Bay Area Women's Mixer

I went to the Bay Area Women's Ultimate Mixer. Organized by women from Fury, Homebrood and Skyline, the team formerly known as Heroine. Pretty much, the top three women's teams in the Bay Area.

The idea of the gathering was to play women's ultimate and receive introductions to the organizers of the three teams. Information on tryouts for the three teams was also provided.

It wasn't really a clinic per se, but rather a gathering of women to play ultimate. The disctinction is important when setting expectations. The first part of the gathering was drills, which originally made me think this was going to be a clinic of sorts. No instruction or information was given, no experienced players giving non-experienced players help.

The first drills we did were actually poorly explained, which lowered my expectations. We did have one drill that was a lot of fun: 2 on 3 on 4. Three offensive players start the disc on the goalline of a small ~40 yard field, against 2 defenders who start about 3 yards downfield. 2 other defenders start about 3 yards behind the offensive line. These two defenders need to do 7 situps or 5 pushups before they can actually play defense. So, the disc comes in, the two defenders play against 3 offensive players until the other 2 defenders can come in and help out. It simulates a break away situation where the calvary comes in late.

The rest of the mixer was three games of pickup. My team was very bad when we first started. We played "Me! Me! Me!" pickup. Everyone was cutting very very close to the disc. Since all I was doing was clogging, I thought about the playing styles of the other players and decided to cut deep and come back in for the disc. Worked like charm! I was available for many, many continue throws. I'm very excited I played intelligently and figured out how to play with the other players on the team. We played much better for the third game.

I've been thinking of starting a periodic column entitled, "Ultimate for the Non-Gifted Athlete." Training tips, drills, mental game help and the like. Information I've learned over the last 10 years. Might be worth it. Especially if I can get Kris to help me with the column.

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