Some of my main motivations to train hard this season:

Last spring season for David, Herbst, myself, very likely Nachriener, possibly Stiggles.

This group will never get to play together in this context again. This is our last chance to do it right.

Coalition Victory

Today I am overwhelmed with the beauty of life, the sadness, the struggle, the majesty.

The grand spectacle.

We are a part of something that is massive and amazing.

It is paramount that we do something with it, use all of our myriad abilities and faculties and gifts.

I could go on. It is wizard times.

In ultimate terms, to accomplish our goals this year we have to change the team culture to one of work ethic and mutual support. The main challenge, now that we have Brian to steer the ship, is to get everyone to buy in on an individual level.

That's the captains' job. Okay.

We can go to regionals this year. We have the tools, we need to put them together in the right order.

"you can build a perfect machine out of imperfect parts"

Shiny Times

This time of the semester is so bright and wonderful, when expectations are high, goals are set and pressure is low. A few weeks in it tends to fall apart, analogous to playing a game of monopoly. A few turns in and your money is gone, your cards are bent and your friends are probably in jail.

My mom came up with that one.

Anyway, things are off to a good start. I feel fit and sassy.

Let's go.

Coming Home

Season almost starting. Wowie zowie. I'm almost happy with my baseline fitness. Running regularly will help. The combine showed me that it will be useful to focus on sport specific motions and running situations to train - plyos, serpentine for cutting, short hard sprints, etc.

Want to get into olympic lifts as well. We get once a week in the weight room.

This semester is it - if I am going to achieve my college frisbee goals, it is now. It would be easy to take a backseat role on the team this semester to focus on my thesis. I could justify it, but I won't because I will never get this chance again.

Go time, now or never.

I've double majored in frisbee for this long, now that I actually have a schedule where I can give my artwork 100% academic attention, it ought to be easier than ever to balance my time to train and play with the team. Why the fuck not.

"I'm just trying to be a better man, damn. I'm just trying to be somebody I can talk to in the morning with a smile."

PS pretty sweet write up of CC tryouts. See if you can spot cap'n David!

http://skydmagazine.com/2012/01/pro-ultimate-lives-ct-constitution-combine/

And a sweet post tryout video of Tim Morrill demoing jump technique, among other things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI2Qa2BHqXk

Energy Beans

Connecticut Constitution tryouts lit my goddam fire! Dang I am so pumped.

Walking into the dome was a veritable who's who of NY club and Connecticut college ultimate, with a smattering of good New England players. I'd put myself around the middle of the pack, that might be self aggrandizement but I'm surely guilty of worse.

The tryouts were split into 12 small groups (6 0r 7 each), each group having a pair group that it did most of the exercises with. My group started out playing a half hour of mini (each activity had a 15 minute time slot) so we were in on the action right away.

That was followed by the 40 yard dash, vertical jump measuring and a throwing drill (throwing breakmark passes to in cuts from a vert stack, with some sprinting similar to big dick).

After a short break, new stations were created for group discussions, a 300 yard shuttle run (that hurt - not up on my cardio), a big dick variant (hella fun) and serpentine.

The tryout was tremendous motivation and fun. Met some of my personal heroes in the game, and wasn't even too awkward about it.

What helped it be a positive experience was my resolution going into the tryout to play it casual - I was not invested in the result, only the experience. That helped me to play confidently.

It also gave some insight into the thought process and plans of the people running some of the audl teams. Talking with the owners of the Connecticut and Rhode Island teams made it clear that they are professional, focused and willing to work with the established ultimate community to create a new and important stage of the game's development. I really hope they are successful. Let's go to a game, all.

Meant to finish this post last night, but the energy bean crash was too much. Heck of sore today, hiked in the woods for a while which helped a bit.

I got cut, fair enough. Was hoping to make it to the next phase so I'd get another chance to mix it up, but my stats are just not good enough. Great motivation to become a better athlete - my throws and gameplay were pretty strong but my athletic stats were not even close. I saw Hus jump 43" - holy crap.

ENERGY BEANS

Holes

Planned to start air alert yesterday, that did not work out due to the septic tank exploding and having to dig giant holes in the yard. Kind of a throwback to my early aspirations of paleontology.

Started today instead with the double up tomorrow. Boy was the first day less rough than it was last year. Not sure what my goal is for air alert, not as interested in completing it as I was last year but will definitely use it was a supplemental work out for at least the first five weeks of the season, maybe longer. We'll see how that goes.

Throwing is fun.

January Wedding

Yeah so, after killing my best ever performance on eight minute abs, I might want to do more for my obliques since they are integral for the torque of throwing big passes. This is cool : http://www.youtube.com/user/passion4profession#p/u/31/-vVOfsdwqaY

Grapefruits

Grapefruits are juicy and delicious. They are the perfect size so that you feel just a little full after eating one. As a bonus, the juice helps you find every tiny cut on your hand, in case you want to connect them to make a picture.

Slowly but surely I am getting my spring season fire. To succeed as a player and captain this semester, my LAST semester, I will have to concentrate on:

Goal setting

Mental focus

Practice (Winning) Everyday

There are no more grapefruits left in my house.

Goal writing time.