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How can we characterise offensive and defensive systems?

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This article was written by guest authors Marie and Florian Gailliegue and is an excerpt from their book Ultimate in Motion: Balance and Dynamism, available from their website or currently part of the $25/mo Hive Swarm Tier deal.

Any situation in any spot of the field can be objectively characterised. Many factors combine – spatial (proximity to an endzone), positional (centering on the field), material (distribution of players) and initiative (separation / velocity, or other ability to dictate the tempo). During the game, each team will seek to tilt the advantages in their favour.

Strategy is long-term planning, and tactics are a sequence of calculated actions. Philosophy is from where one or more strategies flow. Structure guides how a strategy can be deployed effectively. Tactics are put at the service of the previous pillars to achieve the overall aim.

A structure is defined by the set of positions occupied by the players of a team. With 7 players, we can imagine a nearly infinite array of possibilities. When a strategy is decided upon, there are several structures that can be chosen to ensure the strategic goals are achieved. No matter the structure, the whole tactical toolbox remains at one’s disposal. The ensemble {Strategy, Structure, Tactics} creates a system. For the team to be as efficient as possible, the chosen system must match the philosophy.

ultimate systems

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Organic Ultimate Strategy

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Conventional thought on ultimate strategy views the team as a mechanical system – a machine with the players as the moving parts. Teams strive for a highly disciplined style of play, reducing the number of variables as much as possible and applying the theoretically optimal tactics to achieve a simple, predictable system.

This view, however, is limiting. Treating ultimate as a mechanical system allows for a high degree of control but misses the opportunity to explore naturally occurring, organic, styles of play which may be just as effective, if not more so, than conventional strategies.

Here I will argue in favour of an ecological approach to ultimate strategy, analysing the shortcomings of mechanical systems and the advantages of organic play styles.

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