Sort by Date: November | December | January | February | March | April | May Nov 5, 2002 "Catch Both Ways" When throwing on the green or when warming up make sure to catch "both ways." Alternate catching with your right hand versus your left hand on top of the pancake. For good throws, this doesnt make much of a difference, but if an errant throw is to the right of your body, it will be easier to catch left on top, and the same goes for the other side, but switched. The more comfortable you are catching both ways, the more natural it will be for you to catch with the correct orientation. I guarantee your drops will go down if you work on this.       Nov 6, 2002 "Pushups and Crunches" Start doing 50/50 (pushups/crunches) every night before you go to sleep. In two weeks you will see a difference in your throwing power, cutting power and the type of women you attract.       Nov 7, 2002 "Always Be Moving" As some of you may know, I am very big fan of acronyms. Todays; ABM, always be moving, both on D and on O. This serves three purposes. 1) When you are playing d you should always have an eye on your man, but sometimes it is very helpful to be able to check upfield and see whats going on. If your man (or you) has his hands on his hips then a good defender (or your defender) will have a chance to check. 2) For your man to be absolutely beat towards the end of a hell point on the fourth game of the tournament and look up and see you bobbing and jumping is absolutely devastating. youve already gotten the D at that point. 3) The best O cutters are always moving; as soon as a play develops they are ready to react, often quicker than their defender because they were already in motion (why do you think they call false starts in football?)       Nov 8, 2002 "Power Hour" If the morning after a power hour with some frisbee buddies you wake up and dont have your Brown ID, call the site of the power hour before you go to get a new ID.     Nov 9, 2002 "Backhand Power" To improve the power you have on your backhand throws, find a partner and stand about 10-15 yards apart. Throw on the backhand side, but keep your legs planted at a little wider than shoulder width. You can do a trunk-twist type motion to throw and this will work a lot on your arm mechanics and force you to put good spin on the disc (rotation=stability). After about 10 minutes of this you can step across with your right leg as you normally would and your throwing power and stability should be dramatically increased. When you begin to step across try not to change your arm motion, just add power from your lower body.       Nov 10, 2002 "Bring Your Disc" Carry around a frisbee while you walk from class to class or while sitting and watching TV and just mess around with it. One might say, “well spinning a disc on your finger or flipping it and catching it with one hand don’t actually ever come up in ultimate.” To this I respond: soccer players who can juggle the ball well are always very good at trapping and the harlem globetrotters are still nasty ballers. You will be better if you are very comfortable with a disc in your hands.       Nov 11, 2002 "Water" Drink a glass of water before you go to sleep and when you wake up in the morning.       Nov 12, 2002 "Confidence" Do not cede victory in any way, to anybody before the game begins. When I look across the line at the chump I am about to D up I think exactly that. This does not mean you should not acknowledge an opposing players strengths; if your man is a good deep cutter, recognize thats probably what he wants to do and plan accordingly. But he is certainly not a better deep cutter than you are a deep defender. simply know that you are better. Some may call it cockiness, I call it confidence.       Nov 13, 2002 "Improvement" Make a list (preferably on paper) of the things you do well and the things you dont do well. For the things you don’t do well, find someone who you think does that well and talk to them about it or watch them play. No one player is naturally good at everything in ultimate. Watch other players that are good and make yourself a mosaic of good ultimate players.       Nov 14, 2002 "Fingernails" Cut your nails before a big tournament, but not the night before; the night before the night before. In case you nick a cuticle, you want to give it at least 24 hours to heal up.       Nov 15, 2002 "Nasal Passages" When you warm up before a game suck on a good cough drop. It gets your nasal passage wide open and you feel like you are breathing pure oxygen. Its like tiger balm for your lungs.     Nov 16, 2002 "Low Hands" Keep your hands low down when you mark. Contrary to what you might think, you can move your arms quicker from low to high than from high to low (gravity doesnt give a helping hand).     Nov 17, 2002 "My Bad" Never say “sorry” or “f——” when you make a bad throw before it has actually become a turnover. For some strange reason, once you say this you have taken responsibility for the error and your receiver will drop more often or not try as hard. (On a side note, give 100% effort on pick or foul calls, often times a pick throw can get D'd or a foul call will turn out to be null)     Nov 18, 2002 "Pack the Night Before" Pack your bag the night before a tournament or early practice. You wont forget your cleats ever again.     Nov 19, 2002 "Catching High Hammers" For hammers that are above your head, dont catch them like a normal high throw (fingers on top rim, thumb underneath). Instead bring your thumb up as well (your hand should now resemble a little cup). For a normal high throw there is a natural space for your thumb under the rim, but for hammers this doesn’t exist and the disc will often hit your thumb first and bounce away. One might say that you could catch with thumb on bottom and just bring your other four fingers over the top, to rest in the same natural spot under the rim. To do this though you must get 2-3 inches higher (thus lowering the peak of your jump by 2-3 inches) and sometimes this makes all the difference.     Nov 20, 2002 "Accountability" Hold yourself to an extremely high level of accountability. Good players will think about what they did wrong after they get scored on or beaten. Great players will think about what they did wrong while their team is scoring and winning. We must continue to improve even when we are playing well. Many times when I play I think games are much closer than they actually are because if my man broke my mark then thats what I remember, even if we got the d on the next pass and scored. Constantly be improving.     Nov 21, 2002 "Baby Powder" Before a long tourney (or a warm one) bring some baby powder along to use in your shorts. By day 2 of the tourney you will have realized that it was a good idea. I am partial to Johnson & Johnson as it does not contain any corn starch.     Nov 22, 2002 "Quick Catch and Throw" Work on the quick catch and throw following your bodys momentum. This is extremely effective when you receive a dump or a swing pass to get the next one off. This is an advanced throw because it is necessary that it is a controlled throw, but you cant set your feet very well to make the throw.     Nov 23, 2002 "Throw Placement" As a thrower, start trying to put the disc to certain parts of your receivers body. Make it easy for them to hold off their defender, make it simple for the break throw mentioned above to be in the flow of their movement, make every player love to be your receiver.     Nov 24, 2002 "Being Casual" Sometimes people think that superstars look extremely casual and relaxed when they play. Relaxed is good, but casual is very bad. A short anecdote: in one of my first big club games a disc got thrown deep to my man and I was sure I had the D so I went up to get it casually and he skied me straight up. Make sure on every play, be casual at the parties after weve won the tourney.     Nov 25, 2002 "Rituals" Establish certain things that let you know that you are about to play a big game: wearing a certain pair of cleats (aka the white pony phenomenon), a song that gets you ready or a warm up routine. Again, relaxed is good, casual is not.     Nov 26, 2002 "Skying" A skying summary: 1) More often than not you should not have to sky your man as a receiver. Good players will put themselves between their man and where they want to catch the disc, creating space. One key point: do not play deep game defense and deep game offense the same way. On offense always try to get to the disc at the first possible place you can catch it - no milking it, no catching up high - it doesnt have to be pretty, just come down with the disc. On defense, play the man and not the disc (sounds illegal right?); unless you are 100% sure you can get the D, do not leave your man for the disc. Wait with him and either you will both misread it or youll have a play on the disc when it comes in. 2) For when you do need to sky: practice catching up high with both your left and right hand and also jumping off of each foot. If you are behind your man and a floaty outside in backhand is coming in, you will want to go up righty. If it is the mirrored throw (outside in forehand) you will certainly want to go up off your right leg and catch lefty; you will have a better angle and be less likely to foul your man (also in each case this means you will not have to catch the disc trailing edge). 3) Lastly; if you are put in a position where your man has boxed you out and a sky is going to be necessary, there is no harm in slowing down your pace so you can get a running start at the disc and time your leap. Your man will probably be jumping solely vertically, and this is when the monster skies occur.     Nov 27, 2002 "Train Hard Over Break" Train hard over the break. My 3-on-3 team will DESTROY you come Monday.