Reflections on My First Season
The following article is a reflection written by hiveultimate patron Travis Norsen after his first season coaching his local high school ultimate team. Norsen is a long-time ultimate player who also had considerable prior coaching experience, but in football/soccer, where he has been influenced by, championed, and even written a book – Play With Your Brain – for youth players about the philosophy/style developed and implemented especially by Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola at Barcelona. Despite only stumbling onto hive ultimate around the beginning of his season, Norsen’s approach was heavily influenced by some of the same ideas (from the football world) that influenced Felix, so we thought his experiences would be of considerable interest to anybody interested in Hex and Flex, and get some interesting discussions going. Travis has also authored two training pieces: the Diamond Throwing Exercise and Keepaway.
As a football (or, as we Americans call it, soccer) player and fan for most of my life, I was delighted to volunteer to start coaching my kids, about a decade ago, when they became old enough to play and showed some interest in the sport. We had a good time and my kids both grew increasingly serious about the sport over the years. Coaching them also fanned the flames of my own passion: I started playing more; following professional football more closely; and reading books about football tactics, the history of the game, coaches and coaching, etc. I even wrote a book, aimed at young teen/preteen soccer players, attempting to explain in an accessible and compelling way some of the basic principles of the Cruyff/Guardiola philosophy that had significantly inspired my own playing and coaching.
But in the last year or two, my kids aged out of (and got too good for!) the local teams where I was able to coach them, and I jumped at the opportunity to redirect my love of coaching to the other sport I have played obsessively across the decades: ultimate frisbee. I had helped out with the middle school ultimate team that my kids played on (when they could squeeze it in between soccer practices) a few years ago, and then last year I joined the local high school girls ultimate team as an assistant JV coach about halfway through the season. But this spring I agreed to be the head coach for the whole girls high school program.
What follows is my attempt to summarize the season: what I did and why, how it went, what I learned from it, and finally how it all relates to Hex and Flex.
Travis Norsen’s Diamond Throwing Exercise
Travis Norsen talks through this bread-and-butter, everyday-at-the-beginning-of-practice, exercise that allows players to practice throws in somewhat more game-realistic ways compared to traditional partnered throwing. Full post available for Training Tier patrons.
How is Hex different to Horizontal?
A few people have been asking about the differences between Hex and Horizontal stack.
On paper they are:
(1) Shape / formation,
(2) No handler/cutter roles/distinctions,
(3) Flow is prioritised over yards, and
(4) Equal spacing across the field.
US World Games Scouting Report
Noah takes a look at how the US World Games team played in their warm up games at Poultry Days. Will anyone be able to take them down in Alabama?
Cotarica’s Flow vs Zone
Cotarica Grandes use excellent throw’n’go technique, movement and spacing to exploit weaknesses in Sieben Schwaben’s loose zone defence at Vienna Spring Break in 2022. Felix analyses what they did so well.
Should ultimate be in the Olympics?
WFDF have been pursuing the Olympics for years now, targeting the 2028 LA games, but is joining the Olympics a good move for ultimate? As others have pointed out, joining the Olympics is only possible if we brush some of ultimate’s key values under the rug. But perhaps that trade-off is worth it, for the vindication of finally being at the big boys table, to show off our sport to the world and to provide once in a lifetime experiences to the athletes talented enough to represent their nations at the games.
The Olympics are an organisation that causes great harm. Kurt Streeter’s New York Times article highlights the major problems with how the games currently operate, most notably the sportswashing that takes place when authoritarian nations are hosts, the environmental impacts, the labour abuse and displacement of marginalised communities where the Olympics are held, and the silencing of athlete protests.
If ultimate became an Olympic sport, we would aid in the IOC’s effort to modernise the games and play a small part in fixing their problem with engaging a younger audience. Joining the Olympics would send a signal to people who may be interested in playing ultimate that we are willing to associate ourselves with, and contribute to, the harm that the Olympics causes.
Modified End Zone Drill
This modified version of the classic end zone drill incorporates two extra passes which encourage throw’n’go moves and hitting return passes / give-go moves, adding more flow to the offence when this drill is used as a pre-match warmup, and practicing moving the disc off the sideline with a lateral give-go move. Available for Training Tier Patrons. Watch video…
Colombia World Games squad – Felix’s Team Talk
Felix gave the Colombian World Games squad a team talk at TEP before they played a (relatively easy) match, and we filmed it! The talk is translated from English to Spanish in-person by Símon Ramirez – the talk lasted 17 mins in total, but shortened versions with the English/Spanish parts cut out are available in the Patreon post.
After this team talk, they ran Hive’s Up-Line Flow Drill, and then played their match with Felix actively coaching from the sideline & filming with a GoPro headcam. Full footage of the drill & match is linked on the Patreon post. Read more (training tier patron content)…
Addressing the Observer Problem…
Noah takes a look at the recent controversies with observer decisions, and asks whether we should be making more use of technology when it is at our disposal to integrate video replays into the on-field decision process.