Ben van Heuvelen
In the moment of competition, I like my brain to be functioning on
approximately the level of a caveman chasing a woolly mammoth. The biggest
motivation to help from the sideline is that the louder I yell, the more
primordial I feel, and the better I play. It’s the best way for me to get in
and stay in “the zone.”
Here is a great description of the zone, which I recently read in a novel:
“She felt a special private connection with the basket, always knowing exactly
where it was and always trusting that she was its favorite player on the
floor, the best at feeding its circular mouth. Even off the court she existed
in the zone, which felt like a kind of preoccupied pressure behind her
eyebrows, an alert drowsiness or focused dumbness that persisted no matter
what she was doing.”
This “focused dumbness” is the goal of my training. My hours spent throwing,
running drills, and scrimmaging are all designed to teach my brain and muscles
to respond instantly without thought. When I’m competing, my conscious mind
can only get in the way and slow me down. This is what we mean when we tell
our teammates, “Get out of your head,” or, “Get into the game”: Stop thinking;
just do it.
The most vulnerable time for players, psychologically speaking, is when we’re
not playing. That’s when we have time to think. Joe Montana said, “As soon as
you know you’re in the zone, you’re not in the zone.” Why is that? Because the
part of your brain that can make that kind of realization is not the caveman
part of your brain. (Sure, it’s possible to be both a great player and a great
thinker – but not simultaneously.)
My goal on the sideline is to leave no room for reflective thought by focusing
totally on the game. I talk with teammates about what they’ve been doing well
or what we’re going to do next point to respond to our opponent’s tactics. I
yell team cheers. I pick a teammate on the line and shout specific information
throughout the point. (“Big thrower”; “not a thrower”; “disc is swinging”; “no
huck”; “all underneath”; “left hand low”; “last back”; etc.) Halfway through
the point, I usually get distracted by another teammate who needs a good bout
of yelling and I get in his ear.
I yell the most specific and concrete information possible. General
encouragement is great (“keep working hard”), but my teammate is less likely
to have his mark broken if I’m yelling “stay on your toes” or “rotate no
around”. Also, the more specific the information I yell, the more focused I
have to be on the game.
I try to yell only positive things. Any time I say something negative, even
under my breath, I allow the thought to enter my mind that “things aren’t
going well.” It’s not long before that thought ruins the useful illusion –
which is a big part of “the zone” – that my team and I are unstoppable.
If I’m successful on the sidelines, when I step back on the line to play, it
feels like I never left the game. In other words, I’m still “in my rhythm.”
I’m sure the sideline talk has also helped my teammates but the biggest
benefit is my own. I get another shot at playing in the zone.
Ben van Heuvelen
When we’re facing a “rotated” mark paired with good up-line dump defense, we
have to do a few things to win.
First, we have to cut and clear decisively. The defensive tactic succeeds if
it forces the handlers to “dance,” clogging the reset lane and creating
uncertainty for the thrower. Even if the handlers have nowhere to run but
towards the defense, they must run. Often times, the defense isn’t as strong
as it looks and the handler can swim past the up-line defender, or the thrower
can shimmy to open up the around-break throw.
Even if the defense holds, the decisive handler movement will still expose a
soft spot: the inside-out lane. There are a few ways to exploit it.
- A handler who makes a hard up-line cut can button-hook back towards the inside-out lane.
- A cutter – either the first person in a vertical stack, or a far-side cutter in a horizontal stack) can step into the i/o lane. If their defender has rotated to take away the i/o, then often a cutter can make a hard juke and get open straight to the sideline.
- Regardless of who makes the cut, the thrower can increase his odds exponentially by pivoting aggressively. In this case, that means pivoting to get his hips past the marker’s hips. By using his body to seal the marker, the thrower creates a clean throwing path to the inside lane — either the marker must concede it, or he must foul, resulting in a free throw and a new 10 seconds.
I hasten to add that I think this is a very good defensive strategy, worth
adding to a team’s arsenal. Any time you can make a team resort to its second
or third option, your defense is succeeding.
Ben van Heuvelen
Beyond the fundamentals of marking—getting low with the hips, staying
balanced, keeping arms wide—here are a few “advanced fundamental” techniques.
1. Chin up, eyes on the chest. My hand is much more likely to find its
way in front of the disc when I’m only “looking” with my peripheral vision. To
be honest, I’m not sure why this works so well. In part, I think it’s because
good throwers use disc fakes to get you out of position. If you’re not looking
at the disc, you’re less likely to get faked out by it. Also, there is so much
useful visual information to take in—where the thrower is looking, where his
chest is facing, whether he’s gripping forehand or backhand—and you can only
see all of that by using peripheral vision.
2. Step backward to prevent the break. Say I’m forcing forehand, and a
thrower tries to break me with an inside-out forehand. If I lunge sideways or
forward, closing the distance between me and the thrower, then he has a chance
to reach forward and release the disc past my hand. Against a good thrower, I
have no chance at a block, and he’ll probably draw a foul, too. So, instead, I
want to open my hips and lunge laterally and backwards. I deny him the ability
to release the disc past my arm, I don’t let him draw the foul, and I give
myself an extra quarter of a second to locate the disc and move my hand to
block it.
3. Straight-up mark. A surprising number of club players put on poor
straight-up marks because they seem to think the purpose of a straight-up mark
is to get a hand-block. The strategic purpose of a flat mark, however, is
usually that we want to prevent throws to the middle of the field—forcing
throwers to spray discs wide, into positions where the defense can use the
sideline as an extra defender. My rule of thumb for a good flat mark is
“mirror shoulders.” At all times, my shoulders will be flush with the
thrower’s shoulders.
4. The half-flat mark. If a thrower (or a team) is hucking successfully,
and/or if they’re beating us with yardage-gaining breaks, one way to respond
is by adjusting the angle of our marks. In the basic forehand force we all
learned on the first day of ultimate practice, the marker sets up at a
45-degree angle to the sideline—putting himself in a position where he’s able
to shift to take away either the inside-out forehand or the around backhand.
With the half-flat mark, the thrower concedes the yardage-losing around throw.
He sets up entirely perpendicular to the sideline, as if he were marking
straight-up—except here he’ll shuffle a half step to his right (assuming a
forehand force), such that his left shoulder is even with the thrower’s chin.
As the thrower pivots, the marker will maintain this relative positioning.
There are three advantages to this tactic: A. The marker can respond to a “no
huck” with a half-step lateral shuffle, easily and quickly, without having to
rotate around or lunge over the thrower. B. The marker doesn’t have to move as
much to take away the inside-out throw. C. Although the marker is conceding an
around pass to the backfield, he is more effectively taking away a yardage-
gaining around pass.
5. Be unpredictable. Vary your distance from the thrower, keep your hands
frantic, add an extra half-second to your stall count (“Stalling one, two, two
and a half, three”*)—anything, within the limits of legal play and good
sportsmanship, to get your thrower thinking more about your mark and less
about his throw.
* I wouldn’t use this particular one outside of summer league.
Ben van Heuvelen
Last year at Northeast Regionals my team (PoNY) was playing Bodhi to go to
Nationals. Game tied at 12s, time cap approaching, PoNY is on defense. Bodhi
goes on a fast break with a quick succession of give-go throws—“Pick!” someone
yells—and the last throw, a huck, falls incomplete. The two teams start to
argue. Was the pick two throws ago, or one? Does the disc go back to Bodhi, or
is it a turnover? The outcome of the game might turn on this call. The teams
immediately appeal to the observer, who rules that the pick was two throws
ago: Bodhi’s disc. Then Russell Wallack, one of Bodhi’s handlers, jogs over
and enters the discussion. “I was right behind the play and saw the whole
thing. The pick happened on the last throw. It’s PoNY’s disc.” The observer
had just ruled in his team’s favor, but Russell effectively overturns the
call. His teammates look at him in disbelief as PoNY takes possession. Then
they get a D and earn their goal.
Players like Russell have taught me that, all other definitions aside, the
Spirit of the Game means two things: self-respect and mental toughness.
The best players treat competition as an opportunity for them to measure their
greatness. Imagine a set of scales: you and your team are on one end, your
opponents on the other. The fulcrum is made of the rules of the game. If you
break the rules, you unbalance the scales and lose the accuracy of the
measurement. If you belittle your opponents, you lose your counterweight, and
diminish the meaning of any success you might have. (Your win doesn’t mean
very much if “they suck.”) In order to evaluate yourself and your team
honestly—that is, to have self-respect—you have to treat your opponents and
the rules with respect, and even gratitude. Without them, you can’t measure
your greatness.
I don’t know if this thought, or anything like it, was going through Russell’s
head when he reversed that observer’s call. But I can tell you that Russell is
one of the most consistent and mentally tough players I’ve encountered—and I’m
convinced sportsmanship is a big piece of his success. Speaking from my own
experience, I’ve always played my best when my concern for winning has
evaporated in the heat of my competitive effort. We all care about the result
of the game, but if I let myself focus on who’s going to score more points, or
how I’m going to look on UltiVillage, or how big a jerk my opponent is and how
much he deserves to lose, I’m just distracting myself from the next cut, the
next throw, the next D. If, on the other hand, I give all of my energy to the
intensity of my effort, I’m a better player. The less I focus on winning, the
better my chances of winning are.
Such an attitude also improves the way I respond to adversity. If I think of
my opponent as an opportunity to test my greatness, then the better he plays,
the more psyched I get. His great play is nothing but a challenge for me to
push my game higher. If, on the other hand, all I want out of competition is a
“W” on the board, then my opponent’s sweet layout grab feels like terrible
misfortune. Did you see the look on Kurt Warner’s face when the Steelers
scored their go-ahead touchdown in last year’s Superbowl? There was more than
a minute left on the clock, but you knew the game was over. Poor Kurt would
have preferred the Steelers hand him the game than really make him earn it.
I could read that look on Kurt Warner’s face because I’ve worn that look, too.
I fail the sportsman’s test all the time. It’s usually the inspiration of
other players—the example of opponents like Russell; the example I want to set
for my teammates—that helps me achieve greatness, if I do.
One of my prouder moments on an ultimate field happened early last season.
Ironside is coming down on the pull, with Colin Mahoney sprinting down to
cover me. The disc swings from the catch to the hitch, and I jog a lazy cut
out into the lane. The throw goes up, and my hands are almost closed on it,
when Colin dives and yanks it away. I call “Strip!” Colin pounds the ground,
jumps up—he’s about to scream, eyes bugging out of his head, mouth open in
disbelief. He knows he just got a D. He takes a breath. “BVH, I got that.” I
take a breath. “Really?” Colin points to the disc, which is in his hand, not
mine.
I’m still not 100% sure what the right call was, but here was my thought
process:
0 seconds after the play: “Definitely a strip. I’m a beast of a receiver.
I never get D’ed. Only possible explanation for me not catching a disc is a
foul or a strip.”
5 seconds: “Colin’s a pretty honest guy. He looks really convinced. Is it
possible his hand was on the disc first? Is it possible I didn’t stop the
rotation?”
10 seconds: “That play shouldn’t have been close. If I bail out my half-
assed effort now with an iffy call, then I’m letting myself develop bad
habits.”
15 seconds: “But don’t I owe it to my teammates to uphold my call if
there’s any chance it was a strip?”
20 seconds: “People make bad calls when they’re afraid, good calls when
they’re confident. What message do I want to send my team?”
“Ok, Colin. I trust you. No strip.”
Two months later, we were playing again, and this time I got a layout D on
Colin. Colin calls “Strip!” I say, “Really?” Pause. “Ok, BVH. No strip.”
Ben Van Heuvelen
I’ll write here about the fundamentals of good zone O. These will, I hope,
reveal some underlying principles that any team can apply to its specific
strategy/terminology, and to specific situations (e.g., how to deal with a
sideline trip). I’ll rely on my co-contributors to address those specifics in
detail, and read with interest!
So, getting down to basics…
To figure out how our zone offense should work, we should think about what
makes good zone defense successful. Most zone defenses have two main goals.
First, they want to make our offense throw lots of passes. (If we’re forced to
throw 100 passes with a 99% completion rate, that equals a turnover.) Most
zone defense do this by leaving certain easy passes to the backfield or
sideline uncovered, and pressuring the middle of the field with extra
defenders. Second, the defense wants to put itself in position to make a play
if and when we try something difficult (a hammer, huck, or needle-threading
pass through the cup). *
The key to beating most zone defenses, then, is to create openings in the
middle of the field by getting the defense out of position, and then to
exploit each opening as much as possible. How do we make that happen? A few
principles:
1. Philosophy. We do NOT want to “dump-swing all day.” That’s exactly
what the defense wants. If/when we dump-swing, the purpose is to create and
exploit openings in the middle of the field. Zone O should not be “chilly.” It
should be chracterized by two maxims. First, from John Wooden: “Be quick, but
don’t hurry.” Second: Attack the middle, attack the middle, attack the middle.
2. Setup. Different teams will use different terminology and organize
their handlers differently, but the best offenses have fewer players at the
line of scrimmage than the defense. Defenses usually have 3-4 defenders within
10 yards of scrimmage. The most efficient offenses have 2 (including thrower),
maybe 3 (in a trap situation) – just enough handlers to make sure we reset
the stall count and change the side-to-side positioning of the disc. This
gives us more players downfield, which lets us do two important things. First,
we spread the defense: we are more likely to create holes in the middle if our
downfield O players outnumber the downfield D, and if they are spreading the
field deep and wide. Second: once we create a hole in the middle, we have a
better chance of turning a fast break if the O outnumbers the D.
3. Handler attack. In efficient zone offenses, it’s rarely the handlers
who gain the yards. The purpose of handler attack is to create yardage-gaining
situations (e.g., fast breaks) for the downfield players. I’ve seen three
basic methods of handler attack, which different teams combine in different
proportions. The most familiar (and, in my opinion, least reliable) is the
“dump-swing.” The other two are the “chisel” and the overhead. For the sake of
example, let’s say we’re playing against a 3-person cup zone…
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a. With the “chisel,” a handler, usually set up in the backfield, cuts towards the middle-middle and receives a short flip pass. His momentum carries him right up to the middle-middle, at which point he has only one defender (rather than an entire cup) between him and the middle of the field. A well timed cut (or combination of cuts) from the popper(s), and the handler is only a pivot away from delivering the disc beyond the cup, into the middle of the field.
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b. With the overhead, a handler delivers a hammer, blade, or scoober to a space beyond the cup. High-percentage overhead passes are thrown to a space in front of the intended receiver, when his closest defender is behind him. (As a hammer receiver, I want to be stepping towards the disc, never backpedaling or standing still.) Offenses generate opportunities for high-percentage overheads both (a) by attacking the middle effectively “on the ground,” (e.g., by chiseling) thereby drawing the defense close to the disc, and (b) by keeping the field spread deep and wide with offensive players even after the defense clamps. This last point is key: when the defense collapses on the disc, it becomes even more important to spread your O players.
4. Downfield attack. Regardless of your specific strategy, there are
three main responsibilities that your downfield O players have to fulfill. a.
Spread deep. b. Spread wide. c. Attack the middle. Three general principles
should govern downfield O players in almost any zone O:
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a. Set up for a cut when the disc is still, cut when the disc is moving. Defensive holes open when the disc moves and the defense is repositioning. This is when you’re going to get open. In downfield zone O, you are rarely cutting for the person with the disc. You should be cutting for your thrower before s/he receives the disc.
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b. 95% of good hucks in zone O happen off of swings. When the disc swings, deep spreaders should cut deep, ideally from the opposite side of the field. Otherwise, deep spreaders should threaten deep space just enough to get open for a continuation pass, once the disc breaks into the middle.
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c. Once the disc breaks past the first layer of defense, find the best angle to cut TOWARDS the disc. Even if you’re a deep, take a few hard steps away, then come underneath. (The deepest defender will give up the underneath cut 90% of the time.) If the disc breaks into the middle of the field, then it’s the middle we should attack, from as many angles as possible.
* A third goal of good zone defenses is to trick you into thinking something
is open, and then suddenly take it away when you’ve already made a fateful
choice. This is an important thing to be aware of. (For example, it highlights
the importance of throwing fakes, which can help reveal the defense’s tricks.)
But it doesn’t affect the main principles of zone O setup.
Ben Van Heuvelen
The value of the sideline space depends on the offense. In a horizontal
offense, the sideline limits your options. In a vertical offense, it’s a great
place to be—until it isn’t.
Horizontal
From a downfield cutter’s perspective, one unique benefit of the horizontal
offense is that it lets you make cuts across the mark. With so much uncrowded
horizontal space between the cutters and the thrower, you can threaten an
open-side cut, then change direction to receive a breakmark pass. (Even a
great defender cannot take away the open side and the break side, and a good
thrower will be able to open up either the i/o or around break.) Some teams
call this a “stop cut”—a short-yardage cut across the field and back, where
the cutter often gains the disc with a 1-2 second unmarked throwing window.
It’s a great way to get a horizontal offense flowing.
With the disc on the sideline in a horizontal offense, however, you lose the
option of cutting across the mark. From a cutter’s perspective, there are
fewer “sweet spots” on the field where a thrower can likely deliver an
accurate pass. From a defender’s perspective, you have a much better idea of
where your man wants to cut. Advantage defense. This isn’t to say that your
horizontal offense can’t make lemonade from sideline lemons. (Indeed, any
offense will end up on the sideline, so you should learn how to make the best
of it—and I’m sure some other Huddle contributors have given good ideas to
this effect.) But, in my experience, it’s easiest to deal with problems,
whenever possible, by avoiding them.
I place the responsibility largely on the handlers. Good defenses will
recognize that the middle of the field is more dangerous to them, so they’ll
often use a dump defender to poach the passing lane. One possible response is
for the offense to swing the disc to the poached sideline handler. A better
response, though, is to have your handlers cut towards the middle of the
field. For example, if you’re being forced forehand, and your forehand-side
handler is being poached, send him on a 20-yard sprint from the sideline,
behind the thrower, to the break side: the thrower pivots to the backfield,
keeps his hips between the marker and the break side, and delivers a little
flip pass to the streaking handler, who receives the disc ahead of his
defender, open for a 1-2 second unmarked breakside throwing window. Even if
the defense recovers, you’ve reset the stall and maintained possession at
midfield. As a downfield cutter, I like the look of this setup much better
than a narrower sideline cutting lane.
Another easy adjustment is to create terminology that emphasizes how much you
like the middle of the field. When we’re running horizontal, my team calls the
middle 20 yards of the field “on stage,” and the 10 yards closest to each
sideline “off stage.” We want the disc on the stage. (As an aside: we also
want no more than two cutters on the stage at a time.) If the disc is off
stage, we want to get it back on stage. If you have the disc on stage, then
you can look downfield an extra second or two before you look to reset. If you
receive the disc off stage, you look flow for a second or so, then get the
disc back to the stage right away.
Vertical
In a vertical offense, the sideline is like a good party—you can have a great
time, but if you stay too long, you’ll wear out your welcome.
Again, I look at this from a downfield cutter’s perspective. If my teammates
and I are clearing space effectively (a big “if,” which even many elite teams
fail to achieve), then every downfield throw goes to a cut that originates in
the vertical center of the field. This means that the cutter can choose the
angle that will seal his defender from a play on the disc, and it means the
thrower has a high margin for error, since a cutter can change his angle to
account for an overthrow or underthrow. (If a cutter is entirely vertical to
the thrower, on the other hand, he can only account for a throwing error by
running faster or jumping higher.) As long as our cuts are originating from
the middle of the field, we’re going to have good angles and high completion
percentages. If we work it up a single sideline, and every cut comes from the
vertical center of the field, then I’m happy with our offense—even if every
single pass is received within 5 yards of the same sideline. It’s all about
the percentages.
Vertical offenses break down when cutters don’t recycle fast enough. If the
disc advances and cutters fail to push far enough downfield ahead of the disc,
then defenders can back their man, knowing that the offense won’t benefit much
from a 5-yard in-cut jammed to the sideline. Similarly, if cutters fail to
recycle to the vertical midfield (i.e., if they crowd the flow-side sideline),
then their cuts (deep or underneath) will have no horizontal angle to the
thrower, and the completion percentages will fall. At this point, it’s the
handlers’ job to reset the offense. If you have a smart and hardworking corps
of cutters, then all the handlers need is to throw a pass or two. (Swinging
the disc to the opposite side of the field is always a good thing, but not
essential.) Mainly, the handlers are buying time, keeping the stall count
fresh, while the cutters recycle, create passing lanes, and put themselves in
position to enter the lanes on good angles. Then, whether we’re attacking a
new side of the field or not, we are cutting on angles that give us high
downfield completion percentages.
Ben van Heuvelen
A good offense should be able to reset against even a very good defense. If
we’re having trouble resetting, chances are that we’re suffering from a
problem of our own making: either A. The design of our reset protocol is
flawed; or B. We’re executing it poorly. †
A. There are many effective ways to reset a disc, but any effective way
will probably have these elements:
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The reset cutters give the thrower at least two options, simultaneously or in close succession, such that the marker must leave at least one throw open.
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The resets begin their cuts early in the stall count (by stall 5—probably earlier), such that the thrower can pivot at least a couple of times, if need be, before throwing.
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The reset cutters are positioned such that they are threatening two viable cutting spaces.
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There is a “safety valve” cutter—often times a downfield cutter (rather than a handler)—who is looking to move towards unoccupied space (often an inside-out/breakmark passing lane) on a high stall.
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The primary reset’s goal is not only to get ten more seconds, but also to win vertical and/or lateral yards.
B. Several common execution problems:
-
When reset cutters are covered, the thrower just watches them, instead of pivoting and faking to them (thereby moving the mark along with him).
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Well-guarded reset cutters “dance” in the lane, thinking that the team is depending on them to get the disc. In reality, they are taking up space that a secondary reset or “safety valve” cutter might otherwise use to get open.
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The reset cutters haven’t sprinted into position or aren’t in ideal position to start a cut when the thrower needs it.
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The reset cutters are taking nonaggressive angles, failing to get their bodies between the defender and the space the disc will be thrown to.
N.B. All of these execution problems are also likely symptoms of player
fatigue and/or inadequate physical conditioning.
In our hypothetical elimination game, we need to ask what the single biggest
reason is that they’re able to defend our resets well. (“Single biggest,” I
say, because not even the most coachable player can implement more than one
big change at once). Are our handlers too fatigued to get into position early?
Maybe then we should seek opportunities to rest them; or we can assign someone
on each sideline to talk to them throughout each point to remind them to get
into position; or if they’re defensive handlers, we make sure they’re matched
up on easier opponents.
Whatever the solution, if it’s an in-game adjustment, it has to address the
weakness that they’re most taking advantage of, and we have to choose only one
thing to address.
† There is a third possibility, which is that we’re executing a very good
strategy pretty darn well, but the defense has tailored a specific strategy to
us, which is causing our miscues. The hypotheticals here get a little bit too
confusing to go into much detail. As a general principle, though, I’ll say
that we need to adjust our strategy, and our adjustment, since it’s in-game,
needs to be significant yet very very simple.
Ben Van Heuvelen
More than any other skill in ultimate—besides, maybe, getting layout
blocks—dominating in the air has largely to do with raw athleticism,
aggressiveness, and instinct. There’s really no substitute for being a
physical beast. If you’re tall and fast, and you have springs for legs, you’re
going to posterize some poor souls, and in the process you’ll develop
confidence and intuition that you’ll bring into every future matchup.
So: train. Even if you’re not a premium genetic specimen, effective training
can bring out the inner beast. You can add a few inches to your vertical and
shave a couple tenths off your 40; perhaps more importantly, preparation gives
you confidence. I find that if I haven’t trained very well, then when a disc
goes up, I notice doubts creeping into my mind. I second-guess how high I can
jump; I wonder if my guy is faster or stronger than I am; I worry about being
skied. But if I’m confident in my training and preparation, then when the long
throw goes up, my first thought is, “It’s mine!” And that’s pretty much the
only thought in my head until the disc is (or isn’t) in my hand.
If you are going to be thinking while the disc is in the air, then one useful
thing to concentrate on is your “launch pad”—the place you ideally want to be
jumping from. The one-on-one contest for a long throw is actually two
contests: the first is a race for position, the second a test of who can leap
higher. To win the race for position, get your body between your opponent and
the launch pad as quickly as possible. Then, ideally, you’ll decelerate as you
approach the launch pad, while using your body to box out/maintain position
until the jump. (You want to put yourself into position to decelerate because
you jump highest when you’re neither sprinting all-out nor standing still). If
you can win this contest for position, then it doesn’t matter as much who can
jump higher.
There are two good ways to prepare for this battle of positioning. First, when
you’re practicing long throws with a friend, try to catch each high pass at
the highest point possible. This will help give you confidence in your own
assessment of your leaping ability. In other words, you will practice figuring
out where your launch pad is. (A common error in deep receiving/defending is
that a player focuses on where and when the opponent is jumping, rather than
the optimum point for his/her jump). Second, when you’re playing games of
“500” with a couple of friends of similar height, try playing with “no jumping
allowed” rules. This will force you to focus on out-positioning, rather than
simply out-jumping, your opponent.
Ben Van Heuvelen
On defense, your goal isn’t to shut down all options , because that’s
impossible against a good offense. Rather, your goal is to dictate to the
offense those options it can take. So, the first thing to realize here is: if
Big Thrower hasn’t been able to make big throws, you’ve done something
successful.
The question to ask yourself now: Is Big Thrower hurting us more now as a deep
receiver than he/she usually does as a thrower?
A few successful deep goals shouldn’t automatically make you change your
tactics. If, for example, you’ve also gotten a few turnovers on the other
team’s handlers because they aren’t used to running their handler set without
Big Thrower, then maybe those turnovers offset the damage of Big Thrower
running deep. I.e., maybe having Big Thrower go deep is a good tradeoff, given
the other disruptions it’s causing to their offense.
But then let’s assume that their offense is running pretty smoothly, or that
the errors in their offense have little to do with the way you’re covering Big
Thrower. In that case, the most important thing is to keep Big Thrower off
balance. Even great throwers have a hard time switching from a deep receiver
mentality to a deep thrower mentality mid-game — so force Big Thrower to (try
to) make that switch, and make the switch as hard as possible. A few ways to
do this:
A. Defend Big Thrower by preventing him from going deep — physically
prevent him: defender should keep keep his body between Big Thrower and the
endzone.
B. If the defender commits himself to superior positioning, then speed and
quickness are probably more important here than height.
C. Defender should be an excellent marker. Stay close enough to Big
Thrower so that you can put a mark on him as soon as he catches it. Don’t go
for a layout D on an in-cut unless you’re reasonably sure you can get it.
D. A vast majority of the best hucks are released in flow, before stall
three. So put a “no huck”/flat mark on Big Thrower for stalls one and two.
(Most throwers, especially huckers, don’t look to break the mark until stall
3, anyway.) To do this, marker should focus on mirroring his shoulders with
the thrower’s shoulders, staying on toes, eyes on thrower’s chest, arms wide.
Being a great player, Big Thrower is going to get the disc, and is probably
going to get off a couple of good hucks. So: measure your defensive success
here not by asking “did you shut him down?” but by asking “did you
successfully dictate his options?” Specifically, two questions:
1. Did you prevent him from getting open deep?
2. Did you prevent him from hucking on stall 1-2?
If yes, then you’ve done as well as you’re going to do. At least in the
context of a person-to-person defense. Zone/junk defense options are also
worth considering, but that’s a different story.
Ben Van Heuvelen
My thoughts on this topic are at the front of my mind today!
Advice to tryouts:
1. Distinguish yourself on defense, even if you consider yourself an
offensive player. Even if you don’t know the offensive system of the new team,
you can always make an impression on D. In particular, focus on marks and
shut-down defense.
Be the defender who uses intelligence, positioning, and quickness to prevent
his guy from getting open for uncontested passes. Be the defender who visibly
hassles/ flusters the thrower with unpredictable movement and energy on the
mark. Do not go for poach Ds; do not go for handblocks at the expense of
letting off breakmark throws; do not bait layout Ds. Handblocks and layout Ds
are flashy, but good captains/coaches will appreciate the flawless
fundamentals that make for excellent team defense. (Also, flawless fundamental
defense should create plenty of opportunities for flashy big plays.)
2. Get in shape early. Returning players who feel more assured of their
roster spots might not be in great shape yet. You can get an extra few blocks
per game, catch an extra few goals per scrimmage, if you’re in mid-season
shape when everyone else is in early-season shape.
3. Ask the captains/coaches what they’re looking for. Good leaders will
articulate, or will be able to articulate, the general qualities they’re
looking for in players. After a day or so of tryouts, they’ll also be able to
tell you the type of specific role they envision for you, and what they need
to see from you in order to give you a spot on the team.
4. Play your game and show your skills, but within the structure and the
expectations that the team captains set. One way to achieve this balance is to
focus on being a player who makes everyone else better. Make throwers look
good by catching their swill. Make cutters look good by placing perfect passes
to space in front of them (and holstering throws that will not result in
perfect passes). Make teammates look good by clearing space. In the course of
doing all of these things, you will probably be doing flashy things – making
plays as a receiver, breaking the mark, making long throws. The trick is to
keep your focus on doing what makes the team look good, rather than what makes
you look good. (Ultimately, they are one and the same.)
5. Cheer your fellow tryouts as if they’re your teammates. One mental pitfall
of tryouts is that you focus relentlessly on yourself. You are constantly
evaluating how well you’re doing. This is dangerous psychological territory.
(As Joe Montana said, “As soon as you know you’re in The Zone, you’re not in
The Zone.”) Take your focus off yourself – get out of your own head – by
encouraging your fellow tryouts. Talk to them when they’re marking,
congratulate them when they do good things, etc. (And, as a side-note, do not
try to coach or instruct them.) Not only will you have an easier time getting
out of your own head and play better, but you’ll show the team leaders that
you’re a good teammate.