Thoughts.

At Dartmouth we’ve been advocating strongly for our cutters to work hard to set up their cuts: “Seven Hard Steps” is an oft-repeated mantra, a reminder of the time and effort needed to really set up your defender and, equally important, to create space to attack when one plants and makes a real cut.

But I still see bunches of guys who, when forced under, do what I’ll call the one-step cut–one hard step in one direction (usually right at the defender) and then a turn and commit cut in the other direction.

Oldest cut in the book, right? Can work for cutters like myself with a quick first step and good acceleration, but good defenders can keep up with this move–it’s a quick fake setting up a footrace.

The cut may be fundamentally lacking, but at Kaimana (and previously, but only now have I begun thinking about it) I found it actually makes a great decoy.

Given that probably 90% of the time when a cutter makes the one-step cut their movement in the other direction is a committed cut, I’ve gotten in the habit of using the one-step cut to sell the notion that my next move is my real cut to my defender–only to plant and run them the other way those critical 5-7 steps later. Good defenders typically anticipate some kind of fake or setup, and the one-step cut can fulfill that condition for a defender and lull them into a false sense of confidence at having “read your move”.

Of course, the fundamentals of cutting–footwork, cutting hard enough that the defender has to respect it, finding space–all come in to play too, but it’s a quick and easy move to throw in, not as the basis for your cutting, but as a tool you can whip out and throw in for a change of pace. (The same applies for jukes as well–use them to keep your defender honest).

Partially sunburnt: nose, ears, back of neck, potentially forearms & cheeks

Layout D’s made: 1

Times point blocked: 1 (This is why I should never make IO huck attempts)

Days of ultimate: 3

Total Games Played: 6
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Three days of fun in the sun.  I think the roster is a dozen, plus or minus a couple?  Been keeping a regular workout habit over the past several weeks…not quite at 100% yet, but maybe another day or two’s recovery will be enough to get (something close to) there.

Regardless, it’s been far too long for domination.

Time to get Philthy.

Xi Xua’s Huddle entries on Crossfit (a follow-up to his earlier article on play intervals in elite open ultimate) provide an informative look into what Crossfit is; however, he does not go in to much depth at all on how to go about how to incorporate it into ultimate training.

This is by design, I think; done verbatim, Crossfit is an extremely taxing regimen to adhere to.  3 on, 1 off, learning how to do technical lifts like the squat and deadlift and the Olympic lifts too can make things overwhelming (to say nothing of the renowned intensity of the workouts).

For me, there have always been two keys to keep in mind with incorporating Crossfit: Progression and Flexibility.
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The Dartmouth men have an arrangement with the River Valley Club near Hanover; last Wednesday was our first session there.

After a good, dynamic warm-up (which your team should be doing, if it’s still static stretching), we met the trainer we’d be working with.

First thing he did with us? Took vertical and long jumps (best out of 3), and tested pull-ups (max reps) and push-ups (max reps in 60 seconds).
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1. Renew your UPA membership.  With electonic waivers, you can do it all now and forget about last-minute scrambles come series time, plus you’re a member in time to get all the copies of USA Ultimate.  Apologies to international readers who aren’t beholden to the UPA.
2. Get your fitness in gear.  The Huddle has a nice piece by Xi Xia talking about Crossfit; longtime readers will know that I’m a huge proponent of Crossfit, and I highly recommend that you look to get into it if you want a comprhensive general physical preparedness routine for your off-season training.If you’re in season (ie college), you can definitely benefit from incorporating some strength work to your practice and other training routine.  A while back I posted the routine we used at Dartmouth several years ago; it’s a solid place to start from if you’ve never lifted before, or are otherwise looking to ease into in-season training.
3. Play ultimate.  Hopefully this is the easy one!  I’ve got coaching at Vegas and dominating in Hawaii to help me get my fix this winter (and a bit of training motivation for #2).  Hope you’re finding satisfying pursuits, too!

It always bears repeating that good goal-setting practices, keeping the process in mind as well as the end result, will help you achieve the ends you desire, ultimate or otherwise.  Best of luck with keeping your resolutions!

After a couple days of uploading, tweaking, and tinkering, I think the site–that’s www.ultimatethoughts.com for those of you following along at home–is ready to go.

The RSS feed should have been moved over successfully; additionally, all of the blogspot posts should be forwarding automatically to their corresponding posts here, so hopefully there aren’t any major broken links from the move.

A few of the changes I’ve been able to make with the shift in platform:
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Hope the holiday season is treating everyone well.

I’ve been working on moving the site over to its own domain (and off of the blogger platform); once I’m able to finalize a new design template and set aside a chunk of time to work out the kinds, I’ll make the official migration (and post).

The move should serve a couple purposes:
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