Intensity

I'd like to build on Fox's email about intensity a little bit. You hear about the great athletes, and how they always practiced like it was a real game, they always played all out. I, personally, have a tough time playing all out in practice pretty often. It's something I'd really like to improve myself, and I think that it can help our team improve a lot as well. I know that people are going to miss practices now and then (I'm not going to like it, but I understand it's going to happen), you'll be sick and miss track workouts, etc. What I ask of you is that when you do come out, you bring a high level of intensity. Play hard, otherwise you aren't going to get better. Give 100%. If you see a teammate not giving 100%, get on their ass. If you see me not giving 100%, get on my ass.

Ok, enough about that, on to the schedule this week. We've got practice on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 7:00pm. Tuesday we will scrimmage a local pickup team. For those of you who are available, we will be meeting at 6:30 before each practice this week to do the first week of the Air Alert program. After this week, the Air Alert workouts won't necessarily fall on practice dates, we may try to setup a group time at the gym to do the workouts on non-practice days, we'll see. This is not an easy program, but does provide pretty amazing results. You are not required to do Air Alert, but you're only cheating yourself (and, of course, the rest of the team).

This week we'll be working on dump-swing offense and dump defense.

Basic Dump-Swing Offense
Downfield cutters should never get closer than 10 yards to the thrower, this area should be reserved for the dump. We should always be looking to the dump by stall 6. The dump isn't just a bailout for the thrower, it's part of our offense. Dumping makes it easy to swing the disc to the break side of the field where it will be easier to advance the disc. We should always have a swing cut for dumps. The dump should be 5-10 yards from the thrower, if the disc is in the middle of the field, the dump is directly behind the thrower, if on the sideline, but not trapped, you want to be at about a 45 degree angle to the thrower. We'll work on trapped dumps later.

Basic Dump Defense
You can poach a little early in the stall count, but make sure you're in position to play defense by stall 5. Take a position where you can force the dump to cut only one way, then pressure that cut. If they complete the dump, make sure you get a mark on quickly to try and take away the swing. Work on communication with the marker so that he can help you take away the direction you are forcing the dump to cut. We'll work on trap defense later. We'll also probably standard way we want to force the dump in different situations later so that it's easier for the marker and the dump defender to be on the same page.

This Week's Practice Schedule
Monday:
Warmup
5x40 yard sprints w/rest
10 Throw
Goto Drill
Discuss Dump-Swing offense and Dump Defense
Walkthrough dump positioning
Dump-Swing (middle) drill
2 on 2 Dump Scrimmage
Push Pass practice
Short Backhand practice
Hotbox

Tuesday (I have class on Tuesdays, so you'll have to run this yourselves, someone bring a watch for the intervals):
Warmup
10 Throw
Goto Drill
Huddle (go over Dump-Swing offense and Dump defense)
Scrimmage - Game to 15
Huddle (review game)
Intervals - 5x60/50s

Thursday:
Warmup
10 Throw
3 person marking drill
Discuss Dump-Swing offense and Dump Defense, questions from scrimmage
Dump-Swing (middle) Drill
Push Pass Practice
Short Backhand Practice
Deep Receiving Drill
Breakmark Drill
2 on 2 Dump Scrimmage
Intervals - 5x60/50s

PFB