Improving Mobility on the Mark
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Loading ...OK, so I’ve said you should be mobile on the mark. I’ve said you should work to stay balanced. Great.
How?
Hint #1. Guess what lift the mark shares body positioning with? You got it, the squat.(Hint 1a. You lift on your heels. What do you mark on?)
Hint #2. The squat is a stationary lift. Is marking stationary? Which direction are you moving primarily when you mark? Hey, horizontal (in the frontal plane)!
Hint #3. Core strength enables what is a “reach” for some to be easy for others. Athletes are Athletes for a reason.
Hint #4. How do you teach players to use their legs instead of relying on their reach on the mark? Courtesy of one Peter “Socks” Bonanno, ’08, #88, I’d like to date, he’s really great…we call it the black knight drill. (Yes, I know–Miranda Roth in The Huddle beat me to it already. But I’ve had this written out for a while, and redundancy only reinforces the utility of the thing).
Really simple. Take your regular marker drill…and start channeling Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail (“Just a flesh wound.“). Mark as normal, but put your hands behind your back.
You’re not exactly going to stop a lot of throws here. Try and resist the urge to footblock (too much), and focus instead on moving your body such that you force the thrower to move (fake, pivot, or otherwise) once or twice. Your thrower should start off with fairly basic pivoting and faking just to allow the marker to get used to the notion of moving to follow before making a serious attempt to throw past. Keep the drill relatively honest, no over-the-tops and try to avoid the temptation to take the shot through the big hole left by no arms (make the mark work laterally rather than frustrating her with a quick break past the body at stall one).
Of course, you can scale this any number of ways. Early last year we would start a marker drill with some 5 seconds of Black Knight (with no throw) before allowing the mark to use his hands and the thrower to make his pass, which seems like a nice compromise between learning and practice (the dichotomy coming from the eternal dilemma in which things that might help the team learn more quickly [i.e., dedicated, focused, deliberate drilling, with no consequences] are not as appealing to players as jumping in headfirst and “practicing” or scrimmaging, which is essentially just performance with lower stakes than a real game or tourney).
I think it might have been one of Zip’s Tips (though I can’t find it now) to always push beyond your comfort zone in marker drill; if you’re not getting point blocked or turfing every so often, you’re not expanding your repertoire enough. This applies just as much if not more so for the guy on the mark as the guy with the disc. Figure out your thrower. Experiment with baiting. Choose what throw you’re going to make your quarry take, and deny everything else with extra gusto. Learn.
It’s amazing how hard it is to mark while you’re tired, which is something that often gets overlooked in marking drills. I suggest turn marking drills into conditioning drills too. Marking for 30 seconds straight for multiple sets is quite tiring for both thrower (pivoting and faking) and for the marker, moving his or her feet a lot. I think that the Stanford men’s team did the 30-second marking drill every single practice the year they won in 2002. They prided themselves on their marking and it certainly paid off. Of three sets, do at least one 30 seconds with no hands.
Alternatively, you can have someone mark for 10 seconds right after finishing a shuttle run or suicide. Pushing through fatigue while on the mark at practice is great preparation for tournaments. Too often, people conserve their energy on the mark when they’re tired instead of realizing it’s the most efficient way to spend energy on D!
I need to remind myself of that fact more often…