Cultural insanities in frisbee

The ideas (most of) our culture still gets wrong

A running theme of this blog is that there are a number of things many frisbee players (or teams) aren't doing the best way. But I don't think I've ever listed them all in one article, so let me try (in other words, there isn't much new content here if you've been following the blog for a long time).

I call it "cultural insanity" in the title because these are bad/outdated ideas that get passed down through our culture—from player (or coach) to player (or coach). There are many people doing things the right way, but overall these bad ideas are still prevalent in our culture—often even at the elite level, as you can see in many of the examples in my previous articles.

Here's what frisbee culture often gets wrong about tactics and strategy:

• Teaching people to turn their palm up on forehands
  See: Don't 'turn the palm up' on forehands
  
  Further thoughts: This is by far my most-viewed article, so I like to think I'm helping change things for the better!
  

• Pump faking (and pivoting) too much
  See: Great throwers don't pump fake
  
  Further thoughts: Even though Idris Nolan wrote Great Throwers Don't Pivot all the way back in 2008(!), the examples in my article show that even some elite players still haven't learned how to judiciously use pivots and pump fakes.
  

• Lack of fast-breaking after turnovers
  See: Why I like fast breaks
  
  Further thoughts: The Colombian frisbee scene and its diaspora (e.g. Levke Walczak on Brute Squad; Yina Cartegena and the Cardenas twins on NY Gridlock) are consistently good at fast breaks. Hopefully their success continues to help spread the gospel of fast breaks.
  

• Not receiving pulls correctly
  See: PUL's Pulls
  
  Further thoughts: I may write more about this soon. It's insane we still see PUL teams not bothering to catch the pull. It's pretty obvious that the easiest time to play offense is when the defense isn't even guarding you. Catch the pull and gain as many yards as possible, as quickly as possible. Colombian frisbee also does this extremely well.

  (For example: see this pull from a 2024 PUL game, where the disc lands on the ground and offensive players run past it even though there’s no defenders within probably 15 yards, judging by how long it takes before any of them appear on screen. Here’s another, slightly less egregious, example.)
  

• Not playing enough help defense
  See: Defense is for stopping the other *team*
  
  Further thoughts: As I point out in the article, basketball coaches teach 12-year-olds about good defensive positioning, so, yes, I think it's insane that full-grown adults in frisbee aren't playing better help defense.

Good endzone offense (for once! see below). Bad help defense.

• Laying out for discs they won't possibly catch
  See: [I haven't written any articles about this yet]
  
  Further thoughts: I haven't written a post about this but it's an opinion I've had for a while. It's crazy how often I see people laying out and not even getting a fingertip on the disc. If you're a high-level frisbee player, you should know your body and know how to read a flying disc well enough that whiffing on a layout is rare. (Here are some unnecessary layouts I’ve noted when watching games: one, two)
  

• Catching the disc and staring downfield for 5+ seconds
  See: [I haven't posted anything that directly covers this topic, but I think a lot of my ideas are adjacent to this topic. See Felix's video: Is This The Most Effective Move In Ultimate?]
  
  Further thoughts: It's not good to only look downfield for the first 5 (or however many) stall counts! If the dump defender knows you won't look their way, they can rest & poach! Throw to the dump handler they're poaching off of and your team has easy access to the break side! It feels like this is changing quickly, but there's definitely a sizable number of people still stuck in the old paradigm.

  For an example of this idea being mainstream frisbee culture, see this RISE UP Ultimate video (which has been viewed 125K+ times), where Ben Wiggins says “As a thrower, it’s your job to recognize we need to throw a dump for one of two reasons. Either we’re on the sideline, or it’s a high count and we need to get the disc moving.”
  

• Not trying to run more give-and-gos
  See: [I haven't written a post making exactly this argument, but see The go-to give-go resource for more on give-and-gos]
  

  Further thoughts: The Cardenas twins and Colombian frisbee came out of seemingly nowhere a number of years ago, and have since won US National Championships (Molly Brown in 2022), WUCC championships (Revolution in 2022), and PUL championships (RevoPro never lost a game in the PUL, if I recall correctly). Brute Squad's 2023 US National Championship was led by Levke Walczak, who played with Revolution at the 2022 WUCC and has a very similar style.
  So why aren't the PUL and WUL bursting with players trying to imitate their style? I do think we've seen some progress in this area, but nowhere near as much as I'd expect given the success of those teams.
  

• Ignorance about modern sports science
  See: Sports science findings you should know
  
  Further thoughts: Icing is probably more harmful than helpful! Static stretching doesn't work! Cool downs aren't necessary! I'm not sure ultimate frisbee culture is any worse than other amateur sports, but it's still worth pointing out our outdated sports science beliefs.
  

• Not using the whole arm to throw flicks
  See: How to throw forehands using your elbow
  
  Further thoughts: Again, things are getting better, but we're not all the way there yet. On the plus side: people who want to learn to throw the right way can easily find the information they're looking for. But there's still a large population of people who aren't investing the time to improve their form and expand their range.
  

• Thinking the disc should stay flat during the throwing motion
  See: The disc doesn't need to stay flat
  
  Further thoughts: Again, it's definitely changing, and people knew this way before I ever started thinking about frisbee, but from the games I watch and people I interact with (online and in real life), I know there are still lots of people out there trying to keep the disc flat.

Definitely a disc that’s not flat. Maybe also an unnecessary layout.

• Being way too passionate about yelling from the sideline
  See: Mildly against sideline communication
  
  Further thoughts: Read the article for the full argument. I coach a college B-team and I spend most of my time on the sideline during games trying to convince my players to throw with me. Sideline communication is much less necessary than many people believe. One of the very few times I've been downvoted on Reddit was for posting a link to this article.
  

• Endzone offense formations that shove the whole offense into the endzone
  See: Putting your whole offense in the endzone is bad, actually
  
  Further thoughts: I think this is one of the most deep-rooted beliefs on the list. I see it at summer league, and I see it at high-level games (as in the article). It isn't always obvious how it's a bad strategy. The endzone in frisbee is quite big, and the defenses in frisbee are quite bad at playing help defense, and as a result of those two factors offenses usually do have enough space to score. But offenses shouldn't clog up the scoring space unless the defense forces them to.
  

These last few aren't "insane"—i.e. I'm not convinced frisbee culture is wrong. Rather, I just think it's a little odd everyone does things the same way when I'm not sure there's enough evidence for it. Why don't we see more experimentation?

• Switching out of a zone defense when the offense gets closer to the endzone
  See: No transition zones (Not my article)
  
  Further thoughts: So many teams will shout "Fire!" and switch out of a zone defense once the offense has made a certain amount of progress down the field. But...do any of y'all actually have proof that this is an effective strategy? (Coincidentally came up on Reddit after I started writing this draft.)

• O- and D- lines
  See: [I haven't written about this in detail. See WUL's Seattle Tempest not using O/D lines]
  
  Further thoughts: Are we really that convinced O-lines and D-lines are the best way to play frisbee? I think there's a good argument for it in low-wind elite men's games, where there's a tiny number of turnovers each game. But everywhere else—your offense will often end up playing defense, and vice versa. I'm not convinced other systems wouldn't be better.
  

• Coaches on the field every point
  See: [I haven't commented on this before. You can see it happening in many-to-most elite club games. (Maybe it doesn't happen as much in UFA?)]
  
  Further thoughts: Let's end with a fun one. Why the heck are the coaches on the field between every point? Is there any other sport where coaches are on the field this much? Football has kickoffs but we don't see coaches going on the field to discuss kickoff strategy. I think it's goofy and weird and I rarely go on the field when I'm coaching.

There are "reasonable" explanations for some of these insanities. The biggest explanation: frisbee players are amateur athletes, and have only a limited amount of time to dedicate to changing their throwing form or learning a new play style as adults. But I'm still surprised there aren't more players and coaches in the WUL and PUL willing to devote the time and energy it takes to learn those new skills (I don't watch much UFA since it's not very accessible).

As I mentioned above, Idris Nolan wrote about people pump faking too much way back around 2008—at least 16 years ago. Yet we still see it happening. I hope that 16 years from now, frisbee culture will have made more progress on leaving many of these sub-optimal strategies in the past.

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Update (2024-09-18):

Here’s one more I think we could add:

• Staring down your dump cutter/only making a dump cut when the thrower stares you down.
  See (for example): You, too, can look off defenders — “I keep my head and body position pointing downfield for as long as possible when I want to throw a dump throw. I'll look at the dump out of the corner of my eye, being careful not to make it too obvious. This keeps my mark from selling out to stop the dump throw, and it's much easier for me to get a throw off.”
  

  Further thoughts: A common idea I’ve seen online and heard in person is that the thrower should turn and stare at/make eye contact with their dump handler so they know to “activate”. For example, here’s an Ultiworld article from 2018: “Throwers should be sure to activate their resets at stall four by turning to face them and getting eye contact, ensuring there is enough time to get open.”
  
  As always, if you’re utterly predictable about your intentions, defenders will pick up on that and make your job harder on you. At a certain level you need to be able to hide your intentions.