Thoughts.

I figure this’ll be fairly short as a combined look. We’ll see.

I haven’t decided if I’ll do more serious ultimate-related posts after each tourney, but we’ll see how things develop…

Before moving on as this term comes to a close, it would seem to behoove me to look back on the season and reflect to better guide my future.

At first I thought I’d just do one long post about where I was, where I’m at, and where I hope to go, but it’s probably more efficient to do it in separate posts, so here goes.

…yeah. 05-06. Been a while…but time has passed, life has been flying by, especially lately. Human perception of time is a fascinating thing.

I don’t really have any plan on how I’ll do this, so I’ll start with the summer.

So at the end of last spring, I had my individual meeting with the captains, talking about next year and what I could do personally to become a better player. General impression: work on the throws. My initial mandate after I missed the cut for the A-team in the fall was to work on my defense, so that’s what I focused on. Developed a good D bid, pretty solid B-level defense, improved my mark a ton, all of which meant I’d definitely play D for the A-team in the coming year. Working on my throws, improving my offensive game, was the next step.

So, off to Japan I went, full of motivation to keep working and improving. I threw every day during the week after class, without fail. I’d spend more time looking up and reading about ultimate on the blogosphere and on RSD than I would studying my vocabulary and kanji for Japanese, to the detriment of my grades (fortunately there was generous curving). On free weekends, I shelled out $20 either way to take the train and subway systems to the other side of Tokyo, where I played pickup with some fellow internationals. Even travelled with them to a tourney, 8 hours away (that’s practically coast-to-coast, East-West) for a weekend. Had a blast. Improved a ton. My throwing got a LOT better, I could put touch on my throws, place them, throw to space pretty well. Hucks were ok at a middling range, nothing exceptional.

Came back for the fall, excited to play ultimate, meet the freshmen, really just generally excited to be back at Dartmouth for my sophomore year. Had a ton of free time thanks to a relatively cushy research job I had (I took the fall off from classes since I was taking classes over the summer), and while I didn’t necessarily make the most of it, I did have a good time. Had some personal adjustments to make at the start of the term, but I became better for it, I think. Playing A-team was a great learning experience for me, I got to play a fair bit and contribute a fair bit, which was great. The term was capped off with me winning most improved player at the fall banquet, which really meant a lot to me.

I also started blogging in the fall, trying to chart down my thoughts so there’d be some sort of chart of my progress and development, and also hopefully some reference for other players. I really enjoy writing–I usually prefer communication through blitz or other written means to communication in person, because it gives me time to think and organize my thoughts so I can express myself clearly and coherently. It’s worked pretty well for me. I need to take the time to go back through my ramblings and pick out some useful information in the near future. Probably when I’m home for interim.

Anyhow…on to the winter. Lots of training. Working with the fuel cell, as much as we could find time to work together. At the very least, I could always bring Socks to the gym so I had somebody else around, Dermott was almost always around, and Brett turned up when he wasn’t out and about (read: visiting his girlfriend at Wellesley). Track workouts, hitting the weights, plyos in the gym…week after week, building.

Vegas happened in the winter; this was one of my favorite experiences of the year. We travelled all the way across the country with a veritable skeleton crew, and really played our asses off. I got to play a ton, a little bit both ways, but primarily with the D line, which was great. There were I think 8 of us, 9 when Dermo was back in action the second day, and we really gelled, I thought. I played pretty much every D point, and there’s definitely something to be said for being able to constantly go out there with the same crew, everybody knowing each other’s capacities and really playing to (and even beyond) them. Didn’t spend too much time out on the town, but from a pure ultimate standpoint I really doubt there could have been much better for helping develop the team and the players than going through a long-ass tourney like that without probably 60-70% of the guys who you would expect to be returning and being playmakers for the team. That we played as well as we did unable to field a returning A-team line speaks volumes for the progress we made just through the course of the tourney, and I definitely think that sort of experience is going to help us a lot next year when a lot of the guys who got to step up and be more dynamic than they usually are need to step up and be more dynamic for the team’s success.

We had a lot of indoor practices, which were generally productive, though in retrospect I think we might’ve benefited from more drilling and less scrimmaging. This goes back to earlier thoughts about the place of drilling vs. scrimmaging for improvement–scrimmaging is certainly important for application of skills and development of synergy, all of that, but I think particularly during the winter and especially early on when there’s still plenty of time before we NEED to be coming together and clicking as a unit, there’s more value in emphasizing basics–the mark, throwing, all that goes with that–by devoting more time to drilling. We did devote a fair bit of time to various drills, but I think more time and maybe a bit more structure (I’m of the opinion that marker drill and dump drill should be done every practice for at least 5-10 minutes, as those are basic, essential skills that so much builds upon and revolves around) would’ve been beneficial.

Then there was spring break. Really good, overall. We struggled at Southerns, got ourselves motivated, and were quite productive the rest of the time, culminating with some sweet, sweet Centex sucess. The week on Tybee was great, relaxing, relatively light training schedule which I think I needed. Looking back on Southerns, I was really flat after the first couple games. I think it was partly due to overtraining, so recovery made a big difference and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Centex was one of my best tourneys of the season. It’s good to work hard, but we definitely need to keep recovery in perspective next year. This probably applies more to me than some players, as I often do a bit of extra training on my own.

Then came spring. Spring has been a busy, busy term for me. Between two lab sciences (one of which is my first term of organic chemistry) with each having 3 midterms each, devoting much of my week and all of my weekends to ultimate, and having to do a track article by Monday afternoon basically every Monday after an exhausting weekend, I had my hands full. Perhaps not coincidentally, this has also been one of my most productive terms. I’ve got a pretty legitimate shot at getting an A in orgo–for reference, I’ve never gotten an A in any course at Dartmouth–Bio will be a bit worse, but still hopefully above median, and my third course should be a good-enough grade given how little work I’ve put into it.

Anyways, the ultimate season was hectic. Some ups and downs, a couple early exits at the start of the season that were acceptable given we still needed to re-integrate lots of players, a loss to BU at Yale Cup in quarters that we should’ve won had we simply caught easy passes in the endzone, progress before and during the series, and the season ended on two hotly contested games at regionals against Brown and Tufts, one on our weakness against gargantuan ultimate players and the other due in part to our weakness against the zone, which we should’ve put more work into. But everything’s always more apparent in hindsight.

And so the season ended. ‘Twas sad…but it’s over. We had closure night before last at the spring banquet and today with classwars (08 sweep–new best class ever, not that we didn’t already know it). People are moving on, lives are changing all over the place, and soon I’ll be heading home, only to return to a considerably emptier campus.

But so it goes. Like Seigs said in a post of his back when he actually did the blogging thing, every year is a unique combination of people and every year is great in its own way.

I’ve made a ton of progress over the past year, but I need to keep focused and stay humble. But that’s not for me to discuss in this post.

So I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. As a defensive player this year, I spent a ton of time on the other side of the disc, trying to deny my quarry all that he desired.

Mostly I’ve been thinking about what makes for good defense. As an individual player, what can I do, how can I play to best ensure the D line generates a turn?

The answer I came up with? Well, it depends.

The way I see it, there are two primary ways to play defense: smart defense and emotional defense. I’ll qualify this first by saying the two are not mutally exclusive, and second by saying that this is a very general classification.

Smart defense means, more often than not, playing to contain. A smart defender anticipates what his mark wants and makes it difficult, if not taking it away entirely. A smart defender realizes the various situations he is in–is my man a viable threat to go deep given current position/situation? am I sure laying out for a 50% chance of a D is worth giving up the force for 2 seconds if I miss, or is it more practical to set a hard mark right away and prevent flow?–and responds accordingly, limiting the threat of his man. Ideally, a smart defender all but neutralizes the impact of the player he’s guarding on the field.

Emotional defense means busting ass and trying to make every play. An emotional defender always lays out for those close discs on in cuts, throws an aggressive mark, trying to force a turn. An emotional defender’s primary objective is to generate turns–whether this is through baiting opportunities, or just through running hard and laying it all out.

I’ve come to realize I’m much more of a smart defender than an emotional defender. I think, for much of the season, I’d been really lacking in good, emotional defense, conceding too much in one way or another in an effort to dictate and keep from being beaten at what I chose to take away. Not as effective as I could have been.
I started incorporating more emotional defense into my game, fighting harder to get a D on whatever my man was trying to get, and my defense improved accordingly. Still very much disposed towards smart defense, but in position to make plays more often. This is pretty much where I’m at right now.

Most of what I’ve been thinking about is, simply, would I be a better defender if I become a more aggressive, emotional defender? Would the extra D’s I might generate from those close bids and the occasoinal burn from overcommitting to a cut outweigh the “team D” effect from simply doing my job and holding the force and keeping my man in check? It’s hard to say.

I feel like there’s a place for both styles of play, though. In some conditions, for example–windy conditions comes to mind–there’s no need to “force” the D as much, since turnover rate is naturally higher. In this sort of situation, giving up the easy breakside throw or getting too far out of position trying to make a great play has a higher degree of risk vs. reward as a defender. Turns are easier to come by, so why risk letting the other team score and put the ball in your court when you can force them to keep playing perfect to do the same thing?

In other conditions though–high level play, in non-windy conditions, say–the utility of smart defense is lessened, and getting that one key D can be potentially game-changing. The turnover environment is lower–a team runs a smooth offense that doesn’t shoot itself in the foot and doesn’t take exceptionally large risks (ie hucks for completions, not for skies)–so rather than simply do one’s job and only delay the inevitable, it might be more valuable to be the guy who lays out for every close disc (not that there would be many), hoping to generate a turn where there normally wouldn’t be one.
Of course, if a team has a good strategy to force an offense to take risks, or can otherwise increase the turnover environment through a team strategy where everyone doing their job is essential, then smart defense would again be more beneficial. This would almost be ideal, in my book. Force the other team to be perfect, knowing (or hoping) that they aren’t, rather than relying on the (at a level where teams are evenly matched, athletically) low chance of forcing a D.

There is a middle ground, but finding the balance can be hard. I would think a defense that alternates between smart and agressive defense–lulling an offense into thinking a team is playing to contain and won’t make the plays and then turning it on, snapping them out of their comfort zone with tight, aggressive D–might have the most success in the long run, but I’d be lying if I said I had a good mastery of that balance.

I’m about to wander into the realm of incoherency at this late hour, so I’ll leave it at that. In practical terms, whether one leans smart or emotional should always vary with a team or player’s strengths, and from there it should adjust to the given conditions/competition. Getting fired up has its place, but few things are worse than a questionable bid that fails and leaves the field wide open for the opponent. By the same token, taking a step back and playing smart to keep your opponent in check can be very useful, but sometimes the risk needs to be taken. Those close plays a smart player almost gets are the same plays an emotional player eats up.

Which side of the risk/reward curve do you (you is, of course, a term I use very loosely, since there are very few who read this) lean towards?

Finally over my spring term hump. Finals soon, but I expect to get at least a few productive blog posts in over the coming month. Been taking a step back from the game proper, but still thinking lots.

Yes, regionals.

Culmination of our season (Nationals would’ve been icing on the cake if we’d made it, in my mind). The results of all of our work together, sweating together in the gym, in the field house, on the turf over the winter, and pushing each other on the field. All the training and conditioning was brought to bear in a single weekend’s time.

It was worth it.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been so excited to play or had so much fun. Started on D most every point in our two biggest games against Brown and Tufts, and ran my ass off, completely and utterly. I hated for it to be over, especially after only one game on Sunday, but I can honestly say I did the best I could.

As a general recap, Dartmouth:
-Beat Midd
-Lost to Brown, 12-14
-Beat MIT
-Rolled Amherst
-Lost to Tufts on Sunday on universe point

I’m only going to talk about the second and final games, since those were the ones that mattered most, for obvious reasons.

Brown. Great game, great, great game. I spent all but maybe two or three of my points in on D covering Brown’s Mike Vandenberg, which was a great challenge. Lots of O ran through him, and he was their primary hucker in the Colin Mahoney connection. I’d be lying if I said I shut him down–he’s got some solid, solid throws, the low-release flick for a huck to CMo their first point and later for a break score (that hovered 2-3 inches off the ground, where he’d released it under my hand) in particular stand out in my mind–but I feel like I did a pretty good job making things difficult for him getting the disc or otherwise moving it around. He runs hard, and covering him was a challenge, but that’s what made it so exciting for me. Overall the game was close the entire way.

We went down a break midway through the first half, but got it back to take half (I caught the score. self-call). Second half was without breaks until 12-12 and time cap, at which point Brown broke us twice to seal the deal.

We played pretty well. On O, we had a fair number of turns, but Brown’s D line O/our O line’s D kept the breaks from occuring. Generally I feel like our O line had a lot more turns than Brown’s, as we only got the disc on D maybe 3 times the whole game to my recollection, but at the same time, our D forced a lot of desperation hucks that CMo brought down, and likewise we were not so fortunate with our own desperation hucks for the same reason. Given that Mahoney caught the overwhelming majority of Brown’s scores, we can certainly come away from the game knowing that we outplayed a good team with a game-dominating (I use this term in a relative sense) tall guy.

One thing i do want to write about with regards to the Brown game was a line call in which I conceded a turn. I’m well aware that every posession the D-team can get is precious, but even so, the situation was ambiguous: I had bobbled the disc and when I had control of the disc was uncertain, as well as the exact positioning of the line with bunches of people crowding to watch the game. My reasoning in conceding the turn had a few justifications in my mind: 1, that there was ambiguity in whether the play was good or not, 2, that had I simply caught the disc properly instead of bobbling it to the line there would’ve been no question, and 3 (most importantly) I didn’t want us to be playing and winning on sketchy calls. Seigs later brought up a good point in that Brown had had another similar ambiguous up/down call go in their favor, and that there was thus good justification in us getting this call in our favor, which is a good arguement. Another player on the team simply said that we can’t let them “win it on the calls” or something to that effect, which is NOT something I feel comfortable engaging in. If another team is making questionably-spirited calls in a game against me and my team (I’m not saying this was the case with Brown, because I don’t think it was–on the whole, a great, intense, relatively well-spirited game), I’m not going to lower my game to their level and start arguing or making petty calls. If I had conclusively thought myself in, I would’ve stuck to my guns; as it was, I wasn’t certain if I was in or not. In retrospect the fact that Zip called for a line check from the sideline, when the line was obscured, is a bit questionable, but there’s no sense in living in the past about the decision.

The Tufts game was a bit harder loss to stomach. We came out fired up to play, ourselves conceived as the underdogs, and got two upwind breaks (and the accompanying downwind scores) right off the bat, putting Tufts in an early hole going into halftime. I think we had some jitters going into the game too–I had a turn early on, and a miscue when I was cutting cost us another turn–but we still got it done. After half, however, the tables turned, and our O struggled a bit to deal with Tufts’ zone in the windy weather. Tufts came back to even on breaks, and took an upwind break as cap went on. Needing two to win it, the O line battled to score going upwind to force a decisive universe D point. We ran a suffocating 1-3-3 in the wind, trapping on the sideline in the endzone and forcing a desperation huck for a turn, but we jumped the gun a little too soon off the turn and immediately gave Tufts the disc back on a wind-deflected huck up the sideline. We again set a tight zone and forced another throwaway; this time, however, Tufts came down the with the 50/50 disc, and worked the disc up the field to score and eliminate us.

Tough loss. Really, really tough loss. Unlike the Brown game, where both sides were battling at an even keel, this game was a much bigger roller-coaster ride of emotion, from the high of the early breaks, to the refocused intensity and excitement of playing, to concern when Tufts battled back, to doubt when they went up on us, to a do-or-die fire as I came in on the last point of our season.

I don’t need to say too much else about how I played–covered one of Tufts’ handlers mostly, got beaten more than I should’ve, but definitely shut him down on the dump and on the mark more than once, forcing throwaways or turns otherwise. We were much more in control of this game, which made it harder to bear the loss.

Mostly, though, it just sucks to be over.

On the one hand, I’m glad the season’s finished–no more having to put schoolwork and studies at risk/at late hours to accomodate practice, lifting, tourneys, etc. No more having to worry about eating right every day, taking care of my body 24/7 for the team (it’s still a concern, of course, but I’m better with breaking my usual rules).

On the other, it’s over. No more riding for hours and chatting with people about life. No more discussing x or y while we stretch down or warm up. No more taking comfort in knowing that I can always count on seeing the same group of people coming out to play and work together with. Without a unifying force, we return to our pedestrian, day-to-day lifestyles.

It’s not completely over, of course. Next Year has begun. New bonds will be formed. But that unique group of people will never be the same. Closed chapter.

It’ll be a while before I’m fully ready to re-commit to the sport. I’ll still play, sure, but my batteries need to recharge before I go full in again.

Last year I was beyond excited for the team. Captaining the B-team was a blast, we were having a great time, and the A-team was just tearing it up, going to Presday and upsetting UCSB, all the talented players on the team–in my mind, we were a lock to make nationals. So I went down to Brown to watch regionals on Sunday, excited to watch everyone play and root on the team, all of that good stuff.

And then I get there, and hear about things–there was an accident. Cabo’s still in the hospital, Chimpo got banged up, Pov and Zargham are playing, but it’s the freaking day after Mike’s car got totaled.

But we’re doing fine. I heard we beat UMass the other day on universe point, which is to be expected, of course, and I hear that Harvard lost to Williams. I get to watch us beat Williams, with solid play all around.

Rain starts coming. The men have some down time, delayed due to field concerns I think. The women are playing Brown (of course, women don’t tear up fields), and they TROUNCE them, sealing the deal in the game-to-go. Everybody’s pumped.

The rain keeps coming. The fields are soaked. No games for Dartmouth for half an hour, an hour…I need to get some work done. I figure, hey, things will be delayed to a later date, given the conditions, I won’t miss anything…

But, of course, I miss plenty. I get back, do a little work, but can’t help thinking about things. Somebody blitzes out to spew wondering how things are going, somebody else who knows blitzes out: Dartmouth loses on universe point to Harvard in the game to go. It’s over.

It hits me hard; I’m not even playing with the a-team, I know maybe a handful of the guys on that team beyond a casual basis, and yet I’m too bummed out to go to class the next day. Or the day after. Practice is a shitshow, whatever. Doesn’t even matter.

I couldn’t tell you much about that next week or so. I’m pretty sure we still had solid, productive B-team practice, but I don’t know much else I did. WMO was a blast, though–got to make some sweet plays, we played some old Dartmouth alums I’d never known, a few I’d heard of, got to play the A-team (we scored the first point of the game, on a huck to Pov, who’d defected, and then let them roll us the rest of the time), good times were had.

We moved on. Next year’s captains were chosen; I had my conference with them about next year, and I came out energized and excited for the a-team and to work my ass off getting better.

So I did. It was tough being in Japan, but I spent every afternoon tossing with a few classmates, on free weekends I shelled out $15 both ways in train and subway fares to travel to the other side of Tokyo, so I could congregate at a field by the river and play pickup for a few hours with some internationals; I paid well over $100 and rode 8 hours both ways to the other side of Japan to play in a 2-day tournament with these same people, and had a blast reminiscent of spring break (we finished second, oddly enough, on a universe point loss. I gotta stop doing that). I spent countless hours after class looking at ultimate blogs, searching old topics on RSD, when I should’ve been studying. All in an effort to keep playing and improving.

It was worth it. It’s all been worth it. I love ultimate. Though I have my worries about getting too intense and too caught up in it, this is it. It’s one of few things that truly defines me, and I’m glad for it. I love the game and I love the people that play it, and I’m excited to know I’ll be able to keep playing and continue to forge new bonds with people I’ll come to know and love.

I was originally just going to send this to just one person I thought it’d have value for, but I’d prefer it also preserved in a (somewhat) less temporary medium than just blitz.

I’ll do some sort of legitimate regionals recap this week. Been busy as all hell today, save the last hour+. Too busy to look straight back just yet. Always more important to look at what’s happening right now, anyways.

Apologies to…nobody, really. I started this for me and despite harboring aspirations for something more, this remains primarily a place for me to record my thoughts.

Don’t really have the time for a more analytical post just now. Bio and Orgo are always calling…I’ll definitely make time for a post-season perspective, though that might be a ways off.

…was good.

Great, even. Dartmouth went to Southerns, then mosied over to Savannah for the week, where the B-teams played in High Tide, the A-teams practiced, and everybody lived it up in some sweet beach houses on Tybee Islan, and finally the A-teams flew out to play in Centex while the B-teams travelled to NC to play in Beasterns and Biohazard.

By all indications, people had a great time. I know I did.

We started at Southerns, which we (we being Dartmouth A) struggled a bit at. We had some pretty good success the first day, with some close games and strong performances, but the second day was decidedly more flat. Lots of holes in our game were recognized. We wound up finishing a good bit below seed after losing to U of Central Florida the first game on Sunday, and we tanked pretty well after the loss. One could point to fatigue, demoralization, or any number of factors, and sure, they’re factors, but we need to learn as a team (and I need to learn as an individual) to focus less on extenuating circumstances and more on putting in my full effort for the point at hand, whether that’s on the field or the sideline.

After Southerns came Tybee. I played in the High Tide hat tourney the first day we were there, which was a lot of fun–fewer teams than in years past helped to ensure that the overall level of playing ability was relatively low–I was easily the stud of my team, which was a lot of fun. Got to more or less run the offense, making lots of hammer (our team name) and blade looks, as well as more than a few hucks, with a pretty good success percentage. We didn’t fare too well as a team, partly due to people like Zargham and the Carr who defeat the point of a hat tourney by playing with all their friends and shitting on their orignal teams to stack their new ones, but I had a great time and I’m definitely feeling pretty confident about my throws, so it was definitely a worthwhile day spent.
The other days were spent practicing in Savannah, which was really productive. Again, my confidence was boosted pretty considerably; I played well in practice, getting open with relative ease on O and doing a better job on defense as well. We got to watch the B-team play at one point, which was great to see–there’s definitely some talented freshmen, hopefully they keep coming out this spring. Non-ultimate activities on Tybee were fun too. I get the impression that the freshmen really had a great time and got to know each other better, with any luck it’ll keep them coming out.

After Tybee, came Austin. Centex. The closest thing to The Show Dartmouth will see short of Natties itself. We played well. Our pool wound up being very competitive, with lots of teams flip-flopping seed, us included. We went from being seeded 6th in our pool and last overall to finishing 4th in our pool and 15th overall, beating UCSB and UBC, our pool’s top two seeds, as well as giving semifinalist Oregon a run for their money and giving Georgia Tech and Michigan State good games as well. Saturday was quite possibly the best day of ultimate I’ve ever had–we played really well, were never out of any of our games, and wound up doing better than anybody expected, I think. Having Ben of DoG around as a coach helped a ton too. Great advice, really helped us stay focused on our own game and staying involved. Sunday was a bit more disappointing, as we lost first game to Harvard by a couple breaks, which was unfortunate–we had a couple bad breaks despite playing pretty solidly, in my opinion, though there was plenty to improve upon. I’ll certainly be looking forward to our next rematch. After Harvard came Carleton, their presence in the B bracket a bit surprising. They took us to task, as we struggled to deal with their zone in the now upwind/downwind conditions. I don’t think our D got a single break, which was a bit disappointing. After the loss to Carleton (which was roughly the same score as Harvard, though Harvard felt a lot closer than Carleton did), we were set to play UCSD for 15th, but they wound up forfeiting, ending our run.

All in all, I felt really good about Centex. We learned a lot about things to work on, dumps being a big sticking point, zone being another, and of course there remains plenty of improvement to be had with O and D in broader terms. Personally I felt great about my showing at Centex. I wound up covering handlers a ton, which worked really well for me–I’m real confident in my mark, so I feel like I can contribute a lot to the D by holding a hard force and containing the other team’s O to one side of the field, and then once we get the turn, I’m almost always mismatched against a handler and wide open all day. Got to contribute a lot on both sides of the disc. Still need to work a lot on covering cutters, I’m not anticipating anywhere near enough, but I can do a pretty good job on handlers most of the time (though I still need a fair bit of work there too).

The Good
-cutting, throwing (generally), marking
-the shape I’m in. Not ideal yet, but definitely getting there.

The Not-As-Good
-staying focused and fired up on D and on the sidelines

I feel like I need to get something up here; definitely been neglecting it lately, what with finals and then spring break.

That touches the base of most of where I’m at right now. I’d like to do a recap of things, particularly spring break, but I’m too tired for it now. I did get some nice post ideas over break though, so hopefully I make the time to do some writing in the next couple weeks.