OK, so I'm a massive ulti-nerd. In my quest to become the Bruce McAvaney of the ultimate world, I read up a lot on other ultimate blogs. I found two postings (to different sites) by Match Diesel that I thought might have been of interest to my Australian audience.
World class...teenagers? - posted last week, talks about the tryouts for the US junior teams for Worlds. The process they used seems remarkably similar to the one used here, but maybe a bit tougher. This quote in particular stood out to me -
"Many tryouts felt that the physical aspect of the tryouts was too intense and that too many participants were chosen because of their ‘coach-able’ abilities. As far as the first concern goes, it is pretty obvious that the scheme of any tryout process is to push everyone to their limits and the 20 or so that hold on the longest can and should earn their spot on the team."
You can really look at this both ways - you could criticise the selection process for not picking the best players based on pure ability, or you could praise this process for maximising the potential of the whole team, given their limited time together. Team of champions, champion team, etc.
The Upside Of Winter - posted yesterday, talks about how teams based in colder climates tend to be hungrier for action because there's less opportunity to train in the cold months. Having any time off ultimate will make a passionate player desperate to get back onto the field, so winter is like "a 5 month injury".
However when I thought about applying this to the Australian scene, I could only think of three cities where winter gets so cold outside, training simply isn't an option - Hobart, Canberra and Ballarat. Are these teams hungrier come spring time? I'd say Canberra always come out fired for Mixed Nats and AUG, Ballarat and Hobart not so much.
There's also the other argument that playing in harsher conditions hones your skills enough so that perfect conditions seem a lot easier. I don't necessarily agree with this. Yes, anyone who has learned and played in Ballarat is pretty handy at zone O and zone D, but to go from training in 8° conditions to playing in 30°+ conditions will really knock you about.
Disclaimer: Yes, I know these two articles are deliberately aimed at Tiger and Twats. It's called "knowing your audience", people.
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3 comments:
Once at old mantimate pick up in North Sydney this Columbian dude Carlos came and ripped everyone to shreds without subbing off in the blazing summer heat.
After we finished playing he said that because in Bogota he lives/trains high up in the mountains, there is less air - meaning both that the disc flies faster (apparently, but I don't see the scientific basis for this) so he had to learn to run faster to catch up with it and also that he got used to it being harder to breathe.
When he comes down to a place like Sydney, there is 'too much air', the disc flies slower and he doesn't even start huffing and puffing.
T.
Alternatively, we were shit then and the only guys that were good were old. But the mountain bit makes a bit of sense.
Well, the density of the air does have an impact on your throws but the Columbian explanation sounds a little over the top. And yes, less Oxygen in the air helps to train your lungs to process it better. I don't think Canberra has enough height to make it a significant advantage.
Winter is a real pain in the butt for us. Unbeknownst to outsiders, Canberrans do still train in the winter, its just terribly difficult. Learning to play in the cold is not good for your ultimate (but it might prepare you to wear the right gear when it is cold...) Your hands simply do not respond the same way when throwing or catching and its a pain in the ass when that leads to silly turnovers and execution errors.
But I do think learning to play in windy conditions benefits your throwing ability. Again, maybe not so windy that only zone is an option but if its enough wind to be able to play man or zone, then its much much better than still conditions for advanced learning.
Does it make canberra hungrier? Hmmmm, I don't see that hunger in a lot of the ACT folk but I hope this is changing (or at least I'm trying to make it change). I think that the ACT still takes its disc time for granted and so losing some in winter isn't a problem. If the passion for disc improves here however, could be a different ball(disc?) game altogether.
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