Frisbee again today. Apparently it got up to 103-107 in parts of LA (probably including Pasadena, though I haven't checked). Speaking as someone who was walking home from the dentist around 2pm, it sure was hot, past even my pretty high tolerance. Luckily it had cooled down some by the time frisbee came around, so the game was enjoyable. Which isn't to say that I did not drip 2+ buckets of sweat during the game.
Anyways... foot was a lot better while playing today, still a bit sore but on the whole it feels like it's healing up well. I even managed to pour on some speed on a few occasions in the game, which feels good when it's to outrun one of the people there who's usually regarded as one of the best runners.
Showing posts with label thursdays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thursdays. Show all posts
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Frisbee Day
Today is thursday, which is Frisbee Day. At least for me, that is. Every thursday, a large group of people get together and play ultimate frisbee on the field behind Beckman Institute. We usually have mostly grad students and non-caltech people show up for the game, though recently there have been some SURF students, and displaced people from the more serious ultimate group which was playing on the north field until softball season.
For some of those reading who may not know what ultimate frisbee is (or just "ultimate"), I direct you to this link. There are three qualities I like about ultimate: it requires a lot of running, but a good portion of that is short sprinting, which I am good at. It requires upper body and hand/eye coordination to throw the frisbee well, as well as there being a lot of technique to the different styles of throws. Finally, it's also a good thinking and mind-reading game: if you know some of the basic strategy to playing, fast decisions and being able to read people's motion, you can do a lot of fun things.
To illustrate the last point, let me mention part of today's game where such a situation occurred. In ultimate, since you must throw the disc to advance play, when someone is trying to throw to a teammate, there are what can be thought of as passing lanes, the clear areas of the field in which they can actually throw through. If they throw too close to a defender, the disc could be intercepted or knocked down (roughly equally good), and so there are clear limitations based on the current field position to where someone will throw. If you add in the motion of all the players to the mix, you can tell which currently open lanes will be closing, and which people on offense are actually entering clear passing lanes. Today's game had just such a situation (and here I realize that I actually need a diagram. I'll add one later, check back if the word description is confusing), I was playing defense, guarding one of the players on offense, and was pretty far downfield from where the thrower was. In this type of situation, I pay a lot more attention to the thrower than to the person I'm guarding, because there are only a few things the person being guarded can do that will require me to react to them (they are: sprint towards the thrower into a passing lane, or sprint downfield away from the thrower to get open for either a long pass or for a continuation when the thrower passes to someone else). As it happens, the person guarding the thrower was forcing the throw to be to only one half of the field, which helps tremendously in working out where the pass can go, and so when the pass was released, I could tell exactly which path it would take to reach the person I was guarding, who made a move towards the outside of the field. Which meant that instead of trying to catch the person I was guarding, I could take a more direct route to the frisbee and intercept it before it even reached them.
That probably sounds pretty complicated to be thinking about all the time, and a lot of the time it doesn't really even help: the throw could be perfect and you'd have no chance to reach it first, the person you're guarding could be a lot faster or less tired than you, and so on. But I still find that aspect very fun, as it adds another dimension to the game.
Anyways, that's what I look forward to on thursdays. Today we even got to play two games simultaneously, there were enough people for two games of 5v5 (you can play 4v4 up to 7v7 normally, and sometimes we have substitutes so people don't get as tired. 3v3 is possible, but really really tiring). I feel a lot more in shape now than when I started back playing after the winter, though I still get really sore after the games, it doesn't last long. The important thing is that it's really fun to play.
For some of those reading who may not know what ultimate frisbee is (or just "ultimate"), I direct you to this link. There are three qualities I like about ultimate: it requires a lot of running, but a good portion of that is short sprinting, which I am good at. It requires upper body and hand/eye coordination to throw the frisbee well, as well as there being a lot of technique to the different styles of throws. Finally, it's also a good thinking and mind-reading game: if you know some of the basic strategy to playing, fast decisions and being able to read people's motion, you can do a lot of fun things.
To illustrate the last point, let me mention part of today's game where such a situation occurred. In ultimate, since you must throw the disc to advance play, when someone is trying to throw to a teammate, there are what can be thought of as passing lanes, the clear areas of the field in which they can actually throw through. If they throw too close to a defender, the disc could be intercepted or knocked down (roughly equally good), and so there are clear limitations based on the current field position to where someone will throw. If you add in the motion of all the players to the mix, you can tell which currently open lanes will be closing, and which people on offense are actually entering clear passing lanes. Today's game had just such a situation (and here I realize that I actually need a diagram. I'll add one later, check back if the word description is confusing), I was playing defense, guarding one of the players on offense, and was pretty far downfield from where the thrower was. In this type of situation, I pay a lot more attention to the thrower than to the person I'm guarding, because there are only a few things the person being guarded can do that will require me to react to them (they are: sprint towards the thrower into a passing lane, or sprint downfield away from the thrower to get open for either a long pass or for a continuation when the thrower passes to someone else). As it happens, the person guarding the thrower was forcing the throw to be to only one half of the field, which helps tremendously in working out where the pass can go, and so when the pass was released, I could tell exactly which path it would take to reach the person I was guarding, who made a move towards the outside of the field. Which meant that instead of trying to catch the person I was guarding, I could take a more direct route to the frisbee and intercept it before it even reached them.
That probably sounds pretty complicated to be thinking about all the time, and a lot of the time it doesn't really even help: the throw could be perfect and you'd have no chance to reach it first, the person you're guarding could be a lot faster or less tired than you, and so on. But I still find that aspect very fun, as it adds another dimension to the game.
Anyways, that's what I look forward to on thursdays. Today we even got to play two games simultaneously, there were enough people for two games of 5v5 (you can play 4v4 up to 7v7 normally, and sometimes we have substitutes so people don't get as tired. 3v3 is possible, but really really tiring). I feel a lot more in shape now than when I started back playing after the winter, though I still get really sore after the games, it doesn't last long. The important thing is that it's really fun to play.
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