Tournament Lesson 1 - Missuldisc and the good times

Haven't done one of these in a while. Based on injuries, trying to make a career, and lack of commitment, I've been off the tournament circuit for a while. Fortunately, I joined Flump on a trip to Italy for Manny's (front in the picture below) stagdoo. The tournament, Missuldisc; the weekend, awesome.

Pictured Above: Flump in our glorious pink and orange. Manny is in the front and the mountains are in the back.

This was my first time playing Ultimate surrounded by the Alps and just off a beautiful lake. In other words, it's hard to beat a location like that for an Ultimate tournament. Our hosts (Frasba Dal Lac) and the teams we played were great. The food was amazing with beer to match. In all, I would rate this as a great party tournament with some decent Ultimate. Being a small tournament, if you get a chance to go, take it.

The hosts went beyond just running a tournament. Frasba Dal Lac also ran a clinic for young local kids on the Saturday. Now that's good community thinking to help guarantee the venue for years to come. They worked for about six hours playing with the kids and teaching the basics of the game while hosting thr tournament and playing games.

So what's the tournament lesson? It's one of those nostalgic comments you get from your elders, and something I'm slowly appreciating as my playing time reduces. Take time to enjoy Ultimate for what it is, because the great people and the times are hard to find elsewhere [queue violin music ;].

PJ

The Legatum Prosperity Index ... What?

First off, the Legatum Prosperity Index is a measurement on a number of human factors in a nations population. Why am I talking about this?


Clue one is based on last Thursday. I had the fortune of heading to Italy on a car trip for a tournament in Italy. More on that in a post later. The car trip to the tournament started in London, UK and went through all sorts of countries on the way to the Italian Alps. Our team and had a great time both at the tournament and on the road trip (along these lines).

Clue number two happened today while I was watching a Frontline documentary on China and youth in China. The documentary struck me with two key things. The first, is not related to the post, where one of the women described herself as a human machine (another reason for me to push my research in social directions). The second was about a man who had found religion and finally felt complete.

This second point made me wonder if Ultimate and being part of the community can replace a need for religion. That's a bold statement, but just remember this is a thought experiment.

As I looked into the broad topic of religion I found a narrower concept that we could look at on the relationship between religion and happiness. The Legatum Prosperity Index was the link here and shown the correlation. So, instead, I thought an interesting question or research problem would be a similar Legatum Prosperity Index between sporting communities.

Since we're all biased here, I'll shoot out that Ultimate players will win the happiest section. These past few days I've been at the peak of happy, but over all the years of Ultimate it's been amazing. Thanks all...

PJ

Tournament 12 - Tournament of point

No Borders happened in Ottawa this week. In my mind, it was a tournament of single points. I played one point, I watched GT lose a tough game by one point against Medicine Men, and we lost the tournament by one point. Point taken.

Pictured Above: A master of the Universe point, Heman takes on Spiderman in tennis.

For those of you who missed it, the final between our team the Friars, and Ottawa's team Phoenix was one heck of an Ultimate game. It started off like many finals do, and at 8-3 it looked like we were down and out. Slight adjustments and momentum swings changed the face of the game, and we brought on the competition.

Phoenix asked me if we wanted to time cap the game or play to win by two. In my opinion, for the sake of the fans, we played to 15 hard - simple and exciting conclusion point.

It looked like we had a chance to win the entire thing, but Phoenix pulled out the 15-14 win (to their credit) on a back and forth universe point with two amazing Ds, a hand block, and an unconventional finish. Our team smiled and took the loss as best we could. We threw around the excuses to help soften the blow, and accepted the loss like Friars, finishing the tournament off with a chant.

We've all been there, or will be there someday. Universe point, as we like to call it, is the one single point to win the game. You score it, you win. They score it, you lose. I've been on both ends of the coin in finals, semis, quarters, and pool play.

As a fan, it's the epic ending of our sport, and it makes me believe Ultimate is watchable, but like basketball, it happens all too rarely. In this case, however, the fans got what they paid for.

As a player, these points are tough. They're the times when you have to deal with the pressure, and a loss can cripple a teams psyche. The thing that you have to learn, and it was clear on Sunday, is if we treated the beginning of the game with the same focus and drive as the last points, we could have significantly changed the situation. Focusing is simple when pressure is on, but focusing is hard when you repeat the motions of a sport in non urgent situations (even at the start of a final).

In my mind, I counted three early focus errors that were a major difference in the game. People don't look to the beginning of the game for failure, it's always about the last points. In reality, each point has equal weight, and no error is more or less important than the other. Any time that coin flips, and the Universe lands on your head, try to remind yourselves that a team needs to focus and push consistently throughout the game and a tournament. This will decrease the chance that the same result happens next time. That's my point.

PJ

Tournament 11 - Lesson 1 - After age 30, the more clothes the merrier

Snap.

I've never heard that sound come from my body, but as I jumped over the two person hurdle in a spirit game, that's the sound that my calf made. Not wanting to wreck the game I ran over to my spot and watched the game continue. One 1st degree tear later, and I had the opportunity to watch a tournament from the sideline. This didn't stop me from dancing that night after a few beers, and having a great Saturday night, but it did leave me lots of time to think about what I should have done better.

Pictured Above: There's a picture of the suspect calf. It looks strong here.

Lately, many of my ultimate photos show me in hoodie and pants, and underneath I'm wearing compression clothing and tights. I've also been doing hot showers in the morning to loosen up the body before playing, and stretching early in the morning.

In comes Ultimate, camping, a young team to keep up with, and an improper pre-season training, No shower, not as much early morning preparation, and not enough attention to detail. The result is - snap.

Many people have asked me, why do you wear so much clothing? The reality is I'm just trying to keep my body warm and avoid - snaps - much like sprinters do even on hot days. It's amazing how a snap reminds you of the details you need to take when playing this sport, and if I can pass any of this on to those young bodies that currently heal fast, get into the details young and your body will go farther in this sport with minimal snaps. This old dog can't seem to learn new tricks. At least my short term memory will get me warming up properly the next few times.

PJ

Tournament 11 - Opinions can get you in trouble

I write a blog that is about opinions. Just because I write my opinion doesn't mean I stop there. This weekend was a classic example of me vocalizing my opinion.

As I've explained before, the mixed tour in the UK is a 3 event series of tournaments where teams move up and down in the rankings, attempting to be the illustrious tour winner. This weekend, the Thundering Herd came away with this years coed tour, and congratulations to them.

Pictured Above: Eric getting a big grab over a Condor at UPA Championships 2007. I'm excited to see lots of the Goat guys over the next few weeks.

What was most interesting about this tour is GB mixed made their appearance for the first time. From the rumor mill, I had heard that they had bypassed on previous events, because they chose to train as opposed to play mediocre competition that the mixed tour had to offer. Well, low and behold, the competition (BAF) took them out in the semi-finals.

Since mixed tour 1, any conversation that came up with mention of the GB mixed team would send me off into a rant.

"How can they not be playing in the tour?"
"Competition and playing as a team has more value than focused training."
"It would help the whole of the UK push their game up."
"It's good to play against opponents and test your plays out."
"Huge error!"

In other words, I had an opinion. This last weekend I watched the mixed GB team, and I started ranting like before. This time I was set off by seeing them, but I was unaware that there were non playing GB coed players around hearing my opinion. Not that I would retract what I said, but maybe I would have flavored it a little sweeter than the salt and spice I was spewing out.

I like the GB coed team, and have considered supporting them at worlds. Some of the young guys are going to be great players, and the team looked good, but they made an error in preparation. Hopefully, the next GB wave will appreciate that the difference between the cream of the crop and the next layer is fine, especially when we're talking about a team sport. Also, hopefully, nobody takes my opinion too much to heart. I've made errors as a captain, and so has every other captain/coach.

PJ

Tournament 10 - Conversation 1 - Total flatball

I've decided from now on, I will occasionally call our sport flatball. Call it my own marketing for the new name and attempting to make the name publicly open unlike the word Fr!sbee (partially hidden for trademark reasons ;). So, what is total flatball?

Pictured Above: Kai Yokoo setting up for a hammer at Mixed Tour 2 (photo courtesy of Sam Hird).

After the Mixed Tour 2 event, our car load headed back to Silsoe (home to our host Andrew Tate) and watched some Euro finals with some good food and talk. Talking with people more familiar to football than myself, I asked a question about Total Football, a term I had heard in discussions about Holland football.

Total football is a concept where football players are allowed to leave a position and the other players in the team will replace that position. This leads to a game where any player could be playing any role. This was a revolution in football strategy.

Total flatball is this Total Football concept applied to Ultimate. The concept being that we are all handlers and cutters. No doubt, there are many teams that already apply this concept, but there are many teams that don't. As a captain or coach, you should start thinking if you have the personnel to apply the concept. At the least, you need to have practices where the roles of the team are somewhat mixed if not reversed to help players understand the nuances of other positions on the field.

The next question is if we make an effort to incorporate total flatball will it make any difference in our game. Against both a zone and a man offense, I feel that this style of play gives you more strategic options. The main reason is that much like those annoying games where teams don't play as you expect, a total flatball style of game introduces something different for teams that expect more rigid roles.

This is especially true for the "death of the static handlers", a concept many have been pushing for over the last few years. Active handlers result in better spacing, less poaching, and more disc movement. Against a zone, the total flatball concept can be devastating. I believe that zones are used to hide defensive weaknesses, and zones should be beaten againt strong teams more often than man. Total flatball will destroy zones, and might be your team's solution if you can't seem to break a zone with the rigid dump and swing method.

PJ

Tournament 10 - Observation 1 - Boo to the new pull rule

While the likes of the Boston Invite was on many people's tournament radar, I had the fortune to head up to Burton-upon-Trent for Mixed Tour 2. Our team had a solid weekend, the party was exceptional for a tour event (hosted by our friends at BlockStack), and the weather was agreeable until our last game that had some hard rain.

Pictured Above: Another nice picture by Marc Hodges from Cleveland No Surf. I like the non-traditional viewpoint of the Grand Trunk pull.

The weather in some way reflected my mood, or my mood reflected the weather. Regardless, I was behaving badly in my final game, and I apologized to my opponents. Playing coed is tough for me, but coed plus the difference between the UK and Canadian style of game gets to me sometime.

I thought I would talk about the value of the party, since I really appreciated the event. I thought it made the tour event that much better. I've always made a big push for dancing at tournaments where your only concern isn't necessarily high level Ultimate. Even when it is, a good party and a reasonable bed time can be a benefit.

Speaking of parties...happy Canada Day. This is the first time I've been outside Canada for the July 1st celebration.

Enough asides - I wanted to talk about the new pull rule in the WFDF. Here's the rule in my own words. If a pull goes out of bounds, you have a choice. Take the disc to the middle brick point or bring the disc to the point on the sideline where it went out. This as opposed to getting to "middle" the disc if it goes out of bounds. You can read the details here (page 4), and if you're going to worlds you should, because those of us who appreciate the UPA rules are going to find some major differences.

My first question is why the change? I've been thinking of a reason why you would want to not keep things the same. My first thought is speed of the game, but there's no real delay of games rule in WFDF so that can't be the reason.

My current thought is to give the defense an advantage. If you're on a team that can't pull deep, then it now makes sense to practice a pull that goes out of bounds and far enough out of bounds that you can set a trap defense.

So, maybe the rules are trying to introduce a tradeoff. As teams begin to pull out of bounds at just pass half a team now has the choice of starting at the brick or trapped.

More questions come to mind:

• Is this to negate the advantage of teams with good pullers?
• Is this to make windy games even less exciting?
• Is this a special rule for when someone makes a horrible pull that goes out right near their own endzone?
  
• Is this to get me upset, but give me post material?
• Is this a typo in the rules?

Well, it's something to think about, and I would love to hear some reasons for the change. As you can tell, I'm not thrilled with the new rule. Pulls should be about keeping the disc in play, and this rule makes other strategic options viable.

Another interesting thing I noticed in the rules is there doesn't seem to be any mention of holding the line before the pull (meaning standing so your opponent can clearly see you). Why can't you clump up, wait to see the opposing team put their arm up, and then form a line and put your arm up to signal readiness. Is it bad spirit if it's not in the rules? Probably.

PJ

Tournament 9 - Observation 2 - Skill set different, game play very similar

Having played and watched leading teams in Europe and North America, I came to the realization this weekend that the difference between quality of teams is athleticism, players per team, clockspeed (I'll talk about this some day), and skills. The level of strategy is the same everywhere.

Pictured Above: Al, Faiz, and Chris of Stack Magic enjoying the sun in Amsterdam (photo courtesy of Richard Bartle-Tubbs).

This isn't a real shock for the following two reasons: one, the sport is very young and strategy hasn't had time to develop; two, the expats from North America have influence on many teams in the world and that style of training and play is adopted. This means that our oral tradition of strategy is both short lived and comes from a similar source.

Seems like a reasonable argument on why Ultimate strategy is simple, but I have another theory. Let's take basketball for example, and remove the offensive pick and the defensive double teams as strategy elements. This leaves basketball with give and gos, passing formations, zones, etc. Sounds familiar, or in other words, the strategic elements of Ultimate are simple, and there's only so many permutations we can come up with.

I don't completely believe this, and I think we will innovate more field strategies over time (though I think the double team should be added in the Open and Women's game at the high level). For example, the flow during the middle game is something that has always intrigued me, but I've never had enough time to work out some options.

We've heard exciting news, for some time now, on Japan based Ultimate. It seems that the Japanese game has evolved on it's own terms, and this has led to slightly different strategies and skill sets compared to the rest of the world.

The real question is what's going to emerge out of Worlds this year. As much as I think the UPA series is the most competitive series in the world, Worlds will bring together independently evolving strategies. Who will come up with the next big thing?

One last comment. Even if stragegy is somewhat simple, it is still challenging enough to change between strategies to counter your opponent. This weekend, our early captain, Matt, put on a zone againts the opponents in our first game, and it worked. Such a simple concept gave our team a fighting chance against a clearly more athletic french team.

PJ

Tournament 9 - Observation 1 - Am I fine with "Flatball" stereotypes?

Last weekend I had the opportunity to participate in my second European tournament. This one was called Windmill Windup and was held in Amsterdam.

Sounds like an Ultimate stereotype to me. Marijuana, Ultimate, and Frisbee are common words that are associated with one another. Add dog to the mix and you pretty well can describe the sport to any person.

Pictured Above: A Local Dutch fan posing outside his shop during the Netherlands vs. France Euro 2008 game (photo courtesy of Richard Bartle-Tubbs).

I had a great time at the tournament, my team, Stack Magic a.k.a. Le Stack Magique, was a solid mix from various countries, and the Ultimate was good. This tournament was very well organized, and the parties were exceptional. All in all, for the price of the tournament, I would rate this tournament a 9 out of 10 (in the party tournament category), and I hope to return sometime in the future.

Back to the stereotype. Is it time to re brand Ultimate? We all try and call it Ultimate or Ultimate Disc, but the reality is unless the person you're talking to knows about the sport, they either ask if you're a fighter, or you need to mention the word Frisbee to them.

If we care about legitimizing the sport, then I think the name has got to go. Ever since watching "Above and Beyond", I've always favoured flatball. The name sounds peculiar, and I think that helps in making people associate the word with the sport.

Ultimate is like hockey. If hockey was an emerging sport, you would think to yourself, what the hell is hockey. At least hockey wasn't burdened with the Hockey Fighting Championships to confuse people even more. Nope, flatball could fit in well with baseball, volleyball, football, and basketball. People would know it's a sport because the word ball is in there. They could visualize a ball being flattened into something like a disc.

Over time, I've noticed that more people recognize Ultimate as the name of our sport, but we seem to be fighting an uphill battle. For the sake of marketing the sport we should probably have a global referendum for a new name. Why? Not only could we decide what's the best name for the sport, even if we stay with the name Ultimate, the publicity should at least save me from having to talk about dogs, frisbee, and marijuana every time I talk about Ultimate.

PJ

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

Tournament 8 - Lesson 1 - Pain is your greatest opponent

This weekend I made my first trip to Brighton to play in the UK mixed tour 1. The results aren't up yet, but we (Flump) had a good weekend once we started to learn each other's game and become more of a team.

My first lesson for this tournament is related to pain. Pain is part of an Ultimate tournament. At least from my start in the sport at around 22 to 23, till present day at 31 (quickly approaching 32) every tournament involves pain. In other words, Ultimate is hard work that strains the body.

Pictured Above: A picture from Gender Blender Friday night. The reason for the Monkey? You got me. Maybe someone can comment (picture stolen from Waren Tang).

There are different types of pain too. I would say we have:

1. One point pain - your body is pushed to a limit in terms of exertion. Your lungs are burning, your muscles are weak, and it hurts.
2. Cumulative soreness - this type of pain comes from muscles and body parts breaking down over repetitive stress. You feel sore and sometimes tight.
3. Damage or Injury - this type of pain is from a damaged part of the body.

There are more types of pain, but these physical ones are the main types of pain I've experienced over my Ultimate career.

This weekend I was the fortunate to experience 1, 2 and 3. Three is the hardest one for me to deal with. I, actually, enjoy being sore from tired muscles, but playing with injuries and damage is difficult, and even worse, in Ultimate it is usually focused on the lower extremities. In my case, I got kneed in the thigh early in the tournament, my feet were a mess from small abrasions on each toe, my groin popped a few times on Sunday, and my Achilles was ever present on the nerve highway of pain.

What was interesting was the cuts on my toes were the hardest to deal with. These small cuts, though not limiting movement, would shoot pain on every step. The thigh and the Achilles were dull pains in comparison.

Pictured Above: Some BEAT Gender Blender action (picture stolen from Waren Tang).

The lesson, however, is that even though you may feel like hell, you can still play if nothing is actually broken. It's all an inner battle in your mind.

The funny thing is, for all the people who deal with pain types 2 and 3, how many times have you seen teammates or yourself submit to pain 1.

This happened to one member of the opposing team in our final game of the weekend. His team didn't support him from the sideline (they were clumped together in the middle of the field), and the player was left to fight the pain battle by himself. As a person on the sideline, it is one of your jobs to help your teammates battle pain. Our team helped me through the weekend, and that's the type of team I want to play for.

Now, as I sit in pain and write, I'm still battling over the pain to gain ratio of the weekend. Fortunately, I found some topical ibuprofen, which seems to ease my Achilles, and I'm wearing flip-flops instead of cleats. This is part of Ultimate, and it's part of life.

PJ

Tournament 7 - Conversation 1 - Circles are calming influences

This weekend was the end of the Open and Wonen's tour. The Open champions were Chevron Action Flash and Iceni took the women's division. You can see results here. I finished off my tour with an aggravated Achilles for the fourth time in my career, thought I stopped earlier than I normally would have. Maybe I'm learning something.

Pictured Above: An explanation of a spirit game at Gender Blender 2006 (photo courtesy of Kevin Brown)

Anyway, I had a good conversation with Steve Guigere of Blockstack.tv and we were hitting on a range of topics. At one point we were reminiscing on how we got into the sport of Ultimate, and both of us made comments on remembering being introduced to the after game song.

About 7 years ago, depending on where you played, teams would sing a song after a game in which a popular song would be rewritten with new words that would make fun of Ultimate, yourself, and the opposing team. This was considered a major part of the spirit of the game by many teams.

You can still find some teams that do these cheers, but the practice in general is a dying breed. Now there's occasionally a hip hip hooray (which I'm not a fan of since it always seems to be done with lacklustre), but most games in North America end with a shake of the hand in the open division and sometimes a spirit game in the coed division. I have no problem with this and think the sport is still a very spirited considering we play a competitive game in which we self-officiate ourselves and respect each other.

In the U.K. and Europe, the after game session is a hand shake, and then a congregation in a circle where the captain of the losing team makes a speech on how they felt the game was and the winning team captain makes a similar speech. These speeches, from my experience, recap how the game went with compliments to the opponents and your own team, and then a mentioning of how spirited certain aspects of the game were.

Steve and I came to the point in our conversation where we thought that the circle (or huddle) should be added to the North American game to upgrade the friendship and good nature after a game (in another post I suggested meeting someone new each game). After thinking about this for a few minutes, I wondered if the circle would work in the Open UPA division (club or college). It's possible that it would work, but within the current culture of the game it seems unlikely that it would work. I can't really comment on the other divisions, but I imagine two open rivals circling up and staring icily across at opponents.

Another problem is how would we even start up the circling. One team could possibly lead the initiative with a strong willed leader with lots of charisma. That or a rule could be enforced, which is never a great choice.

Anyway, an interesting idea that probably would make our sport better around the world. The Canadian and U.S. teams will likely participate in these huddles during worlds, but that will be the full extent that it is adopted in North America. Unless Vancouver is the seed for something new...

PJ

Tournament 6 - Lesson 1 - Innovating against the Zone for X

LiveLogic shootout in Austin, Texas was a great (and an expensive) trip. Doublewide are great hosts (including our billet Ben "Verbal" Sims), and Austin, Texas has lots going for it - great food, nice people, and good parties. The after party, for the Goats that stayed behind, was another legendary run. We all learnt that Goat's patron saint is Francis of Assisi (and by chance he is a patron saint of animals), and he was watching over us keeping us safe. All in all, the tournament was worth every cent, including my new orange Longhorn hat.

Picture Above: A small replica of St. Francis of Assisi - Goat's patron saint even though he's carrying a chicken.

The lesson or thing I've been thinking about from this weekend is where will the sport of Ultimate innovate next (both major themes and minor themes). I'll talk more about innovation later this week, but since this is a tournament lesson, here's one of the innovation branches (on the tree of Ultimate knowledge) that I believe is ready to expand, if it hasn't already.

In our first game against Johny Bravo, it became obvious to the O-line that Bravo was coming down in a zone for X number of throws or a silent signal (I couldn't figure out which being in the moment). This is a classic strategical move to stop teams running a set play off the pull, and our set plays were getting us some significant yards off the pull, not to say that meant we were scoring.

The innovation in this situation is, as an offensive team you know the opponent is going to transition into a man after they've done this a few times. Having that knowledge means you have the upper hand and you can use that somehow to your advantage. That "somehow" is possibly a set play off the defensive transition. I imagine a scenario, that heavily involves your sideline since they're the key to seeing when the transition occurs. The second part to these transition plays will be overloading certain spots on the field so one person is forced to cover two people for a few seconds.

That's all I have pieced together in my mind so far. I have a few more ideas on what a play would look like, but the trick seems to be making both your zone offense attack as well as your transition offense. Conceiving a static play where the handlers just dump and swing until the transition is made while the cutters setup in the transition positions will only work for a very short period against smart adapting teams. How can you make the two offenses a weapon? That'll be innovation.

PJ

Tournament 4 - Lesson 2 - Competition is all I want

I've played a range of Ultimate tournaments on a range of teams. What I realized this weekend is I enjoy Ultimate when the games are competitive. Winning or losing means little in blowout games, where one team clearly outclasses the other, but competitive games are fun.

That may not be true for everyone, and I know lots of people that really only care about winning, but for me and many of us, we truly like a challenge. When two teams are battling back and forth it's fun, and it makes for good entertainment for the fans.

Some of the best games I've played in and watched are the ones where the game is tightly contested. This weekend the finals at Tour 1 for both the women (Iceni vs Leeds) and the open (Chevron vs Fire) were excellent games to watch as both teams fought in tightly contested matches. The winners in both games were decided by two and one point respectively. Now that's worth watching.

When I'm playing I feel the same. The closer games that I play in a tournament the more fun I have. I guess it's like goals. Impossible goals or easy goals are both equally non-satisfying, but achievable goals that are challenging but achievable give a person great reward.

For those of you who analyze video games, the same is true. People get addicted to games that are doable, but challenging enough to keep the mind active. The same is true with work and careers. Maybe I should have realized the parallels to Ultimate years ago ;)

PJ

Tournament 4 - Lesson 1 - Skills don't maintain themselves

This weekend I played at Tour 1 in Bristol. We had a good weekend with all but one close, challenging games. Personally, a few moments stand out from the weekend; two of my upwind hucks were utter disasters, I had two simple throws that went bad, and I, also, had two uncharacteristic drops.

I'm not really worried or troubled by these execution errors, but the reality was the wind wasn't that strong this weekend and in the past, I normally wouldn't make those errors. The hucks aren't as much a big deal since I've always been good and bad with hucks in my throwing set, but the reality is, the small throwaways and drops are not normal.

There's one simple reason I'm making these errors. I haven't been throwing and catching on a regular basis. Unlike when my last few years of Ultimate, I'm averaging about 1 to 2 hours of throwing per week. The chart below is an estimate of how much I threw per week (including practices but not games) over the last few years.


The reality is a skill like throwing does not maintain itself. I'll never forget how to throw a flick or a backhand, but the accuracy, timing, and small adjustments that are needed in the heat of a game can only be maintained with regular practice. It's like shooting in basketball. Your form will always be there, but the touch needs to be constantly calibrated.

PJ

Tournament 3 - Observation two - Organization brilliance for the most part

I was impressed by much of Paganello. I would argue it's not really an Ultimate tournament; it's a disc event that includes a tournament.

Pictured Above: Rocky Beach of SeXXXpensive looks to throw against the eventual winners Scandal in pink (photo courtesy of Anatoly Vasilyev)

Here are a few things that I thought were excellent organization elements of a tournament that might be added to other tournaments. Of course they're not all doable, but here's a list:

• A PA system announces the 5 minutes to game time, 1 minute to game time, game time, 5 minutes left, and the game over. These announcements are accompanied with theme music. The music was not too loud to be distracting, which other tournaments have done because the sound system is located in one single point.
  
• At the tournament you buy some tickets which you can exchange for food, drinks, beer, etc. Much better than having to cart around money, and they had a happy hour during the day.
• The tournament printed out a little news letter each day. On that sheet it included a schedule for the day as well as articles about events from the past day.
• Members on your team get SMS text messages for the time and field of your morning games. This one should be implemented for all tournaments in the future that don't have preset schedules and you know where you are seeded.
  
• Every team plays on one of the two showcase fields at some point of the tournament.
• There were different tournament packages to be purchased where they set you up with a hotel room depending to suit your spending.

I didn't like everything with the tournament, but they're lesser complaints and not so much about organization.

• I was disappointed that you had to fight for the fish on the first night. I had two chunks which I thought were great.
  
• I didn't like playing in sand. Sure you can layout, but I hurt my back and tweaked both my knees due to the unstable ground.
• I would have preferred a quick flurry of games as opposed to having games spread out through the day.
  

All in all, it was an experience that I suggest each player makes an effort to see at least once.

PJ

Tournament 2 - Opinion 1 - More of the double edged sword

This weekend was another weather disaster in my Ultimate books. It reminded me of Goosebowl 2006 in Kingston, Ontario. It was wet, windy and cold, but it wasn't as cold as Kingston...close. With a stiff wind and destroyed fields (like CUUC 05 in Montreal where we destroyed the fields), Tour 0 in the U.K. was another tough weekend. That with a sprained slight ankle from a guy laying out on my leg made the Ultimate tough. I'm, however, reasonably happy with the experience.

Pictured Above: In white, ABH's Derek Stordahl flies through the air and Neil Humpage plays some D against Two of Newcastle Brown players (photo courtesy of Mathias Karady a.k.a. MadK).

The Ultimate over the weekend was poor with the exception of what I saw from the GB masters. In most cases, drops and throw aways marked most of the game play, which isn't shocking given the wet and windy weather.

The double edge sword is something I've talked about before. It is allowing developing throwers to throw upfield as opposed to never looking and always dumping. My opinion before is that you need let developing players and allow them to make mistakes.

On a weekend like this, I think my opinion is different. In the end, I think there is nothing learnt by throwing away disc after disc, and a team is better off moving the disc in good hands instead of fighting a game of back and forth yards where a quick turn near an end zone results in a point. Of course, smart handlers that don't have a team full of competent hands will quickly rely on a huck and pin style of game. All in all, still bad ultimate.

Your team style, like any decision, is a team decision. Regardless of the team plan, it is still a challenge to develop patience and the desire to dump in these developing players. You not only need patience, but the skills to get off top quality reset throws. I've known many a player who've made an Ultimate career on a 100% game of quality cuts and dumps. Over time there decision skills have been incrementally developed and they move the disc upfield with great efficiency. I wish more would follow in those steps, but glory, like greed, is a path we all tend to take - it's like the dark side for Ultimate nerds.

PJ

Coaching tournament 1 - Lesson 1 - It's different

I attended my first tournament of the year. I wasn't playing and I wasn't really coaching. I was more of an assistant on the sideline (a role I've never really done). I went to the UK's University Regionals in Egham. I was helping out with the Disc Doctors from Imperial - a good group of girls and guys with a passion for Ultimate that is similar to what I've experienced in Canada and the US.

Pictured Above: Pyro, Chow, and Matt of Imperial DD1 force a throw. Taken from UK University Regionals this weekend (Photo from Michael Foster).

The main thing I was interested in was comparing what I know of University teams in Canada and the US. I watched about 7 games total, four of which were the Disc Doctors (DD) 1st team, one game for the DD 2nd team and a game with the top ranked team in the region - Brunell. For a quick comparison, I think Brunell (the top ranked team) would finish in the top ten (8th-10th) at Canadian University Nationals, and 6th-8th at UPA Great Lakes sectionals in Michigan.

That's just my feeling. Here are some other opinions from the weekend:

• These guys are very spirited. They play spirit games after every game, interleaving the teams in a circle. I couldn't go to the party that night, but from the pictures it looks like the party was a blast too.
  
• There are very few calls made in a game in comparison to North American college and Open ultimate.
• The warmup drills are very different then in North America. A lot of Seattle drills.
• Games were short with hour slots and 45 min soft cap. Games were to 11 and only finished at 11 if one team got beaten badly by the other.
  
• Many open teams (even at the top level) included women and there were no women's teams or division.

In some ways, the weekend reminded me of College Ultimate at UofT about 7 years ago. I enjoyed the weekend, and it helped me realize what I want to do next in Ultimate. More later this week.

PJ

2007 - and so it began; and so it ends

This past weekend marked the end of my 2007 Ultimate season. I broke my yearly record for tournaments played from 20 to 21. My teams finished 1st nine times, 2nd three times, and top 8 six times (not including 1st and 2nd place). That's about the same success rate as 2006 for me, but the tournaments that my teams played at were definitely of higher caliber this year.

What did I learn? I learned plenty, and I felt my understanding of the game advanced significantly this season. On the blog, my favourite passed on lessons this year were:

• Tournament 4 - Lesson 2 - Trust
• Tournament 5 - Lesson 2 - Was it the D's fault
• Tournament 7 - Lesson 2 - Rumours are true, A moving disc is harder to cover with moss
• Tournament 11 - Not the man, what to do
• Tournament 14 - Lesson 1 - Observers, the new parent
• Tournament 14 - Lesson 2 - Sweep, Sweep, Sweep that tunnel away

So, now what do I do? I've decided to take this week off, and then Monday or Tuesday morning next week I'm going to head into the gym and start working out. Most likely, we'll start swimming and cycling with some light weights to help rehab my shoulder. I'll minimize any stress on my Achilles for as long as it takes to feel no more pain by just touching it.

My sporting life changes over to low impact hockey. It's hard to believe for many, but playing non-contact hockey (equivalent to basketball's boxing out and pushing, but no hitting) is probably one of the gentlest sports on the body. It's a high pace game that offers the challenge of controlling the implement (stick and puck are not as challenging to use compared to a disc), but the game has an additional challenge in mobility. It is very interesting and challenging to play a sport where mobility is not simply a running and jumping issue like in ultimate, and you're mind will want to go get the puck, but you won't know how to do it. Great game.

I love Ultimate, but it's nice to be moving into phase I and be able to watch premiership football on Saturday morning instead of waking up early to warm up and play. Thanks all for another great season.

PJ

Tournament 16 - Realization 1 - I've turned that corner

My first sporting love was basketball. I played elementary and high school ball as one of the best players in our area, and over 7 years I climbed to a competitive level where I was able to hold my own on many courts. I got red shirted in University and decided at that point to party and study instead of pursuing University basketball.

Pictured Above: Kim Yae of Torontula at Bowling Green where the women won the championship (picture from Sarah Hutchison)

The interesting thing was I could no longer play "for fun" basketball. As a player I couldn't handle bad fundamentals, bad understanding of the game, and lack of practice. I could only play competitive pickup or division one intramurals. I retired from basketball in 2001 and have never looked back except a mild interest in March madness, the occasional fantasy pool or game of bump.

This weekend we played a fun Ultimate tournament in Guelph called GUT rot. Our team was a collection of good players that, unfortunately, did not click until our final game. I realized over the tournament that I've turned the same corner in Ultimate that I did in basketball, and I don't really enjoy playing on a team that isn't practicing together and working to get better.

I have known this for a few years, and I've slowly cut out what I call the learning levels of Ultimate such as summer and winter league and local coed tournaments. This weekend showed me that I need to change my mindset if I'm going to play in "for fun" tournaments anymore. It's sad because those were the tournaments where I met all the great people in the game and had the opportunity to throw the throws that you need to learn for the bigger games. It is also sad since it is a sign that once my body and mind get to the point where they don't want to compete anymore, I'll have to find a new sport and only coach Ultimate.

My lowest point of the weekend was when I realized I was getting frustrated with players who were trying out the bigger and more challenging throws in the game. I was more concerned with winning then letting people grow. How can these players learn to make the right decisions if they're not allowed to test out different situations. Overall, I had a fun weekend with fun people. I'll need to rethink my approach to playing in these types of tournaments and come in with a mindset of teaching and having fun.

PJ