Thoughts.

1. Renew your UPA membership.  With electonic waivers, you can do it all now and forget about last-minute scrambles come series time, plus you’re a member in time to get all the copies of USA Ultimate.  Apologies to international readers who aren’t beholden to the UPA.
2. Get your fitness in gear.  The Huddle has a nice piece by Xi Xia talking about Crossfit; longtime readers will know that I’m a huge proponent of Crossfit, and I highly recommend that you look to get into it if you want a comprhensive general physical preparedness routine for your off-season training.If you’re in season (ie college), you can definitely benefit from incorporating some strength work to your practice and other training routine.  A while back I posted the routine we used at Dartmouth several years ago; it’s a solid place to start from if you’ve never lifted before, or are otherwise looking to ease into in-season training.
3. Play ultimate.  Hopefully this is the easy one!  I’ve got coaching at Vegas and dominating in Hawaii to help me get my fix this winter (and a bit of training motivation for #2).  Hope you’re finding satisfying pursuits, too!

It always bears repeating that good goal-setting practices, keeping the process in mind as well as the end result, will help you achieve the ends you desire, ultimate or otherwise.  Best of luck with keeping your resolutions!

’tis a great season for reading, as students are about to go/are already on break…here’s what’s been on my tap of late.  Would love to hear your good stuff in the comments.

The Definitive Book of Body Language. Really easy to get in to, broken up into perusable chunks makes it a great bathroom/bedroom read. From the perspective of a neuroscience major, I find it fascinating, and from the perspective of a future physician, I find it a useful tool for reading my patients and evaluating their needs (and how they’re responding to my suggestions).  You never know, it could help make you a more persuasive call-arguer.
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I tried to dig up a couple pictures of what I was talking about last week with the “IO Foot”; Keeghan Uhl’s gallery of Nationals provided a few useful pictures.

Without further ado:

This picture provides one angle on the IO foot. The throw isn’t explicitly IO–which is to say, this could just be a flat throw to the open side–but you’ll note that the foot position forces the knee to follow and wind up in a position which allows a fairly clean follow-through of the arm in front of the leg.
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Two weeks ’til finals; no guarantees on posting schedule until Thanksgiving.

In the meantime, ultitraining has gotten a spate of new writers, Atlanta‘s blog is still rolling strong, and even Match has a new post up in the blogosphere.

Lots of words devoted to open previews; haven’t seen as much on the other divisions (feel free to chime in in the comments if you’ve found other material). Check:

UCatch (Open)
Pool A
Pool B
Pool C
Pool D
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Some quality content on the Atlanta Ultimate blog in the wake of South Regionals, namely two pieces on Using Your Top Seven (and when you should ease up) and When Losing is the Way to Go. (Relatedly, a bit on Changing It Up On Offense corroborating Jim P’s original post on the matter).

Good food for thought for those of us who’ve yet to play in Regionals–from my experience playing in New England College Regionals, at least, aside from the rare case (Brown ’05) where one team was clearly the class of the region, ultimately who emerged from the muddle victorious depended as much on smart subbing and use of depth as it did on whose “top seven” or whatever comparison you want to make was better on paper.

A gem dropped in a Force Flick post, this Men’s Health piece about deep muscle fascia and the massive role it plays in posture and, by extension, body function, is well worth the read. Makes me want to turn the scalpel to the side and do my own fascia examinations in the dissection lab.

Great to see this stuff hitting “conventional” fitness sources like Men’s Health. If you don’t already, consider foam rolling and mobility work as part of your warm-up routine.

Good to see somebody(ies) reporting; check out U Catch for your elite trends and reports. I’m interested to see what other content they churn out, especially now as the big tourneys wrap up and we move into a month of relatively quiet sectionals matchups.

Speaking of sectionals, I’m off to Lancaster this weekend. No real preview necessary; the easy goal is to make regionals. Slightly harder, but very doable, is doing so with the 2nd-place bid. Process goals include continuing to get in flow/on the same page on offense (myself and as a team); continuing to refine decision-making with the disc and execution when I do throw; and dominating on defense, both when guarding players and once we get the turn.

Been feeling great lately (minor bout of shin splints at week’s start notwithstanding). First track workout (why so late?) last week, been focusing on core strength a lot so I can keep my power stable and directed. We’ll see if the fifth gear is fully back this weekend, and keep working to get that sixth one too…