Thursday - August 31 - Practice Review

Players at Practice: 14 guys, 4 girls
Blog Views: 28 (7 views from Vancouver ;)

Announcements:
- No Practice on Monday
- Breakfast after practice tomorrow
- Track workout this weekend

Pictured Above: The girls at Verdun Fields at Uni Nats 2006. From left to right - Lisa, D, Mary, Julie, and bottom Lexi.

Practice Review:
- Run
- A,B,Cs
- Stretch
- Lotto: everyone finished in time
- Piston Endurance with focused static throws: 15 pistons + 7 throws + 15 pistons + 7 throws + 15 reverse air pistons + 7 throws. Rest. 15 pistons + 7 throws + 15 pistons + 7 throws. Focus is on cutting hard
- Three man continuous - Game to 15

philosophical Question: What is the best external training for decision making? By external I mean not ultimate related.

PJ

Wednesday - August 30th - Review

Total Guys: 14
Total Blog Views: 20

Pictured Above: V&V party and the door rule. Julie, Tim, Sara, and Susi.

Practice Details:
- Run
- Stretch
- Lotto = everyone finished in under ten minutes, but a few were tight. The key was repeating very quickly.
- Fitness - three men a running = two sidelines, one person cuts to the other side, catches disc, runs through to other side, slaps hand with thrower, then thrower runs (need 2 discs). Emphasis is on early throws, run through. Count how many completed throws in 2 minutes (10 pushup penalty for turnovers)
- Tula V - cut back to cones = we did 110 throws (10 per person) and did 55 pushups for 11 drops. Our weakness was running through the disc.
- Huck for scores with a button hook cut. Cutter needs to break the plane of the initial thrower. We need lots of work on this. Handler lead throws were poor (can't throw too far upfield or stack will get it). Our handler cuts weren't as aggressive as they should be. We also need to throw for completion (not distance).

The Season Things

Hey Folks,

I thought I'd relay some of the details about Torontula and some of the things we do over a year.

Tournaments:

1. Tournament 1 - Easterns (Date TBD)
2. Tournament 2 - Nationals (13,14,15 in Ottawa)
3. Tournament 3 - Goosebowl
   
4. Tournament 4 - Gut Rot
5. Tournament 5 - MUT U&U (Sept 30 - Oct 1 in Montreal)

We had teams go to 1 through 4 last year.

What else we do:

1. Didn't Get Cut Party (Date TBD)
2. V&V Party (Season End - TBD)
3. Practice almost every morning until Nationals
4. Go out for breakfast Friday mornings

What are some of our rules of existence:

• No rookie initiations
• Any time we party or travel you must have a buddy who knows and is with you at all times
  
• Try to include everyone
• Financially help where we can
  

What are we going to do this year:

• We have Tula discs (12$ each)
  
• We'll order jerseys (blacks and greys with numbers?)
  
• We'll order hoodies (mines getting old)
  

Why should you play Tula:

1. Only a month and a half of commitment in the fall, A month in the Spring
   
2. The people
3. Morning practices don't hurt your day and night (too much)
4. The parties and dancing
5. The tournaments and the fun
6. The learning experience
   

That's all I can think of.

PJ

Tuesday - August 29th

Total Guys: 15 (12 runners)
Total Views of Blog: 38 - (Belleville, Steveston BC, Ottawa)

Practice Details:
- Run
- Dynamic Stretch
- Lotto = emphasis on getting through the drill quickly.
- Break 45s = throw early
- Fitness Drill = 20 pushups, run 30 yards, partner mirrors, 20 situps, run 30 yards, partner mirrors...killer
- Huck For Scores = With communicating pump fake.
- Game = White creamed dark (6-1). I dropped two due to my lack of focus. It shows how the fitness drill impacted my game and showed me I wasn't in playing shape. This applies to everyone and stresses the importance of track workouts on the weekends.

Homework: 50 backhands, 50 flicks

Pictured Above: Sticks at the V&V

See you tomorrow,
PJ

Monday - August 28th

Announcement: Tomorrow morning we will be on Back Campus at 7:30 AM and we will remain there for this week (Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri)

Review:
- Ran around Field
- Dynamic Stretches
- Lotto = We will do this every day. In 10 minutes, in groups of four, perform the following drills:

1. 5 throws in Three-man
2. 5 dumps regular field
3. 5 Berkeley dumps with defender pushing up-field

Points in this drill were:

• Spacing between offensive dump cutter and dump thrower needs to be sufficient
• Dump cutter defender needs to get mark on as soon as possible in control

- Throw for scores with communication = Throw for scores setup accept thrower can pump fake when runner is looking back. This signals for an incut.
Point in this drill were:

• Cut for green space
• Don't throw too early on incut (need eye contact)
• Kirk discussed throwing planes

- Incut Triangle Drill = time cut out to cones. We didn't have high numbers so we ran a lot.
- Endurance Back and Forths = 2 sets of 2 minutes with four people per line
Points in drill were:

• Run through the disc
• Throw early
• Put in a fake

PJ

Thursday - August 24th - Review

From Inian e-mail

team warm-up (lap + dynamic stretches)
45s (break force)
dump drill (the one that goat does)
throw for scores
3-man competition
3 on 3 continuous

PJ

Building momentum towards CUUC, a post-CUC analysis

Well, Canadian Nationals wrapped up this weekend with a strong showing from the UofT crowd. Several Torontula players competed on men's, women's and co-ed touring teams- bringing home 2 golds and a bronze. There is already a strong buzz about UofT's men's team for this year after seeing the boys on ROY, GT and Goat in action. There's no sense ignoring the hype: People are already pegging us as the early favorites. I think it's important to talk about this so people know how to deal with this information. This is something that Garry Watanabe, an excellent sport psychologist, talked to us about this past weekend. To paraphrase:
1. It's important/healthy for the team to take the stance that we will dominate this year. Our training/intensity should reflect our team's confidence. This discussion should be focused towards team-mates, not competition.
2. Once the banter gets around that UofT will dominate (which it already has), other teams will (if they are smart) use this to fire themselves up and focus their training towards beating us.
3. Point 2 may seem to counteract point 1 -- but it doesn't. The hidden variable here is fear. Teams are afraid of us and they have already begun to accept losing as a possibility. When you play in a situation like this, you need to come out hard, strong, aggressive and set a tone of dominance. In this case, the underdog team will fold. In fact, they will be happy to lose to you. It may sound strange to say, but it's true.
In my mind, we will win Nationals this year. Everything between now and then is training to become surgical in our execution. What does this mean for us training-wise? It means hitting the track 2x week starting now. We need to be able to grind teams into the ground with our fitness. Can you do this? Imagine an instance where you are an o-line cutter. Imagine making 5 hard 20yard cuts without pause. Imagine your defender and the sound of his breathing compared to yours. What is the difference? This is something to think about when you are at the track. It feels great to hear their asthmatic-like panting while you are still feeling energized and fast. Imagine an instance where you have a cutter wide-open on the break force side but your mark is all over you. Getting that throw to the break-force cutter would rip the field wide open and almost guarantee the score --- can you shake the defender and make the throw? This is what you should be thinking about when you are playing 3-man with your buddies. It means you need to be out throwing 5x/week. It means you need to commit to a full line-up of practices. Lets start preparing ourselves mentally and physically to dominate this year. -Kirker

PICTURES- taken from Steve's Pictures
(TOP) Scotty Nichols dialing it up on defense against Mephisto in the CUC championship game. (MIDDLE) Me going up for a disc. (BOTTOM) Goat 06' champs. Expect to see some pictures coming of Inian, who had played a wicked tournament and made a bunch of gnarly grabs. I just hope they were caught on camera. Chua dislocated his shoulder on the first point of the first game so didn't see much action on the weekend. He should be well rested for the University season. Pictures of UofT dudes that played with GT and ROY are also forthcoming. GT came up big and took 3rd overall.

Throw Around

We threw around last friday. I think we had about 8 guys. Some of them played 500 up. Pretty relaxed as Club Nationals are this week.

PJ

New Things I Would like To Try

As we start to get into the flow of things there are a few things I think we should either keep or introduce this season:

1. The warmup structure last year was good. Ordered run, ordered circle stretch, regular set of drills. We'll probably keep this as it gets us into the mental space of game time.
2. I hope to structure warmups for different time options.
3. I would like us to all get habitual cues. If you've played basketball a habitual cue is some sequence of actions you always do before throwing your free throw. I think we should get similar cues each time we enter the huddle and go to the line.
4. Team penalty or reward system for achieving goals.
5. Film Scouting against our top opponents and ourselves.

Any other ideas?

PJ

New Season - Steps Required

Hey Folks,

Tula 06 is probably the most organized we've ever been. This is mainly due to the new talent we brought in to manage the team (Steve, Alex, and Lexi). Just so you know:
- We have discs (distribution will be at practices)
- We have a blog to document our season. Comments are desired.
- We have a BBS (see right).
- We have a website (see right).
- We're hosting easterns again.
- We're going to Nationals in Ottawa.
- Some of us have started to get together to practice. These practices are invitation only, but will open up come the season.

Here is a list of things you need to do to get into the fold this year:
1. Get your letter from the registrar stating you are a full-time student.
2. Go to the AC and sign up with Torontula (Probably the Ultimate Frisbee Club or something).
3. Pay your CUPA fees for Nationals.
4. Get on the Torontula BBS. Go into the TUC bbs and click usergroups. Request to join Torontula. Check this BBS regularly.
5. Check this blog to see what's going on.
6. Check your e-mail (minimum once a day) to see if there's any messages from the team.
7. Make sure you order your shirts and hoodies.

Am I missing anything?

PJ

Practice #1

First round-up took place Aug.5th at Central Tech (aka, Pothole Central). 10 TULA 06' guys sacrificed their beautiful Saturday morning to get a taste of things to come. Drills quickly revealed that a lot of players have really bolstered their skills. A lot of TULA 05' guys are touring this year, and the impact of this is obvious. Pretty exciting. At the end of practice we scrimmaged vs. some Goat/GT players. It was made obvious that there is a large difference between improving your Ulty skills, and improving your "game". We were pretty much force-fed humility with two 5-0 losses. Lesson learned? It's still a game of decision making. Our handlers need to value the disc and keep it moving as much as possible, as quickly as possible. Our cutters need to realize that they are only borrowing the disc for a few seconds, and then they are returning it to the righful hands of the handers (should nothing obvious and easy be available upfield). We also emphasized the blue-collar work ethic that we'll need to win Nationals this year. Boys are going to have to grind out their cuts and put in a little O.T. outside of practice to ensure they are fit enough to win the war of attrition.
Everyone is up to the challenge and the stage is set for an exciting University season.

Ground Zero

This is where it all begins. The blog is a point where Tula 06 provides details about the 2006 season. This includes practice reviews, play access, discussion, and info.

Let's get serious.

PJ