Thoughtful Tuesdays: Using Your Gregory Peck

Which body part do you think most Ultimate players fail to use effectively?

The legs? There seems to be plenty of times someone could’ve run a bit harder.

The brain? Certainly there’s time when poor decisions get made.

The hands? Bad throws and dropped catches are certainly out there.

The heart? Yes, you know you should’ve laid out for that one.

But these aren’t the part I’m thinking of.

Kids, the body part that I wish people would use more of is the NECK.

Using your neck to swing your head around means that you’re absorbing a heck of a lot more about what’s going on around you. More information, particularly about what your team-mates and your opponents are up to, equals better decisions.

Next time you’re watching a game, watch a player you consider ‘average’. Chances are that as their team takes possession and they move into their offensive position, their neck isn’t doing much, aside from holding their head up as they look at the disc.

Maybe they’ve had a look at the person marking them. Maybe they’ve had a look at the defenders between them and the disc.

But that’s about it. They're probably just settling in to look at the disc.

Then, watch a really good player. Often, they’re good because they’re fast, fearless and have mad skillz with the disc.

But I’ll be you’ll see them looking around themselves (at least until they decide its time to deceive an opponent into passivity by ‘playing possum’).

Good Ultimate players really give their neck a workout. They're gathering information about what is the best cut for them to make relative to their defender, what are their full range of options for their next pass, who amongst their team has the best mismatch and chance to get free from a defender, who needs a quick switch of defender, what else is happening in the zone outside their immediate area, etc etc.

Now, this is somewhat less for players who are always the longest, mostly as they can survey the field without looking around too much (although if they are on Offence, the ability to see everything should be a bit of a give-away that they are too long).

“Staring at the disc” is possibly acceptable if your team has an offensive structure and tactic that is so well defined, drilled and foolproof that you don’t need to know anything about the 12 players on the field, aside from yourself and the person with the disc.

But if you’ve got an offence that requires some sort of decision making by you, then having all the information available to you by looking around is going to help a lot!