Wrist rehab day 4

Threw some forehands today. It hurt.
Not bad though.
Wrist is much more mobile than on monday.
Good signs I think.

Quiet new years at home, golly gee.
I don't know about you but I have mixed feelings about the end of 2009.
Bring on 2010 though. So ready.

Wrist rehab day 1

Stitches out. Limited mobility but not much pain either. Musts: scar massage, stress balls to get monster grip skills back, and much flexing.

Where ya'll at?

Fun fact: This semester I completed 12 paintings, 63 drawings, and created five unique prints, one of them an edition of 30. Two large drawings are still in progress and I also filled 2 and 3/4 sketchbooks.

That didn't do jack for my ultimate game. Next semester I'm going to do twice as much art AND get mad jacked and sky fools.

Wrist surgery went well. I am typing this post one handed. Percoset is awesome.

Today I found my writeup of the Carmel/John Jay game, my only competitive high school game with my own school. I was ecstatic that we had only lost by eight points in a game to 21. I'm still proud of that fact: air raid was the best team in the state and we were a lunchtime and weekends pickup group with a few studs (hey Chetti! (and Brendan who played savage)). They shut out three teams at states! We could have gone to states and beaten at least three teams! However, I think I can attribute to that game the zenlike calm that I assume when we lose sometimes. "It's okay" I comfort myself. "We only lost by 6...and they're a better team".

I'm done with that mentality. I'm done losing.
Swagger is here to stay.

Today

I crushed my finger against the weight bench. That's what I get for saying loudly to the universe that I've never seen a weight room accident. No worries it is fine just bruised but the irony is not lost on this guy, nope.

Anyway second day of team lifting was good, managed to finish the workout despite initial doubts about my fatigue. Did not even drop weight for anything except shoulder press.
Whoo.

Change we can believe in?

I need a change. This ain't cuttin' it.

Yeah.

Idea: blog post now and then detailing players current positions and strengths and positions I want them to be playing by sectionals.
Lifting with the team is excellent. Glad it is the new thing.

Workin out workin out

Made it to my first real team workout of the semester, after missing all of last week's sessions due to various legitimate and not so legitimate reasons. Anyway, it was nice. Harder than the workout I did last semester although with less upper body emphasis. Pretty similar though, full body conditioning and a lot of the same exercises. Did pretty well all things considered, got to get stronger, correct some forms and get my wrist fixed. All in good time.

Sculpture

Definitely need to throw it straight for the one shot. Had the right distance today but hit a tree instead. Oops.

Lefty?

Something is up with my forehand, it is tight but I'm not getting my shoulder into it and that is making it fly weird. Gonna have to think about form all break because I won't be able to throw righty.

Workin

Hit up the gym with Trent and the Ginger. Hopefully earned some points for Huckindor.
Fitness wise, I'm not where I was last year at sectionals but I'm in better shape than last fall for sure and I think also better than I was last January when I began training for sectionals in earnest.

So anyway, what's new in your life?
Noone blogs these days.
Hodags won CCC again.
I'm supporting Florida this year.
My sleep schedule at the moment
is interesting.

fyi

In case you were wondering, throwing with proper form, even if that means actively focusing while you pivot/wind up/grunt or whatever, does in fact yield better results than just "winging it".
This came as a great suprise to me today.


In other news, it is a good idea to wear cleats and I heard that a good winning strategy is to catch the disc in the endzone over and over.

Next generation ghouls and ghosts

Went to CHS ultimate practice today, pretty sweet. While only five highschoolers were there, they have potential and if they can actually manage to bolster their numbers they will have a pretty sweet squad. Hopefully they take the initative to run a dedicated leaflet and word of mouth recruitment campaign and train hard and get involved in the school community. In any case I'm pumped that they have legit club status, that's a big step from my time there where we played every day until the moniters kicked us off the field.

Anyway, I want to help them out but I'm not sure in what capacity. I don't want to be an annoying graduate the bosses everyone around but I do want to share my experience to help them. They have some skills- Isaac and Eli can throw, Jonah and Steve and Peaches can cut and play hard d (peaches nearly got a layout d on me, I dropped the disc anyway but it was a sweet as heck bid). I really want them to have a real team. We never managed that and we sure as heck should have.

I played alright. A lot of the problems with my game that I attributed to being out of shape actually seem to be mental - when I focus, I can throw fine. I'm not in great shape but not as bad off as I thought either.

Hopefully the sorting will take place this week. That should be fun.
Go Huckindor.

If

If I was a bird I could fly
If I was a rule I would bend
If I want to be a good ultimate player I'll remember how pumped and motivated I was tonight

And understand the spaces between friends

First indoor pickup game of the year

For me, anyway. It was good to get out there.
I'm not in shape.
That sucks.
I'll fix it.

End of the fall season

Not my best work, but hey.
We had fun.
I have a career record of 0 - 3 against Vassar b, in case you were wondering.
Each time we lost by two points.
I love Marist, those guys rule.

We had fun. Gunx 2010 coming soon!
Sup baby.

My game state

Been a while since we played much. Threw with Tom yesterday. I don't really have an edge right now and I'm not top fit aggressive but my throws are not bad. I was lazy form wise at first but mostly had the kinks worked out after an hour or so.

Anyway, this semester of reckless debauchery has been fun as anything but it is time to get back to business. Sectionals training starts this week.

Never

Never tell me you want to get better unless you were at the fancy party last Saturday.

Swagger

Or: how I am becoming everything I hated about people in high school.

...

Haha

I was going to do a long write up about RPI but I find myself with nothing to say about it. We went 3 and 3. It was a decent performance, and we seldom do so well at tournaments, but I'd like to aim higher.

Anyway the gist of my thoughts at the time was that mental game and swagger count for a lot but sometimes if you are doing it right and tight you ride the fine line between "confidence" and "unspirited dick". It happens right? I made some friends at RPI and probably also some enemies.

Tell you what, playing with confidence helps.
Just do it.

Form, focus

Throwing

Knees bent, foot firmly planted, focus, breathe, push. Use the hips. Snap.

Boom.

Get some sleep.

Flow and explode from the foot up.

Make it happen.

Figured out what to write about Vassar

My throwing form was generally terrible. My forehand huck was nonexistent and my backhand huck was only huge. I lifted my pivot foot and did not utilize the hips and extended my right leg way too far and spun around too much and got hand-blocked by a b team player.

So...throwing practice!
And lifting mad weights.
Yes.

What's good

Not even sure what to say about Vassar.

Went to the gym today, had a really good lift.
Progress.

100th post

BAM

Buffalo part 1 - monks with blue balls

Six hours is a long drive but I found various ways to make it entertaining. We're staying in a pretty sweet apartment. We had a team meeting and got to bed fairly early, despite going for tacos with Bridget.

We did not manage to get to the fields in time for an inter team scrimmage. However, we were still pretty warmed up for our first game against bad eggs and scum. They were a goofy bunch, and quite skilled. They went up early and we never recovered despite finding some nice flow against their poachy zone.

Unfortunately, we thought that a 15 - 10 loss to the one seed in our pool meant that we would do even better without trying against the other teams. We were not prepared for SUNY Albany and lost in a blowout. The game was very surreal, like a dream I might have about playing ultimate. There were weird large rectangles of long grass on each side of the field. Brown was playing in a large pirate hat. Definitely a little dreamlike. Anyway, they made some savvy defensive decisions that demoralized us early and we never recovered. They took half seven nothing. Terrible. We scored three points all game.

After a long break (as our game with Scam did not last long) we got ready to play Ithaca. We lost to them at sectionals and I really wanted to win today. Apparently so did a lot of other people. We did work and everyone got dirty in a very gritty game that ended in a 15 - 13 in our favor. I could go on about this game but I'd rather take a nap. A lot of good things happened and we gritted it out.

Something to note is that I played savage. Unlike past years where
Dave and I had to play savage to make the offense work, now we are reaching a point where I would not have done that except that we were running with 12. Our team is becoming, slowly, deeper and when we actually get more than 12 at a tournament we'll prove it.

Anyway, our fourth game was against Plattsburg plus some Clarkson bros. We did not really want to play, and a few people dropped out of the rotation, leaving us with two subs or so at any given time. So we lost. Eh.

Something like 13 - 7? I dunno.

Now we're at the apartment. Around me, my teammates are talking about the kind of things that we talk about when the men's team goes places without any girls. Something about safety nets and vaginal muscle exercises. Par for the course.

Throwing tip

Planting your pivot foot hard helps so much its almost like cheating.

On teaching forehand to begginers

An argument for teaching full body throwing, in basic terms, to beginners: Would you teach backhand beginning with wrist snap isolation only? If not, why teach forehand that way?

Shoulders: they work.


The long version: at New Paltz, we teach, in general, new throwers to throw forehands keeping their elbows in and generating power primarily with the wrist. While emphasizing wrist snap is obviously incredibly important, I feel it is also important to teach, early and often, how to put other main muscle groups behind that wrist snap to generate more power. The basic elbows at the hip, snap your wrist mantra will work fine - as long as you are throwing passes under 20 (20 assuming you have a very strong wrist) yards. For passes longer than that, you need to use the rest of your body.

It is certainly possible to throw farther than 20 yards generating power primarily from the wrist snap and not utilizing full body throwing techniques. However that will not only stop a player from reaching their full potential as a thrower, but is also likely to cause excessive wrist strain. To use myself as an example, for the first four years I played ultimate I generated power primarily with my wrist for forehand throws up to sixty yards. After two years, I began to develop a chronic wrist injury due to my poor throwing form. If you jack flicks using only your wrist and your arm from the elbow down you are either going to end up hurting your wrist, your elbow or both.

One might point out that we are not teaching new players to throw long. We are teaching to throw short and dump and swing the disc whenever possible. Even so, any dedicated player is going to eventually need to make up-field throws, and will definitely WANT to throw longer. It takes time to develop wrist snap. Before the wrist is really strong, it will be hard to throw longer distances when the wrist is the primary power generator for the throw. Introducing the shoulders, the back, the core, and the hips can help players add more power to their throw even before their wrist is snappy enough.

Teaching frisbee at our level really comes down to personal technique and opinion, but I feel there is little advantage in waiting to introduce full body throwing mechanics. I see the logic in waiting say, a week or two before really laying it on thick so as not to scare away new players, but beyond that, why? If new players start practicing good technique right from the start, they should master it quicker. The quicker the better.

I have heard it said by several people that we should not micro manage the development of new players throws, but instead let them develop their own technique organically. I contend that if we are going to be ready for tournaments in the fall or even the spring, waiting at all is silly. I do not advocate micromanagement, only teaching throwing form in a complete way from the start. Forehands are going to be hard whether you are learning good technique or bad.

At the very least, the SHOULDER NEEDS TO BE INTRODUCED. That much is necessary even for short throws. Keeping your elbow stuck to your side will only get you to a very basic level of comprehension.

I'm working on a concise, precise explanation of full body throwing principles precisely to teach new players. I hope it will be easy to understand and implement and produce better results. We'll see.

I know that many people on GUNX disagree with me on teaching new players, so let your voice be heard. I want to hash this out as it is one of the most important aspects of practice for the first few weeks.

PS a huge pet peeve of mine is when we teach new players that throwing with "too much arm" causes the disc to curve. Throwing with arm can help generate power. Angling your body (wrist, arm, shoulder, whatever) causes the disc to curve. Gah.

PPS if you want to hear about throwing from someone who is actually an expert, check out
http://dopacetic.blogspot.com/2008/10/illicit-formula-of-shoulder-jerk.html
http://mmackey.blogspot.com/search/label/throwing

8 - 4 is dangerous

So we rolled up to Marist to jam on their turf field. Eventually everyone made it but it was touch and go for a while. Game one was a demonstration of our need for a more comprehensive warmup of some kind. I was not ready to play at all and I was not the only one. I may have been layout d'd by Robbie Kohler. For the first few points we played possession ultimate and were quickly down 4 - 0. Finally David decided something had to be done and cut deep for the instant jack 4 - 1. Marist scored some more to make it 7 - 1 (I think). Chich rightly decided that going down at half 8 - 1 would be horrible and torched his defender all over the field before catching a sweet put thrown by some tall guy that had the Marist sideline oooing.

Out of half Marist scored some more before the Gunx finally found some energy and got rowdy for a few points. By the time the dust had settle it was 15 - 6 in Marist's favor or something horrible like that. However, our intensity was starting peak and we were set to play Bard right away. Slip told me that Travis was predicting a blowout victory and that was all it took. All the indecision and fatigue and nerves from the last game sort of melted away.

Bard came out fighting and scored the first point. We answered back and it was shocking how easy it was. Bard scored twice more to make it 3 - 1, and held the lead until we tied it 3 - 3. At that point we were going crazy and getting d's all over the place. At 5 - 3, we were going nuts. Bard scored again, and then we took half in a blowout 8 - 4.

During the halftime huddle I paraphrased the legendary Billy O and shared with the Gunx that 8 - 4 is the most dangerous score to be up by at half. Indeed that proved to be true. We traded with Bard out of half but then they scored a few to make it close. At 9 - 8 the hard cap went on, we went up 10 - 8, they tied it at tens and things were looking dicey but we pulled out for the 11 - 10 hard cap win. It is a shame we did not get to finish the game but I am confident we could have won it to 15 as well. Our intensity was crazy, we were getting d's all over the place, and they had to respect our deep game.

Things that worked:

Doober and Stephen sub calling. They worked well together and called great lines, particularly in the Bard game. As Stephen put it, Doober sees the macrocosm of the game and the overall changes and strategies that need to be implemented, while Stephen sees the microcosm and can work very well with individual players to maximize our success. Or something like that.

Deep cuts. People were torching their defender deep and getting so open that we just had to jack it to them. David's deep throws were buttery smooth and I made a few myself...

Defensive intensity: The first half against Bard was crazy. Everyone got their hands dirty getting d's and running hard against Bard's quick cutters. We got fired up and went nuts.

Things to work on:

Consistency and complacency. We need to be able to play with energy every game including the first, and we need to stay up when we win. A few people thought it was halftime at 6 -2, to which I replied "you think you've earned half yet? Get some more D's!" In short, we have a hard time playing well consistently, and when we do we think we've earned the win before the game is over. Fuck that. I believe the remedy for both problems is practice intensity as advocated by Doober. We shall see.

The biggest highlight of the day in my mind was the people who stepped up and played far beyond what they were capable of last year. A lot of our players who were one trick ponies last year can now play on either side of the disc and have really rounded out their games. I'm looking at E Herbst, Brad (who was open literally at will all day), Chich (he can handle, true story) and Kelsey (she caught five goals against Bard and that number would be higher if I could throw better) in particular, but everyone stepped up and showed what they are made of. I m super pumped to watch everyone develop over the course of the season. In my opinion we played better against Bard than we did at sectionals last year, and it was our first scrimmage of the season! Not only that but we were without the talents of such studs as E Mullen, the Hammer, Doober and the Mackrhiener, as well as the missing in action BJC.

This season is going to be a blast.
I'm off to practice.

Draft league summary part 1: finals

As you may or may not be aware, two of the biggest summer tournaments were held this weekend: Emerald City Classic, and of course WUDI 09 draft league finals.

Got to the field early to wait out the first round bye and scope out the competition. Whoo carpooling! The sky was blue and the sun was bright. Our first round opponent turned out to be moss, in my opinion the toughest possible team we could have faced in quarters (and easily a semis team, had they not faced us...). Both teams came out strong and play was quick and brutal. I don't remember who took half but it was 8 - 7. Second half we managed to pull ahead and win the hotly contested matchup. Must have been nice for Billy to knock out Drew's team.

Our second round was against black, a team we had not seen since we trounced them soundly the first game of the summer. I did not know what to expect. They went up on us early and we had to struggle to score two points to their five. They were fired up and using the tried and true "game to three" mental method. At 6 - 4 things were getting out of hand, and then they took half 8 - 5. They scored right out of half to make it 9 - 5, and that's when things got interesting.

We got fired up like crazy and juiced them to tie it at nines. We traded to make it elevens, but the game had changed in that we were dictating the flow of play. We made it 10 -9, they answered, we made it 11 - 10, and they answered. Then the cap went on. In my opinion they had been slowrolling pulls and stoppages in the early game once they were up in hopes of a big cap win. Whether this was a concious strategy or not, they were taking it slooow and once the cap went on they were suddenly rushing everything. Hilarious. Well at that point we were too fired up to lose to such scallywags, and we won 13 - 11 in the grittiest game I can think of. After being down the whole game, gritting it out to win was amazing. Finals baby!

Finals was not suprisingly against white team, who gritted it out to win 14 - 12 against Power Blue despite my predictions to the contrary. Anyway, white scored quickly before we could answer for a 2 - 1 early lead. Eventually white had us at 7 - 4, until we decided that that sucks and scored three in a row for the sevens tie. White took half and and the pressure was on.

Second we got fired up the way we do and evened the score at elevens, then 13 - 11 in our favor. At that point, the game was ours. Or was it? White took our lead personally and decided to tie it at thirteens after some atrocious foul calls (yeah I said it) on Orange d's. White scored again for 14 - 13, and then got a point block and jacked it deep for the 15 - 13 win that left Juice players on the sidelines flabbergasted that the game was over.

Anyway, second place. Not bad. We played hard all day and had arguably the tougher road to finals. That's not an excuse just an opinion. We finish the draft league with a respectable 15 - 5 record, the best of any team despite our finals loss. We jockeyed for first place with white all summer and facing any other team in the finals would have been slightly disapointing. They came out on top, fair enough.

Part II coming soon!

Rec Finals

Rec Finals baby!

Arrived at the fields an hour before the game. By quarter after nine, Blue had a full squad with maybe even subs while most teams had barely mustered enough to throw around. We were ready.

First game against Red. They score some points, we score more, bingo bango, we win. They could not hang with us on defense, and we stopped them a lot.

Second game against Gold. We trade for the first six points, then they pull ahead to take half 8 - 6. We got fired up at halftime and resolve to run harder with the idea of making finals. They score just out of half to make it 9 - 6 on a crazy marathon point that lasted for probably close to ten minutes, and on a hot day playing zone that's saying something. After that point we brought in fresh legs, boom, score, boom break, boom break, boom boom suddenly we're up 11 to 9. Gold managed to tie it at 12 - 12, and then we scored three straight for the crazy win. Everyone played really hard and we really showcased our speed and grit.

Apparently we used it all up though, because we came out flat against Moss in the finals and eventually lost something like 15 - 5. Brutal. Second place ain't so bad though. Moss played a very low error game and we did not run hard. Simple math.

All things considered, we had a great season, with only two losses and a lot of fun had.
I learned a lot playing rec this year and am very glad I signed up. Firstly, playing with my bro is awesome. I'm very proud of him for stepping up and his game has improved a lot this summer.

I learned a lot about being able to switch from a handler mindset to a cutter mindset and back again as many times as neccesary during a game. That transition was something I often mentally had a problem with but now I feel a lot more confident in both positions. Kyle told me after finals I need to high point and box people out even more. That and jumping higher would go a long way, I'll work on it.

The trick for both positions is to never sit idle, really. Cut.

Another thing I learned from Kyle is that you can be quiet and be a good captain, you can be spirited without loud cheering. His captaining style is so different from mine and it was very interesting to watch him work. He is a great captain and worked as hard to teach everyone as much as possible and make sure everyone had fun.

Go Blue Fruit Chew!

Like it's a marriage proposal.

So today we faced purple, our foil from a few weeks back, the first team to beat us all season. The first time we played them we started out quickly down to their swift cuts and concise throws. This time however we recieved the disc and quickly scored. Three d points later it was 4 - 0 in our favor. By 7 - 0, we were feeling pretty good about things but it got real crazy when Manny caught a callahan to take half 8 - 0.

So I have a story for you about the second half. Picture if you will the following situation: Purple has scored some points to bring the game within five or something. They are throwing a tight zone with some kind of four person cup configuration. A tall reciever catches a hammer on the sideline after some shake and bake moves to lose the right wing. Since he is unmarked, he looks straight for the endzone. Lo and behold, there is indeed an open cutter there.

Let's say this guy considers himself a big thrower and has been tossing huge backhand pulls all day. To make things more interesting, let's say the reciever is his girlfriend and that she has torched her defender for a thirty yard cushion in the endzone (the deep defender somewhere off to the side with his pants around his ankles reading a newspaper). The throw goes up but with a slight downward angle and lasers straight to the ground just inches away from the reciever's valiant bid. Bazonkers! That sucks!

Let's say he's giving himself a hard time about it.
Other than that things were good, caught some goals, threw some nice short passes, launched some nice in bounds pulls. Everyone played hard.

Suffice to say we won despite being outscored 9 - 6 in the second half for a final score of 14 - 9 after cap. In the end it was the 8 - 0 in the first half that mattered, but we did get slightly complacent...

Anyway, Billy talked about keeping your knees bent on the mark and your feet about shoulder width apart (too wide and it is hard to switch directions). I think that is good advice for throwing as well. So bend those knees.

We beat white

We beat white!

Gotta keep doing work.

Just kidding

Hingham 2009, Flaming Kangaroo style.
We came. We conquered the party. We left with the spirit award.

Day 1:

First game was against some team. They were pretty good and had some fast bros and some bros who could throw deep and beat us pretty easily. Our offense took a while to click. It was basically a warmup game for us. Their captain thinks he is real cool cause he has dreadlocks. That's alright I guess.

2nd game was against SUC, which I am assuming stands for Syracuse ultimate club because a few of them were from Syracuse. That might not be right. Maybe they were from Cape Cod. Details hazy. We kept it close but they pulled away at the end to win something like 13 - 9 although that might be totally the wrong score. They were cool. We had a lot of energy and our offense clicked and some cool stuff happened.

We sang Father Abraham for both of the aforementioned teams.

Third game was against some team composed of mostly old people from Boston. We had no energy. Our offense clicked a littled but it was a halfhearted game and a few bad calls left a lot of people unhappy. We did not have much fun.

Before the fourth game I gave a speech (big suprise!) about how the fact that we were not having fun was practically criminal. Some people's eyes lit up and a few smiles were cracked and we got pumped up. We played Wey hi, one of the host teams. They were mostly old dudes from the local towns of Hingham and Wey-something. Weymoth? They were real cool and we goofed around with them a bit. They won something like 13 - 7 in a very tired game between both teams. It was a lot of fun like it should be. Can't remember if we sang Father Abraham to them or not. Everyone was tired.

Did you know that Chili's has two kinds of mashed potatoes you can get as a side order and that most dinners come with two side orders? You can get both. Double mashed baby. Amazing.

We dominated the party even more than last year. Loud songs were sung.
Games were played with Muff and anyone else brave enough to hang with us.
I slept in a folding chair for a while and eventually made it back to the tent.

Day two....

Woke up ready to go. We played the Muff Divers, our bestest friends, while the Wallabies played SUC. Muff prevailed in an entertaining game, good times were had by all and great plays made by both sides.

The Wallabies scored one point against SUC and immediately rushed the cooler for some refreshing beverages. Hilarious.

For our final game both teams had lost players to injuries and heat and thus combined to form the KangaWallabies. We came out strong with a two point huck on the first point. Two more two point hucks and a lot of strong defense later, C Luch threw a blading forehand to me for the second grade KangaWallabie connection and our first and only win of the tournament. Having ended thus on a high note, we collected our spirit award (a bottle of cheap champagne which someone sprayed everywhere), hung out with Muff some more, and departed.

One of the best parts of the weekend was when the TD presented the spirit award to the Kangaroos, Wallabies, and Muff. He said "you guys are my three favorite teams at the tournament, and I play on three others". That goes to show the kind of ruckus that we bring all day and all night.

On KangaWallaMuff.

Techniques such as the Flick

Getting low for the explosive big flick is sweet. Gotta do that snap fast, snap.

T Rex grip is great for lefty too!

Go Juice!

Big win over Gold today. 14 - 11. Brutal game. Big confidence booster that we won. My cuts were sort of bad. Billy said to cut hard in force side and then clear out deep. That's what I will work on for next game. Really fundamental cuts. IN first, then deep. I'm not a deep threat when I try to force the deep cut every play.

Anyway, Big win for Juice. Word.

I didn't go to wildwood.

Today I jumped on a trampoline. Will someone get me a 40" standing vertical for Christmas? Because it felt nice.

In related news, Beau skied everyone from Japan and US won the gold medal at the world games. The world games are cool because ultimate in a stadium is fantastic. It may not crown the definitive world champion, but heck. Ultimate on a jumbotron? Yes please.

Why is it

that I can play savage at New Paltz and get winded after two points at summer league? (I bet Doober will have a snarky yet insightful answer).

Anyway, we lost. Losing is not that fun but it builds character. We played hard. No excuses.

And we still had fun.

First half I cut hard but not into space and basically ran around a lot uneccesarily.
Second half was more of the same until I managed to get some touches on the disc and huck a forehand to Billy. We were down 12 - 10, I caught a callahan off my own pull to make it 12 - 11...well not bad.
My pulling form is pretty solid, three big ones in bounds.
Tootin my own horn. Toot toot!

But we still lost.
Wildwood?

post ideas for later

form
old man blade

Apology accepted, captain Needa

Well it seems that Magic Roll and friends, in general, don't hate me for screwing up the ow my knee bid situation. That's good.

We tooled at rec league today.

Throwing is all about generating directional force and if you bend your torso to throw any force you could have generated with your core is effectively pointed at the ground.

So keep yourself straight.

beauty in the breakdown

So they say.

Magic Roll ain't going to ow my knee and it is my fault if it is anyone's. I made some poor assumptions and bad administrative decisions. Basically unacceptable.

Anyway, I have not been to WUDI in over a week. Went to Kangaroo practice today. Team is shaping up. We did a pretty sweet basic continuation stack drill. Also we have deep threats. I love deep threats.

Kids at camp are really getting into ultimate. We had one kid who last year as a third grader had a college level forehand and he is back and better than ever. Also, a lot of his friends are getting into frisbee and are mastering the forehand. Sweet.

If we had a kids team we'd crush other camps.

When I get time

I'll write something about throwing form

and organize everything for Ow My Knee

and make shirts for Wildwood

When I have time

When I get time

I'll write something about throwing form

Later that night...

Juice definately took our loss to Purple to heart and handed out the beats to Red team this wednesday past. I still did not play with confidence or fire and had some throws that were just bad. However, I realized essentially that my problems were 1) poor throws, 2) not cutting hard enough (specifically starting a cut hard and then slowing too early (before the disc is caught or I'm clear)) and 3) lack of confidence which is something I am constantly telling other people to overcome.

Anyway I think I got over a lot of that today. My throws were pretty sharp and I caught a bunch of goals. I'm done with stat keeping for now because it's not helping. Confidence will help, and also humilty and work ethic. Billy Olli said "take over the game" and I think I did that today at least on offense. Defense has to be tighter in the future. I got scored on once during a point where I physically broke down and could not sufficiently motivate myself to get it done. Forget that though. I'm back.

Go Juice.

Purple over Juice 15 - 13

Rough game. We did not play well. Our offense was not clicking and many people were making uncharacteristic turnovers. We quickly went down 3 -0, then 6 - 3, then 8 - 7 at half. We seemed to rally in the second half but lost the last few points far too easily. For my part, I made an unacceptable number of turnovers. Between five and ten.

I did catch three or four goals, but that is not enough to make up for ten turnovers although skying for the one hammer grab while getting smacked in the face by my defender's arm was pretty sweet. On the other hand I dropped an easy catch on a blade huck that would have been a goal. Two kicks. Considering that I played as a cutter and thus had probably 15 touches on the disc the entire game, the amount I turned the disc over is absolutely unacceptable and since we lost the game no amount of goals caught can make up for that. The only thing that can is to make sure it does not happen again.

What went wrong: my throws were really bad. Not mediocre, we’re talking out and out terrible. Most of the turnovers I made were 100% my fault and I think I only made one good throw all game. Lately I've been focusing more on physical fitness than throwing, something I could get away with at New Paltz because I was handling most games and getting a lot of touches in every practice. Now that I am cutting so much this summer I need to practice throwing a LOT on my own time to get my edge back.

Also, I did not run as hard as I could and I think I was somewhat dehydrated. I need to make sure and drink a lot of water during the camp day so I am able to play hard at the end of the day.

All in all Juice just played poorly, and Purple played to win. We can do better. We will. Several bloggers on the wudi site claim that our current win streak will fizzle out into a lackluster season. We are going to make them eat their words.

Blue over Forest 15 - 9

Rec League!
First non rained out wudi game in oh I dunno two weeks maybe?
I think I'll do a write up +/- style like a 14 year old girl with a livejournal.
It'll be like old times!

+ Rec league got VC jerseys this year(!!!)
+ Four women showed up
+ Caught five goals, three assists
+ Eli got in on the action and got a practical zone defense tutorial
+ We took half 8 - 1
+ Saw Jenn and Gabe and other bros on other teams
+ Got more practice playing center of the cup
+ Two pulls that literally landed in the back of the endzone
+ Backhands were huge, one full field huck for a goal literally over the cup.

- 1 turnover, 1 drop
- got scored on once on what should have been an easy d
- E Herbst nowhere to be found
- 1 out of bounds pull
- Flicks were all going outside in no matter what I did.

Anyway, fun night.
Camp time!

On the way home from pickup...

Brendan 'yo gurl'ed a doe.

Played a lot of 3 on 3 pickup today...

Tell you what, blades are where it is at.
If you can box out your man and stick the catch.
They're like, impossible to defend.
Try it.

Two undefeated teams enter

One leaves. Juice over gold 15 - 11. Tight game. They scored twice to start. Things got a little heated due to some iffy calls and belligerence. Then we beat them down. Word.

~

It was great to put the tds on again after so long, and I played the best I have in a while. No turnovers (!!!), four goals caught, one assist. Skied some bros. Had two really nice pulls. Put the pressure on on defense.

~

On the other hand I got scored on once possibly twice (?), threw two out of bounds pulls (by just an inch! All it takes, right Doober?) and felt overly fatigued some points.

~

Anyway, Juice rocks.

We play white on Monday. That's going to be a tough matchup. Gotta be confident for it. After that there will only be one undefeated team. Who will it be?

I predict: Juice!

~

Anyway anyway, I started throwing forehand hucks with a lot more arm and shoulder. Like, bringing my

arm back a lot farther than I ever have before. Combined with the hip and shoulder jerk and a very quick release, this makes discs fly really high and far. It works. Did not get to bust it out in game, but Billy expressed interest in it.

~

Ps: Parallel parking is like playing ultimate. You gotta cut hard!

(budump ching)

Oh btw

I think...

The key to a real POWER grip, for a forehand throw, is to grip the disc tightly between your thumb on the top of the disc and whatever finger or fingers you have underneath the rim of the disc. Your thumb and fingertips should be touching, seperated only by the rim of the disc. A real tight grip will (and should (?)) warp the plastic of the disc beneath your fingers.

Also, if you are going to throw huge backhands, watch where they land. Bushes will take your discs! Be careful.

Eh

Ain't put my cleats on.
In a while.

lknsadglkjsd

WUDI cancelled two days in a row due to soggy fields.
Doober's latest blag post needs analysis. Later.
Seems to be how to play better frisbee or something.
I'm down with that.

A tall glass of Juice

to celebrate a strong victory. Juice over Brown 15 - 4. Not much to say. I played a quiet game. I honestly thought I did not touch the disc at all until Rachel reminded me that I did. One turnover. One goal caught. Got scored on twice, ouch. I did not pressure deep much which was probably a mistake but whatever. They did not score in the second half. Done. Juice played ridiculous. Manny made ill plays, Cooper and Billy caught a callahan each. Rachel caught two goals and played great d. Our team is so deep. We're going to get far because we can and will work harder than other teams.

Word.

lately

This past week has been good for ultimate, and also partying on rooftops. Excellent.

Wednesday draft league the JUICE won by default due to our opponent only mustering a four person squad (clearly not enough to compete with the 12 or 13 that we had). Thursday was my first rec game, and our team looks fiiiiine. We lost, by one, because in the second half we hucked it way to much. It was not me hucking it. Irony!

Oh and we only had one woman so we had to play 6 0n 7 all game. Yeah. We can keep up with a team and lose on universe with one less person. We're gonna do fine. I only had one turnover, on a very stupid throw, but I thought my throws in general were good. Eli had a few touches on the disc and played a turnover free game, which is awesome. He also played decent zone d despite never having had it explained to him (my bad).

Yesterday was our first real Magic Roll practice. We had a nice large turnout. We started out with a basic dump drill similar to the upline cutting drill we run at New Paltz. Then we played a game to seven which my team won pretty handily thanks to our wiley 3 -2 -2 offense. Definately easier to teach brand new players than vertical stack, for whatever reason. Maybe because the clearing out is more intuitive. Anyway, then we ran a basic vertical stack cutting drill with offense and defense which was pretty solid. Some people need to learn to cut. Our second scrimmage devolved into nonsense after about 10 points but since we had already been playing frisbee for over three hours I was fine with that.

I don't honestly know where the team is going competitively this summer. We have a handful of solid players who have played together for years. We have a handful of players who have barely played competitively and would not know a stack from a three pointer. We have a handful of random bros who can't make it to practice due to the distance but will probably pick up with us at tournaments if I invite them. How does one form a team out of that?

The answer is, creatively. I think. We need to settle on one or more offensive sets that are strong enough to beat experienced teams, and intuitive and modular enough to incorporate both new players and tournament pickups. I want to run vertical stack and 3 - 2 - 2. We'll see how it plays out but I like how the 3 - 2 - 2 is shaping up. It leaves a huge cutting lane open in the center of the field, and makes continuation deep cuts fairly easy. Also it is harder to poach d than vertical stack because if someone poaches into the center lane, the wings can cut straight in like in a horizontal stack. Hmmm.

Anyway, its looking like a good summer.
Peace.

Juice over Black 15 - 10

Go Juice!

First game stats: two turnovers, two goals caught, one assist one d.

I played as a cutter the entire game. When we went around the circle introducing ourselves we each said what position we play. I said cutter/deep. If I end up handling I want it to happen organically, but in the meantime I can work hard as a cutter and there are plenty of talented handlers on the team. I got a few touches on the disc anyway thanks to working hard. If I can run as hard as I did the first game all summer I'll be where I want to be. Goal: jumping, aggressive playmaking, running hard and working hard on d.

My other goal is zero turnover games. Had two the first game, one off a short swing that probably should have been a backhand, and the other off a forehand huck and all I'm sayin' is that Feierman saw it from the next field over and says it was the receiver's fault and who am I to argue with a regionals caliber player like that? I'm holding myself accountable anyway. Also there were two hucks to me that I did not catch although both were a little ridiculous.

Anyway, Juice is super fun as a team and everyone works hard. We are going to have a great season and I have high hopes for another trophy. Regardless I'm super pumped. We have a fun team. That's all a guy can ask for.

What I am up to

Hey ya'll out there in listening land. Summer: it works. I have heard a lot of people talking about summer workouts, doing snertz and going to the gym like REAL INTENSE ATHLETES. I support that wholeheartedly. My workout regimen has been a little more holistic, sort of like Rocky would do if he played ultimate, I think. Dragging tires up hills, hoisting hunks of iron, you know. Fun stuff.

Missed the first game of rec league. Chetti was not there either I don't think. Our team won anyway, by a decent amount. Apparently I am on a good rec league team this year. Nice. E Herbst was there. No wonder we won.

Five Ultimate: I love them.
Enough said.

Bees: They swarm. In my yard.
I love them too.
Buzz buzz

The Lincoln Loggers shirt is going to be epic. You want one. Get em while they're hot.
Speaking of which, soon I must organize Ow My Knee and get that together. Sending Ercan a check to secure our spot would help. To the bank!


Bonus paragraph: in which I psych myself up to get better at frisbee
-->Doober posted a detailed analysis of every player. I am reposting mine with my own comments added.

Ben "The Formula" Campbell
...
Weak --
Aggressiveness, both in the air and defensively. --> How I can fix it: Mental game, physical toughness. Stop being a little bitch. That's the answer.

Needs to rein in hucks to a reasonable amount. --> How I can fix it: Mental game. The constant struggle. Summer league last year helped me with my mental game and cut the amount of bad hucks I attempted in half. This summer I am going to focus even more on playing turnover free games and making "high percentage low percentage throws".

Needs to learn to jump to fully utilize height and lank. --> How I can fix it: Physical game. I am not going to let my physical capabilities dictate my playing skillset any longer. I will learn to jump. Only thing to do. No excuses. Plus I need to be able to sky Tom on a regular basis, because seriously he is a freshmen.

Segue: Speaking of big hucks, I was throwing with some bros in the shop rite parking lot (you know behind the movie theatre) late at night (earlier today?) and I watched Z Ship's forehand release for a while. You know, its real smooth and he can power it too. I am adopting his style of release and I think it is the missing piece that will bring my forehand throw together. It's so much more of a smooth motion that it will help my whole throwing motion become one whip crack as opposed to a series of jerky movements that leave people wondering what I am up to.

It is going to be big news.
Trust me.

Should have gone to nationals

No threepeat. Sad. Carleton wins their second championship. Nice job Pitt and Cornell earning the ME a strength bid. The Central region is ridiciulous, five championships to central teams in the new millenium. College ultimate: done for now. Thank goodness.

Nationals

Wisconsin vs Stanford in quarters for both mens and womens.

Crazy.

Kettle bells and summer smells

Summer is here. That's great. I feel fresh and ready to play disc again, with the long 08 - 09 college season barely a memory. On the way back from the CHS chess tournament (had to represent as a proud alumnus/nerdface) a spark of inspiration hit me. It struck and slowly burned its way into the long abandoned synapses and neurons of my poor neglected brain (college is like that you know). When I was at CHS we had, during my freshmen and sophomore years, upwards of 50 frequent pickup players, many of whom were quite good and dedicated to the game. Why did we never have a school team? One, noone every really took the initiative to do the neccesary grunt work and hounding of the administration. Two, we never had any interested faculty/alumni/random old bros with experience to organize things and teach people to play "for realz" ultimate.

Well...I'm a random alumni. I could...coach a high school team...

...

....

...

..Well, I've never really coached anything before but...I can teach goofy cheers and full field forehand bombs and what else does a young team need?

Well, strategy. But Chetti knows how to play real ultimate....we could make some kind of..coaching team. Nay, a coaching collective! Nurturing young minds and bodies as they pick up this, the game of games, and tool on unsuspecting teams at NY States! Brilliant! We even have a young budding captain in 13 year old stud player Isaac G. He's getting wudi draft league experience this year! Unbeatable!

I will plan and scheme. This is going to happen. Carmel ultimate -- on the map baby!
States 2010.

Some games were played

We're done, the post season ended. GUNX ultimate will not be playing as a full team for three long months. We finished our post season with a round robin with Marist and Bard at Bard College. Marist was playing Bard when we got there, and would go on to win 15 - 12 despite not having a lot of players and missing a few key players in particular. We took the field to play Marist, starting on o with the wind. The first point saw two huck turnovers from New Paltz and took ages before Marist finally scored. Gunx answered back with a quick score, and eventually the score at halftime sat 8 - 4 in favor of the foxes.

Second half we came out fired up and ready to ball, quickly scoring to tie the game at eights. We kept it close but Marist stayed ahead, until the score stood 12 - 12, hardcap to 13. Marist scored the final despite two brutal d's by Eleazer, who clearly did not want to lose. One of his d's was a layout on what would have been the game winning pass. All in all, good game, and our best finish against Marist all year, sorry to say. Both teams were missing key players and were short on numbers. New Paltz had less players but Marist had just played a long game against Bard.

We then prepared to play Bard, and were joined by Marist to form a large bull ring. I was the last player called and could not get out of the ring for a while, which serves as a pretty good metaphor for how I played against Bard. Lots of effort but essentially pointless. We came out listless and let the fresh Bard squad run all over us. Nothing more to say, really. I got in my own head in the worst way and could not be a leader on the field. Heck I could barely play. Inexcusable. Bridget's scouting revealed that one of Bard's strategies was to make me mentally check out so I could not fire up the team. Heck, they can take credit for it if they want but honestly after I threw my first turnover my mental game was the worst it has been all season.
Inexcusable.

Anyway, this round robin was a great way to see the improvement of Hudson Valley ultimate over the last year. All three teams have obviously worked hard all year. Next year is going to be awesome.

Want. (College Schmollege part III?)

I can't stop thinking about almost getting a layout Callahan this past weekend. It is practically haunting me. I want that d. I want that feeling.

Thinking about it has brought up several key points for consideration.

1. Why did I not get it? I did not layout far enough. My layout form is more akin to falling than flying. Buzz Lightyear might say that is all you need to do, but I don't fly or fall with style. I just sort of flop. Falling with style needs to happen. Push harder.

2. Why can't I layout for any d, Callahan or not? Today, playing goaltimate, there were several instances where the disc flew by and my brain willed my body to 'layout!' and nothing happened. Why? Laying out is not necessarily mental. I can't just will myself to do it. It has to be more subconscious, a visceral physical reaction where I don't think about landing, don't think about losing, don't even think.

3. I will get more Ds if I run harder. Duh. I will get more Ds if I run harder. I will get more Ds if I run harder. I will get more Ds if I run harder. I will get more Ds if I run harder....

Conclusion: Laying out on D, needs to happen. I want to fly. I want to make a play and get the d and inspire the team. I'll do it.

Nationals interlude

This nationals is going to be very strange. 20 teams and none of them are Florida? That ain't right. The Oregon debacle is ridiculous. Middlebury not making the show = sad. Cornell making the show = most excellent. Now that Florida is out of the picture, a central regionals rivalry final would be amazing. We might try and go.

That's all I got.

College Schmollege part II

Woke up, decided not to be responsible (ie leave early to do work). Got to the fields, flag football players everywhere. Some so and so double booked the fields. Sad.

We essentially had a first round bye, which I spent watching RPI vs SUNY genocide (a hodge podge of players from various SUNY schools, including briefly Bridget). It got ridiculous, including a power walking point, the classic upside down point (scoring passes had to be upside down push passes), a jump shot and catch point, and finally a team vs team point with three discs where scoring passes had to be the future throw. It was a fun game to watch and Steve and I heckled Chetti, who listened to us for some reason.

Played Oneonta, exciting game but short. They won. I came within maybe a foot of a layout callahan on the first point. So. Close. Eli Herbst ran hard. Chetti picked up with us. I got footblocked three times by Alphonso, but matched up better with him than in the past all things considered.

That was our only game as the lack of field space meant that only the top eight teams got to play more than one game on day two. Sad. Watched Marist almost beat Oneonta. It was pretty intense. Some random flag football bros were heckling, one in particular. Thought he was a dick but it turned out he was a chill guy who just liked heckling. He'd probably fit into ultimate culture pretty well, but in context he seemed like a dick. If people don't see the joke...well same deal as yesterday really. Ah well.

So that was it and we headed home, stopping at applebees to get apples and bees.
Part III to come?

College Schmollege

Part one?
Hey.

Blogging live from secret fortress X, the ancient lair of D Wood for twenty years to the day unless maybe he moved at some point in his life.

Anyway.

Played some frisbee today. Got to the fields early and ran zone possesions o line vs d line. Great idea, imo. We should do it every tournament. That means getting up earlier, maybe, but it is worth it.

First game vs Albany Scam, the hosts themselves. Eh. Decent game. I thought we played some of our best zone offense of the semester, and said so. Then I remembered LI Classic, but whatever it was still a decent preformance. Mainly I was just happy that we did not come out flat like we often do first game. Breaking that curse baby. Whatup.

Then we played our good buddies the Purchase sub-atomic puppies which meant I got to mark Teddy a lot. Word. Came out strong, they caught up and took the lead, we took it back and traded to take half 8 - 6. Second half we came out fired up, and rode our intense fired up d all the way to the end of the game, not letting up the pressure enough for even a second to let Purchase to score in the second half. 18 - 6. Solid.

Third game was against Ursinus, or something like that. Team from PA. Had a few really fast, really solid handlers. One guy in particular threw some huge ballin' flicks. Sadly he did not like me spiking the disc. Ah well. The problem with acting like a dick as a joke is that if people don't see the joke, you end up just being a dick which is not really that cool. Lesson learned?

Anyway, they took half 8 to 4, and extended their lead to 10 - 4 before we decided to start rolling, bringing the score closer for a 15 - 10 final. At one point we brought it within three points but that was the closest we ever got to a lead. They ran harder. Case closed.

Fourth game we moved field areas to play a lackluster game against RIT, they won, blah blah. We had no mental game. Eli and Rob wanted to win. Not everyone wanted to win. I spent the first half eating cheezits, like the inspiring leader I am. Mitch was ridiculous on d, but they decided to invent foul calls to thwart him. He took it in stride, a gentleman.

So our weekend record stands at 1 - 3. Various thoughts: Marist is looking super solid. They almost beat RPI, who probably was not trying that hard but still. Nice job. The MUFF DIVERS are at this tournament, probably drinking by now. It was nice to see them and I hope we play them tomorrow. Rob showed me how to throw scoobers, by accident. I was throwing like barbecue scoobers or something. Lesson learned. Also I jacked it a lot, maybe too much. I thought the team would hate me but apparently they liked it? The hip and shoulder jerk works. I promise. Big throws. Like backhands but you know, forehands. Learn it.

Fun things that happened: a combo of Purchase and Albany attempting to pants our entire team huddle, and some bro from Oneonta pantsing himself and running around yelling "they got me they got me!". Playing purchase, always good. Getting a free handle. Word. Fun.

MVP of the day: Eleazer. He is getting so good. He was running hard long after nearly everyone else had given up. Ellen had a good deep game. Bridget played a great game against ursinus, anchoring our o line for quite a few points. D Wood, as always, a standout. Danielle and Tricia had a great tournament debut. Honestly though everyone played really hard, other than like, the game against RIT and the first half against Ursinus. We had some really good things happening. We. Need. To. Learn. To. Play. Hard. All the time.

Yes.

Anyway. Today was fun. Peace.

Frisbee?

Today I showed my commitment to the team by skipping practice to go hiking, my work ethic by not getting any homework done, and my decision making by making a shirtless full extension layout into a juniper bush.
Leadership. Its what I do.

We might have a coach or coaches next year. Amped.
Speaking of next year, I am planning on delegating certain tasks to other memebers of the team so we get more stuff done. Cool.

How ya'll doin?

End of season blues

Crab arm blues
noone showing up to practice blues
schoolwork blues
random injuries at pickup blues
no practice the week before club tryouts blues
no conviction or motivation or fire for club tryouts blues
no money for club tournaments blues
not even wanting to play frisbee blues
whining on my blog blues


PS Ska shows are fun. That said, Casanova Frankenstien > Real Big Fish. Nothing against the fish. Casanova did work is all.
<3

Post-Bard

Beautiful weather.

First game against East Strousberg. Came out flat. We need to end this first game problem we have before people make it a mentally acceptable behavior. "Oh no problem, we lost but it was the first game of the day, no wonder". Forget that. Not much to say about this game. They outran us and hucked it a lot.

Second game vs Hamilton. First time we have seen them since Danse, and they were far less intimidating without their Celtic warrior garb and woad paint. Even so, they started strong and took half 7 - 4. Second half we got fired up, but did not hit our stride in time and lost 12 - 9 despite some fiery performances.

Third match vs Bard Renegades, who we thought was Bard's b team. As it turns out they are actually another team at Bard, but they do not practice competitively or something like that. Some sort of rivalry I would guess, between the "serious" players and they people who just want to play for fun but still have a team. Eh. In any case we were tired and they were lucky that was the case. We kept it close but were never able to take the lead, losing 13 - 10.

By that point we were down to nine players, so everyone was understandably tired. We were short staffed all day which was frustrating at times but it also allowed for a few people to really step up, including Eleazer who dropped a lot of passes but always got open. His biggest problem as I see it is confidence and when he becomes confident in his catching ability, he will make the catches he is missing. Captain Dave played savage, which added up to a total of 61 points if my mental addition is solid. For my part I subbed out for four points and was more tired than I usually am after a day of play, which makes sense because I was mostly cutting instead of handling. We had nice flow going on the handle with sweet upline passes and huge hucks alike. I'd say I had about a 50/50 huck completion rate, which is alright. Forehand form definitely getting there. Shoulder jerk is getting powerful. Stepping helps so much. Doober claims I played a better defensive game than offense, which might be a first. Regardless I gave people a hard time on the mark, and snagged a few D's.

Final analysis: Nice job Bard, well run tournament with plenty of legit amenities. We had roughly half of our roster, and we had two close games with teams that would have beaten our entire roster soundly last semester. We're getting better.

Baby steps.

Bard preview

Hype.

PS: Eleazer is going to be a complete baller. You heard it here first. Look for him to dominate everybody all over the place next year. I mean he burned me deep three times at pickup today and I am practically an olympic sprinter. That's not the point though. He is and is going to be so good.

Oh hey

Elders pickup outside today. Hooray. Amazing. It was really good to play. I did some serious work for the first bit, earning a dollar for bookends from Doober. Towards the end I slowed down due to not eating all day. However, Eleazer manned up all over the place and caught about ten points and threw a lot of good throws. It was pretty sweet to see. The freshmen on the team are really stepping up and that's the best.

Had a breakthrough with my forehand today and I feel that I am on the cusp of really huge forehands. Quickening the throwing motion helped a lot.

Motivation to go to practice: critically low. Not from me. I'm there. But the team seems to be entering that end of semester burnout phase. Ugh. So much potential that will have to be channeled into next year. Eh.

I need to get agressive and start jumping again, and get back to the gym.
And make plays,
and layout for Ds.
Hey.

Sectionals redux

Focus -- it took us two games, as a team, to focus. Not proper.
Throw forehands IO, low release, proper form, hips, shoulder jerk -- check. flicks were pretty good with the exception of the games where it was so windy that upfield throws became ridiculously bad. Had one or two massive flicks for goals.
Backhands, grip it and rip it -- Check.
Play defense with every fiber of yourself wanting regionals -- 60%
Get the team fired up -- I tried. I don't know how sucessful I was but I will do better.
Be a team player -- I think I did pretty well with this.
Be positive -- heck yes.
Play out of your fucking mind -- 70%
Win every game. Four bids. Four bids! 1 and 3
End the day happy -- mostly yes.

It was a good weekend.
A building block,
you might say.

I believe

in the Hodag three-peat.

Ah spring, when a young man's fancy....

This is my 50th post on this blog. I will have a cookie to celebrate.

So anyway, today was sectionals. The format was changed last minute from pool play to bracket play. I'm not entirely sure why but it was interesting. We needed to come out strong against SUNY Buffalo and unfortunately we did not manage that. We played very tentatively and did not display our usual aptitude for zone offense. Buffalo won by a decent amount and I am hoping they qualify for regionals.

Our second game was against Geneseo Snail. Eh. I did not play very well offensively but I shut my guy down on defense most of the time. Jacked a full field flick to BJC and got a handblock. Me me me. Right, anyway, maybe I'll refelct on this game at a later date when I remeber the details.

Since we lost our first two games we got to move fields for our third game. The second field site was right on the lake and incredibly windy. The wind forced us to really focus on fundamental zone offense which is definately a good thing. Third game was against SUNY Potsdam, sans my Magic Roll crew sadly. We had a very close game. They were up in the first half initially, but we took the lead and took half 8 - 5. Second half they caught up, although I think we got the score wrong but since noone wrote it down (my fault) we'll never know. The game got hardcapped at 12 - 11 us, and eventually we won 13 - 12 in a very tight game.

After playing incredibly hard in our third game against Perfect Storm, our sideline and many of our subs dispersed and hid in their cars to avoid the wind. We started out against Ithaca with two subs and little enough energy. They took half by a large margin, maybe 8 to 2. Eventually we found some flow and energy and made it a closer game, with a final score of 15 - 10 Ithaca. They were a cool team despite one terrible call (although I doubt the player in question would agree with my assesment of the situation).

A lot of our players really stepped up this weekend, freshmen in particular. Eli and Steve both had plenty of D's each. Our zone offense got a lot better over the weekend, as well as our zone d. We will need to work on both at practice. 2x4 got really got at stopping cup crashes, frustrating Potsdam and Ithaca's poppers all day and all night.

So sectionals, for us, is over, after one epic day. I am hoping that the weekend will motivate our players to work hard and commit the neccesary time to the team so that we can keep improving and work towards the goal of winning our section and qualifying for regionals.

This weekend is certainly food for thought. Further posts forthcoming.
Campus disc golf pays off. I threw arguably my best ever in game huck and also one of my best ever pullls.
But I still need to figure out how to hole in one the sculpture.

Anyway yeah.
Happy Easter.
Peace.

Mental Game

Focus.
Throw forehands IO, low release, proper form, hips, shoulder jerk.
Backhands, grip it and rip it.
Play defense with every fiber of yourself wanting regionals.
Get the team fired up.
Be a team player.
Be positive.
Play out of your fucking mind.
Win every game. Four bids. Four bids!
End the day happy.
SPORTS.

See you at sectionals.
<3 GUNX

Priorities

Ultimate > Everything else.

That's basically my operating procedure, and mostly it is fine because everyone knows I am a big ultimate nerd and whatnot. Sometimes however it gets a little out of hand. That is why I am not going to Rider this weekend. As it happens, none of the captains will be there. I am hoping it will be a chance for some of our freshmen players to step up and assume leadership roles on the team.

Meanwhile, I will be using this weekend to catch up on schoolwork, something I've neglected lately. Wild.

To everyone that is going to Rider, do work. Represent. Huck the bee.

LI Classic Day 2

Game 1 vs. SUNY Buffalo
We resolved to get fired up from the first point, unlike our lackluster first game of Saturday against Ramapo. We came out focused, going up 4 - 0 very quickly. We traded to make it 6 - 2, but could not take half before Buffalo had scored 4 more points. The first half was some of our best ultimate as a team, and if we could always maintain that level of focus and energy we would be amazing. Second half our offense looked a little sloppy, and despite fired up defense Buffalo got the best of us and the final score stood in their favor, 13 - 9.

Game 2 vs. Ramapo
Our second match was back on field five and we were set to face Ramapo again, or rather Ramapo X as they had so many pickup players. We came out flat and played with little energy, not helped by some foul arguments that occurred. The game did not really look like a game at all, and Ramapo X won 13 - 3. By the end of the game they were running wacky zones and acting silly, which should have been our chance to start playing intense and force them to take the game seriously. However the wind was picking up and our offense was getting frustrated. We did not want to play and it showed. As an aside, Ramapo X would go undefeated at the tournament, but not be allowed to advance past pre-quarters because of how many pickup players they had. Strange.

Game 3 vs. Hofstra B
After that I walked over to the RPI Oneonta game and it was hot. Oneonta tied it up and then scored to make it 9 - 8, game to 13. There were some close plays and Oneonta was fired up, rushing the field after every point and cheering like crazy. RPI's sideline was crowded with other teams come to watch, most of whom were cheering for them. The cap horn went off with Oneonta up 10 -9, and RPI scored to tie it and pull on universe point. The last point was intense, and in the end RPI's tight d and methodical offense got the better of Oneonta's energy. Both teams were running hard and laying out and the game was really fun to watch.

By the end of the RPI Oneonta game New Paltz's next game had started, and Rob and I had to jog back to the fields to get in on the action. We were playing Hofstra b again, and our freshmen were holding court, going up 3 - 0 very quickly with a sick grab from B Dools and other good plays. First half was a lot of trading. Can't remember who took half but it was close. If we had won we would have got to play Purchase again, which would have been awesome, but alas it was not to be. Hofstra's coaches were playing this game and their methodical handling frustrated our defense, leading their team to a 13 - 8 victory.

I was amped because I hucked a giant forehand to Benjy for our last point of the game. After that we looked fired up to win, but going against the wind just did not happen despite a ridiculous d from Benjy that stopped their first goal attempt.

That was the tournament and we got ready to head home, stopping to snag pbj bagels first. Despite going winless on day two, the GUNX played our best tournament ever and many players really stepped up this weekend to fill the wholes left by absent players Dave Doober and BJC. Mitch played out of his mind defense, and a lot of our freshmen took command on the field and looked great.

Sub calling - it works. Despite a few hitches that can be worked out before sectionals, it worked very well. I set a bad example for the team by arguing with the sub caller maybe three times. Ick.

Sectionals is in three weeks and we are going to be practicing hard. I already hit the gym this week and I'm feeling good.

Bing.

LI Classic Day 1

We arrived at the Hofstra fields just in time for the captain's meeting, truly a fortunate turn of events. Beggining our first game it turned out that Kerry mananged to get us all our games on one field for the entire day, which was pretty darn cool.
First game was against Ramapo, and we came out a little flat. D was fairly intense but our offense just did not click. There were a lot of dropped passes, which could be attributed to our lack of outdoor practices up until this point. We lost by six. Fun game. We need to work on being ready to play our first game. Starting slow does not help us. I am confident that we can beat Ramapo if we play as well as we can. No excuses.

Ramapo tried to huck it to Benjy five times in one point. Nah. That dude is like a brick house.

Our second match was against Hofstra B, and they were enthusiastic and inexperienced. Our defense was out of control and we stopped what seemed like every other throw they made. Our offense started to click but the stack was setting up too far away from the handlers and people were not clearing quite fast enough. Hofstra B set up their stacks even farther out, and often had to cut thirty yards under to catch a pass from a handler forty yards away from the back of their stack, and against an offense like that our hungry defense could not help but make plays all day.
We won by a lot. If you are interested in seeing the scores from any of our games they are already up on the UPA teams list.

After Hofstra B was the Merchant Marine Academy (at Steven's Point I think but don't quote me on that). They were, not suprisingly, very fast. If they got a d they would immediately start cutting, hard. I made an error in judgement as defensive coordinator by not setting zone at all in the first half. They had very few really solid throwers but they were very fast. One of their players said it is their first year, and after a year or so when they have all learned to throw they will be a team to watch out for.

In the meantime they were a good team for us to play, driving home the lesson that you have to go to the disc every throw. If any of our cutters slowed down even a tiny bit, they would d the throw. Second half we brought out a sick o line, scored our first point and then ran zone for the next three points, scoring them all before finally being broken to make the game 6 - 4 in their favor. Alas, that was as close as we got, and the Marines took the game back. We need to become more conistant. Running zone all game would have helped, but after our four point run we did not make much noise. But let me tell you those four points were sick nasty.

Fourth game against Adelphi, we started strong on d and did not relent. Not much to say. We beat them with our legs, mostly. They could not handle our defensive pressure that started the first point and continued all the way through. I think we played mini tanks after. Quality.

Our final match of the day was with SUNY Purchase, in the much anticipated battle of the artsy SUNY schools. We came out strong and frustrated their defense, taking half 6 to 2. They have some solid players but by the end of the day some of their studs seemed a little tired, and our players were not playing tired at all. Our offense really started to click and our vert stack looked reall tasty, probably the best it has ever been. As a team our fundamentals have come a very long way in the past two years. We obviously have a lot to improve on, but we are really starting to play like a TEAM and that is great. Purchase was a really fun team and the players on our respective squads really hit it off. Instant chemistry you might say. I'd love to play them again.

All in all it was a great day for the GUNX. Our defense was out of control and our offense is really starting to click. Unfortunately we did not get to play any teams from our section today (except possibly the Marinese?). Tomorrow we face Buffalo in pre-quarters, Stony Brook in quarters and in all likelihood Hofstra in semis, should we play like ferocious tigers and make it that far. Here's to hoping.

Spiking the disc

I know it's wrong.

But it feels so right.

Selfish

Yep that's me.

Anyway, been a while. Yep.
It would seem I have some catching up to do.

So Nocturnal Decisions eh? Well it happened and it was a wild time. My team had a solid collection of skilled players. Everybody had solid fundamentals and the only problem was that some players did not know when to sub out. It seemed that all the teams had a lot of talented players and that the good teams were not those with the superstars but rather those that just clicked. Any of the teams we faced could conceivably have won the championship.

As it happened, Cap'n Dave's team went on to win it all. He is truly a source of pride for the GUNX and I spend most of practice these days heckling him about how he is a tournament champion. My squad finished 6th, going three and five overall. Our point differential helped us out, we played close games and did not get blown out by any team. The tournament itself was very well run and we will definately be back next year. Mad props to Sussman and the WUDI crew for putting on such a fine event.

Personal highlights and lowlights: When I handled, I played the possession game and did not turn it much even later in the night when I got tired. Had a few bad hucks but also a few good ones. Heckled Chetti on camera, quality to be sure. Handblock and layout d combo. One game in the second pool I went on a seven point run where I scored six points and only let my man touch the disc once. Hucked some big hucks, spiked the disc and got yelled at for it by Taylor. Got skied by Joe Smash like twenty times and Taylor layout D’d me a fair bit as well. Blab blah blah me me me!

An observation: You can't have timed games with pulls without an outside arbiter of some sort to enforce quick pulls, or else some joker is going to slowroll the walk back to the line and kill time. ND had a good solution. Instead of make it take it, when you scored you dropped the disc and possession went to the other team. Subbing on the fly was also very cool once I figured it out. I think it is a great way to play indoor.

~~~

Indoor this past Tuesday went well. After spending half of the night digesting tacos, the GUNX went on to straight up dominate, earning several awards in recognition of our mad pickup skills. Charlie received the Nobel Prize for greatest contrast of excellent throwing form with poor decision making in an upset victory over yours truly. Having won that award for the past twenty months straight I can only stop to reflect on my recent desire to play the possession game with horror and grim resignation.

TDs are real nice. First indoor with them I did not play that well due to fatigue from ND (although still much better than the previous week. That week was bloody awful) but the TDs were nice and now they are broken in. They also work really well in the mud.

OMIGOSH SEGUE
-->
Outdoor practice has again started for the GUNX (!!!!!!!) and our first tournament of the spring season is this upcoming weekend. We will be seeing a lot of teams from our section and fine-tuning our game. We have three weeks of practice between LI Classic and sectionals and we are going to make the most of them. Yeah. The GUNX looked solid at our first outdoor practice despite weeks of not playing outdoors, and stoic at our second despite the massive amounts of mud. Looking at the team you can tell who worked hard over the winter. Some people are going to absolutely explode this spring and that will be exciting for the team.

Hey you know what sounds nice? Sleeping. Fear not gentle reader, I will blag again before the end of SPRING BREAK 09 BABY.

Orange cleats?

The title of my blog refers to a bygone era, when I was known on the field primarily as "that kid with the orange cleats". Unfortunately, my second pair of orange cleats was retired some time ago and even my red cleats are in their sunset years, you might say (although they tore the field to bits at nocturnal, see next post). Also, after watching hours of competitive ultimate it turns out orange cleats are not exactly a novelty item. Nonetheless, my title stands until I find a more suitable moniker, which probably won't happen because orange is the color of complete ballers, and healthy citrus fruit.

Anyways, I got new cleats recently, white speed TDs. One more ultimate bandwagon crossed off my list of bandwagons I have jumped. Look for me next week in a trucker hat gulping wine from a bag.

Anyways.

Today I managed one of the most ridiculous feats of procrastination of my school career, and then it turned out the weather was nice so we tossed and after I went down to the field and worked on my deep shots. Indoor has taken the edge off my wind game, but not as much as I feared. All in all, a good day and enough to get my head in gear to go to Thursday running for the first time in some weeks. My motivation is back baby.

Next post:
Nocturnal decisions.
Here's a sneak preview: It was FUCKING RIDICULOUS.

Peace ya'll.

Clean shaven

Indoor, oh yes. I played fairly mediocre. Don't even ask. Forced throws, no fire. I may or may not have thrown a pass to the other team on purpose. Not my best work. Still, it was fun and John and Brad are improving remarkably fast.

Anthony suggested doing a breakmark attack drill to force the thrower to aggressively throw against the mark, emphasizing leading with your foot. Something like thrower, marker, receiver in a line. Straight up mark. The thrower has to find a way to make a pass straight through the marker to a stationary receiver directly behind the mark. Maybe twenty yard passes. He said it worked well to teach his team to throw aggressively and break the mark.

Chalk talks about the possession game are forthcoming.
Gosh I look goofy with no facial hair.

Tuesday again?

Yes.

Played fairly well. Started sloppy, dropped some deep hucks. Threw some deep hucks. Nice. Started playing better towards the end. Chichester is getting perceptibly better all the time. It's excellent.

Sectionals roster has been finalized. Final count, eighteen players.
Solid.

Practice and the possession game

Part I

Playing ultimate for four hours is a decent representation of one day of tournament play. Today I am sore. Yesterday was practice, lifting, our first outdoor game, and then a trip to Marist with Bridget to see what those fellows are up to. Their practice format is hectic and fairly exhilarating.

Like us, they are devoting all of their limited gym time to game mechanics and just straight up ultimate. Make it take it, that sort of thing. Unlike us, they play six on six with tiny endzones. It is nearly impossible to score, and that leads to long exhausting points. Both teams tend to end up hanging around the disc, leading to clusters of people and wide open space downfield. Their players are either going to have a stilted perception of how to cut to space, or be so good at finding tiny spaces that their cuts will be precision and deadly.

My money is on the latter. Marist has improved immensely as a team. Their throws are getting sharp and they are certainly not getting any slower. Not to mention their numbers - last night they had around 30 people, enough for four teams of six with subs.

Playing with them was fun and also motivation to get in shape. Covering Dave was ridiculous. That kid is amazingly fast and can sky a player six inches taller than him with relative ease. I can get by on defensive positioning and experience, but in a straight-line sprint it's over.
Needless to say playing with those guys was a good time and I am looking forward to scrimmaging them this semester.

Part II

As for our practice, it is going well but we have a long way to go. People are improving their individual skills, but there are a lot of turnovers and that, I think is the major problem. Our younger players just do not understand the importance of possession of the disc, not having played or watched much real ultimate. Never having been one to emphasize the possession game, I have neglected to stress it's importance to the team at large and that has been a mistake. It seems I am going to have to tone down my huck happy ways and teach people how to play real ultimate.

Sigh.

At least I know what my next few chalk talks will be about. Possession.
Possession.
Possession.
Yes.

Playing outside was a nice wake up call. Being a typically windy New Paltz day, our throws, confined indoors for so long, looked a little floaty. I got to the turf later than most, having stayed at the gym to lift after practice. After I got there we played a game to three, and only one point was scored against the wind. The sooner we can start playing outside again the better. Despite the lack of competence at throwing in the wind, it is clear that the people who have been putting in the time have improved their throws. Tom was hucking the disc and even Eli was making strong throws. However, learning to play against the wind is going to be key.

We got the bid for Hofstra. The field is mostly made up of teams from our section.
Quality.

Well hey there

Practice went well today. Ran fairly organized, started on time. People played hard and intense. It was pretty refreshing, and some of our less experienced players really stepped up. Eli in particular played a brutal game, cutting and playing hard d. When their throws catch up to their enthusiasm, our younger players are going to be sick nasty.

For my part, only one push pass and it was for a goal so it's neutral I guess.
Other than that I've been falling into a "safe" handler mindset for practice: undercuts and resets, always there for the dump, throw it short and run. Threw a few big throws including a monster hammer for a score, but for the most part I'm focusing on playing a turnover free game.

This week was a rough week as far as motivation goes. No excuses. Next week will be better.

Not?

Did not go to practice today. Did not feel motivated. Not in an apathetic way, but still. It was weird. I very rarely skip practice for no reason.

Part of me is freaking out but as long as it does not become a regular thing than no worries.
Practice tomorrow anyway. I will be fresh and ready to go. All nighters are a poor choice, if you were thinking otherwise.

Working on the sectionals roster now. It is going to be a heady debate, or maybe not.

Tuesday, must be time for a post about indoor

Indoor today was nice.
I played pretty well.
Fundamentally sound at least. Very few hammers, mostly solid throwing decisions.

No push passes, thank goodness.

Worked on throwing with Chichester. D line is going to be ferocious this semester. You heard it here first. For my part I did not really stand out on d today - no layouts, not many big skys. I did however dog my man mercilessly and not stop running. That might be my role on d this semester. Not necessarily the guy that makes the big d, but one of the players that just stops their man from being effective.

Word.
Big skys and layouts are cool though. That's still the goal.

Here's a tip for you, if you need one. Don't get down on yourself. You miss a d, you get scored on, take a deep breath, take a lap, pick up a disc and throw a little. Don't hang your head. Don't sit down. Keep fighting. Keep playing.

Confidence!

Working from Courbet makes me feel like a noob

Practice today went very well. People are shaking off the rust and remembering how to play. A couple of new players showed up and learned some things. Hopefully they had fun and will stick around.

Owen threw the greatest for a goal. Eli caught a Callahan. It was sort of a highlight reel practice.

Negative highlights: I threw two push passes. WHAT??? Yes. Ahh. I am displeased.
The pace of the indoor game has affected my judgment negatively as far as throwing goes. There were a couple instances where I tried to force the throw and ended up throwing a forehand-side backhand or one of the aforementioned push passes. I need to chill a little on the handle. I did manage to get six handblocks, on Scott, Eli, Owen, Dave, Dave and Dave respectively.

But enough about me.

The team is definitely coming along. Our sectionals roster is looking strong and with a lot of work and a little rules knowledge we are going to do some serious damage. You heard it right here.

~~~

Trouble in Vegas is looking interesting to say the least. I was hoping for a blowout Hodag victory but it looks like their inexperience finally caught up to them. Hopefully it will be the wake up call they need to get their rookies in gear to play their level of defense. A three peat at nationals would be pretty damn exciting. If I had to pick the national finalists for this year I'd say CUT and Mamabird, but it's only February and what the heck do I know anyway. Go Hodags!

Details are scant but apparently Middlebury did very well, winning their pool and losing to Cornell in the game to go. I'm real happy for Middlebury, they have some players who are really cool guys and absolute ballers as well. As for Cornell it's nice to see a team from NY doing some damage nationally.

~~~

No more fucking push passes.

Today at pickup

I threw two push passes. For turnovers. Of course they turned over they were push passes. Who do I look like, Chetti P.?

Also I did not get a layout d, and did not even attempt a layout d. Not once.
Streak broken.

I did sky Justin in the endzone, and played pretty well all things considered. But seriously.
Also, the shoulder jerk totally works. I had a pretty nice full field forehand huck for a goal. Granted, the field is only 60 yards but endzone to endzone is still pretty nice.
Learn it!

Doing work

I was worried, at the beginning of the semester, that I would not be able to keep up the necessary resolve to hold to my workout regimen.

I'm not as worried now.

Honestly, I love working out. All of a sudden, it has become incredibly fun. Maybe its because I am consistently seeing progress. Whatever the reason, it is nice.

On a slightly less fun note, I misplaced the notebook I use to log my workout progress. The last place I remember seeing it is my room so maybe it will turn up in some obvious yet ironic location.

Regardless, I added five to ten pounds to most of the exercises today. I'm definitely seeing progress, both in numbers and on the field.

Do work.

Superbowl part II

Caught the second half of the Superbowl. It was pretty pretty chippy and mostly boring from an offensive perspective until the fourth quarter. The Steelers' defense is ridiculous, blah blah blah we know. Larry Fitzgerald played like a man-beast and came very close to winning the Superbowl by himself.*
That's all really, I'm going to spend the rest of the night daydreaming about having him on the Gunx.










* The author concedes he does not actually know anything about football

Superbowl Sunday

Practice went well today, for the first of the season. Slight disorganization, some people need to shake off the winter break rust. Took some time but we got some flow going in the go-to drill and then played 3 on 3. Basically mini without the negative points rule, which will be used later in the season.

Practice is going to have to be very organized this winter since both of our indoor times are only an hour each. Friday the gym closes right as practice ends and Sunday soccer club comes in right after us. To make the most of our time practice is gonna have to run like clockwork.
We'll do it.

Anyway, it was nice to run around with the team and play some disc. Some players are literally exploding with potential this season.

Lifted afterwards. It felt good.

Toe skin blues

I cannot thank Erik enough for helping me learn his workout. I feel so much more confident running than I ever have. Track workout today. All the skin peeled off one of my toes. We ran hard.

My running form is apparently not as good as I thought but it's easy enough to fix and I might even end up being faster when I do.

Our newest recruit came to conditioning. He is a real cool guy and has a solid foundation of good throws and athleticism. O line will have cutters this semester!

Owen tore his shirt in half after completing the last lap on the track.
It was intense.

What I am up to

Pickup today. Indoor pickup rocks.
Got a layout D and one last week. Also had a few close plays that were nearly layout D's. My D is improving, maybe slowly but nonetheless. Got foot blocked, got a hand block. Caught some goals, got scored on. Pretty even mix of good playing and bad playing on my part.
Workouts going well so far. I don't have a set lifting schedule yet but I am close to figuring it out. In any case I am lifting twice a week in addition to team conditioning. Looking at the people who have been lifting and playing, it is pretty clear who the dominant players are going to be in the spring.

As far as team goals go, I have not done much work in the recruiting department yet. Have to step that up.

Yeah that's all for now.

The semester begins...

Hey Five,

Thanks for getting back to us. As the captain in charge of getting uniforms for the GUNX I have spent quite a bit of time considering the merits of the various ultimate uniform makers. The announcement of your sponsorship program was too good an opportunity to pass up, and despite not receiving sponsorship for 09, the fact that FiveUltimate is willing to go to such great lengths to support the development of college ultimate has helped make my decision very easy. We'll be placing an order sometime soon. Keep up the good work and thanks for working so hard to support the college ultimate community.

GUNX Ben

....

The above is my reply to five after being told they are not able to sponsor us this year. We worked rather hard on the sponsorship application, and I honestly expected to be just a little crushed if we did not receive sponsorship. Honestly though, I don't feel crushed or defeated. It is certainly disappointing, but whatever. Life goes on. The fact that FiveUltimate is working to develop college ultimate and be involved in the community is pretty cool. Their new website is looking good and their online store is going to bring ultimate merchandising to the next level. They are a classy company and I'm very excited about getting our uniforms with them.

Anyway enough about that.

Classes are starting tomorrow here in Paltzland, and I'm pumped. No seriously. My positive frame of mind is in no small part due to playing disc every day since everyone got back. Late night diving practice is pretty sweet and playing ultimate in the snow is as great as I remember it being in high school.

Early in the semester it may be but it is already obvious that some GUNX got in some good practice over break. Stephen's backhand got huge and will be a huge asset this semester, for pulls and as a surprise huck on the flick side. Force flick marks will tremble with fear when this lefty rolls up with his big throws. Other than that, we already found one guy interested in playing. He joined in our pickup game today and displayed some pretty nice throws. Hooray transfer students. Word.

Hips + forehand = YES. My biggest problem with my flick form right now is not synchronizing body movements perfectly so that the snap is a little late and momentum is lost. That is easy enough to work out with practice and my forehand is getting pretty big. Steadily. Practice. Repetition of fundamentals. Practice. Word.

Went to the gym today. Winter break took a little oomph out of my benching and pull-up capabilities but given a week or two it should be fine. Captains meeting this week to set a practice schedule, conditioning policy, schedule a general interest meeting and returning players meeting, discuss tournaments, uniforms, disc orders and other projects, and other productive things. Got a printer for Christmas which makes me a lot more inclined to make and print flyers. We are going to advertise all around town, and by town I mean campus and maybe also town. Word.

Word.