, I'm going to go over getting the disc off of the sideline and handler resets, which should be our priority this week. Read More...
Either get open or get out of the way
2009/03/10 19:56
When people go to their first ultimate clinic, they’re usually taught a version of the vertical stack in which you cut from the front and clear out to the back in some sort of big looping pattern that reminds me of magnetic fields diagrams. 
It’s this nice egalitarian model of cutting, where everyone gets their turn, and it is pretty easy to understand. In real life, though, you’ve got less than 10 seconds to get open. There isn’t time for an endless cycle of ineffective cuts.
It wasn’t until I picked up Zaz’s book, about 6 months after I started playing ultimate, that I got some sense of how this was actually supposed to work. “Oh, you’re supposed to get open.” Looking back, it seems obvious, but in the beginning it was never really clear that you had a responsibility to actually get open on your cut.
This is something that really needs to be emphasized for beginning players. If you’re cutting off a vertical stack, you need to get open every time. You don’t need to get the disc every time - sometimes the throw won’t be there, or one of your team-mates will be more open - but you should beat your defender and make a viable cut. If you’re just going through the motions, it isn’t going to work.
No matter what your team’s offensive scheme, there are certain spots on the field where your team intends to catch the disc. A team with strong handlers might really prioritize the break side and the deep. With weaker handlers, you may prioritize the open side. In a split stack, it’s the middle of the field that you’re opening up. When the disc is on the sideline, it’s anywhere where you can reset the disc. No matter where your team’s goals lie, any time you move into these spots, you have to be open.
It’s not enough to get open in these spots, you have to be open when you get there. If I’m dancing around in the lane for four stalls, I’ve completely clogged up my team’s offence. You need to get open before you move into the lane, so that you’re open for the duration of your time in the lane, and as soon as you’re no longer open, you have to get out of the way. In a ho stack, I can’t cut deep to set up an in-cut unless I’m actually open on my deep cut, otherwise I’m getting in the way of someone who can get open deep. Every cut to a priority position needs to be a legitimate open cut.
There are some exceptions, such as offensive sets where the initiating cut gets into a priority position before attempting to get open (an endzone iso, setting up a “German”, etc.), but in any sort of motion-based offence, everyone needs to understand that if they’re going to cut somewhere, they have a responsibility to either get open or get out.
It’s this nice egalitarian model of cutting, where everyone gets their turn, and it is pretty easy to understand. In real life, though, you’ve got less than 10 seconds to get open. There isn’t time for an endless cycle of ineffective cuts.It wasn’t until I picked up Zaz’s book, about 6 months after I started playing ultimate, that I got some sense of how this was actually supposed to work. “Oh, you’re supposed to get open.” Looking back, it seems obvious, but in the beginning it was never really clear that you had a responsibility to actually get open on your cut.
This is something that really needs to be emphasized for beginning players. If you’re cutting off a vertical stack, you need to get open every time. You don’t need to get the disc every time - sometimes the throw won’t be there, or one of your team-mates will be more open - but you should beat your defender and make a viable cut. If you’re just going through the motions, it isn’t going to work.
No matter what your team’s offensive scheme, there are certain spots on the field where your team intends to catch the disc. A team with strong handlers might really prioritize the break side and the deep. With weaker handlers, you may prioritize the open side. In a split stack, it’s the middle of the field that you’re opening up. When the disc is on the sideline, it’s anywhere where you can reset the disc. No matter where your team’s goals lie, any time you move into these spots, you have to be open.
It’s not enough to get open in these spots, you have to be open when you get there. If I’m dancing around in the lane for four stalls, I’ve completely clogged up my team’s offence. You need to get open before you move into the lane, so that you’re open for the duration of your time in the lane, and as soon as you’re no longer open, you have to get out of the way. In a ho stack, I can’t cut deep to set up an in-cut unless I’m actually open on my deep cut, otherwise I’m getting in the way of someone who can get open deep. Every cut to a priority position needs to be a legitimate open cut.
There are some exceptions, such as offensive sets where the initiating cut gets into a priority position before attempting to get open (an endzone iso, setting up a “German”, etc.), but in any sort of motion-based offence, everyone needs to understand that if they’re going to cut somewhere, they have a responsibility to either get open or get out.
Skill Development
2009/03/10 19:14
Unless you can do something under game conditions - tired, pumped with adrenaline, etc. - it isn’t much use to you. As a basketball player we always shot free-throws after doing fitness. As an ultimate player, we always did throwing drills after fitness or drills that combined fitness with throwing.
The problem, however, is that without a certain minimum level of skill and also of fitness, our form often deteriorates significantly when tired. Isn’t getting in high repetitions with poor form simply going to reinforce bad habits and end up with faulty skill development? I’ve seen a lot of shitty throws and shitty cuts in most fitness drills. I’ve also felt the frustration of my free-throw form not feeling “right” when trying to shoot them after suicides.
So if we perform skills while fresh, we’re more likely to perform them correctly, but not likely to have high carry-over to game situations. On the other hand, if we perform skills while tired, we’re a lot more likely to practice them incorrectly. Ideally, we’d have the mental and physical toughness to always focus on perfect form, even when exhausted, or at least have the sense to stop and correct ourselves when our form breaks down, but in the real world this often isn’t the case.
I have ideas on partial solutions to this problem, but I’m not an expert on athletic training, so I’m just putting this out there to hopefully get some feedback...
One thing I’d like to try is doing a drill fresh, doing some fitness drill to tire the team out, and then doing the same drill again. By doing the exhausted training as soon as possible after doing the fresh training, I think there should be a stronger memory of what things are supposed to feel like, and it should be easier to stay on track without deviating from correct form.
The problem, however, is that without a certain minimum level of skill and also of fitness, our form often deteriorates significantly when tired. Isn’t getting in high repetitions with poor form simply going to reinforce bad habits and end up with faulty skill development? I’ve seen a lot of shitty throws and shitty cuts in most fitness drills. I’ve also felt the frustration of my free-throw form not feeling “right” when trying to shoot them after suicides.
So if we perform skills while fresh, we’re more likely to perform them correctly, but not likely to have high carry-over to game situations. On the other hand, if we perform skills while tired, we’re a lot more likely to practice them incorrectly. Ideally, we’d have the mental and physical toughness to always focus on perfect form, even when exhausted, or at least have the sense to stop and correct ourselves when our form breaks down, but in the real world this often isn’t the case.
I have ideas on partial solutions to this problem, but I’m not an expert on athletic training, so I’m just putting this out there to hopefully get some feedback...
- When trying to develop new skills, I think it’s important to be fresh.
- I think it’s important to maintain a balance between fresh and exhausted practice.
- Players should be encouraged to stop and fix mistakes rather than pushing through. If you’re racing to finish a drill and you start screwing up half way through, half the drill is at best a waste and at worst having a negative effect. If you need to stop for 30 seconds to refocus, that’s better than doing things poorly.
One thing I’d like to try is doing a drill fresh, doing some fitness drill to tire the team out, and then doing the same drill again. By doing the exhausted training as soon as possible after doing the fresh training, I think there should be a stronger memory of what things are supposed to feel like, and it should be easier to stay on track without deviating from correct form.
Piston Cutting Is Dumb
2009/03/04 12:27
When I was first taught the horizontal stack, I was taught to piston cut in pairs. The basic principle is pretty simple. On each side of the field you have two cutters. One cuts out while the other cuts in. Then you switch. Then you switch again. Back and forth you go, over and over again.
I think this is a fairly standard way of introducing the horizontal stack. On some level, it kind of makes sense, since the horizontal stack is supposed to open up the short and the deep, so these are the spots you want to cut into, and you don’t want to be running all over the place cutting off your team-mates.
Increasingly, though, when playing with players who have been taught to cut this way, I want to strangle them. After some reflection, I realized it wasn’t really their fault. I now want to strangle whoever taught them to cut that way. There are a number of reasons for this.
Looking at each individual cutter, there are a number of problems. When you’re confined to a vertical lane, your options are severely restricted - you can cut in, or out, that’s it. When you are deep, you can only cut straight back in. When you’re in, you can only cut back out deep. If your defender has the basic intelligence required to lace up his or her cleats, they know where you’re going, which makes their job even easier.
At least when you’re in the middle you have two options (it’s not good when two options is something to get excited about). The only problem is that because of this whole pairs thing, you are back to one option, because you have to go the opposite way from your pair (otherwise things get clogged). The pairs thing never works in practice anyway, since deep strikes are generally longer than in strikes, so the timing gets thrown off, and inevitably you either get out of sync, the “stack” gets too deep, or both.
You’ve always got two cutters cutting deep, and two cutters cutting in (in theory), so you’re never actually in a horizontal stack. Instead, you are always running through it. Our horizontal “stack” now looks more like a box, with two players deep and two players short, especially once your cutters start to get tired from all this running back and forth.
If, somehow, you do manage to get open on an in-cut (your defender is a slow, mentally or physically), you’re now essentially in a straight foot-race with your defender, and while you may have a step on them, they have the advantage of being on the force side. You’re not even in position to get your body between them and the disc. You absolutely can’t slow down to make the catch and the disc better be perfectly thrown or you are going to turn it over. For all this effort, you hopefully gain five yards.
If, somehow, you do manage to get open on an out-cut (your defender is slow, mentally or physically), you’re still in a foot-race, but because you’ve got two players cutting deep at a time, there’s an extra defender ready to help. Additionally, because of the stack inevitably ending up too deep, you’d better hope your thrower has a really solid arm in order to lead you.
On top of all this, if your defenders have half a brain, they’ll just switch on the cuts, so they’ve always got a defender between the in-cutter and the disc and they’ve always got a defender between the out-cutter and the end-zone. Not only does this prevent you from getting the disc, but it also means that you’re running your ass off, and they’re not. At the end of the game, who do you think is still going to have the energy to cut hard, you or them?
Of course, no experienced cutters actually cut like this. The problem is that a single piston cutter can completely KO your entire offensive flow. By cutting back and forth in a single lane (usually not very quickly, since they’re dead tired), that entire lane is now no longer usable by the other cutters. If you’re lucky, they’ll set up on the break-side and not really get in the way too much, but more often than not they are set up on the open side, cutting in an out, not getting open, and preventing anyone else from slashing into that space.
I think this is a fairly standard way of introducing the horizontal stack. On some level, it kind of makes sense, since the horizontal stack is supposed to open up the short and the deep, so these are the spots you want to cut into, and you don’t want to be running all over the place cutting off your team-mates.
Increasingly, though, when playing with players who have been taught to cut this way, I want to strangle them. After some reflection, I realized it wasn’t really their fault. I now want to strangle whoever taught them to cut that way. There are a number of reasons for this.
Looking at each individual cutter, there are a number of problems. When you’re confined to a vertical lane, your options are severely restricted - you can cut in, or out, that’s it. When you are deep, you can only cut straight back in. When you’re in, you can only cut back out deep. If your defender has the basic intelligence required to lace up his or her cleats, they know where you’re going, which makes their job even easier.
At least when you’re in the middle you have two options (it’s not good when two options is something to get excited about). The only problem is that because of this whole pairs thing, you are back to one option, because you have to go the opposite way from your pair (otherwise things get clogged). The pairs thing never works in practice anyway, since deep strikes are generally longer than in strikes, so the timing gets thrown off, and inevitably you either get out of sync, the “stack” gets too deep, or both.
You’ve always got two cutters cutting deep, and two cutters cutting in (in theory), so you’re never actually in a horizontal stack. Instead, you are always running through it. Our horizontal “stack” now looks more like a box, with two players deep and two players short, especially once your cutters start to get tired from all this running back and forth.
If, somehow, you do manage to get open on an in-cut (your defender is a slow, mentally or physically), you’re now essentially in a straight foot-race with your defender, and while you may have a step on them, they have the advantage of being on the force side. You’re not even in position to get your body between them and the disc. You absolutely can’t slow down to make the catch and the disc better be perfectly thrown or you are going to turn it over. For all this effort, you hopefully gain five yards.
If, somehow, you do manage to get open on an out-cut (your defender is slow, mentally or physically), you’re still in a foot-race, but because you’ve got two players cutting deep at a time, there’s an extra defender ready to help. Additionally, because of the stack inevitably ending up too deep, you’d better hope your thrower has a really solid arm in order to lead you.
On top of all this, if your defenders have half a brain, they’ll just switch on the cuts, so they’ve always got a defender between the in-cutter and the disc and they’ve always got a defender between the out-cutter and the end-zone. Not only does this prevent you from getting the disc, but it also means that you’re running your ass off, and they’re not. At the end of the game, who do you think is still going to have the energy to cut hard, you or them?
Of course, no experienced cutters actually cut like this. The problem is that a single piston cutter can completely KO your entire offensive flow. By cutting back and forth in a single lane (usually not very quickly, since they’re dead tired), that entire lane is now no longer usable by the other cutters. If you’re lucky, they’ll set up on the break-side and not really get in the way too much, but more often than not they are set up on the open side, cutting in an out, not getting open, and preventing anyone else from slashing into that space.
One at a time
2009/03/04 11:28
Give any cutter an entire field to get open and he’ll get the disc every time (assuming reasonable competency of the thrower and cutter). There are just has too many options for the offence and the defender can only take away so many. Beating a defender is remarkably easy.
Put four cutters on the field together, and getting open is much harder. Even if none of the defenders are poaching, the options available to each cutter are now significantly more limited. Some of your options are no longer available, because other cutters have taken them away from you.
It’s tempting to think that even if each cutter has less options, having more cutters should mean more options, but this ignores the defence. A defender’s ability to take options away from an offensive player doesn’t decrease as the number of cutters increases. If defenders do a good job helping each other out, each additional defender increases the ability of each individual defender to take options away from the offence. Even without any defenders helping, each defender can still take away just as many options as before.
As we add cutters and defenders, the ability of each offensive player to get open decreases, while the ability of the defensive player to prevent the offensive player from getting open either increases or stays constant.
As a cutter, then, most of our effort should be placed not in getting open ourselves but in helping our team-mates get open, creating one-on-one scenarios. Sometimes we still need to get open (1/4 of the time), sometimes we need to be preparing to get open later (continuation or next cut if your team-mate doesn’t get open), but most of the time we should just be getting out of the way.
I think most good ultimate players recognize this. If you watch most top-level teams, most of their offence is designed to create a sequence of isolation scenarios for their cutters, so that the primary cutter at each moment in time has as many options as possible, keeping in mind that who is the “primary cutter” changes constantly as the play unfolds.
The problem is that most beginning players are not taught this, especially when the horizontal stack is taught. We teach so-called piston cutting... cut deep, cut in, cut deep, cut in... keep cutting back and forth forever. Soon I’ll go into more detail on how dumb this is, but for today it’s enough to recognize that with everyone trying to get open in their lane, each individual cutter is severely limited.
When everyone tries to get open, no one gets open.
This is the first of a bunch of new posts about ultimate.
Put four cutters on the field together, and getting open is much harder. Even if none of the defenders are poaching, the options available to each cutter are now significantly more limited. Some of your options are no longer available, because other cutters have taken them away from you.
It’s tempting to think that even if each cutter has less options, having more cutters should mean more options, but this ignores the defence. A defender’s ability to take options away from an offensive player doesn’t decrease as the number of cutters increases. If defenders do a good job helping each other out, each additional defender increases the ability of each individual defender to take options away from the offence. Even without any defenders helping, each defender can still take away just as many options as before.
As we add cutters and defenders, the ability of each offensive player to get open decreases, while the ability of the defensive player to prevent the offensive player from getting open either increases or stays constant.
As a cutter, then, most of our effort should be placed not in getting open ourselves but in helping our team-mates get open, creating one-on-one scenarios. Sometimes we still need to get open (1/4 of the time), sometimes we need to be preparing to get open later (continuation or next cut if your team-mate doesn’t get open), but most of the time we should just be getting out of the way.
I think most good ultimate players recognize this. If you watch most top-level teams, most of their offence is designed to create a sequence of isolation scenarios for their cutters, so that the primary cutter at each moment in time has as many options as possible, keeping in mind that who is the “primary cutter” changes constantly as the play unfolds.
The problem is that most beginning players are not taught this, especially when the horizontal stack is taught. We teach so-called piston cutting... cut deep, cut in, cut deep, cut in... keep cutting back and forth forever. Soon I’ll go into more detail on how dumb this is, but for today it’s enough to recognize that with everyone trying to get open in their lane, each individual cutter is severely limited.
When everyone tries to get open, no one gets open.
This is the first of a bunch of new posts about ultimate.
Hiatus
2008/11/09 18:37
I haven’t posted anything in a while. My friend Ofer was asking me about that today (I was pleasantly surprised that he was reading this), so I feel I should post some explanation.
There’s really been two reasons. The first is that I discovered Matt Mackey’s ultimate blog, It’s really good. It’s so good that it gave me a serious crisis of confidence regarding whether there was any value to my own writings on ultimate. I will start writing again, but I want to stop doing such a sloppy job of it, because he’s kind of inspired me.
The other thing is for the past three weeks I’ve been waking up coughing in the middle of the night, knocking back some more nyquil, and then sleeping in until noon (it’s powerful stuff). That has severely limited the number of waking hours in my day, and with school, family, and friends, writing stuff online didn’t make the cut.
Back to Mackey’s blog. There are a few things that make it much better than most of the other ultimate blogs online. The writing quality is excellent and the posts go really in-depth. What I really like, though, is that it really focuses on fundamentals of ultimate. It doesn’t get into ultimate politics. It doesn’t get into recaps, tournament stories, team bonding, anything like that. It’s just about stuff that every ultimate player should be thinking about. He just seems to really put a lot of thought into the sport and some of the insights are incredible. I suspect it may partially be because he’s in Japan and seems to be experiencing some serious ultimate withdrawal.
There’s really been two reasons. The first is that I discovered Matt Mackey’s ultimate blog, It’s really good. It’s so good that it gave me a serious crisis of confidence regarding whether there was any value to my own writings on ultimate. I will start writing again, but I want to stop doing such a sloppy job of it, because he’s kind of inspired me.
The other thing is for the past three weeks I’ve been waking up coughing in the middle of the night, knocking back some more nyquil, and then sleeping in until noon (it’s powerful stuff). That has severely limited the number of waking hours in my day, and with school, family, and friends, writing stuff online didn’t make the cut.
Back to Mackey’s blog. There are a few things that make it much better than most of the other ultimate blogs online. The writing quality is excellent and the posts go really in-depth. What I really like, though, is that it really focuses on fundamentals of ultimate. It doesn’t get into ultimate politics. It doesn’t get into recaps, tournament stories, team bonding, anything like that. It’s just about stuff that every ultimate player should be thinking about. He just seems to really put a lot of thought into the sport and some of the insights are incredible. I suspect it may partially be because he’s in Japan and seems to be experiencing some serious ultimate withdrawal.
Torontula in the Varsity
2008/10/20 22:09
Taylor gets interviewed in the Varsity. Hopefully nobody from the AC reads it and realizes we flew to Edmonton without telling them. Hopefully no one from the AC reads this, but I think the odds of that are about one in a million.
What's Next for Canadian University Ultimate
2008/10/17 18:10
Cultimate’s Conference1 plan for college ultimate has been the big ultimate news this week. I won’t go into too much detail but basically they’re trying to create an elite collegiate ultimate league distinct from the UPA. There’s good coverage at Peter’s blog and The Huddle, among other places. I don’t know enough about U.S. college ultimate or the UPA to be able to really comment intelligently on their plans. What I will comment on, however, is the impact on and lessons for Canadian ultimate. Read More...
Wizard Staff Idiocy
2008/10/14 13:25
A Smaller CUC?
2008/10/10 14:02
I've already written about how Canada's geography impedes national-level competition, with poor turnout at both club and university Nationals due to the high cost. I'm not sure I have solutions at the university level, but here are my proposals for club. Read More...
Is Canadian Ultimate In Trouble?
2008/10/10 11:52
Why Danny Saunders has the toughest job in the world...
Despite having two teams in Sarasota last year, I believe there’s a number of tough issues facing the development of Canadian ultimate. I discuss some of them here and will discuss possible solutions later. Read More...
Despite having two teams in Sarasota last year, I believe there’s a number of tough issues facing the development of Canadian ultimate. I discuss some of them here and will discuss possible solutions later. Read More...
Off-Season
2008/10/02 11:33
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about my plans for when the summer/fall ultimate season is over. Read More...