Thoughts.

Days keep getting shorter and shorter…

Today’s practice was highlighted by my ability to get out to it on time! A pretty big deal, really, it’s nice to not have to take a dangerously dark bikeride back from every practice.

Anyways, we put a ton of emphasis on dump-swing-continue O, as well as the mark, and I think we really made a lot of progress. Our marking in general has a long, long way to go still (it’d be a good idea to make this a point of emphasis over the winter–only takes three and a disc to drill), but the dump-swing, even in just the limited time we put into it, made for some very pretty O.

I tell you, when we get that down pat, get our marks in order so we can really put pressure on opposing team’s O, we’re going to be for-fucking-midable. I’m really excited for the winter training, and when all the dues pay off in the spring. I’m inclined to think of my high school swim team–I went to a small private school, and despite our small pool of talent to draw upon relative to the second-tier of public schools we competed against, we worked our asses off every day in practice, and we worked the right things, with a huge emphasis on quality over quantity (though quantity also came)–proper stroke form, good technique in every aspect of the race, and of course lots of hard sets emphasizing the bodily systems most relevant to swimming–and it paid off in a big way, as we won class B in our section every year I swam with the team, and did it an unpreccedented fourth consecutive time last year.

The things that really stick with me from that are this: first, that we always believed (rightly so) that we were working harder than any of the other teams out there, and second, that all the training we did would pay off in the end. My coach loved to use the analogy that winter training is “money in the bank;” you make small deposits every day, and they add up, collecting interest until you make one big withdrawal–for us, when we taper down for sectionals and everybody drops a second, two seconds, more–and we dominate.

My coach was also known to say that “a kick in the ass is a step forward.” Also very applicable. While swimming and ultimate obviously are a bit different, the same mentality applies. We work hard this winter, and really devote ourselves to pushing the envelope with our training, as well as by focusing on skills and technique improvement, and we’ll come out of all of it much stronger, much faster, and equipped with the tools necessary to allow us to take the path of least resistance to the finish.

I’ve got some other thoughts about the team, but those deserve their own post. Hopefully get something in soon. As far as how I did personally today, I felt pretty happy with how I played. A couple minor things I need to tweak, as always, little things with my man D and cutting, but both were a bit better today. Little by little…

Pretty good weekend. Lot of play, lot of good games, high-quality (or at least, not low-quality) competition to work on our game on. We went 3-0 on day 1, highlighted by a victory over Harvard in which they score the last point after hard cap to lose by a point (really weird way to end a game), 12-11. Day 2 saw a pretty good steamrolling of Tufts, and then an epic semis game with UMass Zoodisc where we were down 9-4 at one point before going on a 7-2 run to tie things up for universe before they scored again. A bit disappointing to have lost, but really not a disappointing game at all in my mind–we were down early and seemingly out, but we stuck to our guns (or perhaps more accurately, found our guns and started using them) and really swung momentum in our favor. It’s exactly the sort of mentality we need to keep in that sort of situation.

As an aside, I’ve been reading Buster Olney’s Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, and part of what was discussed as an attribute of the late 90′s Yankee dynasty was their utter, unrelenting confidence, the sense that, no matter the circumstance or opponent, if the Yankees were in a position to come back and win it, they would find a way to do it. The sort of chemistry and sense of team they had obviously played a role in their success; and it’s that sort of feeling that I think we’re capable of having on Dartmouth’s team as well. We just have to play hard, keep our heads up, and play our own game, and there’ll be few things that’ll keep us down.

Personally, I felt great over the course of the weekend. Came out flat in our first game against Roger Williams, a trait I think is common for Dartmouth in general, but after getting sufficient warm-up, proper adrenaline flow, and realizing that part of the soreness came from running up and down a slanted field, I played pretty well. Finally feeling like I’m getting a feel for Cabo, getting better about switching as a wing (after getting beaten several times in the first game), and running forces as the mark, which is good. Still lots of improvement to be had, but I wasn’t ineffective, generally speaking.

Only had one D on the weekend, I think, but it was a pretty sweet one by most recounts. I was a bit worried I was beaten on the play but I didn’t give up and wound up getting the D, which was sweet. Otherwise on defense, I had a pretty solid mark, didn’t get broken that I can remember, and though I did get beaten a couple times in man generally I held my own. I do need to work on my positioning though, particularly when I’m tired and can’t move quite as quickly as I’d like (though this’ll also go away with better conditioning; I’m real excited to train this winter).

Offensively, well, I had one turn on the weekend, and really it could almost count as a D as I mis-played the situation and wound up skying my teammate. Still don’t know why I didn’t just play conservative and look to get the mack, but we were playing Brown B so it wasn’t as crucial that we value the disc in that situation I suppose. Other than that, well, on Saturday, all of my touches (aside from the one turn) were either assists or scores, and on Sunday I only had a couple non-scoring touches (I caught a score or two), so I had pretty solid ratios despite a low touch count (such is the fate of D-line cutters). I do need to work on my cutting a bit though; several instances where I didn’t get the O going as a first cut or wasn’t doing great generating flow occured that I can remember, though I generally cleared out pretty quickly. I guess working on the cutting, and also just running all-out, too, as that made a big difference in a couple points where I was all fired up.

All in all, pretty good weekend, personally and from a team standpoint. I know some people weren’t happy with their play, but I think ideally we can focus on the positives, that we played well as a team and stepped it up when it counted, rather than get bogged down in the negative of a particular throw or missed catch.

Good
Improvement
Decision-making (in a limited role)
Fired-up play
Mark
Sky-ing in a couple instances

Needs Improvement
Cutting (as always)
D positioning, particularly when tired
Not skying own teammates
Conditioning

Nothing too special, got to practice late, played a few points (no turns, which is nice–did a better job warming up, so I was ready to go), learned a couple new plays/defenses, and then chatted with the fuel cell leaders about the state of the blogosphere.

Had my blog called out, which I haven’t decided whether or not is good yet (though my ego likes the compliment, I don’t know if it can handle the pressure of an audience).

Yeah. Looking forward to Brown this weekend, gonna kick some ass. Didn’t feel like a liability today, which is good, but I wasn’t playmaking either, which isn’t bad at this point but hopefully on the horizon.

We’ll see how the weekend goes, should be a decent indicator of how I’m doing…

Poor practice today.

Got out at my usual practice-is-already-half-over time slot, and got in about three reps of break mark drill on the forehand side (I really would’ve liked to have done more of that, too) before we broke up to do some O v D stuff.

I don’t know. I didn’t play poorly, but I haven’t been playing anywhere near as well as I’d like to and feel I’m capable of. Part of it stems from a lack of conditioning; I keep finding myself going for a sky or in position to bid but lacking the juice to get it done. Not that I can’t kick it into high gear when I need to run, I just have trouble getting my typical explosiveness. I get the feeling this is at least partly due to the circumsances when I get to practice: I’m late, not really fully warmed up, so I take a couple points (hopefully only a couple) to really get going, and I also wind up putting a lot of lactic acid into my quads before I even start to play from biking uphill half the way to practice, which I think is also a factor in the lack of explosiveness.

Other than physical complaints, I was having trouble getting fired up to play, not in the sense that I wasn’t excited to be playing, but just the circumstances of practice for me at least have been such that, rather than simply focusing on my own game, and playing well, I’ve had to worry about team strategy x or person y being overtly critical in less-than-ideal timing, and as a result my mental game’s been slipping.

I really just need to get playing more. This lack of action is killing me, I haven’t had any really consistent opportunity to play since the first week of classes when I wasn’t late to practice (and before then, it was maybe one weekend out of my entire summer, when I played at a tourney).

Meh. In any case, looking to get things together well enough to play solid D at Brown. I think the reduced playtime (as opposed to near-savage scrimmaging) coupled with the extra adrenaline of playing other teams with new players and looks I’m not used to will help me stay focused and on my toes full-time.

Yeah. In summary, daylight savings sucks, and I want to play ultimate like it was my job (or rather, in lieu of doing my job, but that’s not happening). At least I’ll be able to get out to practice on-time next week, once I stop having to run these rats…

Pretty ho-hum practice today.

Showed up my usual 45 minutes late, drilled for a bit (stack stuff), and then we scrimmaged for all of the hour of daylight left. Fall sucks sometimes.

The scrimmage I was in was pretty shoddy; the teams weren’t unbalanced, really, but we (the dark team) kept mis-executing. Shoddy, shoddy play all around. The overall talent level of the game was a bit lower than the usual mixed scrimmage, too, it seemed–dark in particular wasn’t getting the playmaking it needed.

But anyways. I didn’t play exceptionally well or exceptionally poorly, got to handle a bit, threw a couple turns in the Z that were rather careless of me. No good/bad for today, really not enough play time for a proper assessment.

So apparently the fields drained enough to be good to go today. We got out and had some good practice time, I got to practice in time for a couple rounds of huck drill and then we got down to a bit of O v D scrimmaging.

I had a good time playing; I was a bit out of gas towards the middle of the first half (we had 8-man teams, so I didn’t sub out much), but then I subbed for a couple points and was good to go for the rest of the game.
I was really surprised at how well we played; we were executing really, really well with our deep looks, and had a lot of points where we really ran our O like an O-line; lots of good looks, generally valued the disc, and made a lot of conversions. Our D was really solid, though the O eventually started running some set plays, getting some breaks, and scoring more easily.

Not to say we were perfect, there’s still a ton of improvement to be had, just keeping the offense moving constantly and responding to what the disc is doing when the handlers dump-swing etc, but the scrimmage as a whole was very very productive and I feel like we made some good progress in addition to getting a bit of conditioning. Definitely a good practice to have after a bit of a layover.

I don’t really have a ton to mention on a personal level, aside from the need to work on my handling skills. I really really like putting it quickly to the first thing that looks open to me, which can be really good at getting the offense moving, but there are lots of situations where I should level off a bit more and take a more o-line mindset with the disc. But it’ll come with experience, I think. I’m fairly happy with my cutting as a whole, just the consistency in cutting when the opportunity’s there to work on.

Good
General play, cutting in flow

Needs Improvement
Handling (experience, risk assessment)
Consistency in cutting

Yeah, a day late.

Anyways, practice went pretty well yesterday. Showed up just in time for skills work to start, which was nice (though I wasn’t sufficiently warmed up and just jumped right in). We worked on a couple plays that more or less have generating good flow as the goal, and I got to work on my hucks a bit in the drills which was good. I think that actually carried over to the scrimmaging afterwards (mixed A/B), as I wound up making a lot of deep looks, a couple of which were great, several of which were decent looks but poor execution on my on the receiver’s part, and a couple of which were better holstered.

In any case, it worked out well; there were a fair number of turns, meaning I didn’t wind up feeling like an ass for not valuing the disc. I’m trying to open up the deep game a bit from the throwing side, since particularly on d-line it won’t always be a guarantee to have a solid core of handlers to put it to me cutting (meaning I’ll be spending more time handling). I like my flick a lot, generally speaking, but the backhand needs a bit of work; it’s fine for leading with touch, but my default is the slower, floaty backhand and I need to cultivate a good bullet backhand I can put to cuts starting farther out in the stack.

This’ll all come with experience, of course. I definitely want to get a lot more work on developing that while I can.

Yeah.

Good
Deep looks, generally speaking
Forehand hucks

Needs Work
Backhand bullet hucks
Risk assessment for viability of more questionable deep looks

Practice cancelled for the rest of the week. I’m thinking I’ll take the next several days “off” from ultimate, so to speak, so likely nothing new for a bit unless the muse hits me.

Went down to Yale this weekend to play one day of ultimate (bracket play got rained out, unfortunately). Dartmouth A went 4-0, but seeing as our closest competition was Northeastern in a 13-8 win by us, we really didn’t have a ton of very competitive games.

We did have a pretty good time though, despite the poor weather. And the women and Bness were there too, so we had a nice team-bonding sort of experience; the Bness went 2-2 without competitive subbing, while the women continued to be undefeated this year, winning yet another tourney (the women only had a one-day thing).

Anyways, I got lots of PT, particularly against Northeastern, and I played so-so.

As far as things I did well go. Offensively, I had no turns on the day (though I did have a near-throwaway that Rem being so springy helped save). I also had a couple really nice plays in flow, getting a nice breakside pass and shortly thereafter making well-put assists from power position. But that’s more or less a given for me from power position, I think, so it’s nothing too great. Had a couple nice runs and cut decently as well.

There were far more things I need to improve. Partly due to weather, and partly due to, you know, 3 hours of sleep the night before, I had neither the explosiveness (for laying out or skying, as well as sprinting) or the traction (for quick changes of direction) I’m used to, so I found myself unable to make good on a baited D attempt, or getting beat in conditions that normally would be workable for me. I’ll need to be a bit more aware of this in the future and respond to the conditions accordingly, and I don’t generally plan on staying out so late before tournaments, so the lack of gas should resolve itself naturally as well as with more training. In addition to the defensive gaffes, I had several miscues as a cutter. It wasn’t just me, mind you, but there were several situations in which I should’ve been cutting in as a fill as the dump strugged to get off, or making a continuation cut (or a cut to get the offense going, period), and I would be late or ineffective. Again, this partly comes back to the conditions–the stutter-steps and jukes and such aren’t as effective when you can’t change direction as quickly–but part of it was just me not being aware enough.

Good
Disc judgement/throws

Needs Improvement
Dealing with weather conditions, specifically rainy/wet fields
Getting proper rest pre-tournament
Awareness as a cutter