Open Ultimate: Take Your Game Online

And so it begins...

The logo battle starts this week. Thanks to all the artists and captains who have submitted logos (you can still submit up until the final round). I'll give more details about logos as they move into later rounds.

Last time I ran this it was relatively easy to get logos off websites. This is not as true anymore, so I'm not making too much an effort to collect logos from all the teams. This includes the big name teams who haven't responded. I'll leave that to teams and people to submit (jamieson dot peter at gmail dot com). Keep them coming in, and if you have a logo from another club that you think should be included just send it in.

Here's the logos this week (polls right):

College Division

1. Amherst Dark Army

2. Appalachian State

3. American University

General Division


1. Clapham

2. Blackfish

3. Jawbone

UPA Championship Division


1. Condors

2. Alpha Cobra Squad


3. Above and Beyond

PJ

If you haven't caught this article about eye-tracking exercises in virtual worlds and the improvement in athletes, then take a read. My feeling is this all fits along my theory that video games are a great training tool for athletes. The difference in this new research is that a virtual world, seen through virtual glasses (or something similar), might be a better training implement for information that comes in through your peripheral vision. This in contrast to the standard console and television set-up that can be viewed almost completely within your field of view.


The day can't be far off when these tools are integrated in athletic training. Given the cost effectiveness of the Wii, it can't be far off until we can create these systems for home consumption.

The articles progressive research into cognitive performance evaluation may be the key piece of research that we can then use to evaluate different scenarios. Maybe my theory will soon be proven as science as opposed to an excuse why video games is a valid pastime.

PJ

We've been working in London with something we're calling the Ultimate Academy. Every Saturday, college teams (Kings and Imperial) come together to get some Ultimate theory. The goal is to impart some theory of the game of Ultimate to up and coming College Ultimate players.

I've really enjoyed the process, and I'm documenting the sessions in hope of developing an e-book some time in the future. The goal being to provide drills and a progression of drills on ways to teach Ultimate. Of course, as much as this is meant to teach new comers, I think the progression is a good approach to reviewing Ultimate technique and team concepts.

You'll have to wait for the e-book, but in the meantime, much like the lessons I talk about with tournaments, I've started to learn a few things in this process. In particular, there are a few challenges that are making things tough. The are:

1. How do you develop sessions that are good for beginners and intermediates?
2. How do you deal with irregular attendance?
3. How do you keep people interested?
4. What size of group is reasonable to coach?
   

In terms of teaching beginners and intermediates, I've found it hard to keep on introducing concepts. The pace of progression will either lose the beginners or bore the intermediates. I don't know if there's a perfect solution in this case, unless you have the teaching personnel to divide the group into smaller sections and ensure that each group is getting what they need.

This problem is even more difficult with irregular attendance. The major problem is the Academy is based on progression. When people don't make it to every session then their are holes in knowledge. These holes cause more variance across the group as a whole, and the result is nobody gets the full benefit of these sessions. The solutions are to demand commitment (if that's possible), have multiple progressions built over shorter session spans, or just push on and accept the inefficiencies of ongoing progression.

The next two challenges are classic coaching decisions. Both problems are highly dependent on the audience. The more keen the audience, the easier it is to keep people interested and have a large group. As keenness drops, a coach needs to introduce techniques like limited talking periods, competitions, and fun elements. These solutions help, but in the end you can only do so much, and the boring important stuff has to be presented and worked on for the benefits of the minority who care.

PJ