Good news!

I made the A-team of my school. It was tough, painful, and I reaped the rewards. But it's not only good news for me, it's also somewhat good news for you the reader. Presumably, it gives me some credibility. I mean, considering that my muscles atrophied considerably over the course of several months, as I sat behind a desk for my internship, I think I can say a few things about making a team. If it works for you, good for you. If it doesn't, well that's unfortunate. Anyways, some more advice: this time on mismatches. Many times, I've had a severe mismatch (since I'm basically the only one out of shape), and I had to figure out how to best keep up, or beat them. Offensively speaking, I've been able to beat someone who was more athletic than I was, and was about a foot and a half taller than me. Tricky. Additionally, I'm the handler, so I need to make the dump cut (if you don't know what this is, look it up; it's a keystone to any offense) no matter what. I was able to beat him, but only by stepping next to him with my first step, and around him with my next step. One of the goals of any cut, is to get past a person, and run in the opposite direction that the person's hips are facing, and then you should have a successful cut. Don't run through the paces of a cut, just because; there's a reason for cutting, don't forget that.

Okay, defensively, how do you defend this? First of all, you need to have a good distance. This is pure judgement. Make sure that they can't step past you, but also, you need to block any easy lanes that they might get if you get too far. And then, when they start the cut, get in the way. Ultimate is not a non-contact sport if you play it right/smart. You need to make sure that your man (or woman, man is just a term) is running into essentially your torso. Your man can easily run through either of your arms, and beat you. If you feel like you have a really bad mismatch, then instead of standing next to your man in the stack, move further downfield. Not too far, but enough so that your man can't make a comfortable deep cut, and instead will have to cut in to have any chance of getting the disc. Now, if you're guarding a handler, you should know essentially what the handler is going to do. If you haven't heard the term "traintracks" before, then you need to familiarize yourself with the dump cut. Essentially the handler is running the same track to get in front of the handler, and back to the original position. Once the handler starts making this cut, you can face the handler with the disc slightly, and look for a fake. That will usually signify the dump to start running back along the tracks, and so you can anticipate it. Better handlers will know to make fakes with their cuts, and so they will generally get the disk. All you can do is get there quickly, and setup a hard mark.

A lot of content this time, let me know if you have any questions/comments/suggestions for further posts or if you want me to get off the internet. I can't make promises, but I can try.