As usual, there has been a bunch of discussion about Ultimate on TV on RSD. As usual, there are a wide range of opinions about the impact that TV exposure would have on Ultimate. Some folks feel that Ultimate should follow the football model, complete with refs and "jiggling ta-ta's", and this is understandable as football so clearly dominates the TV landscape. Other folks feel that it is going to be very difficult for Ultimate to get on TV with all the competition, and that our efforts should focus more on the areas that we have more control over, like Youth development, etc.
I enjoy watching Ultimate videos, and I think the CSTV web streaming content is wonderful. They have edited it heavily, but the 80 or so calls in the men's final do not slow down or negatively impact the experience, in my opinion. I would like to see more web streaming content available, and I ask my Wellesley College team to check out the CSTV material as it is a fine chance to learn about the sport.
When I watch Ultimate videos, I struggle with the camera angles and the fact that I can't see what is developing downfield. I think Stacked does a pretty good job of presenting the downfield action. I also appreciate the chance to watch the entirety of a game, even the most mundane portions, as I find the ebb and flows interesting. As I coach women's Ultimate, Stacked can also serve as a complete tutorial of the uses of a 4-person cup. This summer, when I worked at NUTC, we showed some of the Ultivillage DVD during rainy afternoons. I found the highlight reel format to be less than satisfactory, especially when presenting it to teens.
As I became aware of my dissatisfaction with the camera angles of the Ultimate videos I was watching, I started to view the mainstream sports on TV with a bit more of a critical eye. This has actually had a significant impact on my experiencing sports. In my opinion, from a technical point of view, basketball translates very well to TV. In a half court game, the camera can capture the motion of all ten players on the court. Even in fast break situations, the camera can get most of what is occurring at any given moment. This is not to say that I spend much time watching basketball, but I do appreciate that it can be covered well. Obviously, basketball gives us no help in terms of how to present Ultimate.
I played soccer as a kid, and I do appreciate the game. I think soccer translates pretty well onto the TV screen. Most of the action can be framed by a camera. The downside is that the camera shot is quite wide, so the viewer feels a bit distant from the action. I think that soccer provides a good model of how we might have to capture Ultimate, if it is played in large arena. The trade-off of distance in order to capture the bulk of the downfield work is worth it, in my opinion.
My experience of watching football has, unfortunately, diminished as a result of this awareness of camera shots. I now find it hard to comprehend how we accept missing all of the defensive back set-ups and downfield receiver routes. This came to head for me in the 2001 Super Bowl. The Pats kept throwing out 6, 7, and 8 defensive back sets. Madden kept remarking on how odd and effective they were. Yet, there I was, stuck looking at Kurt Warner, the offensive line, and the running backs. Finally, sometime in the third quarter, they threw us a bone and showed an overhead camera shot. It was remarkable to have a quick glimpse of a giant portion of the game that had been entirely missed up to that point. I spoke with a producer who shot sports the other day. He said that football is great because it allows the cameras to reset every play. I understand this, but I am finding the pace of football to be less and less satisfying. All the stoppages of play and the commercials are very frustrating, and, in my opinion, do not really provide a positive model for how Ultimate should be presented on TV. I think we need to be careful and not follow the herd.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
TV
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Blogworld as a positive resource
This Ultimate bogworld has the potential to be a great teaching and learning resource. I have used some of the teachings to great effectiveness with my Wellesley girls. Here are a couple that stand out for me:
1) How to teach players the hammer-
http://www.frisbeespew.com/?p=115
I have used Idris' method to efficiently teach my girls how to throw hammers. At Nationals, I was speaking with one of my 6TM teammates who plays for the Yale College team. We were discussing my girls beating them 12-3 at Coffee Cup. She said, "They kept dropping hammers over the cup!" Awesome.
2) Clam Defense-
Al gives a great historical and practical description of the clam:
http://countal.blogspot.com/2005/08/what-happened-to-clam.html
I like the perspective, and I think this usage could be helpful in college women's Ultimate as teams tend to be a bit predictable starting the disc off a turnover.
Time to Retire?
I can hear the chuckles already. "Uhmm....dude....you play in the Mixed Division....doesn't that mean you have already retired?" (Sidenote: Don't you hate RSD posts that begin "Uhmm.....(insert smart ass remark here)". The uhmm is so smug). While I acknowledge such sentiment, it is clearly incorrect and is only really useful to ruffle feathers and bolster fragile egos. However, I think it might be a Universal Truth that if you are 41 years old AND are low down on the depth chart of a Mixed team, it just might be time to embrace one's mediocrity and hang up the cleats in an effort to avoid the 73 Willie Mays Syndrome. Of course, in my specific case, it would 73 Willie Mays without the Vic Wertz catch, the 660 home runs, MVP's, and basically the whole of the 50's and 60's.
Now, if you have read this far, the answer to the title of this post (and deep concern about my career path) must be keeping you at the edge of your seat. I will, however, defer to the wisdom of MC this past Saturday night at the 6TM party in which she said "Decisions about retiring should not be made in November and December". And, indeed, my thoughts have been changing rapidly since Friday or Saturday in Sarasota. I am considering 3 options:
1) Maintain the Status Quo--Perhaps the path of least resistance. Maintain the same level of conditioning and training as last year. Contribute to the team however I can, even if it is in a limited role. While I truly believe that role players provide a benefit to the team if they, at the least, fully challenge the starters in practices (I feel I was successful in this task), the harsh view is that I am essentially riding the team's coattails.
2) New personal goals/work harder--Perhaps I could address the lack of personal goals this past year by working harder this upcoming year. I think I could be motivated to try to bump myself up a few notches on the depth chart. This was before I was told by one of the subbers that my disc skills need to improve, however. I am pretty good at self-evaluation, though, so this isn't really news (see the mediocrity part). Unlike Al and Jim, in "my day" I was a D player/goal scorer. As I have aged, I think one could say that my transition to the other side of the disc has been far from graceful. Still, this option provides for clear direction and goals, and might be the most emotionally positive.
3) Retire--You know what "they" say: "If you can't do......teach". The most dramatic option. In the past, I have made similar decisions in a cold turkey fashion. I tend to cut my losses and move on. I have been nuturing the foundation of a viable path after playing, though, and I think I would get a lot out of it. Coaching, teaching clinics, my admin work, and the NUTC job are all rewarding and will serve to keep me involved.
There are other factors that will impact this decision. Family, work, the make up of 6TM this upcoming year, and 6TM's decision about attending Worlds (maybe I should ride out on the Australian sunset) are just some examples of external forces that will come into play.
So....no answer yet.....
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Training: The Year in Review
My training period actually ends on December 1, but as I take the month of November off, it is a good time to review the prior year and evaluate how it went.
First, the metrics for 12/1/04-12/1/05:
This year, I added in Ultimate games and practices. This was probably a sorry attempt to bump my numbers up, but I thought it might be interesting.
Total Year Hours: 334
Total Calories: 149,763
Total Weight Training Hours: 47 (roughly 20%)
Total Aerobic/Anaerobic training hours: 142(roughly 40%)
Total Ultimate Hours: 145(roughly 40%)
My total non-Ultimate hours: 189
This is down from a high of about 250 hours several years ago, but only 16 hours off of my goal for the year. I think the major loss came from weight training as my focus and commitment were not there this year.
So the numbers are interesting, but do not tell the whole story. In general, I felt this was an off year, and I did not have the confidence in my conditioning that I have had in prior years. I think was due to several factors:
1) Lack of defined and focused personal goals:
I felt very comfortable in the 03-04 year as my conditioning resulted in an appropriate role on 6TM, and we had a great year on and off the field. Entering this year, I had very little resolve to improve on that model. However, as we added more depth on the team, specifically in the areas in which I contribute, and, my overall focus was off, my role and contribution diminished this year. I need to evaluate how to proceed, but I think a possible set of goals for 04-05 could be higher volume and more focused work in an effort to try to bump myself up on the depth chart. Or retire....but more on that later.
I rely heavily on my foundation work in Dec-March to get me to the place where I can benefit from quick twitch work in the late spring/summer. I think if I proceed with the above goals, then I am going to have to train "for real" this December.
2) Injuries:
Chronic Achilles tendinitis, small hamstring tweaks, and chronic tight hip flexors were omnipresent. I think I need to make a commitment to stretching as I have no interest in it at all.
3) Nutrition/Weight:
I love to eat and cook. When I started training seriously, I weighed 164 pounds. With real weight training and conditioning, I was able to get up to about 180 pounds at about 11% body fat. Some folks have questioned whether this extra weight was beneficial, but I felt that I had more power and spring at that time. In the past few years, my weight has been getting close to 185 and I am higher in my body fat count. I think that 05-06 will require greater attention to nutrition if I am going to train seriously.
Monday, October 31, 2005
Checking Out Real Ultimate
I had a few minutes during the tournament to run over and check out some real Ultimate. Meaning Open. I decided to grace the Dog/Sockeye power pool game with my presence and root for my Boston blogmates. I had, up until then, not much chance to see Al and Jim work during "Jim's Tournament", as I believe he called it, so I was pleased to be rewarded with a big upwind backhand from Al to Jim for a goal.
As I arrived at the field, I took my usual spot at the back of the end zone on the opposite side from the Crow's Nest. The crowds are thin there, so it makes for good viewing. I sat down to see 14 players standing around discussing a call, and I was able to decipher that Sockeye had the disc very close to goal that I was sitting at. The next 5 minutes was a real treat. There was about 30 seconds of Ultimate and 4:30 of arguing about an all-you-can-eat buffet of foul calls. Certainly this bodes well for Ultimate on TV as there was plenty of time for instant replay for those football viewers that can't pay attention the first time through, and, additionally, PLENTY of potential for commercial breaks. I awoke from my nap in time to see Fun Boy make a great lay out block in the end zone, and I think he might have been able to complete a pass before a series of little touch fouls erupted from the clusterfuck of bodies trying to get out of the way or get a block. I remember thinking at the time that I thought only folks in the MIxed Division called fouls on so little contact.
Very late on Saturday evening, Jim showed up at our party, and I had a chance to mention to him how impressed I was by the "action" that I had seen. I was not dissapointed as he responded, "Well, at least we can complete forehands". I said, "Right...in between foul calls". There was a brief pause as he cracked a smile, then added" well....fuck you". We all laughed and I , of course, ceded the debate to the intellectual prowess of his final argument.
On a serious note, I was able to get around and check out very good Ultimate from pretty much all the divisions, and I do believe that Nationals is a gift. The wind on Sunday was very difficult and that made it hard to showcase the best that the sport has to offer.
Brass Monkey vs SWSD
At the time, and I think I am also correct in hindsight, I felt that the Brass Monkey/SWSD game was going to have a significant impact on how the tournament played out. Perhaps this is the result of limited perspective, as my team was going to play the loser in qtrs, but this tournament would have been very different if Brass Monkey won that game.
The initial impact would have been that both finalists would have been in the same pool. I think we would have had a real battle with SWSD to see who would play CLX in semi's.
Another interesting thing was the addition of wind on Saturday. This really hurt a bunch of teams that were cruising along on Thurs and Friday.
Speaking of wind, there was a lot of debate in the Crow's Nest on whether the Mixed final would get to double digits. After the first few points, the concern became whether there would be a halftime. Luckily, things moved along quickly at the beginning of the second half, and not only did we get to 15, but we didn't have to give out SOTG awards and the medals at the same time.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Expectations
One of the things that I have enjoyed about Ultimate is that it is a springboard into other interests. Specifically, training and sports psychology. My limited knowledge of sports psych has been largely informed by Alan Goldberg (www.competitivedge.com), and John Thompson's book 'Shooting In The Dark".
I have found Goldberg's discussions of expectations and goals to be helpful and applicable to Ultimate. I apologize in advance for the lack of original thought in the regurgitation that follows.
When I was making a "living"(probably better described as a "dying") as a musician in the 80's and early 90's, expectations were particularly insidious. I remember driving to gigs thinking "This is going to be a GREAT gig. The place will be packed. We will rock, and people will love us. Fame and fortune will quickly follow!!!!". Needless to say, the actual experience inevitably paled considerably as compared to my fantasy. No one would be at the show. The sound sucked. We sucked. And this is the problem with expectations: they are largely fantasies focused on things out of one's control. Many Ultimate teams and players struggle with expectations. The problems with expectations are: they can create passivity ("Making Nats this year is a given...no matter whether I work hard or not"), pressure ("God damn it! How can play so BAD??? We are a GOOD Ultimate team. We HAVE to play better!!!"), and provide no structure for improvement("We are a good team......because.....well...we said so").
My experience is that my enjoyment and view of an event is in an inverse relationship to my expectations. I find that I usually enjoy an event/work/Ultimate a lot when I go in feeling like I/we/it will be bad/suck/dissapointing. For example, say I am on my way to my wife's work party at Christmas time. In general, I approach this party like "This will suck. Standing around with a bunch of Social Workers over egg nog will be a bad time". This attitude does not endear me to my wife, but it is hard to have a bad time when I am expecting the worst. Most of the time I walk out of there saying, "That wasn't so bad after all", and my wife feels smug because I was sulking...so everyone is happy in the end. Now, if I was solely driven by expectations, specifically low expectations, I think life...at least what I was expecting...would be pretty grim. There is an area of focus that can help, however, and it is summed up by this mantra: maintain LOW expectations and HIGH goals.
High goals are wonderful. They provide structure, challenge, hope, and excitement. What I really like about Goldberg's presentation of goals is that he divides them into Outcome Goals and Process Goals. I coach the Wellesley College Ultimate team, and the girls and I have found embracing this method is a helpful way in defining what we want to get out of a season. Outcome goals are things like "We will qualify for Regionals". They essentially focus on the "uncontrollable" elements of the sport. Process goals provide the means by which Outcome Goals can be achieved, and this is where the power lies as they focus on the "controllable" elements. Things like "we will throw x number of forehands and backhands per practice", a solid plan for conditioning, and "we will attend x number of tournaments per year".
So at the beginning of each year, I sit down with my captains and we make two lists: one for Outcome goals, and one for Process goals. We do not discuss expectations.
