A few thoughts about my situation in the Frisbee team 

1.12.2011

Part-1:

I wasn’t very happy about my performance at the X3 practices recently because I had too many turnovers. Today I decide to face those problems and find solutions for them. 

My left hand catch was bad. In Ultimate, sometimes you have to catch with left hand because of a mediocre throw. Yesterday, I had two turnovers when I tried to catch with my left hand. I remember when I still worked in Extra, Paul told me to practice catch with one hand and only left hand, but I never did that in real practice. It the time now, in every warm up throw, I should always practice catch with one hand and some times intentionally catch with left hand. 

In the recently practice, I was appointed to play in Handler position a lot. I have to admit that being able to touch the disc a lot is better than playing D all day and rarely touching the disc. I never play this position in tournaments or important pick-ups before, so I was trying to be safe on my throw, and did not have much threaten throws for the D. I was afraid of making bad decisions as usually I did, but since now I practice in the B squad, It should be acceptable than I make more mistakes but can pass more threaten pass for D. 

My steps or pivots have problems, so my throws are not very good. Because the gravity of my body is sometimes too high, so my throw could be too high for receivers. Yesterday I had a good look to Андрей and Sunday I had a good look to Вова, but both my throws were too high for them, so they didn’t catch it. When I play give and go, I feel my steps are crazy, and might be travel (Strik, help! How can I improve my game on give and go). My teammate Nikita is the great player when play give and go (I wish I could play like him). I remember in Wuhan Kevin and Zach used to tell me, that in order to improve my pivots and steps, the only way is to strengthen my legs, and every time throw the Frisbee, throw it like it is a game with defense, and don’t be lazy and must step far enough. Recently I also watched a video about throws. It said that you should practice every throw under your knee. Therefore, from now on, actually I have been practicing every throw under my knee in the practice since I watched the video. I am also been work on my steps every day in my room. Pivot to forehand side and backside both 50 times before sleep. In order to improve my throwing power, I also do 50 push-ups, and 50 sit-ups (well, this is just for looking good :-) ). 

My hammer and blade are rubbish. My catch of those are not any good either. I never played indoor before, so there is not much hammer in my previous Frisbee career, and blade is pretty much never happened. Well, for the part, I just need some more times to adjust to the indoor style. My jumping is not bad, but I was never good in the air, partly because I don’t read disc very well, and partly because I worried too much. I need to train my mind to focus on the disc and want it bad. This is a harder practice and need more time to improve. I think this is a lot about mental and the desire to want the Frisbee.

Part-2:

In X3, there are many good players, and there are so much I can learn from everyone. Nikita and Anton are just natural athletes, both of them only play ultimate for one year or so, but already great players. I totally look like a flatfooted player compared to them. My Captain Oleg layouted twice when play indoor yesterday and I think layout indoor hurts a lot. His performance explained why Slavic are hardcore people when play Frisbee. Slave, such a versatile player, and probably best player in Belarus, reminds a lot about Jim in Beijing Big Brother. Super handler, get open and break mark at will. He is also is great defender, because he is very tall and athletic. Yes, as you may guess, he poaches a lot, because he get that ability to recover and get Ds from poaches. The former Captain Aндрей is a great handler. His throw is just purely graceful and have a very good vision on open receiver, and he make hard catches. Also his backhand release is fast and first step after throw is lighting. What I like the mostly is that when he play Frisbee, he is so calm and pretty much always make good decisions. Alex, a 15-year-old kid, but is already above my level of play, who makes good throws, skies people and gets crazy Ds. You know, God was not fair on everybody. Вова another sick player, whose desire of wanting the Frisbee is the perfect lesson for me. Well, I can keep writing other teammates’ great points, but I am gonna stop here, otherwise I don’t have time to sleep today. 

X3 is my first club team and the most serious frisbee team. For now, I need to understand my situation and set my goal in X3, and it should be a good role player, reliable cutter, play hard on D, keeping improve all skills, always show a good attitude on training and games, and be a team member and a friend who teammates like.

Ivan Xu