Marking Thought: Spacing
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Loading ...There’s a time and a place for near and far spacing.
Incidentally, the spacing and location of your mark can and should be changing over time. Jackson makes some good points about the utility of spacing between yourself and your mark, so start there:
Are you looking to prevent the break throw? If so, back up. You’re right that you can easily get your arm past a close mark, and by being farther away you’ll have more time to react to pivots, fakes and throws.
However, if you’re looking to put pressure on hucks, then get close. Yes, you might get broken sometimes, but if your defensive strategy is to pressure hucks, while still keeping substantial pressure on break throws, then I think close is the way to go.
Most throwers today will be able to break marks regardless of how you mark. I think that (in general) marking to prevent break-throws is a losing battle. The better approach is to realize that break throws will go off, but by pressuring them, you can increase the chance of a non-perfect throw going off, which gives the downfield defender a chance at a block. Similarly, if you are pressuring hucks, then defenders (who will inevitably be a step or two behind) will have a greater chance at blocking a non-perfect throw. A far mark puts very little pressure on hucks, which makes it very difficult for downfield defense against any team with good throwers
In short:
I’m of the opinion that the best marks apply both techniques throughout the duration of a single mark. As I’ve already said, be active. Even if you’re bouncing around, if you’re not fundamentally altering your approach to marking dynamically, the thrower is sizing up how to beat what you’re showing him–you’re playing his game. Showing the thrower different looks through a point and through a stall count can force them to play your game, assuming you leverage your margin intelligently. I’m also of the opinion that while trying to prevent ALL break throws can be a losing battle, intelligent use of the mark to take away the biggest threat dynamically as the count shifts can be extremely effective. Similar to how you might look to poach off of a cutter who is sitting pat in the stack without threatening to move, if the mark’s position allows breaks that the thrower isn’t currently looking for, you’ll be able to more effectively pressure the throws she is. A very simple example of this is shifting the mark around to take away the dump at a high stall count. When it’s clear that the thrower only wants to hit the backfield for the dump, a mark can find success in conceding easier throws upfield in order to apply more pressure to the backfield option. If you extend that approach to include not only dumps but hucks, inside vs. outside breaks (hint: it’s nearly impossible to throw an IO break past a mark that is a step off), even high vs. low throws, you can present a very dynamic and effective mark. If your entire defense (including your sidelines) is cued in to this as a defensive strategy, the potential applicability skyrockets as downfield can adjust to what the mark is dynamically taking away–if the mark shifts to protect the dump, the defender at the front of the stack can shade to take away the IO option, if pressuring hucks, defenders can front their men more confidently, etc. This extends to more than simply how close or how far you are from your man (how you angle your mark and how aggressive you are are also key), but one of the easier ways to leverage the mark is by simply looking to take an extra step in or out on the mark as the count shifts–perhaps you stay tight on the first couple counts to pressure a huck in flow, and then back off a half-step to contain more conventional break/dump looks and avoid drawing a foul at a high count (I guarantee you your high-level club teams teach this very adjustment as a fact of life–or at least did before the advent of the disc space rule [XIV.B.3] as an additional deterrent). Maybe you start off with a loose mark trap on the sideline of a zone to prevent a quick swing back across the field, and inch in closer to pressure the over-the-top throw attempts after a few seconds. Incidentally, Stephen Hubbard adds some great points about fouling in a comment on the last post, and also brings up the important question (among others): aren’t we just talking about fouling routinely on the close mark? When I say “close mark” I absolutely DO NOT mean foul the thrower. If you’re capable of being mobile, you shouldn’t need to foul. If you have any kind of intelligent defense behind you, you shouldn’t need to foul. If you’re getting hosed by the other team making hucks in flow with no mark and feel the need to foul to stop it…try playing smarter defense and taking away those opportunities in the first place (or make adjustments downfield if you can’t). There’s a wealth of strategic options you can employ on the mark and in concert with the mark, and fouling is really never appropriate. Incidentially, I also find a mark that plays THAT close to be far less effective at stopping any throws (but I also didn’t practice it terribly much–there was a time when we had a “coach” for all of one tournament that encouraged more physical marking and it didn’t sit well with me then). Fouling might win you a few battles, but in the context of the larger war of the game, it is usually not sufficient (teams and players adjust). Experiment with spacing. Think about what might serve you best in various field positions, stall counts, matchups, weather conditions, etc. If you’re a team strategist, consider the vast potential of a team-wide dynamic mark for shutting down a team’s preferred offensive options. For bonus points, consider employing a marking tactic suggested by Ben Wiggins back in Winter ’06: stagger your feet one slightly forward, one slightly back) to facilitate better motion forwards and backwards, as well as to provide a bit more cushioning on a close mark to shield against the IO. This is hard to explain, and the UCPC site is apparently down now, so I can’t link any original materials either. I’ll try and flesh it out a bit more in a later post.
The use of marking foul rules is interesting to me, both for offense and defense applications. I like the mark to be aggressive, to vary position and distance (our coach is awesome at this), and I think putting pressure on hucks by bumping early is tolerable. Maybe that’s just because I’ve accepted cheating, but I figure you can beat your man by more and then he won’t catch up in time to stop the huck. I hate hacking, though…I think there’s a big difference between a bump and a hack.
But it seems to me that a defender should be allowed to set himself up in a previously unoccupied space in order to prevent movement in a direction. Proposed rule change: Straddling illegal. If marker is stationary and thrower initiates contact, offensive foul. All other non-incidental contact is a defensive foul. This last part may be too strong, but this seems more in line with the other foul rules. Plus, thrower can’t draw the foul to reset the count…
You can make a farther mark more effective at preventing both hucks and breaks by matching your positioning to the thrower’s stance. Assuming flick force, if the thrower is standing in a forehand stance, stand almost straight up so that you can pressure the huck and the I/O isn’t even an option. When the thrower steps to a backhand, you shuffle over to take away the backhand huck and break.
Whenever I teach this to an experienced player, they point out that you have to move farther to stop the step around break, so you should get beat. If you look closer, you’ll see that a good step around break is set up by getting the mark to move towards the open side and then stepping around while the mark’s momentum is going the wrong way. If the mark is already as far to the open side as they are going to go, the thrower can’t get their moment going the wrong way, so the step around break becomes harder, not easier.
There might be a qualitative difference between a bump and a hack on the mark, but both are fouls and should be avoided. I really dislike the direction that more and more players are taking towards physicality on the mark and I firmly believe that strategic use of bumping on the mark is a form of cheating.
Aggressive marks can be legal and are not the same thing as physical marking.
Being able to aggressively mark without fouling the thrower is a skill that takes practice, just like the other skills involved in ultimate. You wouldn’t encourage a player to huck the disc without first having the necessary technique for completing his or her throws. I don’t think people should be encouraged to mark aggressively without putting the time into practicing the body control necessary for moving on the mark without getting overeager and physical.
Coaches and captains should make sure their team spends enough time and practice finding their boundaries and developing the agility necessary for good, clean marking.
Glenn,
As a thrower I tolerate bumping on the mark, and even relish it–the chance to pivot through a break a mark is rarely greater than when a mark casts aside actual concern for stopping my throws and embraces contact as the only deterrent. Also, as for your rule change…how is that different from the current marking rules?
Yaacov,
I know what you mean on the far mark and positioning–I don’t say it as explicitly as you, but I do allude to a similar strategy for stopping hucking in my previous post. A teammate of mine is very fond of an approach to marking very similar to this as a default, in fact–however, I do think the point about the around still being an option is a valid one–even if a mark is on balance the fact remains that the thrower has a larger range of degrees to pass to with the mark farther off than with the mark close. Which is to say, as a thrower I can likely still get an around break off beyond your reach more easily than if you were marking me more closely/showing me a mark shading to take away the around more. It’s the sort of concession (or, if you prefer, adjustment) you make on the mark and perhaps try to capitalize on as a downfield defender, anticipating the OI break and knowing the IO isn’t an option.
Gwen,
Completely agree with you. Which is not unusual. It is a challenge to develop the necessary agility, and I also think it’s a challenge to make strategic adjustments outside of “we need to have a more agressive mark” in situations where that option cannot be pursued effectively without bringing fouls into the equation. The mark is potentially a very potent defensive tool, but…a line about great power and corresponding responsibility comes to mind…
I generally find that the overaggressive fouling marks are annoying but easy to break, so I don’t mind the bumps either. I tend to mark like that in practice, but I more consciously avoid fouling in games. I’d be okay if the rules allowed more physical marks, but since they don’t I like us to practice beating it as throwers.
I guess the only change was the disc-space rule, which I think is overly restrictive and ineffectual. I’m not settled on how I feel about double-teams, but it seems they are like these marks in that good throwers could just break over or around them. I don’t think either rule is necessary, because marking the thrower too close is a defensive risk.
Glenn, I sort of agree with you–there certainly is some room for increased physicality on the mark when it’s done within certain bounds, and I think you see this with some frequency at higher levels.
However, I don’t think it’s a necessary element of ultimate–there’s a difference, I think, between close aggressive marking and using the mark to bump a thrower to disrupt flow (in my mind, this is the reason the disc space rule was created–so a thrower can get back those lost second(s) from a bump). But the game certainly seems to have adjusted in many ways to the pressure of the tight, aggressive mark, at least at the highest levels, and I’m sure it will continue to evolve.