Awaji Open
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!)
Loading ...The tournament almost got canceled.
It would’ve been just my luck after the other near-misses since I’ve gotten here (see: me forgetting that Japan and Hawaii are different countries and missing half a (one-day) tourney for a couple wrong turns), but, thanks to the power of democracy and on the strength of a 13-9 vote against canceling, we powered on through Saturday’s rainy, windy games, shortened to 30 minutes from the already-short 50 minutes.
I picked up with a mishmash of internationals from all over–ranging from Shikoku to Kyuushu (and yours truly + 1 from Tottori), there were quite a few of us who’d made good treks to play some disc in Awaji (mine spanning some 6+ hours of driving on the way down, including a detour on Friday night to Shikoku to stay closer to the tourney). We had a bunch of newbies; wound up splitting into experienced and rookie teams with so many of us there (about two dozen).
Coming in looking at the teams, I figured we had a pretty good shot at winning the thing–mostly Japanese college teams*, which obviously wouldn’t be up to the level of college teams in the states, and given I was playing on a team with people who knew what they were doing, it seemed like good odds.
I gave up on ideas of winning about halfway into our first game, for a couple reasons. Turns out “experienced” meant, in many cases, that they could throw a forehand–people were familiar with things like zone D, but the fundamentals of good man D were lost on most (especially factoring in our relative out-of-shapedness compared to practicing college teams). For another, we hadn’t practiced together and the lack of chemistry was very apparent from the get-go, on O and D.
And the Japanese teams were pretty decent. It’s very much a stereotype of Japanese sports in general, but most stereotypes have a seed of truth at their root–they work hard, if the extent and duration of pre-game drilling was any indication, and focus on the fundamentals. The wind made everyone’s throws pretty difficult, but players weren’t afraid to take the inside looks (and could get away with them against a loose D) in man offense situations. (Incidentally, every team we played exclusively ran a horizontal stack). I had a lot of trouble singling out teams’ go-to guy(s), simply because most teams were willing to spread the disc around, throwing to the open guy and not forcing it. Throw in their conditioning we struggled a lot on Saturday.
On a personal level, I got stuck handling most of the time. This worked OK when we were running a straight stack, because I could float into cutting territory without too much trouble, but eventually we decided to shift to a horizontal stack–while I can cut in a ho-stack without any fuss, handling it in proved to put me out of my element and Saturday became progressively more frustrating. The difference in level from Nationals with a group of teammates you’ve known and played with for ages vs. a pickup team you just met is large, and I had trouble shifting my decision-making processes. My frustration with my own play also left me struggling to take more of a leadership role in terms of sharing experience and guidance to help the rest of the team improve, which is something I need to work on.
Saturday evening we all made the half-hour drive to a nearby onsen (one of the greatest things about Japan that I sorely miss in the states), where we cleaned off the day’s muck and relaxed away our cares. Following the onsen stop, we had a short trip to a nearby player’s house, where we barbequed and bonfired. Our host had gotten some bona fide beef imported and made some spectacular burgers–unlike the states, good burgers are hard to come by in Japan, and all together it made for a spectacular night.
Sunday saw a return to 50-minute rounds and a retreat of the rain, but the wind showed up in even more force than the day before, making for a severe upwind-downwind dynamic.
This actually worked to our advantage; we shifted to (huck and) zone D, preventing overmatched defenders from being exploited deep (with yours truly usually playing deep-deep in their stead). Offensively, we saw our share of zone as well, which led to a bunch of blades from this guy and a lot of battling for field position from all corners.
Unlike Saturday, we actually eked out a couple wins–I think we finished 9th out of 16 teams. All it took was a couple lucky breaks going upwind. I was a lot happier playing Sunday, in part because I had a more realistic idea of what to expect, and in part because playing deep in the zone meant I got to run around a lot more against teams looking to punt it for field position–I’ve decided that my preference for cutting and reticence to handle stems from a need to run.
All together, it was a pretty great weekend that made me nostalgic for college after some 9 months without a proper tourney (longest such stretch I’ve had in the past 5 years). Nothing quite like long road trips, Saturday hangouts, and that day-after exhaustion.
Speaking of exhaustion, I’m still in very poor shape. Hopefully I can level up a bit before the next bit of action–a return to Akashi beach in June for some beach ultimate fun in the sun.
*incidentally, most of Japan’s ultimate scene seems to revolve around college clubs. There were a couple club teams there, but they didn’t strike me as much better than the college teams we played. I didn’t notice any formal coaching of any of the teams–I think ultimate, rather than being its own sort of culture in Japan, falls much more into the category of other college club sports–just something you do for fun in your spare time, and forget about shortly after graduation. Will refine my impression/opinions as I get more exposure in tourneys throughout the spring.
