How to look like a veteran player, even when you’re not

At practice last week, I kept noticing one thing: most of our rookies are really athletic. Then I noticed another thing: these athletic rookies don’t know how to fully use their athletic ability. These observations led me to think back on my own experience as a rookie, and I realized how similar my situation was. I came from a football background, and playing outside linebacker, I had grown accustomed to certain movements and thinking. I was fast and could tear up the field with my cuts, but I was dumber than the piece of plastic being thrown around.

Like other sports, Ultimate has its own nuanced techniques and strategies that make a team more effective on the field. These techniques and strategies are not complicated; they’re just different from what most people are used to coming from a “normal” sports background. For example, a good end zone play in football is throwing the ball into the back corner. That doesn’t work as well in ultimate.

Gaining “ultimate smarts” usually comes from experience, but there are ways to learn faster. The first step is forgetting all your instincts. Moves that work in soccer or football or other sports don’t work here. Forget them. The sooner you leave your old mind set, the sooner you can accept a new and better one (in the context of playing ultimate). My main example here stems from a rookie’s tendency to make multiple cuts in the throwing lane. The offensive flow works best in ultimate when each long makes only one cut and then clears. I don’t care if you can beat your guy if you make a few extra moves. The time you spend dancing in the lane disrupts the other cutters (not to mention your chances of getting in a better position after clearing) and there’s a good chance the handler has swung the disc anyway.

After you’ve forgotten everything you’ve ever been taught, you need to relearn these better instincts. Doing that means asking a lot of questions. Now, a lot of the vets will take the initiative to tell you what you did wrong. They get a power trip from it, and it makes them feel better when they cry at night (if you look closely, you can see the tear streaks in Denis’ beard). But we can’t see everything and we have no idea what you’re thinking if you don’t ask questions.

You aren’t going to become an all-star in one day. Even as a senior, I’m still learning better ways to play this game.