Dear Diary ... Twisted Firestarter

Its been a few weeks off from the Firestorm training diary, thanks to a bit of rain, but we're back today with the unstoppable Will and smooth Stu.

Hey Hey Hey everyone. This week it lands in my comfortable lap to drop a dear diary" on you all so here goes.

Firstly the thing I have really noticed is the development and building of relationships with other players in the club. Players who have only been together a few weeks are now starting to work like a well oiled machine and we are starting to see people move into possible roles in the lead up to Nationals on our fine campaign.

And its getting me excited like a fat man before a caramel pie. As a returning player it's fantastic to see the philosophy Firestorm started with really flourishing. Spawning from 3 Nationals rookies last year (if my alcohol addled brain accounts correctly) to about 18 now? (for new players to Aus Nationals). I think i'm finding comfort in that
because I know my hazing is over and if Chris can afford it to the new players yours will come ;) .

Game specifically i noted the resurgence of our tried and true "Horozontal Stack" formation and "Hard Under" marks forcing long deep options for us to bring down or if on "D" easy swats out of the air and shutting down the easy %100 throws the opposition wants. This proved quite effective last year with our throwers easily clearing the stack and giving the receivers plenty of room to operate into the endzone.

Like all machines of war we are going to need maintenance and regular fine tuning if we are going to adapt to different combat situations. This poor attempt at an analogy is squarely aimed at getting yourself ready for the weather. Last Saturday we all felt the heat and as aL put it "you know it's hot when not even water on your face shocks you". He hit the nail on the head. A big shock for me playing in just daytime conditions last year was the giant ball of celestial fire and gamma rays demanding that my body do this thing called sweating (apparently it's the in thing to do now to keep cool under the sun). Unlike playing at night where it's rather easy to keep cool daytime frizbee is a bit of a shock. I'd easily recommend getting out during the day and try to do some exercise and just get used to it a little, no doubt a few extra of these weekend sessions and regionals will help but it's something to keep in mind.

Now. Thats enough garbage spewing from me. If I add anymore word blocks to this I can start building a house.

Ud4lyF Will

And now over to Stu:

After the floods of the past few weeks we were finally able to get back out and play some Ultimate, although we had been relegated to the 'dark' pitch at the northern end of the field.

Spirits were high to be able to play again but maybe suffered from a lack of direction in trying to work out how to play 3-4 offence. People were unsure how to make the deep cuts in a horizontal stack and how to time them off one another. No offence to Al, quite often what is in your head isn't the same as what ends up happening on the pitch!! And in many ways we need to be able to learn to adapt to a non-perfect cutting pattern.

Saturday mornings games showed how tough it could really be in the midday heat, especially to a pommey like me who would normally be playing in 4 degree winter league now rather than 40 degree heat. The experience was definitely worth it as some of the plays from squads we're starting to look pretty sweet. And the Zippo team kept dumping and recycling the disc which in the end found holes in the Jetstream D. I'm well up for running around in the midday sun to get used that sort of temperature and if anyone wants to join in some running/drilling let me know (I'll be living in Paddington from Saturday).

We have got some very athletic players in the squad, both experienced and newbies who are all willing to bust a gut for the team. It's going to be good to see over the next 9 weeks how we develop from a group of individuals to a team of players who know when to make that hard cut yourself and when to let someone else take it and set up your own continuation cut so when can get some unstoppable flow going.

Stu