God loves ugly

This past weekend has been fairly wild. They say change is the spice of life, and if that is true then at the very least the memories will be savory. For better or for worse my social life got poetry slammed and the repercussions have barely even set in. Shit may or may not be going down.

And so it goes. Rising to challenges probably beats having a boring life anyway. For the record, things are good right now. Great to be honest. And whatever happens, I have great teammates that have my back and that is priceless.

Anyway, we played today against Marist, a surprise scrimmage and our first game of the season. They beat us pretty handily. On the subject of challenges, the biggest challenges I see facing the team in the immediate future are thus:

-moving outside and implementing team-wide strategy and concepts

-maintaining the level of motivation and commitment most of our players are displaying currently

-Focusing to work even harder

What can be said about the game today: well, Marist won but they did not win simply because they are more athletic. I don't think they are more athletic than us this year. Better at ultimate? At the moment, yes. But they can't just beat us with their legs anymore.

I should not cover Robbie, his acceleration is too good. Also his release points are so low and I am too tall to block his throws without undue effort. Next time we play them, A Pinn has to do work on that matchup. Dave did work today. His throws are looking super sweet. Tom was good on the handle but we need him as a cutter. He is super big. I got hurt laying out onto my hip that was already bruised from indoor. Also I dropped three or four passes that were inexcusable. We had a lot of bad drops.

We need to stop dropping it.

We need to throw outside.

We need to work on zone offense.

Okay.

We'll do it.

Oh also, sobriety time!

Yes.

Game Face

Game Face!

Fast count

Something I have to work on. Not doing it, that is.

Throws need to shape up, we need to throw outside.

We need to run outside.

Done.

For next week

A note: it is time to run, and lead by example.

200s, 100s, 40s, and unique to ultimate, the 70.

If that does not start happening...

...let's make it start happening.

50% efficiency

Ultimate and school: is it possible to focus hard enough on both at the same time?

Okay fine that depends what 'hard enough' means. You got me.

Smartass.

Anyway, one of the two is getting a decent amount of focus, not enough but getting there.

The other is hovering between neglected and rejected.

Guess which?

Yeah you probably guessed. Ultimate is getting most of my time and effort. I barely even have time to blag we've been practicing so much. And yet, college ain't exactly about that and the real world is looming ever closer. Grades gotta get earned, bills gotta get paid, and heck while we're at it girls are cool too.

What I'm saying is, as much as it is important and excellent that my throwing balance has been improving, balancing my life is going only marginally better than previous years. School was going well until this week when I decided to be a badoof and sleep through four classes and counting (fingers crossed for today).

On a related note: dry season.

I guess I hyped it up too much. Keeping quiet about things is perhaps a virtue that I always learn too late in the game. Anyway, I have partied twice this semester and plan to party this weekend. Wiggity what? What happened to dry season? Well, as Tricia put it, sometimes during the dry season a herd of wildebeests or a solitary giraffe happen upon a secluded watering hole and slake their thirst upon whatever meager fare their oasis can provide.

Or to put it another way: I gave myself three exceptions. All but one are used up. Last Tuesday does not count. After this weekend, no drinking. No smoking. No crystal meth. You get the idea.

Why? I need to get in shape for frisbee, and get my head straight for life. Drinking is fun but ruling at sectionals will be so much more fun, and make the crispy gin and tonics I mix up after the season that much crisper.

People have been quick to denounce my grand proclamations about dry season and gently or not so gently mock me for having drunk thus far after hyping it so much. Rightfully so. Haters keep you honest.

It is on me to show anyone with doubt on their lips that I mean business. That's all.

To paraphrase my roommate, talk is cheap. Fuck the haters.

Done.

3 days off

Is probably not as much time as it seems.

Note for next week: chest press.

Hucks outside.

Bonus: sobriety

8 days a week

is not enough to show I care.

So yeah 8 days in a row of ultimate/lifting. Kinda tired now. Either pushed too hard or just enough but in any case I am taking a day off tomorrow, possibly even two.
We'll see.
Played pickup today. We need to all throw in the wind all the time.
That's basically all.

Bacardi

Coed practice again today.

Talking points:

-Stephen did work as captain again, his analytical approach to each player with regard to their team is in depth and very useful. Hmmm...

-New players stepped up, we are going to be deep this season.

-Veterans were vocal in teaching new players and commanding the troops in game

We need to work with new players to teach them throwing and marking fundamentals, as well as calls and rules. Next week at indoor or maybe we will have some kind of a team meeting. Input?

I played pretty poorly, could not get open against Brad due to his crafty Internet research. I hit a physical wall after playing for so long. Days like that is is very important to focus on throwing fundamentals and to that end I was about 70% effective.

If the weather is nice tomorrow I will set up an outdoor game for the 7th day of practice in a row. Hope so.

That's enough of that.

I mean really.

Practice today: coed. Word. Been a while. Valentines day has claimed a large portion of both squad's members and thus we will probably do it again tomorrow. My team just did not want throw it to Hannah but other than that we did alright. A new player showed up, he's tall.

I hit a wall.

Tomorrow will be a pushing day.

That's about it really.

I went to the Croquet house tonight

What a wackity turn of events.

A lot has been written about practice today and rightfully so. For my part, I thought it was ugly, probably because I was feeling the stress of a fourth day of intense exercise in a row and it put me on edge. I focused more on the negative side of things which in general is not my style.

Regardless, Huckindor brought the hurt and snagged 20 wins, our first winning practice.

A Pinn was not there.

Coincidence?

Stiggles got big and played some of his best ultimate thus far. His disc skills are improving tremendously. Brad and I were both tired but pushed ourselves to keep running hard and consequentially we won most of our games on d.

Offense looked like shit a good portion of the time, although we won a few on offense.

Practice ups and downs:

-a lot of people were edgy and upset, a lot of people got injured (the worst part about indoor)

-A few key players were missing and various teams had problems getting their offense going.

+In general, attendance very good.

+Good defensive intensity

+Kerry came to hasbrouk

That is more than I meant to write.

Verbosity oops.

Dome part 3

Four Gunx played. With the exception of Tischler and her ridiculous soccer playing friend, we dominated by and large. Everybody got in on the action, with E Herbst chalking up some big D's (and he caught the disc!).

I felt good! Did not run super fast (tirrrred) but despite two days in a row of lower body workout I was able to play the entire time without subbing and get open on about 80% of my cuts. Long throws were iffy and backhands were lackluster again but my io breakmark flick was filthy.

Just sayin'.

Workouts are starting to really pay off. To reiterate my new favorite blog, we need to keep going.
Go Gunx!

I woke up this morning

I woke up this morning thinking about how good Hufflepuff house is at indoor, seemingly without trying. I was vaguely frustrated about them possibly being rigged, which must have been part of my dream because everyone knows Satanclaw is the rigged house (and Huckindor is the rugged house, rugged as in attractive I mean).

Anyway as I came to conciousness, Tom standing in the doorway imploring me to get up for my 8am, it dawned on me that damn, those Hufflepuff guys are my teammates.

Nice.

Today we scrimmaged outside, drawing a pretty decent number despite the wind and biting cold.
If I am correct in my mental addition, we had nine playing members of the men's team, one member of the women's team, a player who we hope will be playing with the men's team, and two sidelined men's players. It says a lot that people are willing to come play in what were not the most fun conditions by any stretch of the imagination. It was windy, very hard to throw, painful to catch - that can be discouraging but we had a pretty decent scrimmage. Cuts looked very good. Throwing was all over the place. A lot of easy catches were dropped across the board, that comes down to mental errors that we need need need to be able to fight through this season. Seriously enough of that.

My backhands were mostly terrible. Nearly every one turned OI, I am not throwing short backhands hard enough. That is why throwing indoors is dangerous! Forehands were pretty good, my forehand power is quite possibly at an all time high. Maybe.

1 shot the sculpture today.
Booyah.

I want to throw like Drew Brees and spell like R Doobs

Jumped on the Saints bandwagon completely by accident, not having followed any football this year until very recently. Stumbled upon a sports illustrated article about Drew Brees and was introduced via youtube to Reggie Bush's college highlights and ankle breaking hilarity. So if I seem like yet another fair weather fan, you can chalk it up to Brendan and going to the dentist.

Anyway.
I am very happy with where my throws are at right now. Despite the lack of actual ultimate they are feeling good at indoor and out in the wind. I feel competent and confident and fairly balanced.
That being said there is a lot to work on. So far the resolution to throw everyday is going well. Threw three times today. After the superbowl we tossed in the road a little and I realized I don't get my full body, particularly my core into my short to midrange backhands. The hucks are all about the weight transfer from pivot to non pivot foot and that probably also needs to be in my short throws. Something to focus on.

Dry season exceptions: 2
Chichester decided to challenge me to a disc race. I decided to accept. February will obviously not be an entirely dry month with all the birthdays coming up, some partying will go on, but in relative moderation. Maybe one more time. Not this weekend, three indoor practices baby.
So pumped.

Throwing today was iffy. Ups and downs. Basically fatigue. I think the problems I had with throwing come down to balance: I am getting better at staying balanced while pivoting, but sometimes I focus so much on that that I don't impart enough forward momentum on the disc. Focusing on that helped improve throws down the stretch, we threw for about two hours. Doober wondered how many other teams in our section are throwing outside at night. What keeps me up is wondering how many teams are working out harder, and that is enough to maintain focus.

Also, we need to run more and throw outside more. Stated
Dry season exceptions: 1

2nd dome game

Played mediocre. Better than last week. Did not bid on defense. Throws were alright. Building blocks. Basically every dome game will be post one to three days in a row of working out, thus I will always be fighting fatigue. Word.

Light workout today after yesterday's brutality. Working on squatting with weights, have to really focus on form with weight added. Weight on back feet, get low.

Almost organized. So close. A few more things to do, namely split up my binder into three or four binders by subject, email a LOT of frisbee people, and get moving on uniform orders.

And art.

That's all for now.

Put the pieces back together my way

Working out, like any struggle against adversity great or small, makes you focus in a very narrow way on what is immediately important: one more set, one more rep, don't throw up...
A good workout pushes you to revert to base instincts, makes you love your teammates and hate your enemies. At our workout today I pushed pretty hard and felt terrible and my love for the Gunx has seldom been greater. I hope everyone feels that way when we're together in the gym.

A quick one

Indoor practice is going really well.
If it stays this intense, or better yet if we push ourselves to continually improve it each time, it is going to keep us going as a team and get us where we need to be.