Thursday, October 22, 2009

Rookie Practices

We've been running practices 4 nights a week, 2 for the rookies and 2 for the A team tryouts. It's a lot of practice, and it's a lot of practice to plan. Bish, Trog, Yugo and I have been dividing up the duty, but it's tough coordinate a consistent message for the week.

It's been kind of tough to go from club regionals to teaching people that have never played ultimate before. The two worlds couldn't be more different, and it can be kind of frustrating at times. I get really excited when I see our big players make plays because I'm looking ahead to the Spring.

Today, though, I was totally happy when our rookies took the lessons of the day and executed them really well in our scrimmages. We were working on teaching them to recognize power position, throw dish passes, and make cuts from the front of the stack in our endzone offense.

We ran a dish to huck drill for probably 15 minutes, and did some mini end zone games. During the scrimmage, I noticed people when I got the disc in power position, there was almost always someone streaking deep for me. Our vets handler movement improved from running the handler set on the endzone as well. It was very satisfying to see such immediate results from our designed practice.

I think our drills have been giving too much autonomy to the rookies as players on the field. We should be designing drills for them that teach the simplest processes that veteran players don't even think about as they do. We forget that rookies don't have the basic instincts to cut for the swing or for the break throw.

I think it was someone from Florida that wrote on The Huddle that you have to put your rookies in the position to succeed by giving them the tools that they need right now. It's a balance between teaching rookies what they need to do to win at a tournament this weekend and what will make them the best possible player a year from now. For right now, I think we need to focus on what will make them win this weekend -- the most basic fundamentals.

Once we start playing our tournaments, they'll see what ultimate is all about and they'll improve by leaps and bounds. We met tonight and picked our teams for Sandwich Day this weekend. There was some smack talk and I think people are pretty excited. And our team names are awesome:

Goat-c, Bicurious George, and Up Town Brown.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

My Third Club Regionals

So we lost in the the backdoor game to go to nationals to San Diego, finishing 3rd in the region. I feel very split about the weekend, because we pulled out close wins in 5 of our 7 games, and we made it as far as I thought we would make it. We showed great heart along the way, and we had some pretty clutch wins.

On the other hand, we didn't put of that great of a fight in the game to go. Even though it doesn't seem likely that we could have overcome San Diego's talent, I still feel regretful about how we did. I felt the game slipping away from us the entire time, and I felt like there must have been something we could have done.

Playing with Strike Slip on the whole was a great experience. We went full circle from overconfident, to beaten down, and built back up to confidence. Winning sectionals was a huge accomplishment for us. We showed people that LA Open is back on the map.

Congratulations to the TWO LA co-ed teams that got bids to natties this past weekend (I wish San Diego decided they didn't feel like going to nationals after beating us!). That's a huge accomplishment and it shows the talent that our college programs are developing, and the increasing dedication to high level ultimate in LA.

Anyway, it's time to transition back to my last season of college. We're still getting about 100 people out to our rookie practices, and it's a crazy transition to go from club regionals on Sunday to teaching what a mark is on Monday.

I'm still recovering from the weekend, and I might want to give my body and mind just a little time off from ultimate and make sure I'm focused on school enough before I jump into the college season. We have lots of rookie tournaments coming up and it's going to be a grind, but at least a fun, silly kind of grind.

First A team practice of the year tonight. We'll see what we've got.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Club Regionals Preview

It's late so I'm gonna make this quick.

Our pool is:

1. SS
2. Sweet Roll
3. Condors
4. Sprawl

Overall a nice draw for us in pool play. We lucked out by not having San Diego in our pool. I guess they were trying to avoid a sectionals rematch? We just have to be efficient and take care of business on Saturday. I'm guessing that our games will be long, because the other pool has 5 teams. Our 10:45 start time is pretty awesome, although Bob was pulling to go to the field early to watch the Bravo / Street Gang first round match-up. I think the more we stay out of the sun and heat, the better, but I'm tempted.

The other pool looks pretty brutal. Johnny Bravo, San Diego and Monster are three tough games. Hopefully they SD has tough games against JB and Monster on Saturday. Monster gave SD a run for their money at sectionals (13-10), and I really hope they rise up to the occasion again.

Anyway, if things go like they should, it should be Strike Slip/Street Gang in semis, and Johnny Bravo/Condors in the other game. Then things get really interesting. If we win in Semis, we play Bravo in finals. I'm not going to say that we don't have a chance to win, but it might be smart to concede this game and rest for the backdoor game. If we lose in Semis, then we have to win two more games ( 1 decent team, and then probably Condors/Monster) to get to the 2/3 backdoor game to play the loser of finals.

It's really tough to beat a good team twice in one weekend. We worked so hard to beat SD at sectionals, it's tough to imagine it happening two more times. They've probably been planning for us and will give us some different looks next time we play. However, the game that really matters is the last one.

It's going to be hot, and even though we'll have a bigger squad than at sectionals, it's still not very big. The key to our weekend will be to have both our O and D line stay very efficient on offense so we can minimize our time on the field and in the sun. I'm already hydrating now, and I know it will be a challenge to take care of my body in the heat. However, the weather report is saying that it could possibly be in the high 80s, which would be inifitely better than 100.

Good luck to BCBC and Metro! 3 bids! There's room for all of us. Let's represent LA.

Like I said before, I just want to find myself in the game to go and go balls out.