Cork's Buzz #2 - Handling
To start off, I am going to say that even though these blogs are a great source of information and ideas, there is absolutely no substitute for PRACTICE and watching people do these things the right way. Repetition, Repetition, and more Repetition is the best way to get better fast. (As long as you are doing the right thing of course…)
With regards to handling there is not much that I can teach you in this blog post because in order to become a better handler, you must practice handling. It is different for everyone, so there is not really any “set” perfect way to handle. Each person has their own style (including pros and cons)– take kid and myself for example: Kid likes to value the disc a lot and is very chilly, And he really likes backhands, but also he tends to hold onto the disc for too long sometimes and ends up forcing some throws. I, on the other hand also value the disc, but I guess you could say that I am a bit more impulsive in my handling, I like to let our team make the plays happen and often that has me hucking to our receivers more often than kid (which can be a bad decision at some times). I also prefer forehands. The differences between us are not that big, but our “styles” are pretty complementary. As you handle more and more, you begin to see the field; where cuts are coming from, where certain teammates cut to, and what their tendencies are.
This leads into what I believe is the single-most important thing about handling. This is FIELD SENSE. I know some of you might ask “What exactly does FIELD SENSE mean?” and to this I would say field sense includes a multitude of things: Who is on the field at a certain time and what their strengths and weaknesses are, what the matchups are against the other team, where there is open space on the field to throw into, what the flow of the cuts is like, when you need to yell at people to get their heads out of their asses and cut, how the weather is affecting the game, what the other team’s defense is and how you can beat it, and many many others. As you can see trying to work on this huge number of things individually would get you nowhere, but if you can get to the point where you take a step back and look at the game as a bigger picture, you have begun to develop what I call “Field Sense”. It is only gained through playing ultimate and only gets better with more experience.
If anyone wants some advice on any of these topics feel free to talk to me whenever and I am more than happy to help you out.
Okay, enough of the handling side of things – I am in the process of writing a throwing post and it will be up in a few days :-) Hope everyone’s summers are going well and ill see y’all soon.
1 Comments:
I would contend that field sense, your pinnacle of handling, is the responsibility of all the players on the field. Better still, all of the players on the team, sidelines included. It is not merely the domain of the two or three people around the disc. You do well to point out that this comes from experience, but I think you weaken your definition of a handler's role by prescribing this task solely to them. That said, it can't hurt for your handlers to have field sense, just as it can't hurt for them to be tall, fast, agile or to possess any other attributes beneficial to playing ultimate. But hopefully, as the team grows and betters itself through the course of a season, or many seasons, each member will be able to contribute thoughts about how the game is progressing and what the team can do as a whole to improve the situation.
A transparent example: your line captain, not necessarily a handler, calls a line and maybe a play for a standard vertical stack offense. The pull goes up and the defense is sprinting down the field. The handlers are focused on catching the pull and getting away those first one or two passes to advantageously position the disc. The remaining 4-5 players have time to recognize that the defense is coming with a zone, and without the handlers having to say so, they've fallen into their new positions. The third handler is back. The mids are popping, and there's already a deep option. In this scenario, no time is wasted dictating positions and you can start moving the disc towards the goal line without waiting for your stack to disperse into open areas. Hive mind proves to be more efficient than trickle down information.
Back to the original topic, this is not to say that handlers do not make things happen on the field. You almost make this point for me, but I want to strengthen it. Being a handler is about controlling the offense, not making plays. In a catchphrase, handlers "move the disc." Sometimes this does mean throwing the long bomb to your downfield receiver, but not always. You say that you like for your team to make things happen. Well, handling is about giving your team a chance to do that. Oftentimes it's vary unglamorous: throw the open side pass, push up field, set up for the dump, cut for the dump, look for the swing, throw the swing, set up for the dump, etc. But every time you move the disc, you change the angle of attack, and that is how you give your team a chance to beat a defense. Sometimes you will position yourself to throw the long ball, other times just to reset the count. But usually after a few passes from the pull, everything is freeflowing and there is no more quarterbacking to be done. Your job is not to push your team into the endzone, but to guide it.
I hope this was helpful. I meant for it to be constructive, or at least to pose a different viewpoint. Good luck, and keep up the discussion. I'll see you on the grass.
Richter '05
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