Month: <span>September 2012</span>

Blog Posts

How to Get Good – Tips from Your Coaches

Hey Hawks,

Here are some tips me and Felix (those coach-y people scuttling around training on Wednesday) have put together to help everyone in the club, but especially our newest members, improve as quickly as possible. They seem pretty simple, but they’ll definitely help you develop your game.

1. Buy a disc, and use it. Don’t treat it like a trophy, but use it like a tool – it will get its share of wear and tear by landing on concrete, hitting walls and such, but it’ll all be worth it as your throwing and catching will improve constantly. Carry your disc around with you at all times, throw it at every opportunity.

2. Practice good technique. When you’re at training and a coach tells you how you need to change your technique or what you need to work on, focus on getting that thing better before the next session! You’ll then get something else to work on, and the improvement will keep rolling, rather than being stuck on that one thing. When catching or throwing, spend half the time striving for perfection (two handed clap catching in the centre of the disc, wide low pivots), and half the time trying new stuff, pushing your limits etc – but don’t linger inbetween these two extremes just throwing and catching in your comfort zone.

3. Play as much Ultimate as possible. Get on the pitch whenever you can, go to every training you’re invited and able to go to, get involved when you’re on the field, get the disc as much as you can.

4. Ask questions. Make use of the coaches by asking us as many questions as you want – we usually have good advice as we’ve been through the learning process ourselves, and may have helped dozens of people with the same question you’re asking. Don’t worry about the question sounding stupid – we all have to start somewhere and it’s always much better to ask than to keep it to yourself. It also helps to build up a rapport with the coach so any future advice we have for you can be communicated very quickly, and so that we know you are eager to learn!

5. Listen to the coaches. This seems obvious, but when a coach is explaining stuff to a group, pay attention and listen closely. There’s a lot of information being given out in a short amount of time, and any small part of it may change your game significantly. If the coach approaches you individually, listen to what they have to say, take it in, and ask a question if you don’t understand. Don’t feel you need to make an excuse or defend yourself!

6. Coach yourself. Overcompensation is the key to improving your own throwing and catching by yourself. If you drop a disc using your off-hand, then catch the next ten discs using only that hand. If your throws are ending up at a sharp angle, get them ending up at the opposite sharp angle. If your release is generally too high, release from ankle-height for a few minutes. By drastically overcompensating, you’ll be able to find the middle ground much easier and faster than making small adjustments.

 

Socials

Social Wed 26th Sept

This week the social is Oceana. The plan is to meet at 8 at Falmer bar* then to head to Pav Tav (get there for around 9:30) before moving on to Oceana around 11ish. Feel free to come to all or part of it.

*people will be in falmer bar from the end of training until everyone leaves after 8.  So stay in falmer bar, quickly shower at some point, then head back again.

Mohawk Emails

Help the club. Pay in advance.

Hi all,

So this year we are trying to get as many people as possible to pay an advance sum of money to the club for your tournaments etc. The suggestion is you pay £100 to the bank details below and this is your credit. When you play a tournament, the fee will come out of this credit. All you need to do is top up when you run out. A list of who is in credit / debt will be published periodically so you can check it, or you can just ask Ash personally.

This will save us and the other captains from having no money until we get paid back for all the tournaments we have to pay for and it will save you from constantly being nagged. All the time. By all means pay more if you like and then you won’t have to worry about money until spring or even all year!

Once you have paid, email Ash ( [email protected] ) with your name, reference and amount paid. Just make sure you put [YOUR NAME] and TOURNAMENT MONEY in the reference.

The account number is 16932060 and sort code is 30-96-86.

 

Thanks,

Lawrence.

Mohawk News

SICKO 2012

Mohawks, Panthers and Brighton Ultimate are again hosting the annual SICKO tournament.  The Sussex Indoor Challenge Knock-Out tournament.  This year mind you it’s a bit smaller.  It’s being hosted at Sussex and Brighton Uni’s though, which is handy since that’s where the party is!  Saturday will see the women over at Brighton Uni Falmer Campus in their new sports hall.  Saturday morning the beginners are at Sussex’s sports hall until the afternoon slot, which is when the experienced division sets off.

After the day’s play everyone will head to their host, have something to eat and get dressed up for the party (Hospital theme).  The party is back on campus at the same place as last year.  Amazing party last year even despite the efforts of the fire alarm!  The bar staff have promised us they’ll change it to infra-red detection rather than smoke.  Smoke of course coming from the smoke machines the bar staff provided.

Sunday everyone is at Sussex’s sports centre for the finals.

(captain’s pack and schedule can be found here)

Featured

Important information for the new season.

Hi all!

So here is a basic calendar of the first couple of weeks from now so that everyone knows what is going on.

Monday 17th: Monday Funday. Campus. 11am – 4pm.

Tuesday 18th: Freshers Fair. Campus. 10.30am – 4pm.

Wednesday 19th: Unofficial training on Stanmer Park. 1.30pm – 3pm. Unofficial fresher session 3pm -5pm.

Sunday 23rd: Pre-freshers training to remind everyone how to coach freshers. Russells Clump. 1pm – 2pm. Fresher Taster 2pm – 4pm.

Wednesday 26th: First training starts proper. 1pm – 3pm Experienced. 3pm – 5pm Everyone!

 

We will be at Monday Funday with a target range of sorts where freshers can try to throw a disc through a hole at different distances. Feel free to come along to HELP. This is for freshers, it isn’t an opportunity for all of us to try it out. We will do this one practice sometime don’t worry 🙂 If it does get very busy then just be sensible, maybe come back later, we don’t need 20 people manning the stall at once!

Freshers Fair on Tuesday. We have a stand in library square next to the grass in front of Arts A. This is our big recruitment drive! Come along and get people signed up. The more people we get interested in the sport the better! We will have a laptop showing some videos of the sport, some people’s GB kit, some medals, all sorts so we should look like an awesome club! Put your name down on the gdoc so we have an idea of who will be there when. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqE6JD3kgqE3dHRfRTRDNWpyeURtbG1YQlFIVHBsZ2c#gid=0

(If you do feel the urge to throw a disc around, when you should be recruiting people, please go to the grass behind falmer bar or somewhere away from crowds. Last year there was a lot of it going on around the stall and it really doesn’t help. Not to mention if a disc goes wayward and hits someone we look like fools and nobody will want to join us!)

 

Its important that you turn up to the sessions before fresher ones so that we make a good impression as a popular club when they turn up. Felix will also be running through the basics on how to teach freshers again. Remember we have  a duty to pass on what we learn to new players, so grab a fresher and help out anyone you can!

 

Looking forward to seeing you all again and exited for a great season ahead of us!

See you all next week 🙂

Lawrence

Open Captain 2012-13