You Can't Teach Catching

“You can’t really improve at catching, catching ability is pretty much fixed.”

-Career A-teamer

When people say stuff like this it infuriates me.  This statement is terrible.  Not only is it totally wrong, but it goes against the entire idea of a “growth mindset”.  This statement is like saying “Hey rookie, you suck at catching and will always suck at catching.  Have a nice life.”

I played 10+ years of youth soccer.  My hand-eye coordination was poor at best when I started playing ultimate.  If this statement were true, I’d still have bricks-for-hands and be dropping passes all over the place.

Catching is massively improvable.

At this stage, our career A-teamer will probably look at me dubiously as if to say “bullshit”.  Dear Career A-teamer, even you can probably stand to work on your catches.

How can I improve at catching?  Like anything, if I want to improve I have to practice catching.  Catching discs at different speeds, with different angles, with both hands, each hand, etc.  The possibilities for catching drills are essentially endless.  I think the key is to find out what you’re uncomfortable with and practice it until you are comfortable.

Here are a few of my favorite catching drills:

The Illinois Drill:

The key for this drill is to find a partner who can just launch it at you.  Someone like Kennedy or Walden would be a good candidate.  You will stand about 15 yards away from your partner, and you will throw it at each other as hard as possible.  Your goal is to try and nail your buddy in the chest so hard that it would leave a disc-shaped bruise if he didn’t catch it.  Your goal for catching is to drop zero of these passes.  If it helps, you can imagine that this pass is the regional game-winning assist, and you must catch it at any cost.

Catch Reverts:

This is a favorite catching warm-up drill of mine.  It can actually be done with any throwing drill or warmup.  This is taken from “The Wiggins Zen Throwing Routine”, which can be found here: http://skydmagazine.com/2011/11/wiggins-zen-throwing-routine/

The purpose of this drill is to be deliberate in how your eyes track the disc, essentially to remind yourself to keep your eyes on discs you are catching.  Here is how it works: watch each pass into your hands and keep your eyes on the disc for about 3 seconds after the disc is in your hands.  Be deliberate.  You shouldn’t need to do this for more than 5-10 total catches to get the intended effect.

Catch Commands:

This drill is good for adding an element of uncertainty to your catching practice.  You and your partner will stand at a comfortable distance apart (~20 yards) and you will throw back and forth.  After you throw the disc, you’ll say one of the following: “Right”, “Left”, “Pancake”, “Claw”, and your partner will have to catch the disc in that way.  Right and Left are one hand catches only, pancake can be either hand on top, and claw should be you attacking the disc in front.

I think that many people improve at catching without working on it consciously.  I also think that there’s a lot of added value to be had from focusing specifically on catching.  The nice thing about catching is you can work on it simply by being deliberate as you go through your daily throwing routine.