First real physical activity in a week. Played 2 hours of indoor. Ankle is mostly pain-free, but still feels weak. Can’t cut at full strength. Knee feels fine on the side, but old tendonitis is back and worse than before.

Amp indoor session. Started off well, fun to be playing again. But shortly after we started playing, Papa layout-rolled into my leg and messed me up. I sat out the rest of the games. Hoping for a quick recovery in time for FNOF.

Nationals this year was good and bad in a lot of ways. We played very well during most of our games, we won more games than any previous year, and we beat one of our arch-rivals (Polar Bears) in a strong win on Friday. But we also finished worse than last year and lost our last game on Sat to a team we should have beaten.

On Thursday, we started off strong with a close game against CLX. We had the opportunity to win it, but some late-game turnovers (two by me) gave them the lead back and we lost 13-11. We rebounded and fought hard to win 11-9 against 7 Figures, then crushed Cosa 15-4 in the last game. On Friday, we lost our pre-quarters game 15-10 to Slow White, beat D'oh 15-11, then took down Polar Bears 14-8. The Polar Bears win was extra satisfying because we clearly saw our defense working well. For the first half of the game, we shut down their deep cuts with strong physical defense. In the second half, they started to bring all their cuts under and across, and we took advantage by playing tighter and getting a bunch of Ds. I think we scored 3 or 4 breaks in a row in the second half. For our last game Sat morning, we were up a few breaks on Santa Maria but they came back to win on universe (13-12).

My takeaways:

• Continue to improve throwing and reduce turnovers. I only had turnovers in the games that we lost (2 each game vs CLX, Slow, Santa Maria).
• Be more disciplined on D. I still give up the deep sometimes.
• Still not great under pressure. Half of my throwaways were rushed throws at crucial moments in the game when we should be extra careful. When the pressure is on, respond by being even more patient and conservative.

Practice was supposed to be Saturday, but it got rained out and moved to Sunday. We split the practice up into 4 sections: one for each of our Thursday opponents plus one for us. During our section, we ran through all the plays in our playbook to make sure we have everything down pat. Then we played mini to work on handler movement and stopping it (Cosa Nostra), worked on physical defense and poachy zone (7 Figures), and then scrimmaged with the endzone being closed for the first 40 seconds (CLX). Overall the practice went pretty well. The O line especially played well during the scrimmages, coming back to win the zone scrimmage after being down, and not giving up a single turn in the endzone-closed scrimmage.

Combo double practice and beach weekend. There wasn’t much actual beach going on because it was cold and rainy, but I did jump in the ocean after practice on Saturday. We repeated a few drills from the past (gauntlet, marking), then moved on to scrimmage. We got some good reps with zone because it was rainy and a great chance to practice. O even played some zone to give the D some practice, but mostly O played O. The weekend was somewhat streaky, with O and D taking turns going on runs. Our numbers were kinda low, so we all got to play a lot and get quality reps in.

After practicing all day Saturday (with a break for lunch, Spikeball and full-team Spikejam), we went to Papa’s house for dinner, 7 Wonders and Fishbowl.

On Sunday, we went back to work. It was even colder, but not terrible. After warmups and some triangle cutting drills, my knee felt painful so I stopped playing and switched to filming. Everyone else finished out the drill and moved on to scrimmage. The level remained high throughout the day, though there were a bit more miscues and botched Ds than the day before.

We cruised through regionals, winning all our games by a good margin. No team made it to double digits against us. Our O line didn’t get broken once all weekend, and we had very few unforced turns all around. The intensity was good, even when we were winning by a lot.

We spent an hour or so on Saturday talking about spirit. Amp often gets low spirit scores, though we don’t think we have poor spirit. So there must be something we’re missing, something we need to pay attention to and improve so we’re not seen as jerks. Some good points were that we want the teams we beat to cheer for us and be proud when we represent the region. We don’t have to make friendly banter on the sidelines or smile at everyone, but we do need to respect our opponents as worthy adversaries and recognize when they are doing something well. Some teams we mentioned as examples of good spirit are Polar Bears, Slow White, Fury, Riot, the men on CLX.

For me personally, I played well on the weekend, though I didn’t play much (esp on Saturday). I did have one drop and one rushed semi-throwaway that I should not have had, but besides that I think I was very effective all around. I did notice myself rushing during our last game. I’ll try to remember that feeling so I can notice it in myself in the future. Brayden (the AG coach) also gave me some good feedback during the game.

• When I’m marked tightly on the flick side, I lift my pivot slightly as I throw to get space. But that’s still a travel. I need to either call disc space or do something else (pivot?) to get the space I need.
• When I’m near the endzone (or downfield too), I get locked in on one person and wait for them to make the move I want them to make. I need to be careful of spending too much time on one person. Instead, I should either communicate where I want them to go, or to another cutter.
• When I throw the disc laterally from the break side towards the middle, I MUST remember to cut upline immediately. I should practice this.
• I made the same dump mistake that I made a few weeks ago in practice (and Katie was my dump again). The mark was counting stalls a bit quickly, so I was rushed in my head. I turned to look at my dump, but then immediately turned back upfield. I need to commit to the dump and stay with her for at least a few seconds before looking elsewhere. She’s waiting for my look to make her cut, so I can’t expect her to be open right away.
• Don’t rush so much. Learn to notice it and relax when it happens. I think this may lead to my frantic cutting as well.

Had practice from 9am to 1pm both Saturday and Sunday. We did a lot of scrimmaging, and I even got some reps on the D line. We also ran drills for endzone cutting and to work on flashing our mark into the lane to stop the continuation upfield. Overall I think it was a very productive weekend. I felt strong on D and mostly strong on O. I think I only had one turnover in scrimmages, and worked well in zone O and transition D. I got my feedback from Butter and he also said that he liked what he saw. His major criticism was for me to cut deep more. I did not do the best job with that today but I will continue to focus on it during regionals.

One down note: Diana hurt herself at the start of scrimmaging on Saturday. We’re not sure what it is yet (x-ray tomorrow), but it’s likely a broken metatarsal. If that’s the case, it means about 8 weeks on crutches and no ultimate (regionals, nationals, mosh, etc). I’m still hoping that it’s just a bad sprain, but if not, it would be a huge bummer.

Two hours of scrimmage with fairly few people. The O line had one guy sub and one girl sub. The D line started with a girl sub but ended up savage by the end. This probably contributed to how well I thought the O line played, but we played well even in the beginning. The D line spent most of the game pulling to us. Each of our goals was worth half a point, but we could double-score after each goal to earn the full point. I really enjoyed just playing a lot with few subs. It’s rare that I get a lot of reps in a row, and we really got into a good groove on O. I can see how having no subs at all would be rough, but I still enjoyed the day.

A pretty good 5-hour practice. We some skills work and scrimmaged a lot. We spent a good amount of time focusing on our redzone offense. We worked on the gravity cut, which turns out to be very hard to defend if you’re close to the endzone. The third cut (to the cone, back across for the break, then force side to the back cone) is especially tricky to cover. If you don’t sell out to get the IO, it’s pretty easy to throw something in that area. If you do, the cut to the back cone is open. Doing this drill on O and on D really let us experiment with making the cut different ways and defending it different ways, and it really proved to me how hard it is to cover (if the thrower is close enough).

After that, we went into some endzone-focused scrimmage. The O line really struggled here, and the D line played very well on D and on O. They were very smooth, only had one cut at a time to each threatening space, and broke the mark very well for goals. The O line had trouble scoring more than 2 or 3 in a row, and often the goals were quite contested. We were very frustrated towards the end of practice.

For our last drill, worked on a bit of transition O/D in the redzone. Here, the success of the lines swapped and the O line crushed it. Maybe it helped that it started to rain and the disc became very slippery, but the O line scored almost all their opportunities and got a good amount of Ds as well.

My takeaways from the practice are:

• We should be way better about scoring in the redzone. It makes sense to isolate one cutter and look at them for a while, esp when the thrower is close to the endzone.
• Our O needs to figure out whats going on with us. Possession and scoring should be easy, yet we struggle so much.
• Mixing up the O/D lines may be useful. I know the argument for “chemistry” among the lines, but there are significant benefits to variety (more creativity, a stronger requirement for communication, more practice adapting to novel situations, learning from more players, etc) and these may outweigh the chemistry thing.

We were supposed to scrimmage at Penn Park for two hours, but they shut the lights off after about 30 minutes of playing. So we worked on our deep hucks in the dark instead. The cutting practice (the shape, the turn, not slowing down while looking back) was great. The throwing part would have been great but I was rushed to throw the next throw and not being able to see your throw was really weird.

Afterwards, I did the shuffles workout:

• 4x10secondsx5yards side shuffle with crossover on the first step out of the turn
• 2x10cut drill, again with crossover on the first step

Shuttles

• 3x150m with 50m between cones. 150s rest between each.
• 5x150m with 25m between cones. 150s rest between each, 120s before the last one.

Threw for about a minute between each shutle.

Throwing

Spent about 10 minutes working on my throws. Primarily worked on the full-extension backhand fake to the flick throw. I have trouble getting power when coming all the way back from a full step-out. Watching Melanie throw, I noticed that she doesn’t pivot the full 180 degrees on the way back. She goes about 135, with her right foot out in front of her left. That seemed to help, will try it next time. Also, gotta throw the disc more up and IO when reaching far or pivoting hard.

An hour of 3-on-3 with the South/West Philly Amp crew. We did 3 minutes on, 3 minutes off. The weather was really hot and the turf at Penn Park made it even hotter, so the pace of the game was not the highest. Still, it was good practice. My throws and cuts were somewhat lazy at times, but other times I played strong D and cut well. I did have a few bad turnovers, still not focusing on my decisions enough.

After mini, I did this week’s shuffles (8x10secondsx5yards, 30seconds rest inbetween) with Bulb and Diana. I focused on staying light on my feet in the middle and exploding out of the plants at the ends.

Two days of camping and ultimate in beautiful Burlington, WA. This was basically mini-Nationals, as the top 8 teams from last year were there. A lot of unexpected results on the weekend - Drag'n Thrust only won 2 games, Cosa Nostra played better than expected, we finally beat Wildcard. On the whole though, we performed below expectations and finished last (8th) despite our wins against Wildcard and Mischief.

I played fairly well, though I did have some bad turnovers in the Cosa game and in our second Wildcard game. I also only played 2 points against Cosa and in our first Wildcard game. In the games that I had time to get into, I thought my cutting was fairly strong and my D on the turn was also good.

Things I did well:

• inside breaks
• threatening deep, then cutting hard under (break and open), then slashing for the IO
• patience near the endzone

Things to improve on:

• reduce bad decision throws. I only had two or so, but that’s two unnecessary risks.
• reduce execution mistakes. Had at least three here (two to Trey in the same point, probably tired mistakes). I’ve been working on throwing harder, I think that will help.
• don’t get caught looking away from the guy I’m covering. Focus on him and my footwork, but take peeks when I can. Even when I’m peeking, move to cover the likely next threat.
• better around breaks, flick hucks.

Long day of practice with AMP: 9am-1pm, then break for lunch, then 2pm-5pm. On top of that it rained for most of the day, which sapped some of my energy towards the end. I felt great until about 3 or 4, then started to feel drained. I think a lot of the O was feeling similar, and it showed in our game.

I played really well before lunch, throwing or catching most of our goals and only turning over one drop and a huck to Katie. After lunch, I was not as effective with my cutting and had some poor decisions on O and D.

One mistake I consistently make is to not anticipate where my person is going and to allow them to beat me deep. I think part of it is that I need to try setting up differently - maybe facing the open side and dictating instead of facing the person I’m covering and reacting.

Midweek practice with AMP. We did a short warmup, then did the gauntlet D positioning drill, then went to scimmaging.

Most of the time, we scrimmaged with the same format as the camping weekend: D pulls to O, O sets up on D on the endzone line. If O scores, they play D. If D scores, that’s it. The playing was fun, but it was O that struggled a lot this time. We played well but made execution mistakes and didn’t get them back. On the few times we got them back, we turned it over again. I don’t think we got more than one or two breaks the whole time.

In the last 20 minutes, we tried a new format. Neither team was allowed to score within the first 30 seconds of their possession. The endzone was considered out of bounds. After a turn, the 30 seconds restarted. The goal is to encourage the D to play aggressive underneath defense (as teams do to us sometimes) and for the O to be chilly and really work to maintain possession. At first this was a fun twist. Several points went by with both teams being patient and swinging the disc among the handlers near the endzone until it was time to score. However, the D soon realized that they needed to shut down the dumps to prevent the easy strategy. Also we got tired of the longer points. The two factors combined to create a lot of stress, and the frustration really showed for both teams. The last point took about 10 minutes to end, with both teams having multiple drops (sometimes first-throw drops) and really struggling to assert themselves. Part of this was because we really emphasize pushing upfield and not throwing backwards, but once we got to the goal line and couldnt advance, we got stuck and didn’t adjust well. Another part is that we need to practice being flexible and communicating on the field to solve problems. Finally, we have work to do in frustration management department.

Looking forward to double practice this weekend.

Practice

Had a great double practice at glorious Lums Pond State Park. We spent a lot of time scrimmaging and working on the triangle cutting drill. We focused on defense, throwing deep early, and threatening multiple spaces at once. I really enjoyed the triangle cutting drill. I think it simulated game situations well and really let us work on a lot of good habits.

The O-line motto for the weekend was “play with tempo and trust”. Miggs was coming back from surgery, so he provided feedback to the O line. I thought he was very helpful in setting the strategy (even the defensive strategy) and on giving individual feedback on throwing.

The O line won most of the scrimmages over the weekend. The format of the scimmages was this: if O scored the first goal, they would play defense as if it were a turn. If D scored the first goal, the point ended. Also, O never pulled to D. Instead, we would drop the disc in the endzone and then set up before checking the disc in. This was an interesting format, as it allowed the O to score twice before subs, but it also gave the D a chance to score while O was tired. I’m not sure if this gave O an advantage or not, but the O line won most of the scrimmages on the weekend.

On the O line’s O possessions, we tended to run sidestack or ho stack on the pull plays. On D, we ran aggressive marks (flat-no-inside or even straight-up at times) and tight D downfield. Half the time, we fronted the cutters and trusted the mark to take away the easy deep throw. Alex and Diana really punished us for this strategy, so we tried to play back-hip when they had the disc. When Diana came over to the O line, it became easier for us.

Personally, I think both my D and O really stepped up this weekend. Patrick’s article on perfect positioning really came in handy. I spent a lot of time thinking about avoiding parallel foot positioning and I think that helped me respond to cutters faster. I covered Papa for most of the weekend. In the past I struggled to contain him, but this weekend I think I shut him down pretty often. One thing that Jill pointed out to me is that I spend too much time looking at the thrower and not enough time focusing on the person I’m covering. I’ll be working on that later this week. I also felt that my mark was pretty solid most of the weekend and my cutting is getting better as I practice it more.

My main downside is still my throwing. I don’t think I had more than one or two decision errors, but I did have a bunch of execution mistakes. I rushed several throws when my mark was out of position or on the ground, and ended up turning them over. I even got handblocked once. I also overthrew Panna on what should have been a wide-open goal. Finally, I rushed the last point of the last game on Sunday and threw a dicey upline throw when I should have been looking to swing the disc.

Camping

Between Saturday and Sunday practices, we camped at the campground in the park. The forecast called for rain all weekend, but it ended up only raining at night. Saturday was beautiful the whole day. Sunday was grey and soggy, but almost no actual rain fell on us.

At the campsite, we played disc golf and ate a bunch of food. Alex brought a giant steam pot and made a huge dinner for everyone: 15 lobsters and a ton of clams, mussels, shrimp, sausage, eggs, etc. It was the most gourmet meal I’ve ever had while camping. Then we sat around a campfire, drank beer, and played games. It would have been perfect if not for the nasty park ranger who made us pour out the last of our beer. I thought she was gonna be cool about it (we weren’t even being loud) but she was not fun at all.

Diana and I did make one technical error. We set up our tent on a giant tarp. I thought it was a good idea, but I forgot that tent tarps are designed not to stick out past the edges of the tent. This keeps rainwater from pooling on the tarp. So when it rained at night, the water collected inside and most of our stuff got wet. We slept fine (the thermarests kept us out of the water) but packing up in the morning was annoying and drying everything in the evening was a chore. On the plus side, we had tons of dry socks because our AMP socks had just come in. I had them in my bucket, which kept them and most of my other stuff dry. The duffel bag did not stay fully dry, but it did OK compared to Diana’s backpack, which got completely soaked. Lessons learned there.

Our mid-week AMP practice was cut short by a thunderstorm, but not before the D line kicked the O line’s ass in several short scrimmages. We struggled with downfield cutting and the dump sets. Our D after a turn was also pretty bad. That’s pretty much it.

Played several hours of goalty with Amp. We played 5v5 for most of the time, then switched to 4v4 at the end. I’m completely sold on the clear box vs the clear line. The box encourages you to play defense the whole time, not just near the goal.

NY Invite. Haven’t been to this tourney since 2009, when it rained insanely hard and the games did not get called off until after the fields were wrecked. Maybe they haven’t been able to get the fields since…

I continued in my role as the primary O-line cutter. I think I played better this weekend. I only had 3 turnovers - two hit my receiver in the hands and one was a good look but a bit too low and too far for Benny to catch up to. I played fairly solid D after turns (and even got some D points in during the last game) but I think I could have done better. My favorite games were against Slow, Shuyamouf and CLX.

Lessons from the weekend:

• need to continue working on my throws, especially on putting enough snap on my flicks and on reaching out on my backhands.
• am getting better with the shape of my cuts, but need to start deep cuts from closer in.
• need to work on executing the proper dump cut. I went upline a good amount but did not come across for the IO at all.
• pay more attention to the mental prep and the instructions from captains. they set the focus, but it’s easy to forget what is said when you’re focusing on the current point.

My stats:

• 35 O points, 8 D points
• 10 goals
• 4 assists
• 1 D
• 3 throwaways, 0 drops

Played 3 days (Thurs-Sat) of high-level ultimate in the Twin Cities. It was like having an early Nationals. The top 6 teams from last year’s nationals were here, as well as Union (Canada’s national champion) and a mixed team from Colombia. I played almost exclusively O line, which is a first for me. I did not feel 100% comfortable all the time, especially with the effectiveness of my cutting and the number of turns I had. But everyone told me I played well and should be happy with how I did.

Overall it was great playing against such strong teams so early in the season. We played Drag'n Thrust and Wildcard to universe (and had the opportunity to win both) and won a universe-point game against Union. We also played decently against Polar Bears, though they beat us 15-9. After games, we had a great time hanging out, partying and exploring with the team. Much bonding was accomplished.

My stats for the weekend:

• 39 O points, 7 D points
• 8 goals
• 7 assists
• 3 Ds
• 7 throwaways, 2 drops