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Best Backpacks
When it comes to ultimate I think a good backpack for a game or long tournament is often overlooked. Some important factors Water resistant material – in ultimate we often have to play in the rain and nothing is worse than coming back to your bag and phone completely soaked Cleat compartment – necessary to have a separate compartment to keep stinky cleats away from the rest of your things Ample storage space – ultimate is a weird sport where you need plenty of things on the sidelines in-between games, a light and a dark jersey, snacks, water, extra cleats, gloves, etc. While I have tried a few different bags…
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Confidence
For this week, I thought it might be important to go over a largely overlooked aspect of ultimate, and any sport really; the mental game. What I mean by this is the way players can get in their heads and overthink thinks or maybe not be able to find the right mindset going into a game, tournament or even just when approaching a singular play. This is something that is not easily fixed but yet makes the biggest difference on and off the field. Many players, including myself, struggle with this which hinders a players ability to reach their full potential. The most important aspect of the mental game would…
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AUDL Schedule Released
This week the AUDL schedule was released for the upcoming season. There are a few interesting things to note with the upcoming season. First with some things still being up in the air due to COVID-19 in the US, the 3 Canadian teams will only be playing each other and not coming to the US for any games, including playoffs. This really is a bummer because the Toronto Rush and Montreal Royal made playoff runs last season and now will not have a chance at getting near a championship. The next important thing to note is the addition of the Boston Glory. Though they will be in an already stacked…
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Choosing the Right Cleats
Cleats can really make or break your performance on the field. Wearing uncomfortable cleats can cause terrible blisters, ankle sprains and just be an overall crappy time. When I started playing, I used soccer cleats because they are light, but quickly realized they were not for me as they don’t have enough support for my feet. Soccer cleats also do not have as much traction as lacrosse, football or ultimate specific cleats which is why I would not consider them the best option for ultimate. I think they are an okay choice for players that grew up playing soccer and do not want to switch to something else. For players…
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Self-Officiating
Self-Officiating is one of the most debated rules in Ultimate that many people have split opinions on. In ultimate there are no referees, at least at the high school, college and club level, the AUDL has referees and some slightly different rules that I may go over on another week. Basically these self-officiated games are played much like a pickup game of basketball, you call your own fouls, meaning you call the fouls that affect you. At that point, the player who you call the foul on can either agree (no contest) or disagree (contest), from there the disc my go back to the thrower or stay where the foul…
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AUDL vs College/Club Structure
Today I thought I would talk about the league structure of Ultimate league and games. This will include, college, club and the professional level. I will start with the AUDL (professional) level and then work my way down explaining how games and leagues work at these levels. The way ultimate tournaments are handles is much different than many other spots and truthfully I think needs to change. The AUDL The professional league runs their games and the league in a way that is most common among other sports. There is a 12 game season (was 15 but shortened due to covid for the upcoming season) where teams play their division…
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My Ultimate Journey pt. 2
Today’s blog post is a follow up from last weeks about myself and my ultimate journey. In the days leading up to last Saturday’s tryout my stomach was in knots. I did light workouts to make sure I would be fresh and ready come Saturday morning. It was very tough to prepare for, given we knew nothing about what drills we may be doing and what was in store. The one thing I did do to prepare was work out with a mask on when at home in hopes to be better accustomed for the 3 hour tryout with a mask. The tryout started with some normal warmups and stretching…
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My Ultimate Journey
This week I wanted to take some time to talk about myself and how ultimate has impacted my life and my journey through the sport. I did not learn about ultimate until my senior year of high school after dislocating my knee and being cut from the baseball team. For my first year of ultimate, it was just something fun to do and I did not take it very seriously. After my first few years of college in Minnesota, I chose to transfer to UW-Whitewater to be a little closer to home and that was also when I found ultimate again. I had some friends on the team and started…
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Back to the Basics: Cutting
Last week we went over what a handler is in Ultimate and what their role is on the field, this week we will be going over the other position: cutter. The analogy I used last week for handler is that they are like the quarterbacks on the field, using the same comparison to football, cutters would be like wide receivers. Cutters can still be great throwers like handlers but typically cutters are the more athletic plays that can go grab a jump ball out of the air and tend to get all the points. Like wide receivers in football, cutters must have great footwork to create separation between them and…
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Back to the Basics: Handler & Cutter
Today I decided to go back to basics of Ultimate and explain one of the two offensive positions. This week I will be going over the role of ‘handler’ and then next week I will go over the position called ‘cutter’. Pictured below you can see the offense in black and the defense in red. The person circled has the disc and is a handler. Handlers are basically the quarterbacks of the offense, they have the most accurate throws, call out what offense their team will be running and typically throw the furthest as well. Contrary to this picture, there is usually more than one handler near the person with…
