Defense,Offense,Practice,Psychology,Training
28 August 2010
I’ve done a lot of reading of other blogs, books, and I’ve talked to a lot of people for many hours about ultimate. In all of that time, I’ve come up with a bit of a quick reference checklist that I think will help any level of player, captain and team before going into a practice, game, and especially a tournament.
Let me know what you think of my list of tips. What ones should I add?
Practice,Psychology,Training
11 August 2010
How often do we head to a competition in perfect shape? Cardio is up, no injuries whatsover, well rested in terms of sleep and muscles, mentally fit as we can be, and no leftover twinge in that sprained ankle, pulled hamstring, or that torn ACL.
I wish I could say that I was in perfect shape for the upcoming Canadian Ultimate Championships in Sherbrooke but the reality is that I am not. At fitness practice last week I felt like my quads wouldn’t kick in during sprints, likely because my hamstring was pulled and my SI joint was locked because I hadn’t seen my chiropractor recently.
Practice,Psychology,Training,Videos
1 July 2010
Having clear expectations and setting reachable goals will help you enjoy playing ultimate better. Not only will it help define your role on the team but it will help you become a better player, it will help you enjoy practices and games more than you did before and it will help you be more effective when you practice.
Popularity: 52%
Practice,Psychology,Tournaments
17 June 2010
Ever since I started playing sports, one thing I’ve loved has been the pre game warmup. When I played hockey, we’d come onto the ice to ACDC, Metallia and Guns ‘n Roses and go through our warmup drills. I remember how pumped I’d get from doing the same drills before every game. It helped calm the nerves, helped me warm up and helped me get into the right mindset to focus on the game.
The same is true for any sport.
Basketball, volleyball, soccer can all have similar warmups to hockey with loud music and the usual warmup drills.
Featured,Leadership,Psychology
7 June 2010
If I learned one thing about leadership in the past 5 years it is to avoid trying to clone myself. Although I may be great (or think I am) at many aspects of the game, like defense, speed, agility, field sense, anticipating plays developing, I am by no means perfect. My throws are not technical, my confidence breaks down, I lose intensity and motivation when it’s cold, and I can rarely identify what the other team’s defensive and offensive strategies are, to name but a few of my weaknesses. Yet, erroneously, when I have been in a leadership role in the past, I have, inadvertently tried to create a team of “me’s”. I recently read an article on management tips and appreciated the one entitled avoid trying to clone yourself as a perfect summary of this type of leadership error.
Featured,Psychology,Rules
31 May 2010
As the title alludes to, there was too many calls being made during the USA Ultimate College Open Championships between Florida and Carleton (which Florida won fyi). In typical college ultimate fashion, there was a lot of hucks, a lot of d’s and a lot of calls.
Which leads me to the topic of this post – the calls.
The game had 4 observers, who were making active calls like line, down disc and stall count violations. However, they were also stepping in when they felt that the the play was going to get out of hand. Which I think is cool. Don’t want the game to escalate and have fights happen.
Featured,Main,Psychology
29 April 2010
I started playing ultimate when I moved to Halifax in 2000 and began playing competitively on touring teams in 2003 but I have never played on any team outside of Halifax until recently. In fact, I became so comfortable in the Halifax scene that while in Winnipeg for the month, it was very stressful to play in the Winnipeg scene – an ultimate tradition that I admire greatly, in principle! But playing outside my comfort zone played havoc on my performance and confidence. My throws were horrible. I was cutting people off left, right, and centre. I turned away from several discs only to have them drop beside me as a turnover. Horrendous! And how I felt inside was equally horrible. My poor, shattered ego!
Psychology
26 March 2010
I’m just coming down from 2 back-to-back ultimate tournaments and I feel awesome. I feel strong, healthy, powerful, effective, and influential. I’m 33 years old and feel fortunate that I’m able to throw my body all over the field in the spirit of the game and come away with minor bruises. And I’m well aware of how ridiculous that seems to anyone who does not play ultimate, or competitive sports in general.
Myself, along with a handful of others, got a tremendous amount of playing time. Others were not so fortunate. Others stood on the sideline waiting their turn, waiting for their name to be called to the field while I just walked on, unassumingly.
Psychology
9 February 2010
Bobo plays ultimate in Halifax and I was lucky enough to meet him this summer at the Parlee Beach Ultimate Tournament in Shediac, NB. Bobo is a young up and coming player and is super passionate about the sport. He was playing in a recent indoor tournament and after a tight point, scored and promptly spiked (well kicked the disc). He wrote an article based on that incident and more generally related it to the sport in general. That article follows below.
Practice,Psychology,Training
27 January 2010
Brain science tells us that the brain uses different processes and different parts for gaining different types of knowledge. The type of conscious, or explicit, knowledge we learn in school is controlled by the prefrontal cortex. The logical prefrontal cortex can quickly solve rational problems and learn step by step tasks. Using the prefrontal cortex, we can analyze what we know, we can show our work in math problems, or explain to someone else how we performed a task.
