ultimate

Mischief tryouts

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 21:01 on 17 March 2007

Well, the first of two Mischief 2007 tryouts happened today. I have to admit I'm a bit disappointed in the turnout. You'd think the National Champions would have tons of people trying out for the team. We had maybe 20 tryouts today. Sure, we're in the South Bay, but come on, Brass Monkey had 50 tryouts last year and had to close tryouts after one, given the number of interested people they had on the first one.

How is it that Mischief goes all the way to the top and still doesn't receive any respect? Sometimes I really hate this sport.

I played okay when I played. I didn't participate in all of the skills and drills sections. In particular, I skipped the huck drill, as it seemed too much long distance sprinting for my hamstring to take. I have an appointment on Monday to see what's up with my hamstring, why hasn't it been healing very well over the last two months. I really don't want last year to be my career ending year: I'd like to actually play in my last year.

On the sideline, I talked to Kyle, who also was sitting out some drills. I commented that I hadn't played a full Sectionals since 2001, since playing with Rippit.

In 2002, I pulled a hamstring on the first step of the first game of the second day and was out the rest of the tournament.

In 2003, I rolled ankle in our Donner Party game, which I think was on our first day of play.

In 2004, I was out for four broken ribs from my Ben squishing.

In 2005, I played some, but not fully, as a hamstring injury impaired my playing significantly. Playing on Vicodin is worse that not playing, in retrospect.

Last year, I rolled ankle at Labor Day.

I'd like to play at Sectionals this year. We'll see how this season goes.

Stupid soccer players

Blog Posted by kitt at 00:37 on 16 March 2007

Practice tonight was an unmitigated disaster.

When I arrived, I noticed a larger number of people at the fields than normal. Sure, there are usually the softball players, or the rugby players, or even the lacrosse players. Each of them, however, finishes up around 9:00 PM, which is when we start. That all of these new people were arriving just as I was meant they would be sharing the fields with us.

We usually practice near the soccer field. This works out well because it's near the student housing, which means it's also close to the washrooms. The lights at the end we play on are more consistent, too. The field itself is worn, so we don't play on the most lush part of the fields, but the other conveniences outweigh the need for grass.

When I realized all of the people arriving were there to play soccer for an intramural, maybe interhouse, game, I asked what field they would be playing on, and how much space they would need. I then set up our field away from their field, but bordering, so that both groups would get maximum field space with minimum interference.

If only the soccer players were intelligent enough to realize the BRIGHT ORANGE cones marked the edge of a playing field. Instead of respecting another sport was occupying the field space next to them, several soccer players thought the wide open space was the perfect place to practice footwork and kicking the ball.

And, instead of demanding their space, the space their team as a club team had the right to occupy, the team avoided the soccer players, playing on a smaller and smaller field. Since the drill we were running was a huck drill, throwing to closer and closer players defeated the purpose of the drill. I went to the players, and asked them nicely to respect our field and practice on the other side of the sideline. They would move over for about a minute, then move back when I turned my back and went back to the stack for the drill. After two times asking and two times complying then returning, I was fed up. I started cutting into the middle of the soccer players, and stopping the ball when it interfered with my catching the disc in the drill.

Apparently this pissed off the soccer players. One thought it was perfectly reasonable to wind up a full field kick ten yards from me and kick. It hit me square in the groin and hurt. A LOT.

I looked at the kid, and said, "The sideline is there. Practice over there. Respect our field space, as we respect yours." At that point, I decided to steal the soccer balls of anyone who continued to play on our field. I also moved all the bags the players left in our endzone off the field, casually mixing wallets with shoes, and bags with IDs. I'd be surprised if anyone figured out where all of his stuff was.

At another point, I had to steal the soccer ball of another group on the field. It wasn't as if they were playing on the side of our field and accidently kicked the ball onto our field. They were smack dab in the middle of our field. Terribly, frustratingly annoying.

Eventually, the girls gave up and asked if we could play hotbox. It was our last practice for two weeks, so I was reluctant. However, having fun is definitely the most important aspect of keeping a team together, so we went to play hotbox instead.

Note to self: Annie tall plus Mackenzie fast equals hotbox domination.

In return

Blog Instead of being asleep at 20:12 on 4 March 2007, kitt created this:

When Kate approached me to coach a local college team, and I agreed to help her, I was expecting very little. I figured I'd be able to help them with at least a little bit of the tricks, tips and tactics I've learned over the last thirteen years of playing ultimate.

What I wasn't expecting to do, however, is learn from them. Least of all in the way that I am.

Here are fifteen women who are looking to me to provide them knowledge and leadership. If I fail, they fail.

Sure, they're willing to learn, they're eager to learn. They absorb everything I teach them, and apply it very well. They learn quickly, and remember, too. I'm really impressed with them. However, it's strange to be in a teaching position; not really of authority, but of experience and leadership.

I'm used to being the number two in a group, able to do the work, but not really at the top.

Kate's been in a position of leadership in many different parts of her life. I haven't, not really. When I'm at practice, however, and Kate's not, the team looks to me to provide guidance and direction. I've started doing exactly that. I've started to lead.

I teach them ultimate. They teach me how to be a leader.

A big fish in a small pond, but a leader none-the-less.

It's a lesson I'm glad they're willing to teach.

Back in college

Blog Instead of being asleep at 23:23 on 23 February 2007, kitt created this:

The tournament the college team I'm coaching was heading to this weekend moved from Stanford to Modesto, pretty much at the last minute. I had arranged to drive some of the team to Stanford on Saturday morning, but had my Friday night planned for cleaning the house before George and his family arrived tomorrow.

So much for that plan. They'll arrive to see my house is its usual disarray. Darn it.

I drove to Santa Clara and was slightly late, arriving at 8:55 instead of 8:45. I should have realized this wasn't a problem: the team was on ultimate time. We left the Frisbee house, where many of the men's team players live, around 9:20, arriving at the hotel around 10:50 at night. Now, normally arriving so late isn't an issue, afterall, we practice until 11 at night. Today, though, I was tired from the 6:00 am wakeup and 7:00 am workout.

My car, with Sarah, Julie, Mackenzie and Kaitlin, arrived to find we were in the remote room, a double smoking-permitted room. I had asked at hte front desk when we arrived if any rooms were availalbe, and was told the only room they had was a single bed smoking. Since I was going to be in a smoking room anyway, with the stench of previous smoking tennants, I figured my own bed would be preferable to the floor.

Maybe I should have just kicked one of the players out of bed.

When I went to see about that previoiusly available smoking room, I mentioned I'd prefer a non-smoking room if anyone had cancelled. Somehow, I managed to arrive five minutes after someone had cancelled. $52 dollars later, and I had a room with three extra bed spaces. I went to where I thought the men's team was staying and knocked on the door.

The door flew open, and a waggling tongue, "ahhhhHhhh!" greeted me. When the eyes on the face owning the tongue opened, the player immediately stood up, looking a little embarrassed, "Oh, sorry."

"No problem. Anyone in here want a bedspace? I'm two doors down. The only requirement is that you need to let me sleep."

Fifteen minutes later, the room was asleep.

UCPC, my thoughts

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 23:43 on 27 January 2007

So, other than being a bit nervous for my to-be-given-twice talk, I found today to be absolutely fantastic. In terms of a conference I wanted to attend, this one fit the bill, as it had more sessions that I wanted to attend than timeslots that allowed me to attend. Fortunately, several sessions were taped, and material is available for download, so I can still feel like I heard Jim Parinella talk (I didn't, darnit, nor did I introduce myself to him, as I wanted to), and learn more about mental toughness from Tiina (I hadn't, but only because the thought of learning marking techniques from Ben Wiggins overwhelmed all thoughts of mental toughnesses).

I started out the conference (not the day, as that started with a valiant but ultimately futile attempt to wake up early, shower, dress and dash out of the room without waking up Gwen and Miranda) wondering if the Keynote by Dr. Allan Goldberg was going to be as good as his book, Sports Slumpbusting.

It was better.

The keynote was, of course, a short distillation of his book: you can't put days, weeks, months of training into an hour talk to a general audience. However, with the foundation of the book, or any other type of mental toughness book, the talk was enjoyable, entertaining and informative. I took away both the opening anecdote's quote ("Training is 95% physical and 5% mental. Competing it's the opposite: 95% mental and 5% training."), as well as the thought, "Losing focus won't hurt you in competition. Not refocusing will."

Dr. Goldberg is a very dynamic speaker, able to capture and hold the audience's attention well, which made the talk fun. He had several demonstrations on focus, about how it can be difficult and how focusing on the wrong thing can have disastrous effects on one's performance quality. He hinted at mental chatter, but not extensively, and talked about how the thinking part of the brain (the fore-brain) is good for analyzing during practice, but needs to stfu and let the unconscious part of the brain (the hind-brain) just do its job during competition.

After Dr. Goldberg was done, I moved to the front of the auditorium for Ben Wiggin's talk on Marking Strategies. Ben arrived, as near as I could tell, moments before his talk was scheduled to begin, but started in as if nothing was amiss and he hadn't just spent the last 18 hours trying to make a simple cross country trip that should have taken all of 5 hours tops.

Ben had many good points, and encouraged everyone to ask questions during his talk, so that, in his words, he could feel comfortable like he's talking to his team and not uncomfortable like he's lecturing to us. Sound advice. His slides were full of pictures his mother had taken, which humoured me, as my presentation also had slides by his mother, but his were "used with permission." Detail there.

Ben talked about "back blocking" initially. I took this to be stepping, or moving the outstretched hand on the thrower's release side backwards (6"? 12"? he didn't say), instead of straight out. Doing so gives you more reaction time and reduces the chance of a foul.

Another interesting point Ben made is a staggered stance, not straddling over the marker's position, but with the marker's non-force side foot slightly back, and the force side foot slightly forward. This allows the marker to both move more quickly (presumably because of balance, though I'll have to follow up on that), and avoid thrower-drawn fouls. Ben aslo talkd about the transistion from defensive pursuit to marking, which, admittedly, is one of my least thought about transitions (and one ripe for improvement).

The second part of his talk was about different team defensive strategies, most of which were brilliant for the personnel on the respective teams who played them, but weren't necessarily applicable for any team I'm (currently) on.

The next session time slot was my first talk, so I, well, talked. This presentation went not so well, as my voice cracked, and I missed a lot of my examples. I blame my lack of presentation notes because of system issues (where system issues = bad user input = bah!). After this session, I wandered over for lunch, which I found tasty, and the Ultimate Expo. CMU had a table, so I purchased a Mr. Yuk disc for Kris so that he'll have one to throw, instead of hoarding his last one from college.

I had one more talk to go to, one in the third session. My personal choices were between Jim Parinella's decision making in ultimate talk and Dan Cogandrew and Bryan Doo's Ultimate fitness talk. Peter, whom I met last night at the train station, as George took Emily and me from the airport to the hotel via the train station to pick up Peter, suggested the training session, as he heard the handouts from Parinella's talk would cover much of the presentation topic. Since I'm always a big fan of training, that was all the nudge I needed.

I chose well with that nudge.

Bryan went over, with demonstrations, some stance adjustments in a marking stance that help with both power and quickness (hint: put weight on the balls of your feet), as well as some remarkably timely hamstring exercises (yes, the swiss ball curls I do are the best).

Bryan also had some incredibly impressive foot work drills that he demonstrated on stage. He placed two flat circles on the stage, spaced a handwidth apart. He then moved, balanced, sideways, putting his leading foot into the far hoop, his trailing foot into the close hoop, then his leading foot past the two hoops, his trailing foot following. Bryan then reversed the direction and went back in the same pattern. After amazing us with his ability to move sideways at lightning speeds, he then described how to perform this move correctly (as in balanced).

After watching his demonstration, I realized how much I miss Gino as a trainer. Gino didn't play ultimate, but he understood better than any of my current trainers about balance and quickness and agility. Well, perhaps he doesn't understand it better, more so he emphasized it more, and taught it specifically, which helped me become a better athlete. I miss that. So, I did the next best thing.

I risked being late to the next session, you know, the one where I gave my second talk, and went to the UCPC expo to purchase Dan and Bryan's DVD. If only for the scene of Bryan traversing those hoops, the DVD will be worth it. I can't wait to show it to Kris.

The Future of Ultimate panel was next, lead by Kyle Weisbrod. I'm always happy to see Kyle, but our schedules didn't match up, so I wasn't able to say much more than, "Hi!" I'm glad he's on the board of the UPA. The board really, really, really needed a staff member's (or in Kyle's case, ex-staff member's) perspective to understand where to move, and I'm glad that such a move worked out well for Kyle.

Many of the presenters went out to Ted Munter's place for dinner. Ted was the Team USA coach two years ago. Based on some of the stories I heard about his behaviour as coach of Team USA, I couldn't in clear conscious partake of his hospitality, and so declined an invitation to join the group of speakers. Many of the group knew each other very well, had a good history together, which also contributed a bit to my decision not to go, as I'm not part of that history, and feel awkward standing outside that group looking in.

The decision turned out great, because it meant that Peter and I were able to head out to dinner and talk about the conference, about ultimate, about how strangely rude people in Boston were, and his research. All very interesting topics. As Gwen and Miranda didn't stumble into the room until 4:30 am, a migraine-inducing time for me, I was quite happy again with my choice to have dinner locally.

A grand day. Well planned. Well executed. And well worth the stress of putting together my presentation. I'm honored that I was selected to present, that 45 people came to listen to me, and that I was able to, in some small way perhaps, help their games.

Coach K

Blog Instead of being asleep at 10:41 on 20 January 2007, kitt created this:

Kate sent me a note a couple weeks ago, a forward from an RSD post from a local student seeking a coach for a local university's women's ultimate team. She asked if I was interested in joint coaching the team.

After several fits, starts and miscommunications, we finally connected with the team, and signed up. We were to be Coach Kitt and Coach Kate. Exciting! I think it'll work out well, since one or the other of us can cover practice, what with Kate travelling for work and my heading out for my UCPC talk, or ultimate tournaments, or just plain exhaustion from too much overplanning.

Practice is from 9-11 PM, which is just painfully late for an athletic endeavour to me. I can't figure out how the university managed to secure the late night lights schedule with the surrounding town. But they did, and that's when the fields are open, and last Thursday is when I went to my first practice with the team.

There were eleven players at practice. When I showed up, the team was doing a square drill. They were running it slowly, but started running harder as, one by one, they realized "Coach" was there.

I think I did okay, for my first run at coaching. They played better than I was led to believe they could play. All of them could catch, and all of them had the basic fundamentals of throwing. If the players stick with the sport, they can become very good.

I often feel uncomfortable with telling people what to do. There's a certain state of mind I can get into where I don't mind it, and can be very good at the leader role, but it's not a typical state for me and I have to work at it.

In this case, I did okay. I tried to encourage with everything I did, learn as many names as I could and be as positive as possible. In the end, however, I was still essentially bossing them around.

The next practice is tomorrow. Kate should be there, which should be very good: having a coach who can play will be very advantageous.

Kris has started calling me "Coach Kitt." Cracks me up.