Practices

Practices are Tuesday and Thursday, with power gym workouts on Wednesday (more on this later). Our focus so far has been, obviously, fundamentals--cutting, catching, moving the disc, etc. After the warmup/stretch, we run a dishy drill and a triangle drill, which capture pretty well the whole throwing/catching thing, but most people run them slowly. I think that they would be much more effective if everybody approached the drills with intensity and focus, but I guess that's pretty obvious. The triangle drill, especially, is more susceptible to laziness, but I'm biased against it anyway because I don't think it mirrors the game well enough. The dishy, however, fits very well with "my" approach to ultimate.

I still don't really know where I fit in on the team, exactly. During scrimmages, the captains will often call me as a handler, which is a position that I am comfortable fulfilling. I make errors from time to time, but I think it's fair to say that it will take time for me to learn the team, learn when to make what cuts, and when to hold back on a throw. I'm re-learning the game a little bit, too, trying to determine what the outer limits of my hucks are, nailing down my swing passes, and remembering to step out for my throws. I guess what I really want is for the practices to get more personal, for an upperclassman to take me on as a mentee the same way Jimmy, Yee-Wen, Art, and Jon did when I was a freshman at Watchung Hills. Granted, I have more skills than a number of the freshmen here, so I can understand why they don't worry about me as much; nevertheless, I need a little bit of instruction, a little bit of criticism, and a direction to follow. Should I cut more in practices, to learn that aspect of the game better? Or should I focus on handling, as I did in high school? I know I want to get the disc more, because I need to practice the throws that only come up in games: forehand cross-field swings, up-the-line throws with touch, hucks. I need to improve my pivoting/faking as well, something that is hard to do outside a game situation, without a mark.

At the end of the practice yesterday, we sprinted around the playing field proper, with the winning scrimmage team (mine) getting a 15yd head start. I came in 4th out of 31 people, so I'm in pretty good shape for long sprints...which means I need to get some quickness and sprinting speed. I'm ready for it.

In the power gym, we do a series of lunges (forward, backward, side to side) with medicine balls, then some speed-ladder work and a circuit of exercies, including pushups, ab work, squats, etc. It is very tiring, and I think that it will be very good for my game in general. The athletic trainer who leads us through it will probably start to introduce new exercises to target ultimate-specific needs, which is exciting. I also plan to start swimming two to five times per week, if I can work up the requisite willpower.