A brief thought about thinking about the game; or, brevity is the soul of wit.

Although having conversations with one's self is a fairly reliable indicator of insanity, it is a hallmark of writing or thinking about a given subject.  Solipsism is a (big-ish) part of cogitating about any subject. The trouble is that when thinking about Ultimate (or any team sport) one's on field performance and individual effort only matters in the context of one's team.  However, it is so easy to consider Ultimate from the tried and true perspective of the narcissist.

Sadly, as much as it pains me to admit it, any worthwhile analysis of either Ultimate strategy or Ultimate tactics is almost completely dependent on context.  To wit, the worthwhileness of any Ultimate analysis depends on: the athletic makeup of the team, the individual's athletic makeup, the mental makeup of the team, the individual's mental makeup, the interplay of specific individuals on the team from a physical/mental perspective, etc.

The above may seem strange for me to write, given that I've written tens of thousands of words trying to figure out some useful insights about strategy and tactics.  In the end, however, I'm the only one whose thinking about the game has become any clearer.  Those readers who have had moments of clarity while reading most likely did 99.9% of the clarifying for themselves (and the remaining 0.1% could have occurred while reading a cereal box or updating their facebook or sleeping).

The only intellectually honest thing to do when I attempt to look at the game (which I may still do on rare occasion) is to find a few specific objective measures that can provide SOME context and SOME useful comparison between different teams/different leagues.  Specifically, I'm talking about 2 stats.

Thinking about offense
Touches: count how many times a given player touches the disc.
Turns: count how many times a given player is the last one on his/her team to touch the disc in a possession that doesn't end in a score.  A turn gets counted for both thrower and would-be receiver regardless of the quality of the thrower, provided the receiver actually touches the disc.
Touches-to-turns ratio: a rough approximation of a given player's ability to offensively benefit his/her team (aka stay on offense).

Thinking about defense
Touches allowed: count how many times a given player's mark touches the disc.
Turns created: count how many time a given player's mark makes a turn.  A turn gets counted for both thrower and would-be receiver regardless of the quality of the throw, provided the receiver actually touches the disc.

Everything beyond these two basic statistics seems to be too idiosyncratic for my feeble mind to feasibly analyze.

A brief thought about defensive position.

You have been called to hold a high position, but not a safe one; a sublime position, but not a secure one. How terrible, how very terrible is the place you hold!
-St. Bernard of Clairveux to Pope Eugenius III

I know that nobody, with the exception of football d-backs coaches, cares about defensive coverage angles.  And I'm not suggesting that you care deeply about them either.  But, if you decide that you care about shutting your man down every time you are on the field, your coverage angles are going to matter TO YOU.

Angles are hard for everyone.

So, let's talk very simply for a moment about what we mean be defensive coverage angles.  If it's a dead disc and you are 1 of the 6 defenders on the field who is not engaged primarily with the thrower, then you'd like to find a place to stand where you can see your man and the disc in its current position.  The place wherever you choose to stand will determine your defensive angles (IE whether you're likely to move to your right or left and whether you're likely to move in or out).  

At the risk of being overly simplistic, the reason you'd like to see both your man and the current position of the disc is because those two factors determine everything about where you choose to stand.  Taking your eyes off of your man is a great way to get beaten both deep and in.  Taking your eyes off of the disc is a great way either to watch your man very closely as he catches a goal or catch a quick glimpse of the disc just after it flies within an arms length of your head.

Given the choice of watching 1 or the other, you'd choose to watch your man and pray that somebody is calling the "ups".  The thing is, there's no reason to make that choice because you don't have to.  You can figure out a way to spend most of your time watching, IF you make the decision to work 2% harder.  That 2% harder isn't a sprint and it's not a layout.  It may not even be a jog.  At times, it's constantly having your head on a swivel, checking on the thrower and checking on your man repeated ad infinitum.  At times, it's deciding to walk 2 or 3 steps to a slightly different position on the field.  But, those 2 or 3 steps are the difference between you getting beat and you getting your hands on the throw.  That head swivel and those 2 or 3 steps are a big part of your defensive position.

There is no magic formula for defensive positioning in a dynamic game like Ultimate.  And even if there were, each individual match-up you have will be different as far as speed, quickness, cutting ability, and anticipation.  The best thing that I can communicate to you about improving your defensive positioning (and therefore improving your defense) is that you have to constantly make it a priority (it = the location on the field or the body position where you can easily see your mark and the current position of the disc).


A friend suggests that as the game moves to a higher level (elite or nearly elite), you need to become more and more comfortable with the head swivel positioning rather than a complete body positioning shift.  His reasoning is that, at the elite/near elite level, even 1 step farther downfield than your mark (allowing you to more easily see the mark and the disc) makes it too simple for the receiver to punish you with an in-cut.  I agree with this because, at the level he's talking about, it is too much of a disadvantage to move your body away from your mark. 

The glasses you'll need if you DON'T want to get in good defensive position, 

but you DO want to see both your man and the disc.

You will want to rest during points.  You will have every reason why it doesn't matter that you get yourself to that position.  Even if you don't think you will, you will.  In a match-up against a formidable opponent, you will look for spots to rest.  I don't mean rest for a while.  I mean that you will look to get 1/2 a second of rest because you've just controlled your man for 3 hard cuts down the field followed by 3 hard cuts back while you have shadowed his every movement.

And I don't fault you for wanting to rest.  I don't fault you one bit.  In fact, all that I want you to is rest in a slightly different position so that all of your previous hard work isn't wasted because you lose sight of the disc for a moment and your man catches a goal on you.  In that moment where you really want to get 1/2 a second of rest, just take 1 extra second to swivel your head to check on the disc or to finish in a position that allows you to see your man and the disc (you may end up slightly upfield in this position).  Then, rest all want, provided your head is constantly swiveling back and forth.  You'll know exactly what's happening from that spot, at least until the disc moves.  When it moves, you'll take a 1/2 second to adjust your position and then continue resting.

Here's an important point that I've mistaken for finding good position before: do not just assume that by forcing in and taking away the deep, you've put yourself in a good defensive position.  This little shortcut nearly always goes wrong because receivers simply don't cooperate.  They're happy to catch uncontested in-cuts.  And when you least expect it, they fake in, catch you leaning, and cut deep.  

You don't have to give anything to the receiver (and you shouldn't).  Getting in good defensive position does not mean you give up the space that you control.  It, in fact, means you give yourself to control all of your mark's field space.  If you're facing a good receiver, good defensive positioning has everything to do with you constantly swiveling your head to check on the disc.

Good defensive position won't make the plays for you.  But, it will give you the chance to make a lot more plays and see how a lot of things setup. 

Thinking about fitness OR Why wasted effort is important

Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.
-Thomas Edison
We cannot afford idleness, waste or inefficiency.
-Eamon de Valera

While I was throwing around with Jim (short for Jimothy) and Al (short for Albert) yesterday, I got to thinking about why Ultimate is tiring.   I wasn't thinking about  it being tiring for players who can't comfortably play pick-up without getting winded.  I was thinking about it being tiring for talented players who are one step down from elite.

This dog has been playing hard man-to-man defense and is taking a point off.

I ended up arriving at the same unsatisfying answer I have in the past: wasted effort.  Wasted effort is defined as hard work that you do on the field that gives your team no advantage.  Even good players spend quite a bit of time on the field working hard for nothing.


And, lest you think I've gone soft in the head, I'm in no way talking about defense.  If you work hard on your mark, never giving him an opening to receive a throw or never giving him a throw to make, then you are not working hard for nothing.  There is no direct statistic that measures that sort of defensive effort (because Ds only come when the opposing team tries to throw it to your mark), but your hard work is succeeding in completely taking away an offensive option.  And, in a lot of ways, that's the best defensive result you can possibly hope for.


The wasted effort I'm referring to comes on offense.

Cutting well (at least cutting well against a defender who is determined to stay with you) is not easy.  Against a determined defender, it takes a fair amount of concentration on setting yourself up correctly and setting your opponent up to be out of proper alignment.  As if that wasn't difficult enough, you also have to time your explosion from the setup process well enough to get separation from the defender just as the thrower is catching the disc and looking your way.  If you are too early, you run out of room to continue your cut before the new thrower has had a chance to throw to you.  If you are too late, the thrower has already looked your way, decided you aren't open, and moved on to another target.

It is this second part of the receiver equation that causes most (if not all) of the wasted effort. The timing of a receiver's setup and cut is rarely talked about or practiced, but it is of vital importance.  A receiver can be a magnificent cutter with great agility and power, but without the correct timing, it is all a waste.  And not only will this waste hurt the team by constantly removing a useful target from a thrower's options, but it will also hurt the receiver's ability to continue playing well as he gets physically and mentally fatigued from so much fruitless cutting.

This shows the amount of wasted effort you find in just one possession.

The lesson that most players unfortunately take away from this is that it is smart to be lazy.  Why should you work really hard to perfectly setup and execute a cut when you don't even get a chance at the disc after all your hard work?  Isn't it better to just make lazy jogging cuts so that you don't have to get tired for no reason?

The lesson that I wish most players took away from the fruitless cutting situation is that it is more important to perfect your timing than it is to perfect your cutting setup.

I'm not suggesting that players shouldn't work on their cuts and setups in isolation.  They should, as that is the only way to make better cuts is to practice the physical skills in a vacuum.  But, to make better cuts in a team scenario (where nobody cares how you got open, they just care that you got open), players need to work on their prediction and anticipation.  Basically, up to the elite level, time is better spent for most players figuring out exactly when/where the next cut should come from.


If you had a group of player who had perfect timing, but minimal conditioning, they would be just fine on offense.  The reason they'd be just fine has little to do with their physical skills.  It has nearly everything to do with their mental skills.  Put bluntly, they'd have 0% wasted effort.  I'm sure you could create a defensive team that would beat this hypothetical, perfect timing team.  But, it would take some really top-notch defenders.

On defense, on the other hand, very little effort is wasted by anyone (great athlete or poor athlete).  As I've written before, the offensive player controls the effort level of a man-to-man defender.  I've never seen a defender waste effort sprinting back and forth while the man he is guarding jogs around.  As players, we simply realize that it makes no sense to "out-work" your opponent when the opponent is no threat to do anything to help his team.  Being 1% better than your mark is just as good as being 75% better in a strictly 1-on-1 match-up.  But, in a 7-on-7 situation, not wasting effort being 75% better than your mark allows you to do many other useful things like poach, help, etc.

It is for the reasons listed above that I think what separates average players from great players mostly has to do with wasted effort or the consequences of fearing wasted effort.