08/28/2017

a.m.
Sleep in

Throwing - Max Effort Wide Flick Breaks, w/ Shimmy

p.m.
3v3 for 1.5 hours

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Order of skills coached:

Usau teaches coaches in the CDP level 1 clinic that skills should be taught in the following order:

Catching
Throwing
Marking
Pivoting
Cutting
Downfield Defense
Force
Stack

The idea is to go from throwing (Catching & Throwing), to recognizing the power of throwing to advance the disc, eventually expanding out from 1v1 (Pivoting/Marking) to 2v2 (Cutting/Downfield D/Force) into 7v7 (Stack, etc).  I think this list is just ok.  I don't like how deterministic it is, and I think it leads to a lot of coaches teaching kids to stand still in a vert stack and do nothing.

There are other opinions about this, for example KB wrote in 2013 that it should be like this:

Marking

Downfield Defense

Cutting

Catching

Throwing

KB proposes that he wants a player to be able to contribute on d and see how they can add value.  So this is a more direct path to adding value immediately.

I think where you start should depend on who you're coaching, so I'm going to break it down into 3 scenarios.

Scenario 1: Coaching a very young team with no prior sports exposure (i.e. U10, possibly middle school)

Scenario 2: Coaching college freshmen who have athletic experience in other sports

Scenario 3: Coaching college freshmen with no prior athletic experience

Scenario 1: Coaching Middle School, no prior sports exposure

Movement

Throwing

Strategy

With kids this age, I think the most important factor in athletic success (short & long term) is to practice moving properly.  This means teaching things like how to shuffle well, how to change direction, how to sprint, and how to control your body in an effective and safe manner.  So I'd do a lot of fun & competitive games focused on that.  The next most important thing is throwing.  I'd spend a lot of time on the basic rules of thumb here, I think it's important to teach throwing to kids in a way that won't be restrictive later on in their careers - so throwing with good wrist snap and forearm position, minimal extra motion, and good feet.  If we're doing those things well, we have a good shot of being able to apply the kinds of basic strategies that would make us play a coherent game.  We could jump straight to strategy on day 1, but I think if we do that, our final product at the end of the season will be much worse and our players will be much more limited.

Scenario 2: Coaching college freshmen with athletic experience in other sports

Throwing

Strategy

Movement

The premise here is that pretty much any athlete coming to ultimate from a different sport will be way behind in terms of throwing.  This is especially true of athletes who are already moving well and maybe played a sport with a lot of carryover to ultimate movements, like soccer, basketball, football, rugby, etc.  So I need to teach them the correct grips and get them throwing asap so that they can catch up.  If these players come from a field sports background, then it should be obvious that they have a background in movement skills, so the next most important thing is teaching how to apply those skills to the game.  I think I would teach downfield defense next, then marking, then cutting (all 2v2 or 2v1), then move to 3v3.  Most important lessons from 3v3 are to understand how space works with the disc and what open/not open means.

Scenario 3: Coaching college freshman with no prior athletic experience

Throwing

Movement

Strategy

These players are just as far "behind" in terms of throwing development as scenario 2, so I want to get them throwing right away.  Again, important to teach proper grip (1st) and good rules of thumb (2nd).  This allows them to impress their friends and potential mates by throwing on the quad in their spare time (this is big).  After that, I'd get into the movement games and drills.  18 year old non-athletes have a lot of basic athletic movement work to do if they are going to learn to be effective on the field, and these patterns are important to work on.  This matters a lot for injury prevention and for not limiting these players later on in their career.  Aside: strength training is almost always a must for these players, with few exceptions.  After we're throwing and moving reasonably well, I'd move on to how to apply all that stuff into the game.  Note: there is a lot of jargon in ultimate that new players aren't going to know.  It's important to address and explain those as we go, as well as digging into why when possible.

Final note:

I don't think it makes sense to just work though your 8 topics or whatever and just be done.  You aren't going to create a flawless ultimate team by spending a week on each of USAU's recommended topics or anything.  This isn't a weight loss advertisement.

I think you should go over the basics and then revisit them to address the next layers.  Maybe you could do cycles like this:

Cycle 1:

Movement 1 - Athletic Stance and Shuffling

Throwing 1 - Grip and Wrist Position

Strategy 1 - 2v1/throwing with a mark - 1 throw

Cycle 2:

Movement 2 - The 20 yard sprint

Throwing 2 - Neutral Stance and Leg position

Strategy 2 - 2v2 1 throw

Cycle 3:

Movement 3 - Jockying/Match Hips

Throwing 3 - Throwing with a mark

Stragey 3 - 2v2 with endzones

etc