Jaime Arambula

Real Time Space For Real Time Results

At the college level, the dividing line between teams that can generate a break or two, and the teams that consistently go on a run of breaks can be attributed to the concept of team defense.

My experience in trying to introduce this concept to new, or inexperienced, players is to break things down to the absolute basics. Initially, during our first chalktalk regarding the defense I like to introduce the name of the D (something catchy, without lending too much information to opponents who might hear it on the sideline), and the main objectives of the defense (forcing lots of short passes, forcing inside out strikes, forcing long, low percentage throws).

I may show the defense on a chalkboard. for some, it is very useful to move off of the chalkboard and onto the field. I like to place people on the field (or a shortened field) and walk the entire team through each position, and explain what the contribution of each position is to the team-D concept.

After fielding questions (taking special care not to get into a flurry “What if?” questions) we run the defense against a 70%-speed offense. After 5-10 minutes of reps, we go 100% live. This is the usual time for things to degenerate, or objectives lost due to competitiveness, so it’s very important to ensure that the reps are not rushed, and are re-focused with the team defense concept in mind. This is also a great time for people to experiment at different positions to get a feel for where their strengths lie in this particular team D.

If there are still troubles with results, objectives, or simple understanding, I find it very useful to bring a whistle and explain that during the reps if the whistle is blown, everyone freezes. While frozen, I ask various positions what thoughts they have at the current time-frame (Are you in the right spot with regard to the nearest offensive player? What are you planning to do next to move the offensive flow in the direction of our concept? And so forth).

This basic teaching formula has been very effective in teaching beginning and intermediate players some of the more advanced concepts of team defense. As an added bonus, these positional concepts also condition them for advanced concepts of man-to-man defense.

The Wham!

Jaime Arambula

2001 in Sarasota was crazy. Hurricane Michelle was causing major havoc for most of the Mixed division’s offenses. The wind started mild on Thursday and picked up through the week. One of my teammates on Trigger Hippy, Scott “the Kid” Runkel (who played for Boston back when they were Big Brother, and, as far as I know, was the original “the Kid” of the three that I know), along with Mike “the Wizard” Faris, came up with a zone to man to zone to man, etc. D called the Wham!, made specifically for Sarasota.

In a nutshell, Wham! stands for Woman-Clam. A fluctuating D that changes from a lane-cluttering Clam, to a Man-to-Man depending on what gender has the disc and whether it’s on the force sideline, or not.

Sexist? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely! Everyone on the team needed to have some upper-level field awareness, and the sideline had to be loud, and quick to holler, “Man, Man, Man” then, “Wham, Wham, Wham” when a woman cutter (who was also not a strong handler) received the disc trapped on the sideline. A hard, trapping mark would rotatie to a ’no around’ position (forcing sideline). A deep poacher and a pinching handler defender would usually force the thrower to make a difficult I/O throw upwind, or fire one down field to a deep poacher.

Turnover, jailbreak, score. Repeat.

It is very arguable that the skillset and talent has increased exponentially since 2001. However, for a team of cagey and wily veterans from the mountains, this was a veritable ‘fatality’ to the offense of teams running a vertical stack in 2001 with the wind howling and swirling in their face. Obviously, we still had to have the skills to score up and downwind.

Would this be as effective now as it was then? Maybe: with a fast, athletic defense that has a great supporting sideline. It could be effective as a tempo changing defense to throw the offense out of their comfort zone.