Monday, October 31, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Could you brush it off for me?
Running in the cold brings back last winter's grind so hard.
And it is so nice.
I find that for every excuse that I have not to do work, when I eventually man up, it makes the work that much sweeter. Knowing that you had so many "reasons" to skip out and then stepping up in the face of that creates such a rewarding feeling.
Something about knowing that many other players are just sitting around because its too cold or too late or too whatever makes you feel pretty badass.
We're at a point where you can't just show up to practice and get fast enough. The people that are still playing in the series are still playing because they put in the work. This is a pivotal time in our careers where if we want to make the jump to the next level, we need to actually make the jump.
And it is so nice.
I find that for every excuse that I have not to do work, when I eventually man up, it makes the work that much sweeter. Knowing that you had so many "reasons" to skip out and then stepping up in the face of that creates such a rewarding feeling.
Something about knowing that many other players are just sitting around because its too cold or too late or too whatever makes you feel pretty badass.
We're at a point where you can't just show up to practice and get fast enough. The people that are still playing in the series are still playing because they put in the work. This is a pivotal time in our careers where if we want to make the jump to the next level, we need to actually make the jump.
Dear Diary,
Do not do agilities on the gym floor unless you really hate your knees.
In other news, killed it at the gym yesterday.
EDIT:
P.S. Wasn't gonna run, high schooler posted a status about running, now I have to run.
In other news, killed it at the gym yesterday.
EDIT:
P.S. Wasn't gonna run, high schooler posted a status about running, now I have to run.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
ugh
I totally gained weight. Photographic evidence.
Oh well. What is done is done. I kind of figured it was coming, but, I was in denial because I didn't want to turn it around.
Healthy week has been very doable so far. Should be pretty easy to keep up. Either way, needs to keep up.
Gotta get back to the mentality of "I don't feel like it" not being a valid excuse.
Going to the gym sucks. Being at the gym rocks. Pretty easy decision. Did one legged squats today. They are fun.
Oh well. What is done is done. I kind of figured it was coming, but, I was in denial because I didn't want to turn it around.
Healthy week has been very doable so far. Should be pretty easy to keep up. Either way, needs to keep up.
Gotta get back to the mentality of "I don't feel like it" not being a valid excuse.
Going to the gym sucks. Being at the gym rocks. Pretty easy decision. Did one legged squats today. They are fun.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Scam Scam Scam-I-Am
Weekend went pretty well. We had 9 players from SUNYA (3 rookies with no High School experience, 2 ladies playing Open), and had 3 pickups for the first two games -- Siege (quite nice), Dasky (a loose-cannon cop on the edge who doesn't play by the rules) and some rando from Buffalo, but Siege left after the first and the rando + dasky left after the second.
We played 4 games without byes. The fields were pretty bad -- not as bad as the field that we did $50,000 worth of damage to at Sectionals, but worse than the upper field. God dammit I just dropped a goldfish. Every time the disc hit the ground it got coated in mud, and by the end of the first game my clothes were so dirty that they couldn't wipe the disc clean anymore. More than anything, it made running very hard.
I played the first two games straight through, and took the first couple of points off in the third game. In retrospect, I probably should have taken my subs while we had them, because after the third game Alexis ran off to play with some other team, leaving us with 8 players.
Since it was Danse, it was a costume tournament. Since we are SUNY Albany, we did something offensive. Our theme was Gay Superheroes. Boy was it funny. I was Gay Batman, sporting a children's small Batman t-shirt (it did not cover any of my belly) with glitter, Jorts with the bat-signal on the butt (also glittered), a cape with the batman signal (again with glitter), and a cartoon batman mask (which made playing very difficult). Our other superheroes were (all gay), Green Lantern, Spiderman, Superman, Robin, Captain America, Ambiguously Gay Duo, and Flash. We easily had the best costumes out of anyone I saw.
Games pretty much all played out the same, with the rookie-heavy lines struggling on both sides of the ball and our veteran-heavy lines dominating. Our zone-offense was super duper, and opposing teams did not use it much. I got the other handlers to learn a bit about clearing out and spacing, and feel much better about it after this weekend. My forehand hucks looked much better than they have been this weekend, but still not good. The through-forehand break definitely tighened up a lot though, and I made a few kids cry with it, throwing an especially tasty one to Bron Bron for a point. Man defense was pretty much impossible all day because I was either in mud, or making sure some freshman didn't get roasted deep. It was fun when we played zone when our ringers were around, cause I got to play either short-deep or center of the cup and just make the opposing team's weak handlers force ridiculous throws right into the teeth of Siege.
Day 2 for the chumpionship ended up cancelled because half of the fields were deemed unusable. No one told us, and even the kid on the team we were staying with had no idea. Quite annoying.
When Alexis left us during the first day, she didn't really tell us and just left all of her stuff on the sidelines. When we moved fields, Sarah picked up one of her bags, but no one recognized the other one. The other one happened to have her keys in them. On day 2 we tried to ask the TD if they found anything, but they said no one did, and it cost the other car ~5 hours so Alexis could get new keys made. Glad I was not in that car.
The team ended up staying at a deaf kid's dorm on RIT campus. I thought this was weird, but apparently RIT is known for their deaf kids. Regardless, we showed up at his apartment and he told us to go to a different dorm and have someone let us in to use their showers. We were told to call 'Skittles' and have him let us in. We tried to no avail, and just broke in ourselves. We wandered around, and eventually me, Alexis, and Prancer took an elevator to the top floor and asked some kids if there were showers here. He responded yes, we told everyone else, and we spread out over the dorm using most of their showers.
Saturday night me, Bron Bron, and Whipdick chilled out instead of going to the tourny party with the rest of the team. We watched some TV, got food, and durdled around. Everyone got back, and I was passing out as they ordered Wings over Rochester (or whatever its called, its a wings place).
The weekend definitely made me feel closer to the team, and I certainly took more of a leadership role a today's practice. A lot more teaching, encouragement during conditioning, and some talking during the huddle.
Just because I am not a captain doesn't mean I can't act like one.
P.S. I made vegetables with dinner tonight!
We played 4 games without byes. The fields were pretty bad -- not as bad as the field that we did $50,000 worth of damage to at Sectionals, but worse than the upper field. God dammit I just dropped a goldfish. Every time the disc hit the ground it got coated in mud, and by the end of the first game my clothes were so dirty that they couldn't wipe the disc clean anymore. More than anything, it made running very hard.
I played the first two games straight through, and took the first couple of points off in the third game. In retrospect, I probably should have taken my subs while we had them, because after the third game Alexis ran off to play with some other team, leaving us with 8 players.
Since it was Danse, it was a costume tournament. Since we are SUNY Albany, we did something offensive. Our theme was Gay Superheroes. Boy was it funny. I was Gay Batman, sporting a children's small Batman t-shirt (it did not cover any of my belly) with glitter, Jorts with the bat-signal on the butt (also glittered), a cape with the batman signal (again with glitter), and a cartoon batman mask (which made playing very difficult). Our other superheroes were (all gay), Green Lantern, Spiderman, Superman, Robin, Captain America, Ambiguously Gay Duo, and Flash. We easily had the best costumes out of anyone I saw.
Games pretty much all played out the same, with the rookie-heavy lines struggling on both sides of the ball and our veteran-heavy lines dominating. Our zone-offense was super duper, and opposing teams did not use it much. I got the other handlers to learn a bit about clearing out and spacing, and feel much better about it after this weekend. My forehand hucks looked much better than they have been this weekend, but still not good. The through-forehand break definitely tighened up a lot though, and I made a few kids cry with it, throwing an especially tasty one to Bron Bron for a point. Man defense was pretty much impossible all day because I was either in mud, or making sure some freshman didn't get roasted deep. It was fun when we played zone when our ringers were around, cause I got to play either short-deep or center of the cup and just make the opposing team's weak handlers force ridiculous throws right into the teeth of Siege.
Day 2 for the chumpionship ended up cancelled because half of the fields were deemed unusable. No one told us, and even the kid on the team we were staying with had no idea. Quite annoying.
When Alexis left us during the first day, she didn't really tell us and just left all of her stuff on the sidelines. When we moved fields, Sarah picked up one of her bags, but no one recognized the other one. The other one happened to have her keys in them. On day 2 we tried to ask the TD if they found anything, but they said no one did, and it cost the other car ~5 hours so Alexis could get new keys made. Glad I was not in that car.
The team ended up staying at a deaf kid's dorm on RIT campus. I thought this was weird, but apparently RIT is known for their deaf kids. Regardless, we showed up at his apartment and he told us to go to a different dorm and have someone let us in to use their showers. We were told to call 'Skittles' and have him let us in. We tried to no avail, and just broke in ourselves. We wandered around, and eventually me, Alexis, and Prancer took an elevator to the top floor and asked some kids if there were showers here. He responded yes, we told everyone else, and we spread out over the dorm using most of their showers.
Saturday night me, Bron Bron, and Whipdick chilled out instead of going to the tourny party with the rest of the team. We watched some TV, got food, and durdled around. Everyone got back, and I was passing out as they ordered Wings over Rochester (or whatever its called, its a wings place).
The weekend definitely made me feel closer to the team, and I certainly took more of a leadership role a today's practice. A lot more teaching, encouragement during conditioning, and some talking during the huddle.
Just because I am not a captain doesn't mean I can't act like one.
P.S. I made vegetables with dinner tonight!
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
I need to focus on the girls we gettin' currently
Sienna game went pretty well. We won by like 12-7, ish. Was up 7-1 at one point.
I played alright. My hamstring is kind of tweaked, so it was tough for me to get warmed up, and I played like it, especially in the fist half. My defense was OK -- they have a lot of inexperienced players, so I had to poach deep a lot to help out, most often right after a turnover. Once I settled in on D, I took away my offenders first option, but rarely got their second option. I had a few points where I played on a cutter and they did not do much, but, for the most part, I did not play strong defense.
My under throws were pretty tight once I warmed up. I had 3 turnovers I believe:
One on bad throw early in the game. Too high, was not warmed up, and the cutter could not get it.
The next was a poor decision, both in throwing it at all and where I threw it. Basically, a girl was open underneath, so I put a nice pass to her instead of whipping it in, and someone came off the stack and layout-d it. I think it was a bad decision in terms of where I put it -- I should have thrown it much further from the stack, letting the girl run onto it and eliminating the chance of the stack getting a D. It was very early in the stall count, like at 2, so I am pretty sure it was a risk not worth taking. I think I just got frustrated by how people don't throw to girls in mixed, so I saw her open, and just threw it, instead of looking her off.
The third one was a miscommunication/bad decision/bad throw. The trifecta! Basically, it was right off a turn, and Brown was in front of the disc upfield and I picked up the disc with most of the team behind me. Since it was off a turn, their whole defense was running back to prevent the quick deep shot. I yelled Brown's name, thought he made eye contact with me, and I threw a kinda breakmark IO flick. It was a bad pass, too much IO and not enough to the break side. I thought Brown was aware, but he wasn't even looking, and was surrounded by 4 Sienna players. I had a small window to hit him, and he wasn't really ready for it. I had no stall count. While I can usually make that throw, there is no real reason to. Additionally, I should have ran through or slowrolled it to let the offense get upfield.
There was one point that for some reason Brown decided to dump it to me, and I literally got every other touch until the person I threw it to got the assist. I would throw upfield to Dr. Gray, he'd dump it, I'd throw to Brown, he'd dump it. I would swing the disc to Buzzi, who would give it back, and did it over and over. I think I had 8 touches on the point. It was pretty awesome.
I think in order to fit into their offense I have to do two main things:
One is to get their players to trust me. On the surface, I am not a very good player. I am short, pretty slow, have pretty low stamina, and do not have very good hucks. People won't dump it to me because they don't see me doing anything strong with the disc. However, my strengths come in shallow break throws, never turning the disc over, and getting open for dumps, which keeps the offense chugging.
The second thing is to get their handlers working together. Right now it seems like they just get the disc to Brown, who is 75% to either turn it or score on any given possession, which results in their handlers having no idea where to go. They like to chill out behind the disc, dance around, etc. If I can teach them proper spacing and how/when/where to cut, it'll help the offense hold onto the disc more.
I also think they are not used to having another handler that can just straight run the ball. Brown obviously can if he wants, but he just hucks it. I think with me on the team they can afford to let Brown cut, which is awesome. I am not quite in the position yet to suggest major changes to their offense, but I think that once they see my high Frisbee IQ, they'll listen to me a bit more.
I am pretty excited to get to teach a bunch of new players what I know, and it is obviously awesome to get to learn from Brown, but playing on a new team is weird. It was so easy for me to get motivated to run that extra mile for GUNX, but it is so hard to even want to go to practice for SCAM. I have decided that if I want to actually enjoy playing with SCAM, I need to play with them a lot, so I am making myself go to every practice no matter what, but it sure is rough. Hopefully, between this tournament and practice, I start to feel like I belong to the family.
My forehand bombs are gone. This is almost definitely because I hurt my shoulder and stopped lifting. I started up Abs and pushups this week. I couldn't even finish the pushup one -- on Tuesday I failed at the 2nd set of the 3rd exercise, and today I failed at the 2nd set of the 2nd exercise. But, I feel stronger, and sore, and I'm confident I'll get it back quickly. I have had no problems with abs, perfect runs both times. I'll go back to level 2 in a week or two.
I was pretty lazy with my aerobic conditioning. Like I said, it is so much harder to work for a team that I have so little emotional investment in. But, I have lot of emotional investment in myself, so I picked it up this week. Gotta keep it going.
Long post is long. No conclusion.
I played alright. My hamstring is kind of tweaked, so it was tough for me to get warmed up, and I played like it, especially in the fist half. My defense was OK -- they have a lot of inexperienced players, so I had to poach deep a lot to help out, most often right after a turnover. Once I settled in on D, I took away my offenders first option, but rarely got their second option. I had a few points where I played on a cutter and they did not do much, but, for the most part, I did not play strong defense.
My under throws were pretty tight once I warmed up. I had 3 turnovers I believe:
One on bad throw early in the game. Too high, was not warmed up, and the cutter could not get it.
The next was a poor decision, both in throwing it at all and where I threw it. Basically, a girl was open underneath, so I put a nice pass to her instead of whipping it in, and someone came off the stack and layout-d it. I think it was a bad decision in terms of where I put it -- I should have thrown it much further from the stack, letting the girl run onto it and eliminating the chance of the stack getting a D. It was very early in the stall count, like at 2, so I am pretty sure it was a risk not worth taking. I think I just got frustrated by how people don't throw to girls in mixed, so I saw her open, and just threw it, instead of looking her off.
The third one was a miscommunication/bad decision/bad throw. The trifecta! Basically, it was right off a turn, and Brown was in front of the disc upfield and I picked up the disc with most of the team behind me. Since it was off a turn, their whole defense was running back to prevent the quick deep shot. I yelled Brown's name, thought he made eye contact with me, and I threw a kinda breakmark IO flick. It was a bad pass, too much IO and not enough to the break side. I thought Brown was aware, but he wasn't even looking, and was surrounded by 4 Sienna players. I had a small window to hit him, and he wasn't really ready for it. I had no stall count. While I can usually make that throw, there is no real reason to. Additionally, I should have ran through or slowrolled it to let the offense get upfield.
There was one point that for some reason Brown decided to dump it to me, and I literally got every other touch until the person I threw it to got the assist. I would throw upfield to Dr. Gray, he'd dump it, I'd throw to Brown, he'd dump it. I would swing the disc to Buzzi, who would give it back, and did it over and over. I think I had 8 touches on the point. It was pretty awesome.
I think in order to fit into their offense I have to do two main things:
One is to get their players to trust me. On the surface, I am not a very good player. I am short, pretty slow, have pretty low stamina, and do not have very good hucks. People won't dump it to me because they don't see me doing anything strong with the disc. However, my strengths come in shallow break throws, never turning the disc over, and getting open for dumps, which keeps the offense chugging.
The second thing is to get their handlers working together. Right now it seems like they just get the disc to Brown, who is 75% to either turn it or score on any given possession, which results in their handlers having no idea where to go. They like to chill out behind the disc, dance around, etc. If I can teach them proper spacing and how/when/where to cut, it'll help the offense hold onto the disc more.
I also think they are not used to having another handler that can just straight run the ball. Brown obviously can if he wants, but he just hucks it. I think with me on the team they can afford to let Brown cut, which is awesome. I am not quite in the position yet to suggest major changes to their offense, but I think that once they see my high Frisbee IQ, they'll listen to me a bit more.
I am pretty excited to get to teach a bunch of new players what I know, and it is obviously awesome to get to learn from Brown, but playing on a new team is weird. It was so easy for me to get motivated to run that extra mile for GUNX, but it is so hard to even want to go to practice for SCAM. I have decided that if I want to actually enjoy playing with SCAM, I need to play with them a lot, so I am making myself go to every practice no matter what, but it sure is rough. Hopefully, between this tournament and practice, I start to feel like I belong to the family.
My forehand bombs are gone. This is almost definitely because I hurt my shoulder and stopped lifting. I started up Abs and pushups this week. I couldn't even finish the pushup one -- on Tuesday I failed at the 2nd set of the 3rd exercise, and today I failed at the 2nd set of the 2nd exercise. But, I feel stronger, and sore, and I'm confident I'll get it back quickly. I have had no problems with abs, perfect runs both times. I'll go back to level 2 in a week or two.
I was pretty lazy with my aerobic conditioning. Like I said, it is so much harder to work for a team that I have so little emotional investment in. But, I have lot of emotional investment in myself, so I picked it up this week. Gotta keep it going.
Long post is long. No conclusion.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
Might as well go for the gusto now
The Binghamton tournament, in my eyes, is a story of a lack of leadership. The captains jammed the same offense or defense over and over, payed little to no attention to the playing time of many players, and spent too much time concerned about off non-ultimate issues. The lack of control exercised over the team let a negative feeling creep over the everyone, making some players scared to go on the field, making others take of their cleats because they were tired of getting chewed out.
Not only did the team perform worse on the field because of the lack of control, but many players did not improve as much as they could have, and many players had a worse tournament experience.
When you captain a team, your play is no longer your priority. Your job is to make the team run. You make sure that each line is balanced between handlers, cutters, veterans, and freshmen. You make sure that everyone is getting an appropriate amount of playing time (which doesn't just mean making sure the freshmen get in. That means pulling your starters at the right time so they don't pull their hamstring in the important game). You make sure that everyone's emotions are in check, if they're feeling too down or they're too vocal or you need to keep them off tilt. You call time-outs when you need to calm everyone down, or get your starters a break, or to change momentum.
A captain is a vocal sideline presence. They are the ones to keep the sidelines awake. They are the one yelling last back. They are the one leading sideline cheers.
A captain does not come off the field and sit on the other side of the field and chit chat. A captain does not come off the field and keep to themselves. A captain does not make a mistake on the field and let it impact them. A captain does not let their play affect the team. A captain does not think about where they are going to eat after the game.
A captain certainly does not get drunk on the sideline.
Your priority is everyone else first, yourself last.
"Can you get something out of someone that they could not get out of themselves."
-Marshall Faulk, on leadership
Thursday, October 13, 2011
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