Thoughts.

So, when do you juke? Is it even effective?

Eh, it depends. It’s not a primary cutting tool–running hard will always force the defense to do SOMETHING; a good defender might not respond at all to a juke. But, it CAN be effective if you’ve properly read your defender and the situation.

Some guidelines for when to juke:

• Your defender should generally be pretty close to you. If they’re too far, even if they bite on the juke it might not be enough to put them out of position/off balance enough to exploit.
• It helps if you know your defender is very aggressive–I’ve found, for instance, that defenders will often try to compensate for my being faster than them (I’m not faster than everybody, but it’s usually enough to make them struggle) by really pouncing on my first step–they accelerate harder than I do when I start my cuts, allowing them to keep up with me when I’m up to speed. A very simple way to punish this is with a good one- or two-step juke–they’ll be accelerating so quickly that you’ll have them completely selling out in one direction and you can easily take the other (this usually applies to a juke in the direction your defender is giving you).
• Multiple jukes very very rarely work. Or at least, it’s not really my style. You might be able to get away with this as a handler (and indeed, sometimes it’s necessary at a high stall in order to get that critical half-step of separation), but as a downfield cutter anything that takes more than a second or two before you get open or start clearing that isn’t a long cut is just clogging. Even if you do get open, oftentimes multiple quick fakes can be hard to read and you’ll suffer from “oh, you had ‘em” syndrome–the throw comes but you were actually juking the other way. Whoops.
• Sometimes you can use jukes just to get your opponent off-balance. Again, you have to read your defender well to pull this off–after a couple times, they will adjust. But the so-called chop step does have limited application here–again, if the defender is close a good juke can be enough to get your defender on his heels or start him turning his hips to create an opening for you to go the other way. Generally speaking I’m not a big fan of the chop-step as a cut initiator–but if I’m already in motion and the disc is moving (e.g., I’m making an in cut as the disc is swung) without the defense noticing, making a short juke towards what was previously threatening space and then quickly attacking the space that is actually viable will often be enough, assuming you’re as fast as the person guarding you.

As a general rule, jukes don’t get you wide open as much as they get you a little bit of separation. This is why the juke tends to be more common in the handler’s arsenal, where short separation is all that’s necessary. I find the jukes can be very effective if you’ve set up your defender to expect you to pick a direction and run, but you absolutely HAVE to establish yourself as a running cutter before you can expect jukes to do you any good (or just have a bad defender covering you, which is not impossible! In such instances you can exploit whatever moves said defender is not prepared for). But again, they’re a secondary tool. Get yourself in shape and learn to attack space first.

I’ve noticed a decent bit of traffic here lately–by all means, if you have thoughts on anything I’ve written about, please share in the comments. If I’m unclear I’d like to clarify, and I haven’t seen everything there is to see for certain.

There are two kinds of cuts in ultimate:

This is a lot more talky than I envisioned starting out. Think about space and how you can create it, for yourself and for your teammates.

You can find a lot of things that resonate with how I cut through my recently posted links compilation.

That said, with these posts I’m going to try and flesh out a lot of the aspects that go into cutting, so hopefully some of it will be helpful/new.

A couple broad sweeping generalizations to start:
1. It helps to be fast. Always does, always will. Train hard, focus on your sprinting form until it becomes natural to sprint quickly, and your job gets a lot easier. I’m a pretty fast guy, so unfortunately a lot of my cutting style is skewed towards taking advantage of that. Keep that bias in mind going forwards.

2. It helps a LOT to be explosive. If you’re not fast (or at least, if your defender is as fast or faster than you), being able to start and stop more quickly will work to your advantage. As a handler/mid and when I found myself evenly matched (I wouldn’t like to ever admit to being overmatched), relying on my explosiveness to generate a step or two of separation was crucial to setting up any other cuts I made. This is a lot easier to train than simply being fast. Go to the gym, get stronger. Learn how to lift with one leg, and how to jump and land with one leg. Most importantly, learn how to stop. It is my opinion that stopping is the most underrated skill in ultimate frisbee.

I’ll stop there before this turns into a fitness post. Going forward, I’m going to try and give some more concrete stuff than this, but a lot of what follows stems from the above. Solid fundamentals (of movement) make it possible to excel at the minutia.

This is more or less the compilation of all the useful ultimate-related links I’ve read.

I did a lot more blog reading last year and especially the year before that, which is when I came across most of these–that was the golden age of ultimate blogging, when nothing was recorded yet (outside of UT & T, which was not comprehensive) so what was put down was often the most authoritative info out there. Nowadays everybody’s run out of ideas and all you get is hype and tourney recaps.

Without further ado, here’s the list. This is culled from a blitz I sent to the mens’ team last spring:

the main compilation of ultimate bloggerdom

UPA rules blog (this is where I get all those “actually…11th edition says…”s from):

Jim Parinella’s blog (former DoG player, co-writer of Ultimate Techninques and Tactics–one of the best and brightest ultimate has seen)
highlights from his blog:

• this describes VERY well my cutting philosophy (MUST READ)
• more on cutting (MUST READ. Take these bits of cutting advice and really, reallly think about them. See yourself setting up in various situations. This WILL make you a better cutter)
• ideas for hucking practice
• simple thoughts can make a big difference
• players make plays
• drills to try alone/with a friend
• decision-making
• conflict resolution (hi Lamar)

Idris Nolan’s blog (former Jam player…thought to be one of the better/best handlers in club ultimate)
lots of good stuff to see here, too:

• on hucking (2nd is a MUST READ)
• >learn by watching
• defense in the air
• IO flick/breaking the mark, hammers/blades, throwing in general(the four-finger flick has your pointer and middle against the rim and holds the bottom of the rim with the ring and pinkie) (MUST READ)
• making secondary cuts (again, this describes my cutting philosophy very well)
• field sense and throws to space

Ultimate player on Training
just a few highlights this time. Start at the beginning of this blog and scan through if you have time and interest in different training styles (check out the stuff on tabata intervals):

• on crossfit (where I get a ton of training info from), “what is fitness?”
• hip flexor streching and a better vertical

Ultimate Strategy/Coaching blog

• broad progression for throwing a forehand

Occasionally entertaining, but not often useful

And then there’s RSD. some useful discussions (but do more research yourself, there’s TONS of gems to find):

• Ben Wiggins on throwing, esp hucking(UPDATED–missing RSD link has been redirected to a collection of Wiggins Writing)
• hammers
• laying out
• pulling
• scroll up for a bit on good forehand throwing

That caps it off. Sorry if the formating isn’t the most user-friendly to read.
-Mackey

PS For aspiring avid blog readers, check out feed readers at google reader or bloglines. Also give technorati.com a look for searching purposes.

I’ll do more explanatory posts on some things later (cutting, how I teach throwing), but all of what you’ll hear here stems in large part from what I’ve read above.

I’ve been doing this since my freshman year, and I didn’t realize until recently what a help this can be for the burgeoning cutter-type (or really any type).

I’m going to give a fairly simple picture demonstration of what I mean. For me, at least, it’s absolutely perfect for those times when I get bored in class–the margins of the pages make an excellent setting.

So, Cutting Schematics(TM?):

Start off with a fairly simple field setup. Start with the basics–one thrower (the O), one mark (the line, indicating which way he’s forcing).

In this case, we have a force flick.

Then….

…a straight stack, complete with dump set up slightly upfield (your team’s offensive set may vary). Note that I’m only adding two extra defenders here–for this particular cutting schematic, we’re only concerned with the last guy in the stack and the first dump. This particular schematic is working through a situation where the handler cuts upline…

…while the last cutter in the stack, recognizing the imminent power position, sets up a continuation with a good, hard in cut.

When the handler gets the disc in power position…

…the cutter, whose defender is at this point chasing him and likely not in a good position to defend the deep (or at least compromised enough that it can be attempted), plants and makes a good deep cut into the space he’s just set up–heading straight backwards to leave a lane for the huck to go into, rather than flaring out into the lane and making the huck more difficult.

It’s that simple. I’m positive I’m not the only one who does this, but I’m also fairly sure that there are lots of people out there who could make good use of it if they knew to.

Other situations you might want to consider using a cutting schematic in:

• As a general thought experiment for situations you don’t normally see/aren’t used to yet–what if the force is straight up on the mark? What if your man is forcing you out to the point that you have to run around him to get in? What if there’s a poach in the lane? What do you do if you’re the second-to-last in the stack and the power position huck doesn’t come?
• For handler cuts–again, run the various situations through your mind. When do you throw a juke to get open effectively (i.e., at a position where the throw to you is easy to make)? When do you clear out, hard?
• Defensively. What situations should you expect to see when playing a force-middle defense, when you’re guarding a downfield cutter? What sorts of adjustments do you have to anticipate making to compensate for these situations? When are the situations in which a smart poach can get a D? When are you most vulnerable, and why? When do you have to just buckle down and beat your man?

It’s very versatile as a tool to guide visualization. I’ll elaborate on the general notion of visualization and how it’s one of the most powerful tools you can use to improve yourself in any sport (e.g., ultimate) in a later post.

I thought of this whilst sketching out some different offensive sets in my notes at the Neuroscience 2007 seminar in San Diego, and I think it very aptly sums up my philosophy/thought process with regards to cutting.

“It” is the notion of Threat Points, places on the field where, given your position and motion and the position of the disc, you can choose to cut in at least two directions and reasonably expect to get the disc–which way you cut, then, is a personal call depending on how you’re being played defensively and perhaps other concerns like the skill set of the person with the disc, weather, etc.

This is perhaps best conveyed by means of visual aid…

The simplest setup for this might be the dump. Let’s say we have a fairly typical dump setup like below:In this particular instance the force is forehand (player with the disc is on the right), with the black lines being defenders. The red line is the cut/clearing out that the dump cutter has just made (I’m assuming a following-the-play scenario where the dump is moving, not starting from standing), and the blue line is where the dump should cut to next.

By making a hard cut to that space…
…the dump cutter is now in a position where he can do one of two things.

• He can continue cutting to space upline, or
• He can plant and cut backwards at an angle to get the dump in ideal position to swing it.

Which option he chooses depends on a few factors, notably which option his defender is giving him (it could be both), what’s happening downfield (is the upline lane clogged?), his team philosophy (perhaps the dump-swing is their bread and butter) and how the defense is playing their team (again, perhaps the dump-swing is the necessary tool to victory against a lane-poachy D, or perhaps the mark is taking away the backfield and upfield is the most viable option).

What matters most is that, more often than not, this puts a cutter in a position where he can effectively “threaten” two areas. This usually means that the cutter can get open in at least one direction, given that the two positions are not simultaneously defensible (some defenses/situations will prove this wrong of course).

Finding Threat Points like that and exploiting them is the essence of my cutting strategy, especially when it comes to secondary cutting–very often when clearning out deep or back towards the stack there are positions where I can make a cut back into space and be open for a gainer/swing. Generally I set up my cuts by cutting to a space where I can pick one of two directions to go in and still get the disc.

In cases where a defender is on you such that they’ll be with you in whichever direction you choose to go, you’re very often still in a position where you’ll force a defender to turn his hips, in which case the cutting 101 rule of “get him to turn his hips, then go the other way” applies.