Thoughts.

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.

Hopefully this gives you a good idea.

So many novice throwers use primarily their arm, or throw from their hip. Both sap throwing power. Relax your arm (but not the grip), and load the scapula when you’re hucking forehands.

The force that results from this loading should flow fairly easily from your torso/shoulder to the disc if you’re keeping your arm relaxed. From your biceps to your forearm, nothing should be tightening up until your snap your wrist to release the disc.

Next time you’re watching somebody with really good forehand hucks, watch their shoulder. I can almost guarantee you that if they throw with any power or authority they load their shoulder to some extent.

I’ve yet to determine whether “loading the scapula” is appropriate for backhands. But it most definitely helps for forehands. Pull your shoulder blade in when you wind up, and just let the natural stretch-shortening cycle pull your arm through the throwing motion.

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.

What to say.

My collegiate career is over.

Soon enough I’ll be leaving this school, separating from my friends of many years, and moving on with my life.

What’s it all for? What’s it all about? I struggled with this thought on Friday. We had already made the national tournament., only the second time our program has done so, and going into the year we never really had any concrete goals outside of peaking at regionals–and what a peak it was! Two of the best, most emotional days of ultimate I’ve ever experienced. The energy was palpable. We had bunches of alums, friends, family (my parents got to watch me play ultimate for the first time in the regional final), all rooting for us. It’s the sort of atmosphere that makes me happy to play this sport, to know that the work and effort I’d invested could be made manifest in such a way.

We won the region…and then? What? More ultimate. As Socks put it at one point, it’s like having a really good friend over to visit, you have a great time seeing them, and then the time comes for them to go…and after leaving in the morning, you get a knock on your door that afternoon–your friend is back, he missed his train. While it’s still really great to have them there, it’s just not the same. This was how I went through practice the week after regionals. Closing in on the dance itself, we had a team meeting, generally got on the same page of loving the chance to play with each other and be the Pain Train in its current form one last time, and I had a bit more vigor and a bit more excitement for the sport as we left for Colorado.

But Friday came, and I was flat. We opened against Carleton–very good, talented team–but I got caught flat-footed and beat to the open side more than once. For goals. Where was the fire? The desire to put it on the line for my teammates?

I was still missing it against Colorado. I’d gotten a bit more will to play and work to show on the field, but the focus was missing. I cheered on the sidelines, but that was mostly just going through the motions.

We finished against UCSC after a bye. We won this one, but did I really bring anything more than I did to the previous two games? I had more opportunities to play harder, so in aggregate, yes, I played harder. It was good to win, but I could have just as easily lost that game, in terms of investment in the result.

I still don’t have a good answer for how I felt.

But then, Saturday came. Arizona. What a game. I spent most of the game covering Joe Kershner, whose name you might recognize as the top of the heap in this year’s Callahan award. Really great guy, totally deserving. First point of the game we introduced ourselves to each other, and exchanged some words over the course of the game. Dude knows how to ball, but I do too, which made it a lot of fun on both sides of the disc. Getting to run him around on the turns was great–probably half of my elation from playing this game stems from my being a cutter for almost all of the game.

An amazing game to play in–my new best game I’ve ever played in (supplanting my sophomore year vs. Brown in teh quarterfinals at NE regionals–that still remains the tightest game I’ve ever played in, Brown hardly turned it over all game thanks to the unstoppableness of C-Mo). Certainly a game that I was happy to end my career on.

…but then we had two more games. I was pretty banged up from the ‘zona game (bashed my knee on a bid early, and it’d been swelling up on me since), and combine that with the 5-minute break between games (going to 17-16 meant we were well past cap), and we came out flat. I only played a point in this game (though I got to finally throw the skirt on, now that we were out of contention). We were within striking distance but let this game get away from us pretty quickly.

After that, it was Delaware, and after a bye we had a lot more energy and rolled in this game. I played a few more points in this game, including the game’s final point–in a clam set, the final play of my collegiate career was a layout D, which I caught–however, given that the Del player was not anticipating my laying out for the D, he did not have time to get out of the way, and crashed into me (I was laying out perpendicular to his direction of motion–I almost never make these sorts of bids for exactly this reason). I took a (collegiate) career-ending injury, and Socks then came on to throw a breakside score for the win. A pretty fitting end for both of our careers, I’d say.

A lot of fun, is how I’d characterize it all. Really, nationals is like any other high-level college tournament–you show up, you play hard, you go home. This is the simple truth of ultimate. Why do we continue to seek glory in this piece of plastic? Well…why not?

This team is moving on already. We have our spring banquet tomorrow (which is way too soon), and after that, I’ll literally have nothing left. It’s pretty sad. You can insert a cliche about taking solace in the progress of the program, but really, there’s not too much of that sentiment right now, just nostalgia. Sitting back, reminiscing, and enjoying the memories.

I’ll likely keep updating this blog for at least the next while, but given that I’m going to be out of competitive ultimate for at least the next year (I’m teaching English in Japan), there will come a time when the new content ceases.

In the meantime, I plan to pour out the essence of my ultimate self here, various skills and teachings that I’ve acquired over my four years here. So, look forward to that I guess.

Signed,
Maaaaaaaaaaaaatt Mackey

We won.

Hoo, Ungawa, Dartmouth’s got the power, indeed. Tapering now for Regionals…

“Mackey, why DO you play ultimate?”
I thought for a second.

“…because what I get out of this sport is commensurate with what I put in to it.”
“Why don’t you do crew or something like that?”
“Are you kidding me!? It’s nowhere close…”

I’m not sure exactly what drew me to ultimate in the first place. I went to nerd camp where frisbee was the thing to do; we’d throw it around during breaks, play “ultimate” (good old amoeba play) during activities, and the like. I was (am) pretty athletic (yes, yes, self call, I know. Keep your shirt on), I jumped high and caught frisbees and boys and girls alike were impressed. I was smitten.

Going out of high school and looking at college, I knew I wanted to do SOMETHING with sports, but short of running/jumping on a track team (being a Division I fifth-stringer as a walk-on didn’t sit too well with me), ultimate was IT. I still remember going through the UPA rankings, trying to see if I could discern anything to distinguish the ivies I was looking at from one another. This school, Dartmouth, that my friend went to, they had just made it in 2003! Surely this was a team on the up-and-up, a team that I could jump on to and ride their ascention to the national stage with. And I had so much fun when I came and visited…such were my thoughts, among others, when I chose to come to Dartmouth.

I arrived a wide-eyed freshman, fancying myself the shit because I’d played in summer league–organized ultimate, man!–and showed up knowing what a stack was. I could throw a forehand (without a pivot). Sometimes my hammers went where I wanted them to! It made me really happy when I heard from Pete Gadomski at one point that he thought I was a ’06 because I looked so much like I knew what I was doing. Knowing as much as I did, and being in the shape I was, I had to be a shoo-in for the A-team, right? Right?

Not at all. The ’05s were the big dogs, Seigs and Agan explained to me in the backseat of a car (their “office” during practice), and they had a good feeling about this year–they didn’t have a lot of space to pull up new guys and train them up, taking just Cobbles and Pov from the ’08s. “We want you to work on your defense,” they said. “right now it just seems like you force guys out and try and run the disc down when it gets thrown (admittedly still my favorite thing in ultimate). Work on really sticking with your man and D’ing him up that way on the B-team.”

On the B-team? I put everything I had into getting better, into showing them how wrong they were to not take me on the A-team, to show them how committed I was. And it wasn’t just me. So many conditioning runs, so many wintry practices out at the turf fields, Dorner, Mackey, Crew, Socks, Watson, DeKrey…commitment. Hard work. If it wasn’t practice, it was Socks-Crew-Pov-Mackey doing marker drill on a Friday evening at the river dorms, playing boot, tossing.

My freshman summer, spent in the far East, I threw literally every day after class. I would spend hours perusing the internet for every last bit of information it held. I read the blogs. When I returned to Hanover, I started my own. I kept working, and kept improving, physically, mentally.

Sophomore year, Socks, Wats, and I made it (with a cameo by Crew). Junior year Crew returned, and DeKrey and Dorner came up. We’ve all continued to work through the years, and the fruits of our labor are evident to me every time we’re on the field, every time we toss. Every throw is a throwback. Turfed backhands, wobbly forehands, have become near certainties. Whereas I once dashed around haphazardly hoping for a floaty frisbee, I now cut with purpose for leading passes. While I used to wait and bait, I now dictate and dominate. My attachment to this sport, and the people I share it with, is the single most fulfilling component of my Dartmouth experience.

Riding back from a practice at Radcliffe with Dorner, DeKrey, and Crew, joking at an intersection, I was struck with the thought of just how perfect it all was, how there’s absolutely nothing else I’d prefer doing. I could’ve ridden forever, but these moments are fleeting. We’ve invested so much time in this sport, and in each other, and for what?…

“Are you kidding me!? It’s nowhere close.” With crew, what do you do? Pull strokes on the erg? With ultimate, there is SO MUCH you can do to improve. It’s not just the physical work, but the strategy, the teamwork…spending time together with my teammates makes us all better players. And not just better players, better people. I have gotten SO MUCH out of my time here at Dartmouth, and with the team…I’m an entirely different person now than I was before I got here, and it all stems from this singular obsession of mine, born of some nonchalant tossing and an innocent fascination with a piece of plastic.

So we come to Regionals. Whenever somebody who doesn’t really follow ultimate/somebody I don’t talk to about it regularly asks about my season, I refer to Regionals as “Pretty much the culmination of my four years here at Dartmouth.” Like Nate said, though, the results are not what define us. For me, going into this weekend with the strength and certainty of years of commitment and work and, why lie, obsession, with this sport, with this group, with Our Team, I am, simply, exhilarated. There is no greater feeling than the rush that comes with a hard-fought game, win or lose. The flow of the moment, the unaldulteated joy of letting it all go…it is for precisely these moments that I work so hard. To be able to give my best, alongside my best friends, there is nothing more than this that I can ask for.

I have to confess that I’ve actually been tearing up, if not crying, a fair bit reading some of these blitzes. The meaning that this team, that Our Team, has taken on, cannot be captured in words (despite my liberal use of them in attempt here). I see it when we play, though. Every time I hear a “hoo ungawa!” Every time Owen demands better from somebody, be it himself, his teammates, or his opponent. Every sprint down on every pull, every goal caught, every joyous celebration…every time we huddle up. It’s always there, that desire to give more, to become less a collection of 23 and more a team of one, united will.

I love each and every one of you. As I sit here typing this I feel a surge of energy–that energy doesn’t come from me; it comes from you. Our investment in one another is our truest strength. As we play this weekend, never forget that. Put everything you have into the moment at hand, into supporting your teammates, with your play, with your attitude, with your energy, with your HEART, and our united will will be put on display for all to see.

I don’t play for myself. I don’t play for Dartmouth. I play for Mike Zargham, Carson Thomas, Nate Raines, Watson Sallay, Alex Crew, Zach Dorner, Sam Haynor, Pete Bonanno, Will DeKrey, Dermott McHugh, Owen Roberts, Dave Schmidt, Nick Brown, Billy McCarthy, Graham Baecher, Misha Sidorsky, Robin Meyers, Alex Kell, Nathaniel Obler, Chase Raines, Lars Osterberg, and Alex Taylor. I play for YOU.

-Mackey

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.