Today’s practice focused mostly on training several important skills: upline cutting and defense, around backhand breaks, breaking out of a sideline trap, and the shape of our cuts. We scrimmaged a bit at the end to consolidate those skills and put them into use. I think my cuts and upline stuff was decent (though I got beat in the sideline drill once), but my throws definitely need work. Some of my around backhands are good, some were pretty bad, and my hucks are just awful overall.

After practice, we also got together and talked about team goals and individual goals for the season. Some highlights:

• throw every day
• you’re doing a disservice to your teammates by not going all out in practice. we have to push each other to work harder so we know how to deal with difficult situations.
• the best competition we’re going to see for most of the year is ourselves.
• season goal: stay injury-free, touch the disc every day, focus on things we can control and on constant improvement.
• everyone needs to be a threatening player. last year we relied on Birdo to make plays and be open for us. everyone should be able to win their matchup the way Birdo did.
• be open to receiving feedback from our teammates. we can always learn from each other. similarly, feel comfortable giving feedback to others. let the captains set the general strategy and make major corrections, but also look to help.
• its important to build trust in each other. we should not feel inhibited in our game or our decisions because of deficiencies we perceive in others on our team. we should play our game.
• aim high. don’t settle for winning games or even tournaments. aim to win every point and every cut.
• identify our own weaknesses and tailor our workouts to eliminate them.
• besides lifting and running, we need to focus on eating and sleeping well.
• if we’re down 9-3, we can not change the past or control what happened. we can only focus on what we’re going to do next. this mindset is a good way to stay positive when we’re down without pretending to be happy.
• think about that end-of-season talk when we’ve played our last game at nationals. visualize us, sitting in a circle, all smelly and sunburnt, cleats and socks littering the field. what do you see us talking about? how do you want that conversation to go? now think about what you’re going to do today to make sure that happen.