MF Doom - Vaudeville Villain

30 minutes stretching

10 minutes foam rolling

Then I headed out to Mainz for an indoor practice with a mixed group of guys, with the ladies practicing on the other half of the indoor surface. It wasn't turf, it was more like rubber-coated concrete with traction slightly better than a basketball court, but it made for very few layouts. We did a couple drills practicing the timing of cuts out of a vertical stack (of four people, because indoor is 5v5), and the most glaring and immediate difference that separates them from all Ultimate I've ever played is the plain ubiquity of blades and hammers. But mostly blades. Holy shit, do they throw a lot of blades. And I'm not talking about curved hucks, I'm talking about razors at every opportunity...I guess the high ceiling, small space and lack of wind make these more viable, but I did notice that at least sometimes they're just too lazy to throw a flick. Oh, and we spent 5 minutes working on throwing/catching blades, and then another 5 minutes on throwing/catching short passes--including throws with the off hand.

In any case, after the drills we moved into 5v5 scrimmage. I tried to cover the ones that looked like they knew what they were doing (which was not everybody, as this was not the "advanced" practice), and held my own. I threw a bunch of goals (threaded a few needles, needless to say) and got a couple D's. There was a good deal of clam thrown into the scrim, even when the O got close to the endzone, again a strategy perhaps viable because of the tightness of the space. I preferred the directional-man, though I found myself getting open either way. Subbing wasn't a problem because there were only 14 of us there, and by the end my left knee starting complaining a bit.

Perhaps the weirdest thing is that the guy running practice spoke exclusively auf Deutsch, but I was able to keep up with just a little help from the various English-speakers there (including one American). It helped that I have a solid background in strategy, though...it seemed like clam was a new concept to some of the guys. I could only understand perhaps 30% of what was said, but between that and gestures and watching the other dudes, I could pretty much figure it all out.

Afterwards they invited me to have a beer with them at the Kneipe next door, and I enjoyed my Köstritzer Schwarzbier as well as the conversation--though, admittedly, most of the German flew over my head.