Frisbee: Burro Electrico (open)

Open Tour 1 this weekend.

Should be an exciting tournament because
a) I'm playing with a new team
b) It's always fun discovering which teams that were awesome and are now crap (although less fun the other way)
c) There are 7 European teams playing

My open team for this season is Burro Electrico and I'll be very interested to see how we do. Our aim is to be in A-tour for tour 2 which means being top 16. Well, top 13 actually because 3 teams come up from B-tour. Well, top 13 UK teams because the Europeans probably won't be back. So all very confusing and open and anyone could go anywhere. Exciting.

Now, Burro have only played for one season so far and apparently they lost everything in sudden death (which included the closest thing I've ever seen to a fight on an ultimate pitch). This seems pretty typical of a new team and hopefully something we can iron out this season. From my experience at the top of the bracket (whilst they were at the bottom) last season I would say this team has the potential to push into the top 12 - it's just a question of mentality. Quite a few of the experienced players on this team have apparently not played A tour before so we'll see how that goes (not that they haven't played in other pressure situations).

The current squad seems to be quite a middle aged - not too many students (only 1 comes to mind) but quite a few over the age of thirty (which is obviously well old). I think I'd guess the average age to be 28, maybe more. On the books at the beginning of the season were 24 names and the captain was talking about rotating players for games or whole tournaments. Thankfully everyone got injured and we are now down to 15 for Tour 1 (and the captain is in a tizzy).

Training so far has been... interesting. We had decent turnout for a while but for the last two sessions we've had 9 players. I've been pretty disappointed by that, especially as we had tryouts and turned people away. Like Flaming Galahs, I get the impression 3-4s is being introduced to some players and that the team played a lot of stack last year. Anyhow, we've trained every fortnight (or less, with Mixed Tour) and played winter league together, although no tournaments. At the moment I think we're a bunch of very talented players... I'm just not sure if we're a team yet. At times there's a lot of voices arguing their point and some people who get quite angry at the team when we fuck up.

The past two trainings we've had friendlies against Fire lines (ie just 7 of them): the 1st we lost 11-1, the 2nd 11-9.
For the 1st game I can't remember the last time I was more embarrassed to be playing ultimate. They played a clam and we couldn't get a 1st pass out and when we did we didn't know what to do with it.
For the 2nd game I was just relieved that we were making a showing of ourselves. In another context we'd be kicking ourselves for throwing the game away (we were 3-0 up) but relief was my main emotion. In this game they switched from man to an aggressive arrowhead and said after the game that we would have beaten them if they'd stayed man.

Conclusion - we're a great bunch of players but when we need to play as a team (against clams and zones) we don't have that communication/knowledge/trust/plan that brings us together.

So this weekend. Well tournaments are where the pressure really gets put on - especially when playing unfamiliar teams. I think a tournament is just what we need - if all goes well Tour 1 is going to forge us into a team.

Personal goals for the weekend
I figure if I write these down then I'll have to focus on them and become a better player etc

Get a layout block. Sounds basic, but if you've played with me you know I don't really do the whole D thing, especially not the diving around bit. Well, that's changing hopefully.

Flatter backhand hucks. Mine have got too much roll edge - easier for me to get them out, harder for the receiver to catch

More aggressive handler movement. As asked for by the captain. I'm generally happy to get the disc out to a cutter and let the team take it from there, moving into a dump position for if I'm needed. He'd rather I pushed upfield harder and faster so I'll give that a go...