There is no endzone

I'm sure everyone's done it. There's someone in the endzone and they are all you can see. You put up a risky pass and cause a turnover. There is no way you would have thrown that pass if the target hadn't been in the endzone, but it's just so enticing.

My team last mixed season suffered from this quite a bit, and I'm pretty sure I was one of the culprits. Why is a pass that scores so much more attractive than one that doesn't? Essentially, they are exactly the same action. I would love to see a turnover graph, where the position of each turnover is mapped out onto a field. I think there would be a massive collection near the endzones.

Imagine ultimate without an endzone. I think play would progress so much more easily. I have an idea for a practice game where we play on a field without endzones. You simply work the disc up the field and the winner is called at timecap as the team that's on their side of the start point.

I am, of course, discrediting the effects that an endzone has on defence, but I still think it would be a good exercise in focusing on disc movement without trying to score. Probably wouldn't be bad for fitness either with no breaks between points or for half.

Just need to find a field long enough...

Richie: Do not try and throw into the endzone. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Richie: There is no endzone.
Neo: There is no endzone?
Richie: Then you'll see, that it is not endzone that scores, it is only yourself.

Improvements

Last night we played a derby semi final, with both of the mixed teams from my club clashing in an epic battle of missing players. At least four people were missing from the two teams, which actually evened them up a little I think and a good game was had.

The team did really well. One of our girls was sick and really shouldn't have been playing. As a result, she took a couple of points off which left us playing with only two girls on the field and therefore down to six. As a result, we pretty much had to play a zone.

The zone was really good. We've been developing a new zone which we've dubbed Diamond Power which tries to minimize the amount of running the cup has to do while stopping the quick forward movement through the middle and it's working really well at times, and not so well at others. We adjusted it several times during the game and tried some different things which was good for the team.

Offensively the team needs to stop looking to score. Sounds a bit weird to say, but when we get close to the endzone, we look to score too hard instead of moving the disc around and creating space. Everyone wants to throw the assist and it ends up with a bad throw after holding onto the disc for too long. It's something I need to work on as well.

Personally I was happy that some of the throws I've been working on worked out well in a game situation. I didn't have many throwaways and I had quite a few nice puts which worked out. On this team I'm one of the stronger players, so I feel like it's my responsibility to make good plays. In actuality, what I should be doing is working with the team so that the team makes good plays.

Defensively I was a little hampered by my ankle. It's fine stability wise, but I've lost explosiveness from it which slowed me down on D. I wasn't going to run much at all, try and make myself a wing but I ended up running in the cup most of the night. I got a bit tired as I haven't run for 3 weeks, but generally I did pretty well. Still managed a few intercepts. The ankle feels great today. I think I broke up some scar tissue and it feels less stiff.

One more game of this league and then it's summer hat league and Wednesday night beach pickup. I can't wait to play beach again.