Saturday, May 30, 2009

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.

Monday, May 25, 2009

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.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Nationals

Wisconsin vs Stanford in quarters for both mens and womens.

Crazy.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

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.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

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.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

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.

Monday, May 4, 2009

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.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

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?

Saturday, May 2, 2009

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.