2017 Men's Club Opinions Revisited

Checking back in with my pre-season predictions:

Likely seeds per ultiworld:
https://ultiworld.com/2017/09/28/2017-national-championships-seeding-predictions-mens-division/

To be specific, my picks are on final placement, so we'll see how close I get at the end of October.

Big surprises:
- Madison Club playing terribly all season, not earning a bid, then losing to Subzero in the g2g. This team seems obviously talented enough to make nationals, and I can't help but feel like they picked the wrong thing to prioritize (audl), and sarasota was the cost as an outsider looking in.
- On the flip side, Condors earning a bid was a surprise (and being able to hold off Guerrilla to take it).  Having played them last year at SFI, I didn't feel like they had the depth of athletes to hang.  Big props to them for a great season.
- Dig being good.  I felt like Dig was a flash in the pan without Babbitt.  Totally wrong about that.  I don't believe the hype about them making semis of whatever, but definitely much better than I expected.
- Doublewide not being that good.  I think they have the pieces to be really great, but their results have consistently fallen short of what I expected.
- Florida United doing their thing.  In retrospect I should have seen this coming.

Small Surprises:
- Sockeye being better than expected.  Still would be surprised to see them in semis.
- Machine & High Five a bit better than expected.
- Patrol being mediocre.
- Goat taking care of business.
- Ironside losing some guys and looking like not a semis-level team.

Teaching Throwing - Year 6

On Tuesday we gave new players their first taste of throwing instruction.

This year I wanted to teach flick basics first.  A few reasons for this:
- For some reason a lot of new players have already thrown backhands before.
- To some new players, flicks seem interesting and challenging.
- I want to keep bad habits from forming as early as possible - specifically arm position and grip habits.

Last year when we did this, I just talked about grip and taught them a simple wrist drill.  The drill, which I call the "Sam O'Brien Drill" is to hold the disc in front of you in a vertical blade, then throw it 3-5 yards to your partner focusing on the wrist motion.  I think this drill is great for diagnosing how smooth wrist action is and for working on being clean through that range of motion. 

However, I didn't start with it this year because I think it can lead to a lot of arm position confusion and early bad habits, since the drill is done with a "broken" wrist and without an extended upper arm.

This year my two cues for the flick were:
1. Arm Position
- palm up
- forearm parallel to the ground
- extended upper arm
- I had everyone put their arm in this position without a disc and feel what it felt like
Basically this:

2. Proper Grip
- pointer finger and middle finger position
- thumb position
- ring finger and pinkie
As discussed here:
http://www.ultimaterob.com/2013/11/14/forehand-mechanics-that-arent-taught/

Then we had everyone do partner throwing from about 10 yards while I went around and provided specific feedback for grips and deliveries.

Some of the individual cues I found myself giving a lot were:
- Lead with the elbow, finish with the wrist
- Pointer finger and middle finger position was often not secure enough or in the wrong spot
- Some who had thrown before were throwing with "broken wrists"
- Torso position and lean came up a bit
- Keeping the arm and elbow in an externally rotated position through the release

Other thoughts I have had about this:
- Some players need to develop the range of motion to have their elbow and wrist externally rotated through release - for these players they just need reps with basic cues to keep them from overcompensating in other ways (i.e. at the wrist or shoulder)
- Many players struggle with keeping a strong grip but also being able to snap the wrist.  For these players, a tight grip = rigid wrist.
- Some players just "get it" immediately.  Sometimes they have played badminton or tennis or baseball, other times I don't have a specific reason for how it happens.
- I'd rather have a player starting from scratch than one who has a release/draw with major flaws who can consistently hit a 20 yarder

09/11/2017

a.m.
Sleep in

Throwing:
Disc Golf

p.m.
PT exercises

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#champewasin

09/10/2017

Day 2 of sectionals, 2 games to 11, 2 games to 15

09/09/2017

Day 1 of sectionals, 4 games to 11

09/08/2017

a.m.
Sleep in

Throwing:
Throwing Theory

p.m.
PT Exercises
Driving to sectionals

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On offenses:
Hypothesis:
1. Offense is about who runs where and why.  It's about shapes (spaces) and objectives.
2. Setup is a lot less important than we think.  Initial starting position should just facilitate what you're trying to do.  Vertical Stack, Horizontal Stack, Side Stack, Split Stack, etc. are all just differentiated by where guys start from.  I think the idea that there is only one correct way to play any of these offenses is not accurate.

09/07/2017

a.m.
Rest and PT

Throwing:
OI/IO Wrist Mechanics

p.m.
PT exercises

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On throwing hard:
- How firm is the grip?
- How coordinated is the torso & arm?
- How stable are the legs?
- Are you driving through your hips?
- How strong are you?

09/06/2017

a.m.
Rest and PT

Throwing:
Throwing Theory

p.m.
PT exercises

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Check out this post by Champe on baiting D:
http://champeman.blogspot.com/2017/09/styles-of-defense-baiting.html

09/05/2017

a.m.
PT exercises

p.m.
Evanston 3v3

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My boy Sahaj started a travel diary:
https://thevoyhaj.wordpress.com/

09/04/2017

Labor Day

- Rest Day -

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I watched the Pro Champs Women's and Men's livestreams:

Brute/Riot Notes:
- Lukewarm take: I think Riot is the favorite this year, I think they finally win it all.  Reasoning: Paige Soper is playing great, MB has a lot of injuries that hurts their depth, Brute is younger/3peats are hard/their offense looks worse than last year, Fury has a little lower ceiling this year.
- Counterpoint: Lien made some errors down the stretch, Riot can't count on that in Sarasota.
- Riot handler defense was very good.  Created a lot of pressure and really difficult resets for Sinicrope and Tajima.  I especially felt like Amber Sinicrope got exposed, really struggled to get open in the reset, which led to a ton of jams for Brute Squad.  "Stall 8 jump ball to Becky" might work once a game, but it obviously isn't a reliable strategy and doesn't bode well.  I'd be drilling O resets and rhythm pretty much exclusively until Sarasota if I was them.

Revolver/Machine Notes:
- I felt like Revolver didn't really want to play a sloppy game of ultimate at first.  It seemed like machine was more willing to play a grittier & messier game, and this directly led to a lot of scores for machine.  Specifically, Revolver seems to be really uncomfortable on longer points or reacting to things they don't expect.  Example: Von layout d's Beau, and a bunch of the Revolver guys are just standing there dumbstruck(?!), so Champe just picks it up and throws it to KK.  Boom, break.  If I was coaching revolver I'd be losing my mind, watching that.
- Grant Lindsley & Ashlin Joye just murdered the junky sets from machine in the 2nd half.  They moved the disc more quickly and repeatedly hit the middle guy for big gains.  They were able to do this by spreading out their offensive shape.  When they got too constricted (as they did in the 1st half), Von was able to hit layout Ds on the shot to the stationary up the gut.  He did this twice and it resulted in 2 breaks for machine.
- I felt like the game came down to depth of athletes.  Machine took a lot of good shots to open people, but the Revolver defenders were able to make up ground and make a play.  This happened a couple times with Pardo vs Nick Stuart/Antoine Davis, and once with Fergus vs Eli Friedman.  I think against lesser defenders those shots would have worked, but the windows were smaller and as a result blocks were created.
- I felt like Machine did a good job punishing poaching and sagging.  They had a good willingness to hit poached guys, like Yiding or Shanahan, both guys you want to have the disc.  Aside, I think Yiding played great.

09/03/2017

Rage Practice - Some drills then 7v7, light conditioning

I like the way Hoff talks about frisbee.

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Well, Machine sure showed up to play this weekend!  Big wins over Revolver, Sockeye, Bravo.  We'll have to wait and see the tape, but per ultiworld the recipe was junky defenses (to disrupt pull plays) and striking deep early/often.  This feels like an oversimplification, if it was that easy to disrupt the best teams in the country, why wouldn't everyone be doing this?  (aside, I think most teams do try to do this in one way or another.)  So, I want to watch the videos and see for myself.

One thing of note is that Machine pretty regularly not only jumped out to early leads, but they also closed out games.  This is a good sign for them and I'm glad they were able to put together strong games.

Tangential Aside:
It's almost impossible to tell the difference between a good team who is playing poorly and a less good team who is playing well.  For example, going into this weekend Machine was ranked #16 and Temper was ranked #17, each based on most of the seasons-worth of results.  Going into the weekend there's not a lot of reason to think that either team is much better than the other.  After this weekend's results, it feels easy to say "oh, well machine was a good team who was figuring out stuff/growing", and "temper was an ok team that played well, but then got exposed against real competition".  Point being, easy to assign narratives after the fact, but very hard to determine quality beforehand, even with a season worth of results to look at.

09/02/2017

Rest Day

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Today I got the ND football gameday experience.  It's safe to say ND tailgates way harder than NU (obviously?).

09/01/2017

a.m.
Sleep in

Throwing - Throwing theory

p.m.
Gym (Hang Cleans, RFE, etc)

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Heading into the USAU Pro Champs weekend:
What's the GL bid picture going to look like?
- Can Machine keep their bid?
- Does Rival shift up or down due to secondary effects?
- Who's the top seed going into nationals in the women's division?
- I wish the UPA was at this tournament so they could play their way in.  Either way, the UPAARP is going to worlds so I reckon it doesn't matter given the large amount of overlap.

08/31/2017

a.m.
Sleep in

Throwing - Throwing Theory

p.m.
PT exercises

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Thursday, aka the best day to clip your fingernails pre-tournament.

08/30/2017

a.m.
Sleep In

Throwing - Throwing Theory

p.m. 1:
Gym (Squat, Deadlift, etc)

p.m. 2:
BFP practice

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On respecting your opponent's strengths (when you are playing defense on them):
- It's important to not over-respect them to the point of not actually playing defense
- Do things that make them uncomfortable
- Understand what they want and make that difficult
- Understand what winning the matchup means and play with intent to do so and conviction that you can.  Great players make mistakes all the time, find those openings and take them.

08/29/2017

a.m.
Jump Rope and Core

Throwing - Wrist mechanics

p.m.
3v3

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Lots of scoobers and hammers today in calm conditions.

On throwing a touch away shot:
Most important: Release it quickly/throw it slowly and smoothly.
2nd most important: Throw it with the right shape.

Your objective is to make it sit for the receiver.  Push yourself by throwing into space earlier than you think.