What's your approach?

The upcoming season is a blank slate, just waiting to be written on. What are you going to write on it? Is there a deficiency in your game that you'd like to shore up? A new throw you want to work on? Pre-season is a great time to make goals and envision the kind of player you'd like to be. But what's your approach? It's great to have a goal in mind, especially to reflect on previous seasons and where you feel you could improve. It's also easy to come up with a goal. The hard part is putting in the work to achieve it, and that's where the "approach" comes in.

As an example, one off-season I was chatting about our disc movement with a couple of teammates, and how our around break-mark throws were not a significant part of the offense. We decided that having dominant around breaks would open up the field and make the offense flow better. Improving our individual break mark throws was the goal, but how would we achieve that? At the gym Kitt and I attended, there were 12" hurdles. We would often take a disc to the gym workouts as 10 mintues of throwing at the end of the workout (throwing when tired) was great mental practice. Eyeing the hurdles, we thought it would be great to throw under a target to really get the feel for stepping out and releasing low.

A quick trip to the sporting good store later yielded some tall plastic cones. Around the house we had some PVC pipe that we cut into 2' bars for the hurdles, then drilled out holes in the cones at 8", 6", and 4" high. Now we had adjustable height hurdles to throw under. The next weekend we were at the park, bag of discs in tow. There were 4 of us to practice the step-around breaks, and 2 hurdles. Having a hurdle to throw under really emphasised the need to step out and release low. We each threw 100 backhands (in 5 sets of 20), then switched to 100 flicks. It was awesome, and surprisingly difficult to throw under the hurdle, especially on the flick side.

The next day over email we had a good laugh over just how sore we all were. That didn't stop us from doing it all over again the following weekend. Then again. Then again. The soreness stopped happening. It was easier and easier to throw under the hurdle. When practices started up we stuck to our plan of breaking around the mark, often ignoring downfield cutters in order to center the disc if we were on (or near) the sideline. The work we put in during the winter was intended to form the muscle memory of stepping out and releasing low. The work we put in during the first half of the season was intended to form the habit of using the around break in game situations. That was our approach. I can't speak for the others who joined me on those days in the park, but personally I felt like I was going to break any mark that year. Having a goal is great, but having a plan to achieve the goal is even better. If you can get buy-in from other people on the plan, then together you will be more likely to stick to the plan an achieve the goal.

Some goals are measurable (e.g. breaking six minutes in the mile), and some less so (strong around break-mark throws). However, when you break the mark in a game, and it feels natural and easy and your mark was never going to stop it, then you know all the work has paid off. You know your plan was solid. Plans aren't just long term. When you line up across from someone on defense, what do you know about them? Do they like to run deep? Do they like to juke a lot? Do they huck? Do they love their inside-out flick? At the start of the point you can make a plan too. Use as much information as you have on your opponent, and decide what you are going to take away.

Ultimate is a fluid game full of reactions, improvisations, and adjustments, and by having an approach to each situation you will be better prepared to make those adjustments on the fly. You'll recognize situations quicker and react before your opponent has time to. Try it out at your next pickup game. Decide on a plan before the point and stick to it. See if your adjustments during the point are easier to make in the framework of your plan. Soon it'll be second nature to ask yourself... what's your approach?