Let me start by making a couple of commonsense observations about why many many Ultimate players are confused about how to get open against a real defender:
1. In a game where nobody really cares about playing defense (ie pickup), any mildly athletic cutter is going to lose his defender by simply accelerating in any direction. And while this may be "getting open," it has nothing to do with "getting separation".
2. In a game where both teams do care about playing defense, but a cutter has a much slower player defending him, then that cutter is going to lose his defender by simply accelerating in any direction. This is also not "getting separation".
I define "getting separation" as getting open against a defender who is of equal skill and who is trying to stay close to you. The problem is that many of us learn to play Ultimate by playing pickup. Which means we learn quite a bit about "getting open" by merely running away from somebody, but next to nothing about "getting separation". Sadly, as the quality of our opponents increases, the only way for us to "get open" is to "get separation".
Even more sadly, rather than realizing that our tactics are not very useful against good defenders, many of us refuse to acknowledge our poor cutting fundamentals as the cause of our cutting difficulties. If our defender is doing a good job, rather than changing tactics, we simply try to run faster and hope they get tired.
This above cutter tactic of running harder in an attempt to outlast a defender is questionable at best. It wastes tons of precious energy on offense (when you should be conserving) and assumes that you are, in fact, better conditioned than your defenders.
So, if we aren't supposed to just run harder, how are we supposed to "get open"?
Honestly, the tried and true method for "getting open" by "getting separation" is more complicated than just accelerating. It is not MUCH more complicated though.
Step 1: Decide where on the field you want to go.
Step 2: Make a small "false start" fake to get your defender slightly off-balance.
Step 3: Sprint hard IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION of where you want to go.
Step 4: After 7-12 yards, cut sharply back in the direction of where you want to go.
Step 5: While you are accelerating out of the cut, look for the disc.
The above 5 step process is guaranteed to get you open every time, provided that you are playing against an equally skilled defender, you sprint hard, and you cut sharply.
If you practice the above process, so that your every move as a cutter is one of these steps, you will become nearly unmarkable. The key is to not allow yourself to slip back into the bad pickup habits of accelerating mindlessly. When you are a cutter, keep asking yourself "what am I doing?" If you find that your answer is NOT one of the five steps above, stop doing what you are doing and go back to step 1.
i think one thing that's important is that the offender has the (at least) one step advantage of being the one making the decision of where they are going. that is why even just running in one direction can be effective if all other factors are equal - the defender will lose at least a step because they are the one reacting not making the decision of where to go.
ReplyDelete-Alex
however, a defender can turn the advantage to his own by picking a in or out force. that is why your 5 step cut isn't gonna be 100% effective. you need more moves, mental fakes, whatever to get seperation on a smart, patient defender.
Running in one direction is NOT effective in with all other factors being equal. However, all other factors are rarely equal. For example, the defender may get distracted by: a cut from another receiver, information coming from his sideline, a fake from the thrower, etc.
ReplyDeleteIn these cases, accelerating away from the defender will work.
This post, however, was not about these cases. It was about a single receiver being able to get separation on a single defender. If you think that running in one direction will work, do the following: set up a drill with a thrower and a passive mark and a receiver with an active mark set up 15 yards downfield of the thrower. Now, give the receiver 5 seconds to get open.
If the receiver tries running in one direction, he'll be covered completely. Perhaps, if he has a great standstill fake or stutter step move, he may be able to free himself. But, those types of skills are by and large unteachable in the amount of time you get for team practice. They tend to be holdovers from other sports (football, basketball, soccer).
What is teachable and what is effective in this drill is cutting hard in one direction. If the defender reacts properly, you should be able to cut back the other way and get separation if you do so hard and sharp enough.
We can all come up with dozens of reasons why this won't work in a specific situation in a game. But that isn't the point. The point is that this single move is the basis for all individual separation in Ultimate.
PS I don't know what "mental fakes" are, but they would seem to only be effective against telepathic defenders.
the-huddle.org had a piece on cutting from Bart Watson which I thought was very good, he said basically to drive your defender in one direction (like you mentioned) then stepping between his feet before turning I've tried this and it is very effective. The other thing is to watch the defender for a point and notice what he is good/bad at, does he use body position to prevent the in-cut (just cut deep/breakside) or does he back you.
ReplyDeleteI also find that by maintaining ~20 yards between me and the thrower is the optimal starting point for a cut, starting a deep cut at ~20 yards is not too far for the thrower, and after a couple deep cuts the defender adjusts to it and opens up other cutting paths.
one more thing on getting separation, and this applies to cutting long, is to try and generate lateral separation in addition to vertical separation.
ReplyDeleteWhen a defender is defending the open side and I cut deep with a couple steps on him, I try to cut towards the break side as well as deep, this is attractive for an outside-in huck because disc starts out flat, hopefully tricking the defender into pursuing it along a straight line, then the disc bends inwards and the defender has to work extra hard to make up that lateral distance.