Let me know what you think of my list of tips. What ones should I add?

1. Shake the confidence of the other team by scoring on hucks
2. On defense, stop the early hucks – don’t play too deep but shut down the thrower on the huck and the deep strikes
3. When you catch a huck, instead of rushing your throw, think about turning and dumping
4. If you’re poached, either strike deep or cut to the handler and get the disc
5. Turn and dump at stall 6 – make eye contact with the handler and throw the disc to space
6. When you’re near the endzone, don’t rush to score – be patient and make smart choices
7. Play smart D – pick your battles wisely. On an in cut or a huck, run your ass off and go for the disc
8. Make sure that your fakes/cuts are viable – really sell it because otherwise you’ll get blocked/stopped
9. Everyone needs to sprint down on the pull (I can’t tell you how many times I’ll pull and be the first guy down – no more…everyone has to get down there!)
10. On zone O, get out of the mentality of dumping and swinging. Have the handlers move the disc upfield, break the zone and get it to your mids
11. Cut (and conversely, throw) to the break side
12. On zone D, when your cup gets broken, run past where you think the disc is going – try to contain the disc
13. Also on zone D, you don’t have to run to a man – just be close enough that make the handler think twice about making the throw
14. When you feel that things are falling apart, call a timeout to regroup. Don’t talk about everything you’re doing wrong. Just take a deep breath, realize that you can play ultimate, and go back out there and throw and catch
15. Instead of saying “don’t drop” think “just catch”
16. Always be aware of where the disc is – take snapshots of the field as you’re moving around
17. When it’s windy, the best thing you can do when throwing is to get a ton of spin on the disc
18. Support your team – stand on the sidelines and cheer for them – you want the same when you’re on the field
19. Watch some sweet ultimate videos before you play a tournament to get pumped up. I created a Youtube playlist with a ton of vids (http://www.youtube.com/user/rjmcleod04?feature=mhum#g/c/86B4AEB8A7F39C5F)
20. Have fun – after all no matter how much you spent or how far you traveled, it’s just a game. Play hard, learn as much as you can and have fun with your team

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.

It’s a rare occasion when I am “perfect”! *insert sarcastic tone*

So let’s stop expecting perfection! It doesn’t serve us in any other domain of our life. Really, it doesn’t! Perfectionism is actually a huge problem in our Western culture. In fact, there is a great book written by Positive Psychologist Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar entitled The Pursuit of Perfect: How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Start Living a Richer, Happier Life. Ben-Shahar starts the book off with a wonderful story of when he won the national junior squash championship and felt utterly depressed and unsatisfied within hours. Why? Because he was chasing perfection and even with a great championship win, it was not good enough! It wasn’t perfect.

When we chase perfection, we chase something that is unreal, unattainable, and impossible. As a result, we are destined to fail before we even begin. When we chase perfection we set ourselves up for misery, disappointment, and low self-esteem. And when we delude ourselves into thinking that perfection IS possible then we risk ending up like Ben-Shahar even if we do win. When we are upset that we are not in perfect shape, we have already succumb to the brutal misery that chasing perfection offers.

How’s that for pump-up talk less than 48 hours before Nationals!

So how do we stop chasing perfection? It starts with a reality check!

Where are you?
What shape is your body in?
What can you do?
What can you not do?
Can any change be made at this point?
Do you have any more control over your situation at this point?

Be honest with yourself. Know where you are and what limits you have. Don’t worry about the limits you had before or will have in the future. Just get a sense of where you are right now. This is a reality check.

Upon checking into reality, consider that this is actually a very wise practice that people spend a ton of money at yoga studies trying to achieve. They are seeking to be “in the moment”. Knowing where your body is and what limits you have, is being in the moment. Its yoga and you just got it for free and didn’t have to sweat or contort your body.

The body is the one thing that does not escape the moment. It’s living in it. So no matter where our mind might be (e.g., on that throw we didn’t complete, on how our kids are doing back home, on that MCAT exam we’re about to take, on that new job that starts on Monday) our body is in the present moment. Our body is playing ultimate! Being in the moment means knowing full well how our body is feeling right NOW. Not how we want it to be feeling. Not how it was feeling last year or when we were 22. Not how it would feel if we had just done those extra sprints, if we hadn’t pushed it too hard in practice last night, or at the last tournament. Not if we were 10 lbs lighter or 20 lbs heavier. Not if we were taller or faster or didn’t eat that big mac or had that extra red bull. RIGHT NOW! All those other thoughts are just our minds attempt to chase perfection and, unfortunately, sabotaging our body’s experience in the present moment.

When we get on the field, when we warm up, when we line up, when we pull, when we run, there is nothing more to do, change, improve, recover, develop, strengthen, elongate, etc. This is it. The tournament is here. This one. Not the one next month. This one! Nothing else matters but every single moment of this tournament. Don’t waste your time wishing you were any different because all you will end up doing is wishing away the experience of nationals before you.

And it’s in each moment of awareness where the magic of athleticism happens. Where we are in the zone, naïve to expectations. We’ve been in that zone before or at the very least we’ve heard other great athletes describe it. It’s no mystery. It’s mental focus. It’s the place where we flow easily from moment to moment. It’s being in the moment.

I know I will be better if I keep my mind focused on what my body is ACTUALLY capable of doing. I know I will be better if my mind is focused on the moment in action! I won’t be better because I think I should be.

When we stop chasing perfection, that zone is possible! And the only thing that will matter is how we felt in our body and how our mind and body were in sync in that zone Whether our body is on the field or on the sideline. Whether our body is injured or not. Whether our body is tired or rested. Whether our body is fit or not-so fit. We will be living that richer, happier life, if we aren’t deluding ourselves with ideas of perfection or other unrealistic expectations.

So how do we actually achieve this?

Just go out and play dammit! And have fun doing it, not matter what body you brought with you!! Enjoy the moment!

First of all, I would recommend buying white discs. I find colored discs become softer in the sun and don’t throw as well. As for the brand, either Discraft or Daredevil discs are a good choice. There are a lot of people who complain about Daredevils, but I find that the new mold is very close to Discrafts and I don’t really have a preference now. However, stay away from Wham-O Frisbees. The disc is deeper I find and there are too many ridges on the top rim. Finally, I wouldn’t pay more than $15 for a disc. Sports stores and outdoor stores sell them for as much as $20 so you can definitely get them cheaper elsewhere.

As for where to buy them, there are a few options:

1. Go to your local league website. National associations like Ultimate Canada (http://www.ultimatecanada.org) and USA Ultimate (http://www.usaultimate.org/competition/leagues/default.aspx) will have the websites listed for your local league. For example, my league sells Discraft discs with the league logo on them for $10 each.

2. When you’re at a tournament, buy discs from the main tent. Not only will most tournaments sell discs for around $12 but some will offer previous tournament discs for a reduced rate (I’ve some as low as $5).

3. Get a group of people and order 100 discs from either Discraft (http://www.discraft.com) or Daredevil (http://www.daredevildiscs.com). The benefits of doing this is that you can have your own custom design, you will get the discs for around $8/disc and you can sell them to make some money for your team. Also, you can buy misprinted discs for a lower price – so the disc flies the same; there’s just something missing/added to whatever was printed on top.

4. Go to http://www.internetdiscshop.com/ and buy the bundle of discs (10 for $60). Again, try to get all white discs since I find they are a more consistent disc to throw when it’s nice out.

5. Search on EBay for discs – I was reading an article today that someone bought a bunch of discs for pretty cheap.

Let me know if you have suggestions for other places you can buy discs. These are where I’ve bought them from and I’ve never had any issues with buying online. I’m considering ordering some Ultimate Rob discs and would sell them through my website for around $10/disc. Cheers!

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.

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.

But what about ultimate? How many teams do you see that don’t really have a warmup? It doesn’t matter if you’re playing a league game, if you’re in the World Championship Final or if you’re just at practice.

Since so much success from sports comes from repetition and muscle memory, it’s important to get your body in the right state before you play a game. For me, I like to start off with some short throws with a partner, then a slow run, some dynamic stretching and 1 or 2 drills. I find that this not only relaxes me but it also helps the team get in the right state of mind. I think it’s important to get a bunch of throws and catches in before the first point. If you’re a puller, make sure to practice some pulls as well. Figure out where the wind is blowing and try enough pulls that you can figure out how you want to pull the disc in a game.

I mentioned above that even in practice it’s important to have a warmup routine – I like this to be similar to our game warmup but a bit different. I think that you should get your mind ready for practice as well so your team will be as focused as possible for the entire practice. However, by having a slightly different warmup for practices & games, I find that your mind & body will know it’s game time because you’ll do your game time warmup routine.

What do you and your team like to do for a pre-game warmup?

Stacked (the DVD) was an ultimate frisbee dvd released in 2003 by Bodhisattva Films. The highlight reel featured 3 members of Furious George in the 3 man marking/throwing drill. Enjoy!

First of all, why do players tend to cut poorly?

Players who cut poorly tend to do so because they’ve either never been taught about body movement or because they haven’t practiced enough. Just because you’re fast doesn’t mean you’re a good cutter. If you can only run straight then you become very easy to defend. However, if you know how to fake your defender and change direction really quickly, then you will be a much more effective cutter.

Jerry Rice, arguably one of the greatest wide receivers of all time, was said to not be the fastest player, but it was his quickness and cutting skill that helped make him one of the great ones. So, how can you become better? Well, first I’d recommend watching a few videos. These videos are great examples of why speed doesn’t always determine if you will get open to make the catch. Speed definitely helps but having a quick start and being able to change direction are huge factors as well. Now, take a few minutes and check out some of the videos. Then continue reading.

I’ve shown two videos of football because I think the cutting in football can help you tremendously with your cutting in ultimate. Whether you watch videos and practice what you see, or if you have access to a football receiver/running back/defensive back to come out to one of your practices and teach your team about cutting, this will help your game in a major way.

And not just on offense, but on defense as well. If you’re defending someone who keeps faking you out and burning you deep, then you’re not doing your job on D. Learning how to more better on the field and how to read what the other guy is going to do will help you get more D’s, get beat less and contribute to your team’s success overall.

There are many ways to train for quickness and agility. This video is one of my favourites:

The first time you try agility drills, you’ll probably feel that you are clumsy, uncoordinated and awkward. But it does get easier to do the drills with practice. And then you can start really challenging yourself. After watching these videos, I’m excited to try some of these moves out on the field. I think I’m going to surprise a lot of defenders when I fake them out and strike for a point.

Try them out, send me your suggestions for how you train for cutting and good luck on the field!

Admittedly, I tried to create a group of people who worked hard like me, who played good defense like me, who were fast and agile like me, and who had good field sense like me. I would catch myself often saying things like “why can’t they just do it like this”… ‘this’ being the way I do it or how a prototype of me did it. And when they could not perform like I do, I was frustrated – a pattern that I have been privy to in many team environments, not just sports. Not too surprisingly then, these attempts to “clone” ourselves often fail to result in optimal team performance.

I think this happens because some of us leaders know only the path we have taken and know only the skills that got us to where we are and then we blindly assume that our path is THE path. Then we get stuck on this path. This attempt to clone necessarily leads to the dismissal of individuality and diversity, rather than leading to an honoring of individual differences.

Honoring Individual Differences

A problem with attempting to clone ourselves is that our expectation of others to do as we do, to think as we do, and be as we are, comes at the exclusion of many other talents out there – ones that may take to us to the same place via a difference path! These individual differences make up the uniqueness found in each season, each tournament, each game, each point. Individual differences – those that give rise to that “I” we try hard not to talk about in team sports, IS part of the foundation of a team. They give rise to the skill set that is greater than the sum of its parts – a collective skill set making the team what it is.

One way to honor individual differences is to provide positive feedback on individual strengths, another aspect of leadership that I learned, through leadership errors. I used to think that when I was telling someone how to do better, that this was positive feedback. In fact, positive feedback is about increasing the likelihood of a behaviour, plain and simple, and is very effective for creating change. Despite my 12 years of formal education in psychology, it took me several years of leading teams to fully understand the nature of positive feedback.

Providing Positive Feedback

Some of us get positive feedback in implicit ways, like getting the disc, scoring a point, shutting down our mark on D, etc. These rewards increase our chance of us re-enacting the behaviours (and skills) that lead to those rewards. But some of us require an explicit declaration of our strengths as positive feedback. Some of us need to HEAR what we are doing well in order to keep us doing those things well, particularly when confidence and experience is low. Some of us need to hear, “your defense is getting really good, your throws are really looking nice, and your cuts are smart.”

Sometimes this can be a challenge for a leader, particularly when we are trying to clone ourselves and are struck on why people aren’t like us and aren’t doing things like we are doing. If we can take a step back and start to see individual strengths, the ability to provide positive feedback starts to emerge naturally. And when it doesn’t, we can be mindful of our language when providing feedback.

For example, we can substitute “You’re not leaving enough cushion with your mark” with “it was really effective when you adjusted the space on your mark who was faster than you to prevent getting beat short.” We can also change “your throws aren’t very good, don’t throw up-field” to “that dump pass you made was really effective in helping us gain yardage.” In the former examples, we are essentially punishing someone for their behavior with negativity (i.e., you’re bad) and aren’t given much to go on for developing the skill. But in the latter examples, we are rewarding a behaviour (i.e., you are doing well, good job!) and implicitly giving feedback on whatto do. And what a difference! This can be very effective for beginners who have A LOT to learn as they come to the game of ultimate. Just knowing things we are doing well are really helpful in the interim before we manage reap the rewards of shutting down that mark or scoring a game winning point.

For more practice on feedback language, take a few minutes to transform the following examples into positive feedback. The more we work with this, the more it will stick in our minds. For some of us (myself included) it’s like learning a new language – a positive language – and it takes time!

Positive Feedback Exercise: Transform into positive statements as exampled above.

1. You’re getting beat on the forced side
2. You’re not getting open as a handler
3. You’re not reading the disc very well on O (or D)
4. You have to work on your speed
5. You’re not vocal enough on the field (or from the sideline)

Good leadership also requires us, as leaders, to look inside, at what we are doing in this leadership role and to adjust as necessary. Staying fixated on a leadership style that is not working is not going to do anyone any good. Just like when we are on the field, if we keep getting beat deep, we would be pretty stupid not to adjust our mark, yet as leaders, we can often keep watching the same leadership errors happen over and over again and fail to look at ourselves as the source of frustration. For example, if we are repeatedly told “you’re not giving positive feedback” from a variety of sources, it’s probably time to stop saying “yes I am” and to take this constructive criticism to heart.

Openness

By looking inside and adjusting our behaviour and styles, we let ourselves be vulnerable to not being perfect and in the process cultivate openness and honesty with ourselves and with others. As leaders, it’s also in our best interest to be open to new ideas, to change, to different perspectives, and to different opinions. Freshness keeps us from going stale and rotten! Although it is often great to be surrounded by like-minded individuals, it can also result in our own demise as a leader by losing perspective and reinforcing our own bad leadership habits. And as Einstein said, we can’t solve a problem with the same thinking that got us there in the first place. Which is exactly why attempts to clone ourselves can only take us so far.

Avoiding attempts to clone our selves, honoring individual differences, providing positive feedback, and being open are just some of the leadership qualities that I’ve learned over the years. That being said, I’m also eager to continue to learn qualities by watching excellent leaders around me, knowing that good leadership is never static!

Good luck to those who find themselves in leadership roles this season! Enjoy the individuals who will inevitably annoy you but also make you proud. They may even surprise you along the way if you let yourself see them for who they are!

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.

However, the amount of calls that Florida was making during the few points I watched was gross. The smallest travel calls that meant nothing since the guy with the disc didn’t have an advantage. Little pushes here and there. And there’s a reason Florida received 2 TMF (Team Misconduct Fouls).
- correction: Florida and Carleton both had 3 TMF (thanks @Zach Johnston on Facebook)

I don’t want to see high level ultimate run the same course as high level soccer with people diving and being pussies. Seriously. I think a lot of this exists in ultimate because people are soft. Especially a lot of the kids playing sports nowadays. They’ve grown up expecting things to be given to them, expecting to be congratulated even when they finish last in a tournament simply for “playing”. I think we are way too easy on the next generation of athletes and I wish someone would coach these teams with a sense of toughness and grittiness instead of letting the college players (and consequently a lot of club players) get away with such weak calls. Yes it’s a non-contact sport, but contact does still happen.

What are you thoughts on where ultimate (and for that matter, sports in general) is heading? Do you see the same issues I do, that we’re being too soft on our kids? I’m not the only one saying this. Bill Beswick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Beswick) a highly respected sports psychologist who has worked with some of the best athletes/teams in the world talks about this in his seminars.

I think it has to start at the younger levels of ultimate (and sport) but it’s not too late to implement it now. Get some toughness back and let’s all stop playing like such wusses. We can still play spirited and respect our opponents. In fact, I think playing soft and calling everything is even less spirited than is playing a bit aggressive.

Just my 2 cents.

1. Fouls (II.E): It is the responsibility of all players to avoid contact in every way possible.
   4. Strip: If a defensive player initiates contact with the disc after an offensive player has gained possession of the disc, and the offensive player loses possession as a result, it is a strip. A strip is a subset of fouls and is treated the same way

There are 2 situations in which a strip will be called:

1. In the endzone – If the offensive player calls a strip in the endzone, then they are saying that they caught the disc, but due to contact from the defender, they dropped the disc. When this happens, if the defender says “no contest” then it’s a point. However, if the defender says “contest” then the disc goes back to the thrower. As the offensive player, you want to call a strip ONLY if you had possession before you were fouled by the defender. If you didn’t have possession but were fouled, then you can call a foul. As the defender, if someone calls a strip against you, consider if they actually had possession. If they did indeed have possession but you fouling them caused them to drop it, don’t contest their call and concede the point. That’s what having good spirit is all about. BUT, if you don’t think they had possession, by all means contest their call and send the disc back to the thrower.
2. Not in the endzone – This is similar to above except that if you don’t contest a strip call, then the offensive player simply gains possession at the spot of the foul.

Realize that the defender can call a strip as well, but if both players catch the disc at the same time, the player on offense retains possession.

As with all calls in ultimate, if the other person makes a legitimate call, don’t contest it. The spirit of the game says that you should respect the rules and respect your opponents so keep that in mind when a strip call is made.