X (training) gonna give it to ya

Ahh, the summer. It's a time for summer league and swill and drinks and more swill. Possibly some beach ultimate. And a serious ultimate tournament is far from your mind since college nationals aren't until next spring; an impossible amout of time from now.

"What's that scheid? We should be doing long distance running over the summer to build endurance? Plyo's and weight training to build strength? Pshhht. It's summer, I'll have the whole rest of the year to do that."

Unfortunately, this is one of the rare times (the only time? ever?) that scheid is correct. The summer is an opportune time to work on conditioning. Building endurance now will allow you to play your best when practice starts and work on ultimate instead of just trying to keep up. And time away from weight lifting and plyo's will quickly reduce your muscle to useless fat. This makes you sad and not good at ultimate.

At the same time, it's hot out and working out sucks. For those of you that are lazy like me, and still find it hard to motivate yourself to train for something that's so far away, I offer this solution:

Find something else to train for. Make plans to do something physical in the near future, and start training for that. For example, I've decided to do a triathalon at the end of the summer. That's going to take serious training, and I don't have all that much time. This has inspired me to run, bike, and swim (all good for ultimate) for the summer to train for the event.
I've also done some other cross-training, mostly in the form of hiking, because I enjoy that and don't have to work so hard on forcing myself to get off my lazy ass. So get out and play basketball, soccer, run a road race, do a bike ride, whatever you want. Try to find something closer than sectionals to train for, it'll make you life easier.



Now that's a really easy way to get better at ultimate without really trying really hard at all, really.

Addendum

almost forgot the best one of all, and the inspiration for our beloved squat's thoughts!

timeless words of wisdom from zip himself:
http://www.brown.edu/Athletics/Mens_Ultimate/zipstips/index.html

you'll never eat a sandwich the same way again...

Squat's Thoughts #2

Back by popular demand (or so i tell myself).

This week's installment is actually just a short list of resources for those of you out there who think about ultimate as much as i do.

www.ultimatetalk.com
my favorite, it's a compilation of the biggest and best ultimate blogs all in one spot. lots of reading on all topics ultimate related.
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.sport.disc/topics
RSD. lots of crap with occasional nuggets of humor/wisdom; good for finding out about upcoming tournaments/tryouts first.
http://cultimate.blogspot.com/
a blog that isn't on ultimatetalk; it's so-so but this guy posts all the freaking time so there's always something new to read.
http://www.ultivillage.com/
when you get sick of reading, you can always go mine the clip of the day archives

enjoy

-squat burrito

Cut Like You Mean It: Your Guide to Cutting Well

The Matthew Fuhrmeister Story

This is a book. And you’ll probably be no better off for reading it. Sorry.

Continuing the series, "Really easy ways to get better at ultimate without really trying really hard at all, really."

There are a ton of subtleties to cutting that few people understand. The reason that great cutters can get open consistently on great defenders is because they pay attention to these subtleties. You will get a ton better at cutting if you just spend a little time thinking about/practicing these things. Here are a few tricks that I’ve picked up.

Where a cut starts- A cut doesn’t start when you change direction or at the front or back of the stack; it starts a long time before that, when you’re bored at work or in class or in the shower. When I’m stuck somewhere and can’t play ultimate, I like to make up cuts. For example, here’s one I came up with today:

I start in the middle of the stack. A few seconds before I want to make my cut, I’ll start drifting a few steps toward the break side sideline, very slowly. My defender will think I’m preparing to make a break side cut, and eventually will try to move over to the break side to stop the cut he thinks I’m about to make. I’ll be watching my defender closely, and the second he begins to move toward me, I sprint to the force side sideline (watching for picks), then turn it back in 60 degrees toward the thrower.

There are a ton of other details about this cut that I have worked out, but I won’t bore you, it’s just an example. Will it work? I have no idea. But next time I play, I’m going to try it and see. I have an arsenal of cuts that I’ve come up with and tested in practice. When I’m playing, all I have to do is pick which one to use.

Your defender- For the purposes of this, pretend that you have a good enough defender to cover you if you just run out and then run back in. Here are a few things you can do so that your defender can’t cover you.

1. Your defender can’t cover you if his weight is on his heels. You can get your defender on his heels by running straight at his chest. Make him think you’re about to jump straight over him.
2. Your defender can’t cover you if he can’t see you. Know when your defender is looking at you. If you can get him to take his eyes off you, even for a second, make your move then and you’re all set. This can be accomplished by cutting out on one side of your defender, and then quickly switching to the other side of him. Once he tries to swivel his head around, go. Another way to do this (for experts only) is to make a slowish in cut that he can cover. When he has you covered he’ll look up to anticipate the throw. Go deep.
3. Your defender can’t cover you if he’s out of position. Recognize.
4. Your defender can’t cover you if his ankles are broken. This is where fakes come in.

Fakes- Of course a fun way to get your defender out of position/on his heels/on the ground, is to make really good fakes. Use them at the start of your cut, at the change in direction in a bowling alley, when you’re getting open for a dump pass, etc. Limit them; if you try to use more than one fake in a cut you’ll end up making it easier for your defender to cover you. Tips on different types of fakes are as follows:

Shoulder Fakes- These are very rarely useful. The challenge in leading a fake with your shoulder is that your shoulder is so high on your body that it is hard to recover from making the fake. You might fake somebody out, but by the time you manage to change direction they will be able to readjust themselves. The more effective way to make this fake is to lead the fake with your torso/hip. This keeps your body more upright and these parts of your body are lower and tighter to your center of gravity, which makes it easier to change direction quickly. You will sell your defender just as well with a fake like this. Recap: Fake with your torso/hips, not your shoulder.

Head Fakes- I don’t know if you have some secret to this, but as a defender I’ve never seen them used effectively, and as a cutter I’ve never seen any use for them.

Eye Fakes- In the rare case that your defender looks at your eyes, pick a direction that you don’t want to go and then dart your eyes in that direction several times. As soon as you start your cut in that direction he’ll go hard that way and you can change direction and beat him easily.

A key to making good fakes is to keep your body low. If you were making a cut, you would want to stay low to be able to shift your weight quickly; you want to do the same thing here. Many people will come up on their toes and stick their head way up in the air for some reason when they make a fake, making it obvious that it’s a fake. Watch for it as a defender.

Work on your abs, the stronger your abs are the better you can fake.

Let your defender dictate- Although generally in sports you want to dictate for the other team, as a cutter you want to let your defender dictate a lot of the time. Watch him as you make your cut. He’s going to give you something. Once he does, forget about the arsenal of cuts you have saved up and take what he gives you. Let his body language tell you where to cut. The hunter becomes the hunted.



Anyway, that’s all I have time for today, because work’s over. Remember to watch your defender as a cutter. I'll probably talk about more stuff later. If you have any questions/complaints feel free to ask me/complain a lot. Just think about this stuff in your free time, and try a few new things at each practice.

Next time will be shorter.


Now that's a really easy way to get better at ultimate without really trying really hard at all, really.

Riding in Cars with Frisbees, starring Drew Barrymore

Hey Kids

So now that I'm allowed to post stuff on here, you all get the pleasure of listening to my work-boredom induced rants. Thus, the following entry will be the first in a semi-weekly series of entries that I will call, "Really easy ways to get better at ultimate without really trying really hard at all, really." It will be a series of sweet advices about ultimate to whoever is lame enough to read this blog. Some of these tips may even be stolen from people to whom I will not give credit. Consider yourselves lucky.

You may say, "Why should I take advice from fermi? He's stupid and sucks at ultimate." My response to that would be, "You are probably correct."


So, without further delay:

Keep a disc in the car with you all the time. While you're driving, work on switching between your forehand and backhand grips. The more fluidly that you can transition between grips, the more effective your fakes will be as a thrower. You should be able to fake easily only using one hand. When you get bored with that, just throw the disc in the air over the passenger seat and catch it. You'll probably have to do this without looking (since you're also driving), and it will imrove your touch in catching. Try not to crash too often. I'd say I'm 3% better at ultimate for it and 60% worse at driving, which is a fair trade-off.

Now that's a really easy way to get better at ultimate without really trying really hard at all, really.



-fermi

Summer Ultimate

Hopefully you all are playing this summer. It's pretty amazing how much you can improve over one summer, especially if you are a rising sophomore. That being said, it helps even more if you have a plan of attack. I like to focus on one thing each game that I want to improve, and it works a lot better than trying to pull myself up by my bootstraps. So when you're driving over to your next game and trying to pump yourself up, don't say I'm going to be perfect this game. Instead, say to yourself I'm going to work on clearing out at 100%, or I'm going to stay on my toes while marking, and so on. If you work on one distinct thing each game, you will get better quickly, and totally school your teammates when you come back in the fall.

-squat's tips #1

Silliness

If you're bored you should check out this history of Ultimate, it's pretty accurate as far as I can tell.
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_frisbee

Also, I found this quote on the Uconn Ultimate Alumni site, it pretty much describes my life:
“Me play ultimate. Me run. Me huck disc. Me score. Me skip class. Me skip wedding. No mow lawn. Play ultimate more. Knee ouch. Mmm beer. Ibuprofen good.”

-squat burrito

Div III Natties '07 recap

Well this recap is a bit overdue, but better late than never right?So Nationals was a rockin good time. Road trips = pretty funUltimate = really funRoad trip + ultimate = freakin schweetThe trip out to Ohio was a lot of fun despite several complications involving two smoking cars, getting lost multiple times, and sippy narrowly avoiding becoming a class 3 sex offender (you'd think the old lady had never seen anybody pee before). We got to see some Div I natties action including a spectacular game between stanford and carleton that was won on universe point by bloodthirsty. I'm sure Zack was proud. We eventually made it to our motel, which apparently was part of a mall, and received the sweet Bullets Disc shirts Mace had printed up. We came into this tournament seeded 24 out of 26, and had even been seeded last at one point. Needless to say we felt we had something to prove. I think all of us believed that our UPA ranking wasn't indicative of our skill, and that we had never played to our potential throughout a whole tournament this season. We were looking to change that.Day 1:Game 1 - Rice: 2 seed in our pool, 10 seed in the tourneyWe got to the fields a little later than intended, but ran an efficient warmup that included a mini-scrimmage (we should do this at the beginning of every tournament). The warmup seemed to work and we came out firing; cordes had a gigantic layout catch and we scored the first point of the game. We then dug ourselves a three-point hole, a trend that would continue in all of our subsequent games. Personal note: throughout sectionals I rarely sat a point due to being tired, probably averaging one per half. I had to sit after playing just 1 or 2 points a lot the first day; the heat and humidity was oppressive. Ok, back to the game. We dug in and managed to claw our way back, with half coming at 7-6 (I believe we were up). We slowly built on our lead during the second half with tim repeatedly finding the disc in the endzone. Rice mounted a small comeback towards the end, but it was too late as cap went on and we scored.
WPI 12 – Rice 10

Game 2 – Salisbury: 1 seed in our pool, 5 seed in the tourney
This was an ugly game for us, and I hold myself partly responsible because I was looking ahead to the Ithaca game. I assumed we would lose, so I was more worried about Ithaca, but in retrospect I shouldn’t have respected Salibury (or disrespected our team) so much. Salisbury played a pretty stifling four man cup zone, but their offense was ragged, generating many missed oppurtunities for us. Our zone offense wasn’t clicking because we were holding on to the disc too long, and Salisbury took half at something like 7-1. We played slightly better in the second half, but we had already beat ourselves.
WPI 4 – Salisbury 13

Game 3 – Ithaca: 3 seed in our pool, 19 seed in the tourney
This was the true test here. If we lost, chances were slim that we’d sneak in to the championship bracket, but if we won we were definitely in. I was worried that our team would be demoralized after the Salisbury game (I know I was), and sure enough we came out sluggish against Ithaca. They promptly jumped out to a 4-1 lead, and things were looking bleak. But instead of getting frustrated and handing the game away as were wont to do in the past, we dug in our heels and threw to tim a bunch in the endzone. We went on a crazy run and I think took half at like 7-5. The break didn’t slow us down, and we stormed out of the gate scoring several more quickly. My personal favorite moment occurred when I was on the sideline. We pulled the disc and I yelled at Little Miss as he ran down the field that I wanted a layout D from him. Sure enough, about five minutes later he stuck his man on an incut, and as the guy slowly cleared out towards the stack, little miss got a sick poaching layout D. Ask and you shall receive. Cap went on soon after, and the Bullets were headed to the championship bracket.
WPI 12 – Ithaca 8

Game 4(pre-quarters) – Swarthmore: Finished first in their pool, 8 seed in the tourney, finished 2nd last year
Swarthmore is a good team, and also were probably the most spirited team we played the whole weekend, a respectable combination. We were definitely pumped for this game, and were psyched that we had already demolished our seed, but we were starting to get tired. As usual, we dug ourselves a quick hole in the beginning of the game as Swarthmore jumped out to a quick 5-2ish lead. From there we pretty much traded points the remainder of the game, eventually losing by three although we pulled as close as 8-9 at one point. We played a good game and shouldn’t be disappointed with our performance; I remember getting absolutely demolished by this team a couple years ago. This loss put us in the 9th place bracket.
A couple highlights:
Swarthmore turned it over in our endzone, and PC promptly hurled a ridiculous 80 yard flick from our own goal line to find Fermi for a score. I
I caught it near the goal line on a deep throw, and called a timeout. Swarthmore succeeded in ruining our plans by throwing some sort of cup/clam thing. I broke it by throwing my patented “No Call” hammer to Kid for the score. We should put that in the playbook, it has worked twice now.
Side note: Swarthmore went on to finish 5th in the tourney
WPI 10 – Swarthmore 13

That evening we chilled at the motel/mall and entertained ourselves by playing the horseracing game in the arcade and going to see Pirates 3.

Day 2:

The day started awesome with Zack’s brilliant cheer:
DO YOU REMEMBER \ when we went to the mall yesterday \ and we were really, really excited to see that new pirate movie?
But when we got there \ the food was overpriced \ the girls were underaged \ and the movie sucked \
Because it had too many plotlines \ and none of them, made any sense \
And so \ after the movie \ we tracked down the director \ mister gore verbinski \ and WHAT DID WE DO?

Absolutely Hysterical.


Game 1 – Calvin: One of the few 1-2 teams who made the championship bracket, 22 seed in the tourney
Oh man this game was painful. There was a general lack of spirited behavior on both sides (“Have you even read the fucking rulebook?”) I remember being absolutely confident the whole game that we were going to win, even when they went up early by a few. We took half at something like 7-5, and continued steamrolling in the second half, eventually finding ourselves at 12-10. All we needed was one more point, and we would advance to the game for 9th. Sounds easy, but many uncharacteristic mistakes started adding up, and Calvin scored three straight to stun us.
Examples:
1. During one point we drop at least three scores, and throw away a few more into the endzone
Triple Fist tries to catch an easy D, but accidentally macs it to a person on their team.
I drop a hammer with no defenders in sight at 12-11. They promptly score.
After calling a string on the line at universe point, PC throws to the wrong place. They promptly score, and we manage to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Ugh.

Game 2 – Kalamazoo: They actually won their pool on Day 1, but then lost two straight. 12 seed in the tourney.
Well, to say the least we were pretty demoralized, and it showed as Kalamazoo went up early. Man we suck at the beginning of games. Anyway, apparently ‘mazoo was a pretty experienced team, and even had out an All-Senior line for several points against us. It didn’t phase us, as we steadily pulled past them on the scoreboard. It was hard-capped at 11-10, and tim threw a low break pass to me in the endzone that I caught and subsequently spiked in exultation. What’s that old proverb? “Always look before you spike”. Turns out tim cleated his poor mark as he threw, so the disc went back. This ended up providing a much more fitting finale, with our two departing teammates connecting for the final score; tim swung to cordes who threw a high goal to jake for the win. What a Kodak moment.

So we ended up tying for 13th place with Covenant College, not bad for being seeded 24th at the outset.

Just so it’s all in one place, here’s the coaches’ recap/thoughts of the tournament…

Mace:
Well the end result was that we tied for 13th place...but the realitywas that we played really, really well, had lots of fun and showed a lot of teams that WPI is a team that will not be taken lightly next time!I'm sure someone will wax poetic about each game and will go on howhaving a mall in connected to the hotel is a great thing, my highlight was watching from the sidelines and seeing the team's resolve again andagain not to be denied of their goal. Each game was very close (exceptfor 1 which I didn't see...you'll have to ask Zack about that) and none were really decided until the cap horn went off.The capper to the weekend? Watching the final point of the last gamedecided on a pass from Cordes to Jake (the loudest to the softest) towin the last game. Great way to end the season! Can't wait for next year...

Zack:
The resolve that Mace mentioned was definitely the highlight. The team was down at some point in every game but still managed to consistently claw back (save the Salisbury game, which was delivered via the USPS). It would've been easy to roll-over/give-up ... but as churchill said: "never, never, never, NEVER give up." Well fought.

Also a big shout-out to the man-o: looked spectacular with disciplined dumps, good hucks, and steady progress up the break and open side. everyone picked a great time to coordinate playing their best man-o of the season.


Kudos to Bill Theisen (ONU’s coach) for putting on an awesome tourney with lined fields, even if they were rock hard. We’ll be back next year. Lets fucking Bull.