Thoughts.

It doesn’t take much looking to find a wealth of materials on goal setting and motivation. Anybody who has an interest in business has I’m sure heard of numerous titles on the matter.

If you’re looking for a model to gauge your own goal-setting by or to get some training ideas, feel free to check out my Summer Workout Plan (you can also follow the label for the same on the sidebar). I took the time to make a detailed plan of what I wanted to improve and how I wanted to improve the summer of ’06, and made some very significant gains in that time and in so doing established a fitness habit that carried me through the rest of my collegiate career.

The Huddle’s Andrew Fleming has a great analogy for this, in his article on being the deep defender when you hear the “Up!” Call:

Have you ever sat a stoplight and watched the light for the other direction turn from green to yellow to red? When your light finally turns green, it’s just a confirmation of what you already knew was about to happen. How much quicker are you off that line if you’re peeking at the other light versus waiting for yours to change? That’s the difference between reacting and anticipating on D. When I hear that “up” call, I want to already know what throw is coming and already be poised to jump on it.

He very succinctly summarizes the components of good, anticipatory D.

Anticipation means not only knowing the current situation and recognizing which throws are most likely, but also learning how to read people and recognizing opportunities to make the play.

General things you should be aware of as an anticipatory defender, as much as possible (in rough order of importance–feel free to dispute my rankings or add others in the comments)

1. The position of the disc on the field relative to you and your man
2. How long the disc has been in that position–is it in motion for a potential unmarked huck/throw? Is it stall 7 or 8, so you should really be heads-up for a swilly bail-out throw?
3. The capabilities of the thrower. Is it the stud thrower, who can not only jack it, but break the mark to do so? Is it somebody who’s only going to throw to under cuts?
4. The force (the person on the mark). Which side of the field should passes be going to? How likely is it that the mark will hold and not get broken?
5. The conditions. Is it rainy? Are you going upwind and can dictate out with more confidence? Is there a crosswind that would cause a throw to your expected side of the field to float or sink more than usual?
6. Your man’s preferences. Are they a relentless deep threat? Do they prefer to stick around the disc? Keep in mind they may still take what you give them, even if it’s not what they prefer.
7. What, if anything, has the other team as a whole been beating you with? If they’re exploiting the around break, be prepared to pounce on a somewhat floaty around throw (and adjust when you’re on the mark as well). If they love to jack it, start backing your man or otherwise make sure you’re always in a position to strike on the huck.

All of these bits of information, summed together, should allow you to make a few adjustments:

1. What cut you choose to defend primarily–what’s the biggest (and most viable) threat at this moment?
2. What cuts you choose to respect–if it’s really windy and the player with the disc does not look confident in her upwind forehand, you can give a cushion of at least a few steps when your woman goes deep (but beware the dump/swing to a more confident thrower in motion).
3. Where you expect the throw to go to. This is particularly important at high stalls, when a less-than-perfect throw might come suddenly and surprise you. If you expect to see a throw to the forehand side of the field, allow for the possibility of a stall-9 blade.
4. Whether or not you poach off of your man (!). If you’ve evaluated your man to be less of a threat in their current position than some other play–your man prefers to cut under, but their big thrower has the disc and you see somebody setting up the deep cut–you can sometimes get away with devoting less attention to your man and more attention to the play in action.

This is a lot of information to process at once on the field. It’s impossible (In my opinion) to consciously take in all of this information and still play at 100% intensity (you’ll be thinking too much). However, you can learn to intuit things, or give yourself reminders before the point. The disc’s position should eventually become a natural sense; for me, I can often discern where the frisbee is by the sound of a catch or reading my man and, if in a straight stack, the other men on offense (be wary of eye fakes). You can cultivate an internal stall clock to anticipate high-count situations (or perhaps your teammate will count loudly enough for you to know with certainty). Conditions and the force, you should be aware of before the point begins(or at least before the disc is tapped in on a stoppage). Strive to cultivate an intuitive sense of what space is threatened and in which space (and at what times) your opponent is not a threat to get the disc. I find it usually helps to remind myself of the force on D just before the pull goes up (if I’m starting on D or O), and to spend some time (doesn’t need to be more than 10 seconds or so) trying to visualize the wind vector and anticipating which throws will float or sink on D (and how to compensate with my own throws).

You can, of course, rehearse a lot of these situations through visualization. Cutting schematics can go a long way towards guiding you here–draw up novel situations, impose different conditions, and then try and picture yourself in them.

In addition to recognizing situations in terms of general expectancies, strive to learn the signs that a play is coming–learn to read throwers. You can do this on a team-by-team basis if their system is transparent; you can also learn to read individuals. Eventually, you will start to pick up on tells that are more across-the-board; players who are not skilled in showing fakes or making quick decisions in particular become easy reads with enough attention. There’s a certain look–not quite “Deer in the Headlights”, but a similar single-minded tunnel vision, when a thrower goes from “scanning/evaluating” mode to “preparing to throw” mode. Mid-level cutters get a similar look when they’re in the lane, if you’re trying to read their fakes.

Don’t think too much on the field; simply pay attention and make associations through experience. Eventually, you’ll develop an intuitive sense and good defense will become more automatic (it never becomes fully automatic–invariably there’s always some external condition you should be taking note of). Learn when you can afford to think on the ultimate field, and learn when you need to stop thinking and just make the play. Anticipation will put you in position, but you still have to execute.

Visualize, visualize, visualize.

Simple? Depends.

Visualization is a SKILL. Former teammates or blog readers should know that I’m a big proponent of visualization as a means to success.

So, you’ve hopefully read the link above and/or are familiar with visualization, generally. How does that apply specifically with regards to layout training?

For me, there are a couple crucial points to master if you expect to lay out successfully in game situations:

• Pre-layout–anticipate, be ready
• Disc is in the air–go for it!
• Layout execution–technique
• (minor point)Get back up and play!

Now, to touch on each individually…

Pre-layout–anticipate, be ready: A huge part of defense is anticipation (more on that later this week). If you’re laying out on defense, before you ever get horizontal you need to know when you should be ready to bid and when you should be priming other actions instead(again, more on this later). You can help yourself to recognize some of these situations more quickly and effectively through visualization, but some degree of in-game experience is also necessary here. You can think up simple situations which lead to layouts (you’re on defense, right on your man’s hip, as he cuts in for the disc), but invariably there are other situations where you might want to bid that you won’t anticipate. Learn to see these opportunities when you miss them, and prepare yourself mentally to pounce on them in the future. Offensively the situations tend to be more clear-cut, but if you always expect perfect throws to your chest you’ll find yourself surprised by the rare errant ones. Try to err the other way in your expectations and you’re liable to catch a lot more that comes your way.

Disc is in the air–go for it!: So, you recognize the situation. You’re right there, ready to go. The disc is thrown…what do you do? It’s not at all uncommon to pull up or choke in this situation when you’re just learning to lay out. Why? You’re still uncomfortable with executing the layout. Maybe some situations–big game, you’re really fired up–you go for, and others you don’t. It’s normal to have a threshold for this sort of thing, but you want to make that threshold pretty low–so that you laying out or not laying out is not a matter of how revved up you are, but whether you decide to lay out or not. Again, visualization can help here. Run through situations in your mind–remember to perceive these situations in detail, focus on the disc coming your way–and get the reps you need to get over the mental block with some mental effort.

A friend of mine got over his mental block by mixing visualization with physical practice–he would have me throw a frisbee to some target–he started off with a trash can, and worked up to progressively faster-moving human targets (they started off at a walking speed, worked up to 50/70/90%, etc), running up and laying out past the target to get the disc. You might have success with the same.

Layout execution–technique: I’ve already gone into the physical components in last week’s post, so give that a look. The key is to visualize these components in slow motion–you absolutely will not be able to focus on all of these things in the heat of the moment (in fact, focusing on anything other than the disc is likely to hinder your performance), so you have to do the mental legwork well beforehand if you’re to get it right without thinking later. Again, visualize detail–see (or feel) yourself exploding into your takeoff, extending forwards, flying through the air, and absorbing the impact through your torso while keeping your head, knees and arms all out of harm’s way.

Get back up and play!: Successful bid or no, you need to get up. This is particularly important on defense, when a missed bid means your man is getting off an unmarked throw–or on offense, when a missed bid means your man could now be sprinting deep uncovered or picking up the disc to get off a throw while you’re preoccupied on the ground. This is partly a visualization exercise–recognize (anticipate) the need to get back up before you hit the ground–but this is also part fitness. Upper body strength is underrated for importance in ultimate, and it is in exactly this situation that all those pushups/bench presses/burpess (the third is my personal favorite, as it actually trains pushing up into a standing position) will come in handy. I take pride in my bids, and I also take pride in recovering from my bids.

I don’t know that there’s a player in ultimate frisbee who’s sucessful that doesn’t have confidence. More often than not in surplus; occasionally fragile and easily broken, sometimes shelved for the appearance of “spirit’s” sake, but always there.

You NEED to have confidence to be successful. But you also need to be successful to have confidence, don’t you? How do you develop one without the other?

A few thoughts to this end.
1)You can learn it elsewhere. Even without much success as an “ultimate player,” prior success as an athlete is transferable. Being successful outside of the athletic field can also be transferable, but in such instances the transfer of confidence has less to do with your body’s performance and more to do with your ability to plan, work, and execute (perhaps more important to long-term success in this sport).

2) You can get lucky (or have some natural talent). It’s astounding how much of our lives are decided by a couple fluky moments. Gamblers–”beginner’s luck” is not so because all beginners are lucky, but because the lucky beginners wind up sticking with it and getting hooked. Same with ultimate, or any other endeavor you pursue. Think back to your first experiences with this sport. It’s very unlikely that you struggled greatly out of the gate–too much discouragement would’ve sent you packing. It’s much more likely you found some fascination in your ability to throw a frisbee the right way every once in a while, or played in a tournament early on and caught or threw a goal or something similar.

3) You can persevere. Typically if you don’t get lucky, and don’t have another field to draw confidence from for prior experience, you’re in it for your friends, or the girls (guys), or some other extrinsic reward (perhaps another successful player inspired you to aspire for similar heights). This leads you to playing and improving.

Ultimately (pun intended), you work. Natural gifts are not the rule, and there are so many dimensions to this sport that nobody steps in with a complete toolset. You work, and you improve, and seeing this improvement gives you confidence. You know, when you step on to the field next–”I have worked and I have improved, and I will see better results as a consequence.” And this positive mental feedback often leads to better performance.

Issues come when adversity or bad luck gets our mental cycle off track–a few bad throws, you get burned deep despite feeling faster than you ever have, etc. Doubt creeps in, failure continues to grow, and a negative feedback cycle leads to diminished performance.

You MUST develop a strength of mindset to weather these rough patches. When I talk about confidence, THIS is what I’m really referring to. A lot of it comes from experience, but you can compensate for a lack of experience with a healthy mindset. By “healthy” I don’t mean “positive;” only a fool or a hopeless romantic will continue to see daises when the weeds are growing. But you cannot let the weeds dominate the landscape, either. Simply get to work removing them, eliminating negative thoughts and taking action to correct for perceived shortcomings.

I feel as though one of my best assets as a player is my mindset; as a very analytical person, I typically remain emotionally detached with regards to my performance–sure, I want to do better, but I don’t ever get too high or too low on myself, merely motivated to do better.

In times of struggle, find something to latch on to that you know to be true about yourself. If you find your throws failing you, invest more in your legs. If your offense is suffering, redouble your focus on your defense. Draw from one well of confidence and don’t dwell on your drought elsewhere; while you can tend to the drought directly and, slowly, refill the well that has emptied, it only needs a little guidance to get on the right track (if you’re self-aware enough, you can diagnose what needs to be done yourself; otherwise, get some coaching or let it be). You can channel your emotions more productively into a different aspect of your game, instead of struggling against the force of those emotions in the aspect that’s created it.

Apologies if I’m getting too metaphorical. Know that confidence is a skill like any other; it can be practiced and improved. Being confident in your own capabilities will always lead to better performance; it may not always manifest in success (this is an important distinction), and there may come a time when you need to re-evaluate your approach and change it to get better results for your team. But never lose confidence in your ability. Work hard, develop confidence, and hold it tight.

Almost all of the authors are very vague about how one actually improves footwork.

Finally, my two cents about footwork: you can compensate for a lot of errors in footwork/balance simply by being strong(er). I’ve gotten away with being off-balance (sometimes intentionally to bait the man I’m defending) by being strong enough to recover quickly. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. That said, you’re usually better off being strong AND having proper technique. Strive to be your best, rather than simply good enough–there’s ALWAYS room for improvement.

See the frisbee clearly when you catch it.

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.

Any of the guys on the team will attest that I tend to harp about visualization a lot, particularly leading up to big tournaments or when I am, say, teaching somebody how to lay out (because botched or successful layouts hurt a lot more than visualizing a perfect one–perhaps a post on that later).

So, what is visualization? This and this sum it up pretty succinctly. But how do you then apply that to ultimate or whatever endeavor you want to pursue?

There are a couple ways to go about it…

If you’re a team leader of some sort (coach, captain), consider leading a guided visualization for the whole group. Have everyone lay down or otherwise get in a comfortable position, close their eyes, and then you (or whomever is doing the guiding) will slowly describe a situation–if we’re talking ultimate, go through game preparation (warming up, taking some throws, drilling) and in-game situations (making a cut–playing good defense–laying out, etc.), describing everything in detail–morning dew on the grass soaks your cleats, notice the lining of the fields, see how bright your light looks as you pull it out of your bag before the game–and keying in on important in-game details: you notice your man’s hips are committed, so you plant and go the other way. You recognize the thrower is going to pass to your man, so you prepare to make a layout.

If you’re on your own, or want to visualize more than that, you can do the same sort of thing on your own, right before bed, or when spacing out in class. See from your mind’s eye–visualize situations through your own eyes, don’t see yourself from a distance. Feel the way your body feels; slow down time and key in on every crucial detail, from your running form to the finer points of your throws to cues from your man that reveal his intentions. You can use a cutting schematic to help mentally set up situations to visualize yourself in.

This is probably the single most efficient tool you can use to make yourself better at just about anything. It takes no physical effort! A guided visualization can take anywhere from 10-30 minutes depending on how long you make it; personal visualization can be much briefer than that, visualizing on a situation-to-situation basis. It WILL make you better if done correctly–just think about it. If you’ve already seen every situation imaginable (literally), nothing will surprise you. If you’ve already seen yourself running through and layout D’ing your man in your mind, you’re going to be that much more comfortable doing it for real.

Keep in mind visualization isn’t just for rehearsing–it has an actual training effect on your body. If you’re hurt, for instance, and can’t squat due to an ankle sprain, etc, visualizing a squat–feeling the tension and increased effort that go with it–can sustain your training more so than if you do nothing while you recover. The mind is a powerful tool.

Back to the UCPC recaps. I dropped the ball on these for a while, but the last two presentations I wanted to recap are the two that easily contain the most information to apply to an ultimate team. Both given by championship coaches–this one by Tiina Booth, coach of the ever-dominant Amherst Regional High School team, the second by Nathan Wicks, who took Brown to two National College titles–there’s a ton of insight to be gleaned.

Tiina’s presentation focused specifically on applying a lot of what Dr. Goldberg was talking about in his keynote speech. ARHS has been working with Dr. Goldberg for at least a couple years, from what I could gather.

I think one of the main things to keep in mind with all the information I have here is that, while it’s likely that a lot of the things Tiina does with her team does help, the comparison between ARHS and the overwhelming majority of high school teams is such that they would easily still be a top team without applying many of these methods. Don’t assume that anything here will instantly transform a team into a top talent.

Tiina broke up what she does with her team into three parts: pre-season, practice, and tournaments.

In the pre-season, Tiina spoke about goals and goal setting–drawing a large distinction between “outcome goals”–ie, things which you don’t have direct control over, but can influence (like “make nationals”–obviously, every team that sets that as a goal cannot reach it, but it is something to strive for), and “process goals,” which are things you DO have direct control over (like developing a consistent IO forehand break, or being able to run a 75-second 400. Obviously, these need to be realistic goals–nobody’s going to be able to reach a goal of an 8-second 100, or the like). Tiina said that the pre-season is the ONLY time they talk about outcome goals, whereas with process goals every player on the team will have their own individual process goals which they will write on an index card. Tiina has her players list 3 goals at a time. Every two weeks they’ll revisit the process goals, checking off or crossing out every completed process goal and writing in new ones so that players a) always have something to work towards and b) will ideally be making consistent, measurable progress that is easily measured with a glance.

Tiina further augments this process through a “buddy” system, where her older, more experienced players will be paired with newer, less-experienced ones, and they’ll help to hold each other accountable to their goals. The older players will also help the younger players in setting realistic, attainable goals, as well as generally offering guidance and support, on and off the field. This is a relationship that persists throughout the entire season, as all the players build on their process goals towards concrete, on-field results.

In practice, Tiina first spoke about the importance of people having so-called “great practices,” where a player’s focus is high and everything goes well. Tiina emphasized that while it’s certainly not possible for all players to have great practices all the time, it’s usually the case that at least a few will have a great practice on any given day. What she does is, she’ll ask at the end of a practice–”Who had a great practice today?”–and to those players that did, she’ll tell them to remember what it FEELS like, to try and hold on to that sense of confidence, and to carry it with them into tournament play.

She also went over some of the things that go along with having a great practice: high team spirit and enthusiasm (Tiina likes to say that “False enthusiasm is just as good,” and she’s right–false enthusiasm is just as contagious as the real thing, creating a positive self-feeding cycle rather than a negative one); drilling well–putting 100% effort and focus into everything practiced, keeping high standards for the team; and setting goals while scrimmaging–picking a player to cover who you know will be a challenge to guard, for example.

Ultimately, one of Tiina’s main goals in practice is to push the team beyond its comfort zone, to have them “Get comfortable being UN-comfortable,” so the team can relax as tournaments, which have a relatively lower intensity level. She also stressed the importance of eventually giving the team ownership of itself–a good coach will guide the team without constraining it.

With regards to tournaments, Tiina liked to compare them to a theatrical performance, where a team goes out and performs just as it rehearsed–Jim Parinella made a more apt comparison, though, in saying that a tournament is more like an improvisational comedy performance, where there are preset rules to follow for success, but within the framework of those rules there is plenty of room for adjustment to a given circumstance.

Tiina stressed that, in tournaments, as a coach she does very little micromanaging and absolutely does NOT introduce anything new to the team–she lets them play (though she won’t hesitate to tell her team to get its ass in order if it’s slacking). When it comes time to talk to the team, she’ll pick one or at most two things to focus on, keeping it simple and to the point, so as not to take her players out of a performance mindset.

She likes having a ritual warm-up for her team, and this is one of the things she lets her team take ownership of–especially for a team like ARHS, where they’re always under the scrutiny of somebody, and often play in games with decent-sized audiences, having the escape of a ritual warm-up definitely works towards reaching an optimal performance state.

In-game, Tiina is adamant about having strong, active sidelines–in many situations, players will be assigned to different parts of the field, rotating between the near and far sideline so nobody is too disconnected from the rest of the team, or talking to different roles (for example, “buddies” can talk to each other when one is in and the other out). When it comes to sidelines, she always wants her sidelines to be up and in the game regardless of score, regardless of situation, regardless of team morale–the sidelines should never be a tell of the team pulse.

Attitude-wise, at tournaments the attitude should always be positive, loose, and relaxed. It’s important to push in practice, but at tournaments it’s far more important to relax and just play the game the way you know how. Hand-in-hand with this is dealing with mental traps, distractions, etc. Dealing with mental blocks is often as simple as acknowledging the distraction and moving on, rather than trying to ignore it. Like Dr. Goldberg says, it’s not a matter of how well you can stay focused, but how quickly and easily you can recognize a loss in focus and re-focus. She said that, if she’s got a player who’s really in their own head, she’ll force them to take a break, tell them to go for a jog and try and work through whatever mental blocks they have, and come back ready to play.

Lastly, Tiina does a team morale check of sorts before games–she’ll ask what kind of nervous the team is: good, bad, or not nervous enough. In the case of the first, it’s good to have some jitters and be a bit aroused in anticipation of playing. In the case of the second, bad nervous often has to do with uncontrollables–worried about losing to a good team, worried about impressing the parents, etc. In dealing with these sorts of blocks, it often helps to list the uncontrollables that you are or might be getting hung up on in order to better acknowledge and deal with them. In the case of the third, which can happen when playing a team that ARHS knows it is far better than, Tiina or the team will agree to up the ante a bit by setting some harder process goals for themselves–zero turnovers, etc.

In an effort to reduce the level of distraction of her team (though I think this is kind of silly), Tiina never refers to the opposing team by name. In the vein of keeping the focus on the self (Tiina also never lets her players scout other teams, since it changes their focus), every team is numbered accordingly with their place in the season (team #1 is the first team, etc).

That sums up my notes on Tiina’s presentation. A ton of really, really good stuff to apply there.