SotD: The Stakes

“If there’s no future in it, at least it’s a present worth remembering.”

Dude here,

Welcome to the Spirit of the Dude (SotD). I will talk about things that I think about concerning ultimate which generally revolve around the spirit and community of ultimate. So even though I don’t know where this blog will take me, my first few posts will be about spirit related subjects. Here comes the first post: The Stakes.

For those of you who don’t know me, currently I’m doing an MA in Digital Documentary. Even though my passion is feature films, I chose this course because Sussex University had one of the best ultimate teams in the country and they didn’t have a hands on film programme. I am serious. So even before coming to the UK for the programme, I wanted to make my dissertation documentary on ultimate. What better thing to do other than bringing them together right?

So this week, I went to talk with my instructor about how to approach the project, which part of ultimate can it be about, what to focus on and what to leave out. With my instructor I was struggling. It was not just about ultimate but also how to make it an interesting subject for a documentary. Before meeting her, I thought I had some good ideas but just as I started explaining to her what ultimate was and what made it special, I realised that nothing was getting through and I wasn’t talking about anything interesting even to myself.

With a quick twist to wake her up, I started going into more important things like ‘Hawks winning nationals, Brighton’s success in Europe and the pressures these created and suddenly she asked such a simple question that just caught me flat footed: “So what’s at stake?”

This is a question I sometimes ask myself. Why are we pushing ourselves so hard (OK, ok, why are people pushing themselves so hard since I generally sit in front of a PC)? What are we getting out of this? Why are we putting so much effort into ultimate when the most you can earn is a title which only matters in the ultimate community itself?

Most people playing ultimate right now will never earn a living playing ultimate (organizing, teaching/coaching or other means might bring some money yes, but making money by playing is not possible yet, which is another topic I’m planning to talk about in the future), so future career is not an answer. Prestige seems like a good reason, but when you come to think of it.. Sometimes I talk to a muggle (non-ultimate person, yeap I’m smart), and I would say “Mohawks were national champions last year!” or “BU won Mixed Euro’s in ’09” and the answer I get is generally something close to “Oh, that’s nice.” or “good for you guys.”. So prestige only works among players, which yes, can be a factor, but by itself is it enough of a reason? Since I’m not a great player and won’t have great successes in my career it’s not for me and the majority of people who play.

I believe the stakes comes down to why a person plays ultimate. I play for two reasons:

1- I love watching a disc fly, it was love at first flight (cheesiness alert), that’s why I love long plays (and as much skying as possible please, one good reason to play with players like Ash and Callum). Watching a disc fly, reading the flight and catching it is just an amazing feeling that can only be understood through playing.

2- The community. Not just the local community one plays in but the community of ultimate in general. The spirit we have and the crazy that we share. I love the fact that it doesn’t matter which country I go to right now, if there’s an ultimate scene there, I have a bed (or at least floor) to sleep for free and someone to share a pint with and then chuck around the next day.

But there are no stakes here still right? Here comes the stake and the main reason I play for: I love being part of a team. Wanting the same things with a bunch of people and fighting for it, together. At times screaming at each other, at times wanting to punch each other in the face but always fighting together. The only stake for me while playing ultimate is letting my team down, if I’m playing bad, I care because I bring my team down with my bad play. So when push comes to shove, all that matters, all that is at stake, for me, is my team.  Because in the end, twenty thirty years from now, it’s the times I’ve spent with these people that I will remember, the good ones and the bad ones. All that matters is the team we form.

What’s at stake is the people in your team. It’s why we play, or at least why I play.

I’m aware that this is not a clear answer since we haven’t established the what and why of the team. The crazy that we share? Maybe we can talk about that in another post.

I wish I could’ve come up with this answer with my instructor at that point, but what can one do, these things come out when I sit down to write.

What do you guys play for, what is at stake for you? Are we all crazy?

See you in another SotD post guys.

Peace. Dude out.

A big thank you to Shimmy for the editorial work.

Learning to cut… at the end of my third…

Welcome, to the blog of me, Therapist. I won’t blog as regularly as the regulars here but when I get some sort of motivation or inspiration I will put my thoughts down, check that they’re OK with somebody who is better at writing than me and then send them your way. They will range from anything I fancy writing about in Ultimate frisbee, I hope you like my thoughts.

Therapist

I have never struggled to get free of people and get the disc in my hand at university level. I have scored goals by reacting quickly to a handler getting the disc in a good position or merely outpacing my mark and letting a handler pop a disc into just the right place for me, but never before playing for the GB Beach Open team did I learn to get free of people for fun.

At university level I have played my fair bit of offense and been an easy(ish) reset at times by running back on a cycle play or running break side for a swing continuation. But I always let others use the open lane to get free and work it there – I considered myself a reset if the handler got stuck. The point here is that I never really “cut” and by that I mean going through the mechanics and motions of running one way, changing direction sharply and going back the other to receive a disc easily. Playing for GB Beach, however, I found myself on the O line with nowhere to hide and was left frustrated because of my inability to shake my man, or not being fast enough to solely rely on flat line speed and not longer being “just” a reset when required.

As a quick aside, for Brighton 1 I have tended to stand pretty still on offense to save my energy for defense where I felt more useful. This stems from a lack of confidence on disc to the extent that I didn’t want the disc unless physically scoring. So my lack of cutting at Tour, whilst not very helpful, has not been too detrimental (I hope).

We had a variety of set plays that we were playing through. I knew the plays and I knew where I was supposed to receive the disc, or at least be available to receive a disc should the rest of the play be blocked elsewhere. However, all too often I made a run (notice, NOT cut) into the space I was meant to be and wouldn’t be free enough. More often than not the rest of the play had worked OK so it wasn’t too much of an issue but a good amount of the time I was not helping out offense out at all and so it made it trickier.

There was one play in particular where I was a wide up-field player in horizontal stack and I just had to come under to clear space and receive a swing pass if need be – I just ran under with my man on my shoulder. At uni level this was often OK, at Burla/Paga this had done me fine, heck, at trials for the GB Beach team I had got free plenty but suddenly, with somebody experienced on my shoulder I was not a free man, and that annoyed me.

I think I got told three times before I finally made a “cut” for that particular play. People weren’t annoyed with me when they told me (it was three separate people so perhaps I got lucky in that sense) but wanted me to get free in the right place at the right time. My problem was not just that I was not free enough should the handler want to throw me the disc but actually, since I had not tried to make my D go long at all first but merely run towards the space I need to occupy I was there too early and so by the time the handler looked at me I probably was not even in the ideal space and so them giving the disc up to me was actually now a bad option.

On the third such being told I actually took on board the advice and lo and behold, it worked! My man bit on my deep fake (just 3 or 4 hard steps and he was a gonna – too scared of me I reckon) and I streaked free under just in time for the handler to hit me with a 10 or 15 metre gain. I had time to compose myself before my mark got to me and reset the disc to a moving handler who punted it long to a free guy deep (who had probably sent his man the wrong way under looking for a swing) – the play worked and finally I was a part of it!

The rest of the week was a dream – I was scared of very few people and felt I could get free of them for fun. I took this to Burla (more relaxed, I fully appreciate, and the old style me could still have got free most of the time) and felt I played really well and was finally able to dominate O points like I had always wanted to, and all because I had learnt to cut properly.

The point, though, to this here blog, is that I learned this fundamental part of ultimate at the end of my third year of playing, so much like Shim is saying in his blog series (that he learns new things every week, even though he has been playing for 6 or 7 decades) I learned something huge whilst being, in university circles, an “experienced” player. I had been a captain for two of three years playing without ever really learning how to cut effectively, which in hindsight is pretty terrible.

I always taught people to cut properly (hence Ashley always having cut well – that was me, not Felix, or anyone else, maybe) and shown them in demonstrations the mechanics of cutting but when it came down to the crunch I didn’t do it and relied on reaction time and speed to get free. Now, however, I feel like a good cutter and back myself to get free of most people most of the time – and end up in a good position!

From this blog post then, you should take that you can always learn something and quite often you can still improve on the fundamentals of your game even if you’ve been playing ages. Don’t ever think that you’ve got the basics down to such an extent that you don’t need to work on them. Challenge yourself – get somebody with a huge force to mark you and make them bite on your fakes, get somebody who you have never gotten free of before to mark you and make them fall over trying to change direction when you do or watch me make anybody look like a chump. You can improve on all aspects of your game, so why not try?

Regards, and best of luck improving your basics!
Therapist

Mohawk Today – Natalie Frances

We can exclusively reveal that we now have a Mohawk that can jump higher than Ash.

Natalie Frances is a committee member of the trampolining society. This means that we can legitimately complain to her next time we are delayed at Sunday training. All blame must be attatched to Natalie and it is definately all her fault personally. That said it is a credit to the Mohawks scouting network that we were able to poach Natalie away at the peak (no pun intended) of her success. We believe that university sport is the perfect trialing ground for ultimate, we are the most successful team after all.

Natalie’s Mohawk boyfriend Wham introduced her to the sport last year. Natalie has certainly made an immediate impact on the Mohawks being, among other things the only fresher Squaw to go to Open Indoor Regionals. Rapidly becoming a familiar face at tournaments and socials, it is a shame that she found ultimate late in her student life. She is surely destined to a future in ultimate at club level for years to come. However we are forced to reveal that this is yet another example of a Mohawk to have never done a three pint challenge. Although Natalie’s integral status as ‘designated driver’ at tournaments perhaps excuses this oversight.

One of those sensible people that have a plan for life we understand Natalie is training to be a Maths teacher. Working at a school in Brighton she will soon qualify and be let loose on the white board all by herself. Unconfirmed reports have suggested that Natalie does actually have eyes in the back of her head, those kids better watch out!

However this career may have to be put on hold after rumours that Chelsea FC have been sniffing around. With Chelsea worried about finishing outside of the top four it is rumoured that a large transfer fee may just prise Natalie out of the Mohawks only months after she joined. Roman Abramovich is on record as saying ‘I will pay anything, she can’t be worse than Torres’.