80 of the top Open Ultimate players from across the country gathered to learn and play hard.
The weekend was split into two different days - day one was about drills and skills and day two was about playing games.
I was able to take some nice grabs during the drills, but I got caught out during one game on day 1 trying to milk the disc into the endzone. It always seems so tempting to try and just wait that extra second and make that big hop into the endzone - but it is NEVER worth it when you DROP IT in the process!!! You need to make catching it the number 1 priority.
One drill in particular was quite useful: Chris Warris (Hobbit) had us do this dump cut which starts 45d behind the thrower on the OPEN side. The dump cuts forward slightly then jags across behind the thrower to get an easy dump throw which leaves him free on the break side. It worked quite well in the drill, but I haven't had a chance to use it in a game yet.
Day two was a great experience. Every got to play with all these great players who some had never had the chance to play with before. I really enjoyed playing with the Dowles and Johnno Holmes - who I also had the pleasure of playing with a bit during my stint working in Canberra.
My long game was going really well all day which was nice, something which John Greenfield also mentioned to me - which was even nicer - him being a selector and all!
Two of the most memorable moments reinforced to me that good ultimate players all pretty much think a like. This was obvious to me from two times where eye contact with players who I have never really played with was enough to convey exactly what I wanted and what they wanted.
The first example was when I had the disc on the left hand side of the field 15 metres from the endzone. I was walking the disc back in because I had left the field after having caught it and then thrown it from OB - so the disc had come back to me. As walked up to the line I keep my eyes on Gav from Barefoot who was at the back of the stack and once he was looking at me I simply nodded my head a bit to the right. As soon as the disc was checked in he cut to the back right where my hammer sailed into his hands with ease. I don't recall that I have ever actually spoken to Gav in my life before that, but that one bit of non verbal communication was enough for us to know exactly what the plan was.
The same thing happened a few points latter when Adam Mortimer had the disc on the left sideline and I was left on the wing in a horizontal stack. He just looked at me and I looked back then as soon as the disc was checked in I faked in for a split second then turned and the disc was already floating into the empty space behind me. Perfect
The weekend also reinforced to me how I like to play Wing Deep in a Zone O. Despite hearing lots of people on the weekend call wing deeps to cut in towards the disc I have never been a big fan of this. For me the wing deep is most effective when they split the deep deep and don't cut in. This allows them to fill the space on the weak side for a nice cross field hammer. It also lets them drag back the wing D to allow the poppers space to move. I had one memorable point where Sacha H was playing wing D and I just kept dragging him back into no mans land between me and the poppers as Ant Dowle and the other popper just ran around throwing back and force, moving the disc forward with ease. Sacha couldn't commit to them because then they would have any ease throw to me - so he was just left the back peddling with me. I didn't even touch the disc but I am confident that my actions help effect the goal. The key is thinking about what you hate when you are on D in a zone. I hate when the wings split the deep deep and rarely spread the field out - so that's what I do when I am on O. The worst thing I think you can do on O as a wing deep is to cut toward a defender! If you are unmarked, why would you cut towards a defender to try and get the disc??
All in all it was a great weekend and I hope to get to do it again sometime.
Key learnings:
- Dump cut to the break side behind the thrower
- Don't milk goals
- Make eye contact with the thrower/receiver
- Stretch the field out as a Wing Deep
