to quote the violent femmes
learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, everything you can learn.
after my last post about the marks in college ultimate there was some requests for expanding on what makes a good mark. rather than get into the specifics of a good mark, i think one of the first concepts is that a good mark needs to learn throughout a point or game to become more effective. this was what i thought was missing at the college tourney i saw.
the college marks tended to start quite tight. however, the few good throwers at the tournament were easily stepping around these and either breaking the mark, or getting a free throw with the foul. at this point, these marks should have started learning, and stepped off these players who could easily step around these marks. by taking a half-step, or even a full step off the mark, these throwers would have been much less successful at breaking the mark.
i think every top defender does this, but maybe it's what separates the best from the next tier of defenders. if i get broken by a high-release, i'm going to be aware of that throw, and either have my hand up there near the release point or have it ready to jab up there. by slowly dialing in the throwers release points and 1st choise of throw i can force him to start going deeper into his bag of tricks to beat me. the hope is that by getting him to go to these less comfortable throws the odds of getting a turnover will improve.
it's a pretty simple concept, but as a marker if you say "this is how i mark" and refuse to adjust to the thrower you're really at a disadvantage. you've got to do everything you can to make the thrower uncomfortable, and that includes changing up what you do.
after my last post about the marks in college ultimate there was some requests for expanding on what makes a good mark. rather than get into the specifics of a good mark, i think one of the first concepts is that a good mark needs to learn throughout a point or game to become more effective. this was what i thought was missing at the college tourney i saw.
the college marks tended to start quite tight. however, the few good throwers at the tournament were easily stepping around these and either breaking the mark, or getting a free throw with the foul. at this point, these marks should have started learning, and stepped off these players who could easily step around these marks. by taking a half-step, or even a full step off the mark, these throwers would have been much less successful at breaking the mark.
i think every top defender does this, but maybe it's what separates the best from the next tier of defenders. if i get broken by a high-release, i'm going to be aware of that throw, and either have my hand up there near the release point or have it ready to jab up there. by slowly dialing in the throwers release points and 1st choise of throw i can force him to start going deeper into his bag of tricks to beat me. the hope is that by getting him to go to these less comfortable throws the odds of getting a turnover will improve.
it's a pretty simple concept, but as a marker if you say "this is how i mark" and refuse to adjust to the thrower you're really at a disadvantage. you've got to do everything you can to make the thrower uncomfortable, and that includes changing up what you do.
posted by greg at
4:30 PM
3 Comments:
What do you think about this:
First I'm making two assumptions: The advantage of marking tight lies mainly in intimidating the thrower, the disadvantage is that it increases the number of fouls *and* is ineffective against good throwers.
Now my question: Should people be trained from the start to step off even when intimidation works (and foul calls are not made because of inexperience) or do you think it's is the right thing to start with a tight mark and "learn" to step off afterwards?
I'm not a big fan of intimidation in Ultimate but maybe there are other benefits in starting with a tight mark you can point out.
A related question would be whether you see the main point of marks as getting blocks/turn-overs or avoiding break throws.
By
Anonymous, at 2/17/2006 3:47 AM
buddha: i don't know if there is a proper way to begin instruction on the mark. one of the advantages of the tight mark, that you don't mention, is that you can frequently alter the throws to the open side if you are tighter. again, with the "learn" mentality, if the person is not looking to break your mark, then maybe you start to get closer and closer to start affecting throws to the open side. however, if it is an active thrower that is trying to break you, then maintaining that cushion can be helpful. there are other variables which may also affect the cushion, such as whether you are trying to prevent the huck, at the expense of a short break-mark throw, etc.
johnny mac: i think i'm going to hire you to write my blog entries from now on. you seem to say what i want to say pretty well. another twist on what we're talking about is rather than having the offense do what they don't want to do, maybe it's to have the offense do what the defense is strongest at. simple example: we want to run a trap zone on the sideline, so we'll give them short yardage throws to that side of the field. maybe that's a different type of concept, more team oriented than individual.
By
greg, at 2/20/2006 11:50 AM
greg: Thanks for your comments. The reason I was asking is because I noticed an increase in marking related fouls (offensive and defensive) over the last couple of years, e.g. at Worlds 2002 in Hawaii we counted 37 such foul calls in the first half of the Open final (I haven't been to any UPA Nationals so I can't say what the situation is right now, it seems to be stable in Europe). I was wondering if this has to do with the way people are learning how to mark. And whether we should teach them to respect the thrower first and then improve their marking skills once they got that concept. While I realize that this blog is more about the high level play I think the future of Ultimate lies in the way we teach it to new players.
By
Anonymous, at 2/23/2006 6:07 PM
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