Tournament 8 - Lesson 2 - New faces, new opinions

With every team you play for, a mixture of new and familiar faces join in a weekend of Ultimate. I've played with many teams and at many tournaments. I've thought about the sport for many hours, and I've talked with people about the sport for many more. This weekend was a new set at UK Mixed Tour 1 (results here).

Pictured Above: Flump zone around Flaming Galahs 1 (photo from Sam Hird).

This weekend I was being talked to by many teammates about my field play. First off, my defence was particularly weak on Saturday and I got beat in the end-zone 2 times when I shouldn't have, and 2 times when I felt the opponent got the best of me. On Sunday, I was beaten two to three more times, but I felt they were more quality opponents making great plays. In general, I never have any problem with people talking to me about defense, and it's not my forte by far.

I was, however, getting upset when I three different people addressed my offensive game. In most cases, I think the comments were coming because people aren't used to what I would call a weak side handler making space. A similar cutting roll is those cutters who wait to react to other cuts. Sure they're not always moving, but should they? That's another discussion, but let's get back to the point that I learned.

I was getting upset, because I felt I knew better. My error (full stop).

Once I thought about this for five or ten minutes, I realized that it would be better if I tried to adapt more to the team style of play, instead of sticking to my style. This is similar to the changes I made in my game to become a secondary handler. For this team, however, I think I was being asked not to play a secondary or primary handler, but more of a hybrid. It's something I haven't really thought about before since I'm used to team systems that had very clear distinction (though unspoken) between roles.

Well, opening my mind to other ways has taught me more, and I think I played better within the team. Statistically, nothing changed in terms of my completion record. I still only had one throw away on the weekend, no drops that I could get my hands on, and four hucks that were overthrown. I think, however, the intangibles including spacing and being more prepared for the teams style of dumps was much improved.

In terms of a good weekend, it was spectacular. It almost made me forget about my girlfriend and friends hanging out at Gender Blender and Cazenovia.

PJ