Catching Thought: Focus on the spin
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Loading ...See the frisbee clearly when you catch it.
This comes inspired by the Inner Game of Tennis, which I just read recently (if you fancy yourself an athlete, this is mandatory reading. If you hope to learn anything from athletics you can apply to the rest of your life, this is mandatory reading). Galwey, after an initial explanation of some fundamentals of tennis play (which is all tied in to performance and performance mindset), suggests simply to focus on the spin of the ball as a means to concentration, getting your mind out of your body’s way.
Have you ever dropped a disc because you were thinking about your next throw or how you were going to spike it or some other facet of the moment not directly related to the catching of the disc? I should amend that to “have you ever dropped a disc because you were thinking,” because all thoughts are a distraction.
It’s a bit tougher to constantly focus on one thing in ultimate–unlike in tennis, in which the ball is a constant object of focus, in ultimate the frisbee is really only your primary concern when it is in the air. With each facet of ultimate, you have to focus on the cues specific to that facet–the hips (interspersed with awareness of the frisbee’s location and the play developing around you) for defense, space and the thrower when cutting–and when you’re receiving and the disc is in the air, you should have little else on your mind beside the spin of the disc.
I don’t mean contemplate the spin of the disc, thinking about the disc’s spin. I mean, simply, noticing how it is spinning and moving in space. Let your body find and attack the frisbee (these are skills you develop with focused practice–perhaps more on that in a later post), and keep your mind out of it by devoting your attention to the disc’s spin.
Give it a try sometime when you’re tossing. Don’t judge based on initial results–you have to learn to trust your body, and your body has to learn that you’re trusting it, which can take a little while–but let it go for 10, 15 minutes and see if you don’t notice a difference, an extra ease to your motion. And then see if you can’t carry that same ease and relaxation into your in-game performance, too.
my new thought to work on catching is “take a picture of your hand(s) and the disc at the moment it makes a sound.”
i then close my eyes for the briefest of moments and let the image take precedence over all else. bit by bit i work to make the associations stronger in my brain.
this goes hand in hand (ha) with my recent focus on making all “tossing/throwing” time useful. i attack the disc as forcefully as possible at the last possible moment to make the catch a full arm’s length away from my body. the disc makes a very satisfying sound as my hand attacks it. even without running, i get to work on what amount to full-impact catches, as if i were running at high speed toward the thrower.
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funny that one of the most useful pieces of advice i received on catching was “i don’t care which way the disc is spinning. just fucking catch it.” thanks jtf.
You’ll note I didn’t talk about which way to catch based on spin, but simply to key in on the spin.
Don’t care about the spin; just notice it. And then catch the damn thing.