Feldrenner Training

90 minutes open practice

McFit, Practice

Burgener Warmup
3 hang squat clean and jerk 40kg

Diane: 21-15-9 for time of:
Deadlift 80kg
Handstand pushups
Completed in 12:05
Rounds: 4:40, 4:55, 2:30

50 knees to elbows
3x10 hamstring curl at 40, 40, 35kg

After a trip to the sauna,

90 minutes mixed practice

McFit, Feldrenner Training

Burgener Warmup
3x(4 L-hang pullups, 2 knee-tuck pullups, 2 strict pullups, 2 kipping pullups)
3 hang clean and jerk, 3 clean and jerk, 3 snatch at 40, 50kg
5 overhead squats at 40, 50kg
3 front squats at 60, 65, 65kg
3x10 hand-release pushups at +15kg

Misc. SAQ drills
40m slow shuffles each direction
2x40m walking lunges
10 chinups

90 minutes semi-mixed practice

Indoor DM

We lost every game. Moving on...

Rhein Neckar Trophy

Rushed to Hauptbahnhof without showering, met up with Botto and Duy and sped off to Heidelberg as fast as Botto's mother's little German auto could take us. Made sure to warm up, because I didn't want to put myself out of commission for six weeks again. We only had 8 players, so it was also going to be a long day for us.

Game 1 vs Bad Skid: 8-4 and 17-15, though it felt like we were trailing the whole time. It was a dogfight, but we gutted it out from 14-14 to win. I matched up for most of the game against one of my younger teammates from the National squad, Niko, and I have to admit he gave me a rough time. We each had one layout D on each other (both arguably thrower errors, but layout D's nonetheless), and I beat him deep for a huck goal but he also skied me another time--there was contact and I thought he had fouled me, but I took the call back because I really just should have caught it. I had three turnovers (one huck that wasn't leading enough and got tipped out of bounds, another that gave Niko too much time to catch up and get a layout-D on the older/slower Botto, and then the endzone sky). I threw and caught some goals but didn't count them, and otherwise played pretty well.

Game 2 vs Sieben Schwaben: 8-6 and 15-12, they put up a run at the end after we were leading by a bit, but we closed it out. This game was significantly less contested throughout, and thank goodness because we were really gassed from the first one. I threw three goals, one turnover, and got one D back. Matched up a lot on Phillip from the national team, but wasn't sharp enough to shut him down. Gotta get back into conditioning.

We had a short lunch break, which was nice, because we got to spend it in the hall where the Mainz girls were playing the relegation tournament for the indoor season. Apparently they didn't make the first league, which is sad, but I nabbed a sandwich, a coke and a piece of cake for only 3€ so that helped raise my spirits. Only problem is, we still had another game with only one sub...

Game 3 vs Heidees: 5-8 and 12-15, we started to crawl back in the second half but were just too tired to hang. I had two more turnovers, another D and some goals thrown. We played more clam and poachy defense in this game, which worked to some extent, but on offense I got really frustrated with the playing style of some of my teammates. Hopefully we can get more on the same page later in the season.

The best part of the day was that nobody got seriously injured. We had a nice run with low numbers, and once we get some of our other players back we should be looking good for the outdoor season.

Uni Lift, Feldrenner Training

Burgener Warump x2
Power snatch to 5 overhead squats at 20, 30, 40, 50kg
5 overhead squats 55kg
Bench press: 5 at 60, 3 at 70, 2 at 75, 1 at 77.5kg

90min open practice. Fog blanketed the field, I practiced pulls and defense on handlers. No subs. I need to work on my work capacity.

Uni Lift, Feldrenner Training

3x10 step-ups with rotation
Thrusters: 5 at 30, 40kg
Muscle-ups: 2x5
Front squat: 5 at 50, 55, 60kg
Pushups: 2x12 at +20kg
3x10 kettlebell swing 15kg
3x10 RLESS
3x10 incline barbell push

60min outdoor practice, 3v4 scrim.

Feldrenner Training

Introduced the vert stack handler motion. I even played! In running shoes, and I didn't push too too hard, but it felt good to finally be out there again. I made a bunch of crazy throws for goals, but I have to remind myself next time to practice higher-percentage decisions.

Ran a cool-down jog afterwards to the bus stop.

Feldrenner Training

Got there late, and apparently most people decided not to show up at all, but we got some good huck practice and 4v4 scrimmage going on a nearly-full-sized field.

Feldrenner Training

Still outdoors on the turf. Tonight we did an in-cut defense drill, deep cut/defend drill, and a modified scrimmage: 4 defensive players pull to 5 offensive players. Offensive player A swings to B, who then must complete a pass that gets caught further downfield than 20yds from the endzone line--any pass caught less than 20yds from the endzone line (the "dead zone") is a turnover. Once one of the downfield players catches it past this "dead zone" they continue to play 3v3 until they score (A and B don't do anything except the first two passes, and the puller only guards B until B throws the first pass downfield, then he sits out too). It was kind of weird, and I didn't figure out all the rules right away, but it was kind of interesting as a strategic challenge.

Feldrenner Training

Some weird drills, and the mixed scrimmage at the end was kind of disappointing, but the 3v4 scrimmage was good. I put some nice leading long throws out. I'll have to focus on keeping my vision open on offense this weekend, though--I'm going to tryouts for the German National team and don't want to make stupid turnovers because I didn't see the poach. Also, tighter defense. As always.

Feldrenner Training

The structured throwing practice and the warmup drill we did really made me think about how much further along the team here in Mainz is fundamentally from Frankfurt. I don't know whether they understand the game better, or whether this team's leaders just put more thought into planning practices, but I'm a big believer in doing drills that mimic real-game situations. Even though there were plenty of errors in both cities (both teams have beginners even at their "experienced" practices) I felt a lot more incentive to push myself and improve tonight, compared to Monday, because the drill actually made sense to me. After that we played 3v3 continuous-passes, which is super tiring because I'm not used to non-stop Atlas-style play like that, and after a while my defense started really suffering...but then we moved into a full-field 7v7 mixed scrimmage, 3/4 the way it ought to be, and that was pretty great. I still can't get over how nice it is to play on a turf field, 7-9pm under the lights. I mostly handled, half the time wondering why they don't dump/swing enough and the other half of the time throwing goals to girls. Boom.

Feldrenner Training

Long commute, but the practice was worth it. Outdoors, turf field, under the lights from 7-9pm, I felt like I was back home practicing with Machine. Numbers were low, but the level was pretty high. After a couple drills we scrimmaged 3v3 with an additional permanent defender, which made things pretty interesting. Thank god I didn't have to be the permanent defender. As it was I started to feel some tightness in my groin, but pretended it wasn't there and finished out practice fine. We had a solid ten minutes or so to work on throwing afterwards, and it was good to remember what I had been missing. After practice there was a team meeting to discuss goals and how to reach them. I'm looking forward to putting in some work myself.

Drake - I Want This Forever

Went to the Karlsruhe Christmas Cup over the weekend, an annual indoor tournament where double-disc-court discs are used for all games. Kevin drove us down through the snow, so cold outside that we had to keep pouring anti-freeze out of the sunroof to clear the windshield. We got to the sleeping hall in late evening and, after checking out the "Welcome Party" for a quick minute, threw around with the DDC-discs and a good Mainz-brewed Doppelbock in hand. The hall was freezing on Friday night, almost unbearably so without a sleeping pad, but I had a borrowed sleeping bag and slept in layers with my underarmour hat on. I got basically enough rest before waking up 45 minutes before the alarm, I guess because it was too cold to sleep. Traditional German breakfast in the other hall and then right away our first game, barely begun with enough players because most of the team was late making the drive down on Saturday morning. We lost to one of the better teams at the tournament, and only by 2, but it was a frustrating game and it felt like we could have won if we had only had our full team assembled by the time it began. Remember, it was 5v5 continuous play for 24-minute games so there was no time for the latecomers to warm up or anything.

After a few rounds of byes we played our second game and got wrecked, mostly due to a ton of throwing errors and dumb decisions, miscommunications and crap defense (what else can go wrong in a game?). By the third game we finally picked a single directional-force defense, instead of having four defenses changed with audibles. We may have also been playing a weaker team, but we finally won a game and earned ourselves...last place in the pool, due to point diff. We won our two crossover games though, then showered and went to eat at a decent pub kind of place with a Giant Hamburger special and decent local beer. We grabbed a Streetcar and went to the tournament party, already in full swing. Danced for a while with teammates, watched a team put on a show to "Who let the dogs out?", called my girl and then most of the team wanted to leave. I wasn't ready to go yet, but I knew if I wanted to go back at some point during the night I'd have to go then, or walk home alone in the single digits without any idea where the sleeping hall was. So I said screw it, I'll stay and win the party--after all, there's a first time for everything. Bernhard and Martin had also convinced Kevin to stay, so the four of us grabbed more drinks and hit the dance floor again. Fast forward to Bernhard getting too drunk, he puked outside and we put him in a cab (to whom he said, when asked where he lived, "Frankfurt!" and was halfway there before he realized the appropriate answer would have been "Karlsruhe Uni Sporthalle!"). Half an hour later Kevin and I had no idea where Martin was, eventually found him passed out in a chair at the corner of the dancefloor and put him in a cab (though the driver wouldn't take him until we had sobered him up for half an hour). So then it was just Kevin and I, the two left who hadn't really meant to stay all night. We partied all the way until 5:30am, outlasting all the other teams (aka winning the party), then found our way back with the help of a Karlsruhe native. It wasn't quite so warm on Saturday night as it was on Friday, either because the hall had a lot more people in it or because I didn't notice in my post-party state.

Two hours of sleep or so later, we got up for another early breakfast and first-round game. We lost, waited around for almost 3 hours and then won our consolation game (11th out of 16). Showered real quick, commentated the women's finals (which the Mainz women lost, but only barely) and then hit the road. It was snowing hard again, slow going at some parts but Kevin eventually dropped me off in Schlangenbad so I didn't have to wait around for the bus. Overall the weekend was a lot of fun, though frustrating at times because our team wasn't playing up to what I felt our potential was. I think I played well, at least on offense--some throwing turnovers and one drop aside, I was one of the more conservative players and had a good completion percentage. I got some blocks, but had trouble at times taking away downfield cutters. I'm still not sure how to deal with a team that connects on a lot of overheads and blades, hopefully I'll get to work on that more in the States. But considering my goal for the weekend was to be a better role-player on O with fewer turnovers, I think I was successful.

I come home in a little more than two weeks. Compared to the plan I set out for myself when I came to Germany, I know I didn't work out as much as I intended to. On the other hand, I got to play a lot more disc than I expected to. I haven't let myself go and I'm not fat, though I certainly ate well. I think over the next two weeks I'll mostly be doing yoga and recovery stuff, with maybe a few runs and DoC workouts thrown in. I'd like to step up my ability to do consecutive pushups before going back, and overall my goal is (as it has been) to be ready to hit winter conditioning hard. I'll be planning the next phase, too, and I'm really looking forward to having the resources at Rutgers again--dudes to work out with not the least. In the meantime...

Flipsyde - Shippin' Stones

er...150 reps of stuff. Actually 145. I wanted to do pullup-type stuff, and medicine ball stuff. This is what I came up with. "Explosive pullups" means while hanging on a pullup bar, launch your body up so you can grab onto a parallel but higher-placed bar. Doing this without the hand pads that gymnasts use is sort of painful, especially with a small-diameter bar.

5 L-hang pullups

10 3kg medball vertical tosses

5 knees-to-elbows

10 3kg medball overhead throws

5 explosive pullups

10 3kg medball throws right

5 knees-to-elbows

10 3kg medball throws left

5 single-rope pullups, left on top

5 single-rope pullups, right on top

10 3kg medball throws back over head

5 one-hand (two-arm) pullups, right

10 single-hand wall balls, 3kg 10' L

5 one-hand (two-arm) pullups, left

10 single-hand wall balls, 3kg 10' R

10 3kg medball slams

10 glute-ham raises

10 box jumps with 3kg medball

5 explosive pullups

Right afterwards, got into a solid sixty minutes of 5v5 continuous indoor scrimmage with very little subbing (for me), using Double-Disc-Court discs (smaller, with greater tendency to blade outside-in). Fun, but not as fun as real discs. Unfortunately, we're using DDC-discs for the tournament this weekend in Karlsruhe. I think I threw enough turnovers tonight for the whole weekend, so we'll see how it goes.

King Geedorah - Next Levels ft...

Went out early again and met Doug from Harvard (and Longmeadow HS) for some jogging, around a mile working my way from slow to strong. Tried a bunch of times to do a muscle-up, unsuccessful but close a couple times. Worked on my mark during the throwing segment, did well in the box-out-while-cutting drill, then we worked on indoor zone defense. I love shredding zones. Afterwards scrimmage, almost exclusively zone...I got some good D's as the deep, skied two defenders for a goal, got skied once for an ill-advised razor. Afterwards a beer with the guys Fun night, though I miss full-field Ultimate with full-field cuts. Hopefully will get some on Sunday.

Lil' Wayne ft. Drake - I'm Goin' In

21-15-9 pullups/burpees

Completed in 9:12

Medball 300: 20 reps each of

Overhead squats

Deadlifts

R chops

L chops

Wall balls

Standing Russian twists

R big circles

L big circles

R split squats

L split squats

Clean and press

R SL RDL

L SL RDL

Situps, bounce pass off wall

V-ups, pass ball from feet to hands

At beginners practice in Mainz I worked on accuracy from different release points (because we threw for more than 300 minutes), dump defense, and...ok the scrimmage was not very helpful this time. Too many people who had no idea what they were doing.

MF Doom - The Drop

Headed out to Mainz early to get a workout in before practice.

For time:

25 squats

400m run

25 pushups

400m run

25 burpees

400m run

25 squat jumps

400m run

completed in 9:22

10 reps of each, with a 3kg medicine ball:

overhead squats, russian twists, chops

deadlifts, cleans

pushups, both hands on ball

pushups, one hand on ball

overhead split squats (ball in one hand)

wall balls

situps with throw/catch off the wall

Practice was a stack timing drill, a marking drill to stop overhead throws only, and some more zone practice/scrimmage. Then "full" 5v5 scrimmage. A little more trouble today, playing the zone D...zone O is pie. And I love pie. Happy Thanksgiving.

Jay-Z - Allure (Ratatat Remix)

Went to Berlin for a few days. Back now.

10 L-hang pullups

2x5 knee-tuck pullups

Indoor beginner's practice in Mainz, where I adapted to suit my needs. We did maybe 30 minutes of throwing, so I worked on pivot-to-throw at varying speeds with accuracy. During the drill (simple throw to simple out-and-in cut) I pretended the throw was break-side, and tried to refine the pace on my throws. Worked on some skying--found myself getting good position to get the D a lot, but was having trouble making the catch. During the scrimmage, I was all about defense...but this was easy, because we were mixed and heavy with beginners. So I took it as a challenge to maintain intensity regardless of opponent.

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.