UCPC thoughts

So I managed to make it up to Boston for this UCPC thing and I am really glad I did. It is more or less a convention of frisbee nerds talking about how to make all aspects of the game better. At first i was hesitant to go (I have no idea why, I think I am one of the biggest ultimate geeks) but I am really glad I made the trek from the Have.

Opening/Keynote Speaker

My first real experience at this conference was when George Cooke came up and introduced himself to me. I was very surprised mainly because he is much less intimidating in real life then his blog picture would have you believe. It was nice to chat with him and I will say that he (and Tiina) ran a great conference. We as ultimate players are in their debt.

Next came the keynote speech by Dr. Alan Goldberg. First, this guy was really entertaining to watch. I think he is about as close to a John Wooden as I am ever going to see in the flesh. This guy was a true competitor's competitor. He started with a story about getting his ass handed to him by some punk in tennis when he was a kid. Then he talked about how he trained for months and months (12 hours a day) and a year later, he still got his ass kicked. However, after much more training and hardship, he managed to take it to this little shit and tore him a new one. I loved it, great story (I am not doing it justice). In any event, the main message that I got from his speech was that being a champion is about suffering and failure. It is about getting out of your comfort zone and putting yourself through hell. Being complacent is death and the only way to truly dominate is to suffer, both physically, with endless training, and mentally, with failure and defeat. However, if you truly learn from your trials and tribulations and really put in the hours, you can succeed (wow, saturday morning special alert).

Another important lesson that I got from Dr. Goldberg was that it is really important to have goals and "why's" when you are training and preparing for competition. You can't have somebody tell you why you are working hard, it has to be your own personal reason (regardless of what it is), because that is the only thing that will motivate you through the pain and soreness. In addition, he also said that once game day comes, forget your goals, forget your "why's" and just play. "Leave emotion at the door" to quote Ocean's 11, and just execute. Forget about opponents and results, and more or less attempt to be a machine in motion. In only that manner can you really avoid letting pressure get to you and choking. Great work, I loved his over head projector too, who needs Powerpoint?

Mingle Session #1

The next thing up was the vendor display which included several booths from teams and companies. Also among the crowd were some of the biggest names in ultimate including Rob (ultivillage), Gwen Ambler, Kyle Weisbrod, Miranda Roth, Al de Frondeville, Sam Rosenthal, Seigs, yada yada yada. I was a bit star struck and had trouble breaking into the mingle session (at least this one). Sorry folks, I am a bitch. What made matters worse was after this pathetic social display, I felt like I was back in 7th grade and I went wandering through the halls to find my chosen seminar hanging my head. However, as I rushed through the halls, I passed a gentleman carrying a laptop, who stopped and said "Match?". Yeah, it was Ben Wiggins and I about fell over. I must have looked like such a tool. I suppose I don't like to be surprised because I like to give things a lot of thought before I do them. When I am caught off guard I don't have a chance to let things pass through the ol filter and I look like an idiot. But, I would collect myself and rally later in the day.

Seminar #1 - Speed, Agility, and Quickness (Michael Baccarini)

I never played any sports in high school so I am not in the know when it comes to complex bio-mechanics and training methods. I was curious to know what information was out there and, wow, is this guy knowledgeable. First off, I want to say that I won't be able to do his talk justice but I am going to buy his (and Tiina's) book. The main message that I got from his talk that I will articulate here, is that you really need to train in a manner that is fitting for ultimate. Because I never played in HS sports, I don't really know how to train. I would just run a lot and Michael said that just logging miles really won't help much. It is good for overall fitness, but it won't improve your game. This makes total sense considering that endurance running and ultimate running are completely different. Needless to say, this guy knows his shit and I think his book will really help me out.

Seminar #2 - Preparing for Ultimate (Gwen Ambler)

This was a great talk by Gwen that was filmed by Rob. It basically discusses how her team, San Francisco Fury, prepared for their 2007 season (where they won nationals). At first I was a bit skeptical about getting anything out of this talk. She plays for a world class team that has world class talent and world class goals. I play for a cute little club team that no one cares about. However, the lessons are still there and she was very helpful. The main message that I gathered from it was that you can't over prepare. Team politics, goals for the season, weather, everything can/should be approached objectively before/during the season. Another big lesson is that only a small subset of the team needs to be involved. Not every player needs to know the details of "THE PLAN" but they need to know that there is "A PLAN" and their responsibility is to execute it. Another thing that made this talk interesting was that in her strategic analysis she talked about how Stanford handled Miranda Roth (UW) in the finals after getting worked by her in pool play back in 2005. What was really funny was that Miranda was in the audience, I loved it. In any event, i finally mustered the nuts to introduce myself to Gwen after her talk and she was very nice. God I am such a wuss.

Lunch/Mingle Session #2

We had lunch in the cafeteria, it had been awhile since I had been in one of those. I didn't remember what I had registered to eat so I just had pizza, sorry if I took someone else's food. This is also when I sacked up and told myself "get your fat read headed ass out there and talk to people". So I started with Rob. I feel like he sees the game very similar to the way I do. We are both avid disc fans but not exactly elite level players. However, we want the game to be followed and viewed just like baseball or football. You could say I sort of look up to him. In any event, if you ever get the chance to see Rob in person, don't hesitate to talk to him, he is such a nice guy and is very willing to talk to anyone. So I introduced myself and we talked for awhile. I had so many questions and he was very genuine. I talk a lot about ultivillage here and I was curious to know if he was OK with that. To my surprise, the main message he had for me was that he just wants to have people discuss his footage. Good, bad, ambivalent, he just wants people to know it and I think that makes sense. It is his livelihood and if people are talking about it, that means they watch it and hopefully that means Rob gets some sort of financial benefit (which he could use now that he is a daddy).

Another name that I wanted to talk to was Kyle Weisbrod. He is more or less the Juniors aficionado considering he was the Youth Director for the UPA. I really feel like I don't know enough about Juniors and have really not given the demographic enough attention. However, after playing with some Juniors kids, I can say that they are definitely the future. In any event, I managed to talk to Kyle. He was very nice and I found myself talking more about ultimate than I had initially expected. One thing I underestimated at this conference was how much people just want to talk disc. I love to talk ultimate but few people around me really have any input because being an ultimate fan takes so much work. However, at UCPC, I felt like a Greek mathematician hanging out with the Pythagoreans. We talked a bit too much and missed the first 15 minutes of my next seminar.

Seminar #3 - Business in Ultimate: A panel discussion (Ultivillage, VC Ultimate, Breakmark, NUTC)

This was probably my favorite meeting because it was one that I think I had the most to contribute. The format was basically 4 reps, 1 from each company (Rob, Victoria(?), Matt, and Tiina) that answered a series of questions and then the small audience would ask more questions and we would talk. I was late so I missed most of the initial questions but Rob did say something that I wanted to mention here. He said that the way to make it as a business in ultimate is to create something that you and only you can offer. Something that you love, some thing that you know, something that you are driven to do, and something no one else is doing. He said that he was never a video kinda guy, just a business person, and he never dreamed he would start a company like Ultivillage. This struck a chord with me because, like Rob, I never thought I would be a writer. I just love to talk about ultimate and now I have aspirations to carry this lame blog thing to another level. So for people out there, it should not be about money, but more or less doing what you love and offering a premium product. With companies like CSTV, Nike, Addias, etc.. we flat ballers cannot offer the least expensive product because we don't have the infrastructure to produce mass/cheap quantities. But what we still have a competitive advantage because we know and love the game. Bill Mill is doing this exact thing with Force Middle and I think like most of these vendors, he has a great idea in front of him that the ultimate community could use.

Another thing that was discussed here was the idea of fans, which is where I came in. A lot of these vendors have enough trouble getting teams to buy their stuff but the true future is to market these items to fans. However, most ultimate players don't know how to be fans because there is such a lack of information. This is exactly why I write this stuff. I want to offer an ESPN feel to ultimate so that people can follow their favorite players and teams, just as they would Tom Brady and the Patriots.

Lastly, I introduced myself to Tiina and she told me that she reads my dribble. That was very flattering, especially when she said that sometimes she is upset with what I write, HA...even better. But my main question for her was the role her college index plays in her kids choosing what colleges to go to. Apparently it is a very big part and she encourages all schools to really keep their information updated on this directory. I also got the chance to meet Andrew Hollingworth, a Juniors team USA standout and captain of Tufts. A great kid who volunteered for this conference who I hope to work with to discuss juniors ultimate in the future.

Seminar #4 - Defense: Getting Goals from your D line (Ben Wiggins)

I went to this talk mainly because I wanted to see what Ben had to say. I am not a big fan of O/D lines, mainly because I play offense and I do not play at a level that I feel requires set O and D teams. In any event, Ben gave a very interesting talk concerning how to generate scores once a turn is generated. One of the more interesting things about this talk was that a few Boston Ultimate players were in the crowd, I suppose they want a peak at their competition. In any event, the main message that I got from this talk was that when it comes to scoring goals, especially with a D line, a goal is a goal and that is all that matters. D-line offense is exactly that, D-line offense, not O-line offense. It doesn't have to look pretty, it doesn't have to be organized, it doesn't have to be planned or crisp, you just have to score goals. This was a powerful message because I feel like the main folly of D-lines is that they try and run their team's offense once they get a block. This is pretty impossible though, especially if these players don't practice their team offense all that much. If the best players to run the offense are not on the field, how can you expect to run a fluid offense? What you can do is take advantage of certain situations quickly (key word being quickly) and get the score unconventionally. He emphasized high release breaks, hammers, quick goal line toss/scores, NOT going through on a turn, but utilizing the momentum shift, etc... All in all, it was a nice seminar and I got to talk to Ben a little bit. Hopefully we can share some party stories next month in Hawaii beause I have my fair share and I am sure he has his.

Back to Lab/Chipotle

I had to go to work and I wanted to hit the Chipotle in Medford, so I didn't stay for the last talk. I felt bad for missing the UPA discussion but I figured I would be able to get the information on RSD or somewhere soon enough. Plus I got to dine on a steak burrito which I don't get anymore now that I am stuck in New Haven. It was beautiful. Work was work, then I crashed hard and slept through my older brother's drunk dial. He left a good message though.

Closing thoughts

I really had a great time at this conference mainly because I was surrounded by people that love ultimate as much as I do. I have always been very self conscience about my interest in ultimate mainly because it goes way beyond most people/players. This conference however was like my Shangri La. If you ever get the chance to go to one of these things, really utilize it. The experience is so invaluable and you really never know what you can get out of it unless you try. I should have gone last year, but it wasn't my time. I am so glad I went yesterday and I really think most ultimate players would enjoy it. Also, Rob's footage of the talks will be available on his website. Check me out while I stutter through my question that I asked Gwen Ambler in her talk.

Just my thoughts

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