Smorgasbord

Had Pike practice this morning in Philadelphia. I caught a ride with Mutton, who isn't playing due to his wrist. I kind of wish I had his excuse because I played somewhere between poor and terrible. Had a drop in the endzone, multiple throwaways, and I got skied twice by Dusty in the endzone (even though he's giving up ~5 inches to me). I played timid; I don't know if it was the heel (which still hurt) or some other factor, but I wasn't there.

After practice, scarfed down the remaining Chicken Alfredo from Zorba's brother and caught a bus to Market Faire to see Ratatouille with Rachel. I don't know how Pixar keeps putting out success after success, but it's really good. Great animation, subtle and intelligent comedy, an outstanding performance by Peter O'Toole, it's got a lot going for it. It's not as good as Brad Bird's other films; The Iron Giant and The Incredibles are both better, but it's very satisfying and it left me VERY hungry.

After the movie, we hit up Stupalooza. Besides the idiocy of Mutton playing Robo with a damaged wrist, the party was pretty awesome all-around. Rachel and I skipped out a little early and apparently missed the REAL craziness, but I think I'm okay with that. Happy 21st Stu.

Today's Workout:
Pike Practice

On the iPod:
Silent Alarm by Bloc Party

She Comes...

Rachel's coming down tonight, which should be a good time. A lot of stuff is happening this weekend: Pike, Stupalooza, Ratatouille opening; hopefully we get to attend/enjoy it all. Should be a good time no matter what.

Heel still hurts, but it's feeling a little better. I need to stop using it as an excuse not to work out.

Today's Workout:
Rest Day

On the iPod:
Chroma by Cartel

Lightning-ed Out...

Had draft league again tonight. The heel didn't feel great, but I figured that I should at least try since my draft team needs me more than the Illuminati do. I had bought some new insoles to replace what was left of the originals, but due to the apparent preponderance of shin splints the only insoles I could find were massively insulated and didn't fit worth a damn. It was intermittently raining at the fields and by the time the lightning rolled around (along with a lot more rain) we were up 10-4 or so and I had had enough of playing. We won due to weather and I couldn't decide whether to curse the heavens for the weather or thank the Gods for getting me off the field.

Perhaps this is just a geographic thing, but on reflection I can remember only a handful of tournaments that I've played in college in inclement weather. Ignoring wind, it seems that significantly bad weather usually gets tournaments cancelled (exceptions: Salisbury freshman year, Rutgers-Sectionals sophomore year) in the tri-state area. However, my first two tournaments in AK were held in bad weather and I've heard of a number of tournaments on the west coast that almost advertise their bad weather. I talked briefly to Meredith about this and she thought that fields were cared for more frequently (re-sodded, maintained) on the west coast. Then why the hell aren't fields on this coast cared for? Having tournaments rescheduled/moved is frustrating and problematic for teams and tournament directors. Perhaps securing better fields with better funding should be a primary concern of the UPA.

Today's Workout:
Mercer Draft League (abbreviated)

On the iPod:
The Possibility and the Promise by Amber Pacific

Ouch

I didn't go to A league tonight, mainly because my heel is still throbbing. Took a long nap instead, which capped off an uneventful and boring day. When your life is work, frisbee, sleep and you cut one of them out due to physical limitation, you don't have much to talk about. Unless someone wants to hear about HDMR and its fascinating optimal polynomial functions, I'm signing off.

Today's Workout:
Rest Day

On the iPod:
Zoo by Anadivine

Sun shining through the clouds...

I played a decent game of ultimate tonight, probably my best of the summer. I covered Goose, Lehigh's ex-captain, pretty much all night and felt like I contained him. I had some good grabs in the air and felt good pretty much all-around. Sadly, I bruised my heel at the end of the half and it's currently reminding me that I kept playing.

We didn't have any women, which meant we had to play a man down, but the other team allowed us to play 7 men on offense, which helped significantly. We also managed to break them while playing a man down. Eventually, we co-opted a random passerby into playing with us and besides her complete inexperience, we went on to dominate.

Hopefully the heel doesn't keep me from A league tomorrow.

Today's Workout:
MCUDL Draft league

Currently Reading:
Mists of Avalon by MZ Bradley

On the iPod:
Good Apollo I'm Burning IV: Part One by Coheed and Cambria

Team Defense vs. Individual Glory

Over the last two seasons, I've seen our team improve significantly on defense. Particularly compared to my freshman year, we play significantly harder and force more turns. At the same time, we haven't reached anything near great defense. I think part of this lies in our philosophy.

We often talk about "winning" individual match-ups. In pregame talks, we tell people to "beat" their men to the disc. However, even if you are more athletic, more skilled, or more good-looking, you won't always be able to do this. Positioning, situations (particularly fast breaks), and dumb luck constantly allow comparatively slower or weaker players to get the disc. This isn't an insult to our players, it's simply the truth about a game that is heavily weighted towards the offensive team.

Great defense is not seven individual's "winning" their match-ups. There are a host of small, important details that separate seven glory-minded players from a hard-nosed defensive team. If we want to win games at big tournaments and at regionals, we need to incorporate these elements.

Thinking about our last season, our deep defense was never particularly strong. Our dump defense wasn't particularly effective and we often got beat on the open side. While we did play strong defense against weak teams (a difference from previous years), we couldn't hold that same intensity against stronger teams (GDub, Pitt).

The failure of an individual-centric defensive philosophy is its lack of trust. On defense, trust between teammates is essential because it evens the playing field between offender and defender and allows individuals an even chance to "win" their match-ups.

Simple things like holding forces (NOT reaching for the point block), utilizing the mark as a method of dump defense, and calling switches to prevent deep throws require trust and unselfishness between teammates.

On defense, it doesn't matter how many blocks you get or how many in-cuts you cover. If the other team scores, you failed. Period. We need to approach defense with a chip on our shoulders. We need to be just as happy when a teammate gets a block as when we do. GDub once described their team strategy as blue-collar defense. We play too much white-collar defense, relying on ourselves over our teammates. We need to be smash-mouth, hard-nosed defenders, but we also need to be a team. I think the only thing holding us back is desire, a willingness to be part of a team.

I'm fucking excited for next season, are you?

Today's Workout:
Shoulder Rehab
Pike Core Workout

Currently Reading:
Mists of Avalon by MZ Bradley (on hiatus)
Stone of Tears by Terry Goodkind

On the iPod:
Greatest Hits by Bob Dylan

Boston, Day Two

Day two of the sideline adventure. Pike had three games against Truck Stop (who had lost to GOAT the previous day to finish 2nd in their pool), Zebra Muscles and the Van Buren Boys (apparently the men from CLX, a pretty iconic mixed team; their women also played under the name "Small Rackages").

Again, no recaps. Suitable ones can be found at Dusty's blog (Boston, Day Two) and scores can be seen on the UPA score reporter (Boston Invitational).

The team had the same problems as Saturday; too many turnovers, miscommunications, sluggish early play and the complete and utter inability to score on D. Hilarious that moving from college to club reveals the same problems in the same areas. At times we looked strong and at times we looked incompetent, hopefully it's just early season play.

I got to play one point on defense, which was definitely the most stressful two minutes of my weekend. My man didn't touch the disc, but we got scored on without forcing a turn. Made me have some thoughts about defense (will discuss further on Monday).

At the end of the tourney, caught a ride back with Dono and his wife. We were joined by Dan Yi and Emily (Wicked), which turned the once-spacious backseat into a rather cramped experience. One car ride later and there are now funny pictures of me asleep along with the knowledge that my iPod nano and Dono's 10k song monster have ~10 songs in common (either I have obscure musical taste or he does, I'm going with me...). Good weekend.

Today's Workout:
Boston Invitational, Day Two

On the iPod:
Dizzy Up the Girl by Goo Goo Dolls (the only common songs...)

Boston, Day One

The first day of Boston was a lot of fun. Pike played four games against Medicine Men, PoNY (with ex-Pike and Princeton alumnus Bailey Russell), Boston and New Noise. The sideline wasn't as fun as playing, but it was a nice experience being a "partial" observer while being part of the team.

I'm not going to recap each game individually. Decent recaps can be found on Dusty's blog (Boston Invitational, Day One) and scores can be seen on the UPA score reporter (Boston Invitational).

I think most of the team feels that Pike underperformed at the tournament. From my perspective, I saw a lot of chemistry and mental problems relative to other teams. PoNY, in particular, looked to have a lot of trust between their players and this definitely proved crucial to their upset of Boston and going 3-0 in the pool. Particularly on defense, we had numerous turnovers on dumps/swings/poor deep throws, all of which rely on trust/chemistry between teammates.

While the O line had similar problems early in the tournament, they seemed to mesh moreso than the D as the tournament progressed. I would say they were also more effective integrating newer players (Mutton, Perry, Art), which is probably due to their tighter rotation. The team brought 20-some D players, but seemed to be playing all of them equally or half in a tight rotation. I think this hurt any chemistry that was developing.

A large portion of the team went to Applebee's for dinner. Results: Foss may be one of the funniest guys I know, my ID appears to work even though it LOUDLY states "Under 21" and is expired and Perry needs to keep a tighter watch on his french fries. After watching some "Deadliest Catch" and explaining that I didn't know anyone on the show, the bed was pretty sweet.

Today's Workout:
Boston Invitational

On the iPod:
Magnificient City Instrumentals by Rjd2

Off to Boston

Nothing special to report, today. I'm catching a ride up to Boston with Dono and his wife, should be a fun ride/trip. I've supposedly got a bed both nights, which feels weird, but thriftiness appears to be the watch-word.

Yesterday's Workout:
Shoulder Rehab
Pike Core Workout

Today's Workout:
Rest Day

On the iPod:
Black Lines to Battlefields by Acceptance

O and D?

Since I’ve been on Clockwork, we have never divided the team into concrete offensive and defensive lines/teams. At the same time, a number of elite teams in the area (and in the country) readily use this system. The question that remains is: do the advantages of such a division outweigh the disadvantages for OUR team?

As I see it, the advantages to separate O and D lines are:
-develops cohesion/chemistry quicker by focusing on smaller groups
-allows individuals to focus strongly on specific elements of the game
-helps hide individuals who have a specific weakness
-helps divide playing time more efficiently (works to prevent over/under-playing)

The disadvantages are:
-limits the play of “stud” players
-requires a large(r) team of players to draw from
-makes “all-star” lines less effective as they will have less practice together
-limits the effectiveness of players as they will be hurt on opposite side of the disc

Thinking about our team for next year, I think that many of the disadvantages listed can be strongly minimized. Our roster doesn’t utilize (at least not last year) a single “stud” player, but operates as a replaceable system. We are going to have 16+ players to draw from next year, so our roster appears to be large enough to support separate sides. Compared to how we ran lines this year, our “all-star” line saw play about as rarely as it would under O/D lines and assuming it drew fairly evenly between the two groups, chemistry would still exist. The final point is only a disadvantage if practice isn’t tailored to counteract this occurrence. O lines must play defense and D lines must score off turnovers, so neither can neglect the alternate side.

I think that such a division would allow us to train/groom players more quickly as they will be trained for specific roles rather than trying to make everyone a jack-of-all-trades. Furthermore, the problems we’ve had in the past with calling even lines would be somewhat alleviated.

As I see it, we could divide the team as follows:
O: Petums, Taint, Ding-Bang, Jonah, Nasty, Mik, Brain, Sam, Gibbs
D: Mutton, Jabe, Potter, Me, John-O, Kulkarni, Tomi, Hugh

Whether this is an optimal split could be debated, but I think that having set practice teams with set goals would definitely help us develop earlier in the season.

Yesterday’s Workout:
Rest Day

On the iPod:
Punk Goes Acoustic Vol. 2

Tournaments and Competition

Was reading a random post about the best tournaments in the world (the ultimate version of "50 places to go before you die..."), and it started me thinking about the tournaments I'd attended as a college player and on my own. There is an obvious difference between the two categories, but thinking about those differences put me on a different thought path.

Of the few tournaments I've attended outside of Clockwork, the focus has primarily centered on having fun as a team, enjoying the party, heckling/spirit/etc. Yet, tournaments with that emphasis exist in the college game (and I've attended a handful) along with developmental tournaments and the aforementioned serious tourneys. The question that became apparent was: how does a team approach these tournaments and should they attend them?

At least in the fall, I definitely think "fun" and "developing" tournaments are useful and somewhat necessary to build team chemistry and camaraderie, but I question there usefulness in the spring. Looking back at the season just-finished, we attended 3 serious and 1 "fun" tourney in the spring (outside of the Series). At least at the first two serious tournaments, I felt that we still needed significant work on fundamental skills and that the "fun" tournament, while enjoyable, taught the team very little.

If we want to do better next year, I feel that we need to be finished with "developing" by the time the Spring season arrives and we need to focus hard on serious tournaments. As much as I enjoy Georgia, I don't feel that it helps the on-field team any. Dartmouth and Cornell both took their spring break in Charleston, SC this year and practiced/scrimmaged (against one another, GTech, good teams...), which appears better for the team than High Tide was (even though it was a fantastic time otherwise). I would rather replace High Tide with practice and relaxation and playing a serious tournament on the other side of Spring Break.

I would also like to play other, less-geographically centered tournaments, but that will be discussed in a later post.

Yesterday's Workout:
Pike Leg Workout

Currently Reading:
The Mists of Avalon by MZ Bradley

On the iPod:
Santi by The Academy Is...

Harry Potter (almost)

Failed to keep my book-a-day pace going, got mired down in the second Harry Potter (or just didn't finish it, "mired" seems the wrong word for light fare). No groundbreaking thoughts to report (at least none fully developed, had random ideas about set plays in Swedish and how to teach dumps and marks, later posts). There will be a long(er) post later with my thoughts about Harry Potter in advance of the 7th book being released.

Yesterday's Workout:
4 mile run with sprints
Shoulder Re-hab
Pike Core Workout

On the iPod:
Armed to the Teeth by Abandoned Pools

Slow Day

I woke up pretty early and simply couldn't muster the inertia to accomplish much. Read a good bit, ended up working out for awhile, but honestly didn't do anything of significance. This whole summer has been a bit "slow," at least in the sense that I feel less drive to work than I should.

Yesterday's Workout:
Rest Day

Currently Reading:
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling

On the iPod:
The Broadcast Debut

Father's Day

Called my dad today. Sadly, he was in the midst of a mechanical problem with our boat, so I didn't get to have a particularly long or substantive conversation with him. For someone who I spent so much of my childhood (at least in perception) clashing with, it's astounding to realize how much we have in common. I know I already said it on the phone, but in case he ever reads this:

I love you, dad.

Yesterday's Workout:
Pike Practice (6+ hours)
Pike Core Workout

Currently Reading:
Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind

On the iPod:
The Turn

Another cog in the machine...

Pike today. And that was pretty much it.

Even though the practices last for a long time (6+ hours today), I find that I learn far more at each practice than I did all season this year. Paraphrasing Mutton, "it's nice to be the soldier in the army and not the general." Since I was probably a colonel in the Clockwork army, I guess my experience shouldn't be as drastic, but it's still kind of shocking.

In random other news, I found Mission Impossible: III to be a pretty good movie, much better than the no-substance II.

Yesterday's Workout:
Pike Down-Ladder (Mile warmup, 200, 175, 150, 125, 100, 80, 60, 40, cooldown)

Currently Reading:
The Watchmen by Alan Moore

On the iPod:
A Day at the Fair

Ab initio mundi

Let there be light.

Yesterday's Workout:
Shoulder Rehab
Pike Core Workout

Currently Reading:
The Uplift War by David Brin

On the iPod:
So Impossible EP by Dashboard Confessional