Thoughts.

This is a fairly old article, but one that bears continual revisiting.

Researchers looked at perception and elite performance and found all sorts of clues that the elite see things more clearly and decisively (and can therefore respond earlier) than novices (I’d suggest Blink if you’re looking for a more in-depth treatment of the matter). They also found that things like field sense are absolutely not innate, and suggest that free, unstructured play is key to getting the experience and developing a broad, flexible sense as opposed to a narrow-minded one. Check out this blog post for a bit on the difference between explicit and implicit learning–remove coaching and especially structure from the equation, and you tend towards the implicit–given that something like “field sense” is rarely taught explicitly (if I asked you to explain “field sense” to me–what to look for, when, what leads you to make one decision over another–would you be able to do it? In a way I could understand and apply?), you need to go the other way.

As frustrating as low-level, amoeba play (or loosely organized summer league, etc.) can be, or as much as you might think your disc-using non-ultimate games (I’m thinking of boot in particular, but schtick counts too in its own way) are not going to help you improve, recognize the opportunity inherent in these games. Try throws and strategies you wouldn’t normally. Experiment with new positioning and decision-making processes. Expand your repertoire and your mind.

What sorts of games do you play to grow?

Was away playing this weekend–recap coming later this week (short version: ’twas awesome).

In the meantime, Vern Gambetta is to the point (and on point): are you happy being good, or are you driven to strive for greatness?

If you’re content, you’re useless. What have you done to get better today?

Over the past few months I’ve taken to mind mapping a lot of my ultimate-related brain dumping, and found it tremendously helpful for organizing my thoughts–the lack of structure lets my ideas flow more freely (and organize more naturally).

Consider it a tool for any planning you do, whether it’s training goals or developing a flowchart for your cutting repertoire.

I’ve been using MindMeister for its ease of access (online) and the inherent extra malleability of the electronic compared to a paper medium, but there are other options.

Movin’ On Up emulates Deadspin at least as far as using the royal we, but as opposed to largely dirt/humor is doing a lot of valuable coverage of Nationals teams.

I’m assuming the guy has really free days because, damn, that’s a lot of work. Kudos for helping to fill the coverage void this season. Anybody seen other good coverage out there?

UPDATE: Cultimate seems to have a bead on a lot of other good stuff going on before/during Nationals; give it a look.

I don’t follow Alwyn Cosgrove’s stuff with any regularity these days, but this post speaks to a simple concept that’s worth applying: strategy trumps will.

I’m not talking about a smart zone D shutting down a squad of fired-up athletes–I’m talking about your day-to-day life.

It’s great to SAY that you want to work hard this summer and get in shape for the club series/next year’s college season, and to some extent that desire can go a long way towards motivating your training; however, willpower is given to waxing and waning. We respect those singular athletes with seemingly endless willpower because they are so rare.

However, if you currently have the willpower to want to work hard, you should have the willpower to sit down and THINK and PLAN what you want to do. AC gives a nice diet-related example:

…I believe it is more important to build in good strategies. For example, if you eat ice cream every night, rather than trying to “be good” and resist it, simply remove it from the house. If you consistently visit the vending machine because you don’t have time to go to lunch, your strategy would be to pack your lunch the night before and bring it with you.

Recognize the limitations of your situation. Is the trip to the gym too far for you to always make it after class/work, when your energy is low? Get a training buddy who will pick you up (and remove your choice in the matter), or find/create a situation where it becomes more convenient (if you have access to multiple gyms, plan on going to one that’s on the way home, near the campus dining hall, etc). Consider going before work/class, when you (might) have more energy. Can’t stop from eating crap at home? Stop bringing crap home and cut it off at the source. Have trouble figuring out what to do while you’re in the gym? Start keeping a training diary, and pencil in your workouts in advance–or get a coach/trainer or somebody you trust and respect to do the planning for you.

Good strategizing means getting to the source of your issues and taking a good look at yourself–if you’re just going through the motions, take a look at why the motions go the way they do, give your body (and mindset) some different inputs, or place it in a different framework, and see if you can’t get better results.

I’ve harped on this plenty before, but to some extent this is all part of good goal setting and planning, especially when we’re talking about fitness.

Jeters hits on an important notion for developing your repertoire as a cutter (and, by extension, with any other skill involving adjustments), namely the need to develop a decision flowchart to guide your in-game actions (and especially reactions).

Imagine this. You initiate your cut from the horizontal stack, at maximum speed, in the direction of a deep strike. Now, what is your response if …

• … another cutter strikes deep.
• … your defender doesn’t commit, but a poaching defender is in a good position.
• … you reverse your cut but find that your lane has been taken.

… and the list goes on.

What eventually becomes “instinct” on the field is honed through lots of trial and error or prior thought. (Stop thinking when you play).

To aid that sort of thought process (which is to say, to aid visualization), I’d offer that these sorts of deliberations are exactly why I started drawing up cutting schematics in the margins of my notebooks, and I’d also offer an older post on Threat Points^TM for a bit of this thought process with crappy MS paint schematic to boot (that notion is one I plan to revisit and put more succinctly at some point, as it’s a powerful one).

• The Huddle’s latest issue gets at a question (defensive matchups) I’d considered a while back; Seth Wiggins rephrases my thoughts far better than I ever could. The answer absolutely depends on a whole host of other factors, which only makes the question itself more important.

  It’s especially relevant in the context of teams with very lopsided talent pools (your generic 1- or 2-stud college team); you probably want that stud in the backfield to help deep/with poaching regardless of what the other team’s assets are, for instance.

  I also think all the authors neglect one other point in determining defensive matchups: what about on the turn? If your best defender is your best cutter/handler on the turn, and their best cutter/handler turns out to be their best defender, do you really want to hamstring the D’s offense by turning around the matchups like that? There’s also a lot to be said for rotating fresh legs on the other team’s stud and then running that stud into the ground on the turn. Ultimate is always played both ways.

• Open Ultimate. You might remember Dan Cogan-Drew as the guy behind the videopapers on ultimate skills–this appears to be a large outgrowth of that.

  I haven’t taken the time to investigate fully yet but the idea–creating a space for online “courses” in ultimate–seems worthwhile. I’m a little skeptical of getting a full team to use resources I’d post there, were I a captain or coach, but it might be a nice tool to have in the box, especially if the site has longevity (enhancing institutional memory is, I think, a key to creating an ultimate program instead of the occasional one-hit wonder).

• Via Fireworks, a nice bit from Dr. Goldberg about dealing with cheaters. Dr. G gave the keynote at the inaugural Ultimate Coaches and Players Conference, and his lessons then have largely inspired what I believe about performance psychology now–his post alludes very succinctly to these beliefs.
• More writing about elite performance, luck, and deliberate practice. My friend Mr. Crew (who is single and has a huge…flick) makes the excellent suggestion that perhaps it’s not so much the inherent advantage of prior experience that lets players with HS experience thrive in college, but simply that their extra background gets them more attention and mentoring from earlier when they get to college, enabling faster/greater progress.

  Read, and think about how you might inspire, mentor, and motivate your players/peers to strive for more and work harder.

  Relatedly: this is on my to-read list for the near future.

• More on how effort trumps talent. I love Gladwell’s stuff–if you haven’t already, I still very heartily endorse Outliers (as well as Blink–I must confess I haven’t read The Tipping Point yet, though I am familiar with the premise).

  Where are the inefficiencies in ultimate? DoG seemed to hit on one in the ’90s when they started emphasizing possession, but today’s game seems to have evolved beyond that somewhat. Perhaps we’ll just keep laughing at Frank’s motion offense until, finally, an underdog team embraces it an dominates. But perhaps its glory will be fleeting, written off as a fluke or too much work, and remain as well-used as the full-court press in basketball.

I’m assuming I’m not the only one who avoids sensationalist topic titles on RSD geared against the UPA; as such, you might not be aware of the following:

• The UPA Board Blog has a few good posts you should read (and respond to, if you’re so inclined).

• Following that rabbit hole a little further yields a UPA page on Spring College Experiments and a blog discussing the same (namely, more active officiation).

This is an issue that has been, well, an issue, for as long as I’ve been involved in ultimate (admittedly just a short 5 years) and it’s great to see the UPA address it.

I’ve got a really good feeling for the future of the sport and the UPA as an organization, given the progress they’re making in leveraging the internet. Kudos to the UPA for reaching out more strongly and soliciting feedback.

My one gripe would be simply that this outreach is all coming in the form of scattered blogs rather than a single, consolidated, authoritative source (i.e., the UPA website), but I’m sure creating an easy and accessible feedback system is the sort of thing that the UPA will work in to its site overhaul. It’s BADLY in need of one, in this author’s opinion–the site as currently constructed is remarkably busy and compressed, and even information that should be front and center (scores, schedules, and hey–what of all these initiatives and experiments) doesn’t stand out particularly strongly in the context of the page. I only go to the page for the score reporter link; I’d love to see a more efficient and elegant presentation of information and tools on the site.

It’s a new technological age (is the site really dated from 2000? that’s light years ago on the ‘net), monitors are bigger, and the UPA can do a lot. Looking forward to what they do.