Stepping Up: March 2009

All in all, this was a bad week (9 days) of ultimate for myself. But it was a great social week in ultimate for me.

In both tournaments i went to Terminus Club edition and Terminus College edition i played poorly. Why? I don't know. For the club one with Forge, it was a totally different experience. I played with some guys i knew and some i didn't, so i was very happy and excited to see old faces and also excited to meet some new people. But in all this is the strickening feeling that your being judged and that it's a tryout tournament. Not to say this is a bad thing, in fact i thought it was going to be awesome; i wanted to do things people don't usually see me do, perhaps get a chance to make a nice play or two. But continuing...

We played Chain and Ring back to back, both games were an event, yet uneventful (if you understand what that means), in themselves. I don't remember much about the Chain game other then covering my guy and playing good defense on them, i probably screwed up at some point or another, but i felt as though i was hanging - if not more - with Nationals caliber players. On the converse i remember the Ring game pretty well. They were good, not as good as i had imagined - but damn good at that. Three things stick out in my mind.

- Rob is like pretty good at ultimate.

- We threw a really shitty turn and a guy broke deep. No one picked him up, and instead 3 guys surrounded the thrower and hassled him. Neither the thrower nor anyone on the field cared, he simply took his time and found an opening and jacked it to the WIDE open player for a goal. After the point, some guy on the Ring bench yells, "Nice intentional fouling, douchebags." To which both the thrower (Ring player) and everyone else collectively says, I'm paraphrasing, it's not like we've never done it?

- This has been a really reoccurring theme for this week and been pissing me off. I'm getting beat by shitty ultimate. I cover my guy deep, he stops, i stop, begin to front him - since we're 40 yards deep and a huck seems retarded - the huck goes up and with me in a standstill waiting for a movement forward my defender takes off deeper only to receive the disc in the back of the back endzone for a goal. In total this happened to me 4 times on the weekend most notably twice against Penn St.

Against Ring this happened once, i began fronting the guy, i'm guessing they were playing some kind of handler weave nonsense and my guy stops i look at him, turn my head back for the disc, here 'UP,' look up for my guy and mutter words i hate, "Fuckin' balls." I caught up to him, bid over his back, he comes down with it. He said nice play, which made me a feel a bit better (?), but knew i fucked up. It was annoying on two levels. He was 5 inches shorter then me and that was the play i wanted to make and i didn't do it. I hoped the intensity i showed was good, but i was still really disappointed. Later in the finals i saw the same dude grab a disc between two, much bigger, bidding Chain defenders.

Now the week in between was awesome, Spring Break in a fuckin' mountain top mansion. I'm not going into it, but a lot of fun stuff happened. The team officially knows every good line of 12 oz. Mouse and the Chappelle Show, without ever needing to watch them. I've found a new appreciation for hot tubs. I hate baseball world series. I'm not good at poker and Eddie's crazy ways of getting me to pay are awesome. And i need to stop falling asleep at 3AM. But on the Ultimate side of it, it was not good... I think a few of us actually ran around when we found the time. I had a restless morning on Tuesday and went for a jog. It was nice, if not bland, but other then that and throwing a disc 130 yards off the porch of our house, that was the extend of my ultimate training.

This did not pay dividends when it came time for Terminus 2nd ed. I felt slow and i didn't have my 5th gear. The 5th gear used for getting that second acceleration and that second quick step for a D or for a finish to a disc, i just couldn't muster. I remember during the first game against Georgia Tech, Chris threw me a disc deep when i just began a cut in and in my usual motif, i would turn quickly and try to find the gear to go get it, but when i turned i just couldn't do it. It was not a good way to start the weekend.

From there it was a muddle of busying work in the midst of a few good things done well. I thought my zone offense was good, i got a lot of touches and moved the disc efficiently. But other then that, i was out of rhythm and not seeing lanes on the offensive side of the disc. Defense was also poorer then with Forge. I was getting beat to spots i wouldn't have and i was losing match ups that i shouldn't have. I had a few really good spots against Penn and some really low ones. Against Georgia Tech and Tuffs i played well, if not memorably, i remember that anytime my player caught the disc it was a 71% chance of a turnover against Georgia Tech (5/7 total, 3/4 on their main handler/cutter dude), and against Tuffs it was 50% (2/4), Dayton it was 3/5 or 60%. That's not a lot of statistics, but i think that also does show something within itself and i did keep very specific note, considering i didn't make any key plays that i wanted to. Against Penn i didn't have that kind of success i think the guy i covered for most of the game threw back field and the other guy i covered for a point did break me for a goal, lowest point of that game.

I also got really unlucky with that mother fucker. This is the shit i was talking about before, huck went up, i got in position, in this case a bit behind him, pushing forward, the disc is high so i'm going to get the D, and then all of a sudden it dips literally right into his bread basket. I tried to grab it, but he caught it as well, i'm guessing first cause i ended up tangled with him and the disc. I thought for a moment to try to argue, but between his yelling and my embarrassment i let it go saying, that i was going to get the D on him the next throw. I over commit to stop the dump throw to him, find myself on the wrong side, bid for the breakside, and Boom, break goal.

I'm not really going to say much about the team. I thought we had moments of beauty amongst a busying performance overall. I was disappointed in two tactical things. The first being our total lack of physicality. There were not many fouls called against us, and even less so bids. The former may sound like a good thing, but a team built on aggressive under defense, pressure and containment can not be doing it's job if someone isn't pissed off at either the cutter defenders, the handler covers, or the marks. The second is our total lack of defensive cutting and our lack of offensive endzone. Our defensive offense is let the handlers do some shit, and hopefully we'll get a huck off and score, if we get to the endzone we're kinda screwed. Our offensive endzone was impatient at best. Everyone wanted the break side cut and everyone wanted the force side cut. I tried to bring calm during our games against dayton and whatnot, but i don't know if that translated well. Needless to say, it sucked.

Goals for myself now.
Run.
Around a month until the series starts, so that means for the week i took off i need to work harder to get back into shape and get back into great shape.

Throw.
No need to explain, be better, throw better.

Agility.
I've had some good ideas about cutting motions that i want to translate into some individual drills and exercises. I need to get my directional change into top gear.

Without going further, i need to refocus, get my shitty performance out of the way, and start working hard. I will be great.

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