Defending the Dribble
Give-and-gos are powerful but not un-defendable
Hive Ultimate calls dribbling "the most unstoppable move in ultimate". For anyone who may not be aware, 'dribbling' roughly means doing repeated give-and-go moves. I'll mostly use the term "give-and-go" from here on, as they're more or less equivalent in this context.
As I've covered in a recent post, there are A LOT of resources to teach you how to give-and-go. But give-and-go defensive advice is relatively sparse. I've found a Reddit thread, a paywalled Flik Ulti article, and a small section in an Ultiworld article (half credit to a Reddit thread on defending against dominator offense).
There needs to be more good content on give-and-go defense. If you believe that give-and-gos are one of the most potent offensive techniques, then playing give-and-go defense is a foundational part of good defensive game-planning. (To be fair, it does make sense that people like Felix focus on things like switching and surrounding stacks—the majority of teams are still stack-based, so there's benefit to having a defense that counters that.)
So, how do you defend a give-and-go?
Know your opponents
There are still not that many players who consistently give-and-go. Know when you're facing an opponent who's looking to give-and-go. Being mentally prepared for the experience of a give-and-go artist will give you an edge compared to a defender who doesn't know what's coming.
Coach Travis Norsen (who's previously written for Hive Ultimate) told me in an email that this style of offense aims to leave the defense "frantically discombobulated". The offense has an advantage either way, but knowing they want to leave you frantically discombobulated is the first step to not letting the offense succeed at that plan. Every offensive tactic works better against an unsuspecting defense.
Here's an example of not knowing your opponents that made me laugh. In a recent Hive Ultimate video, How Hex Won Worlds, Felix includes a few clips of himself playing in the WFDF masters championships. In one of them, his defender jumps and puts his hands up to discourage a pass:
When you're guarding the man who is perhaps the single most famous believer in quick disc movement and give-and-gos, you should not be literally jumping when he throws a fake. For my basketball fans, this is like biting on a Russell Westbrook pump fake when he's a step behind the three-point line. You're stopping the option you should be least worried about and leaving yourself vulnerable to your opponent's strongest skill.
Besides awareness of a general tendency towards give-and-gos, knowing our opponents can also key us in to specific tricks. In the Ultiworld article on Dylan Freechild (linked above), the author points out that after receiving a dump pass, Freechild often throws the disc back where it came from and immediately cuts upline:
Freechild heavily prioritizes the upfield attack, often not even looking for around breaks...These moves work through no obvious fault of the defender. In the first example, Carleton’s Julian Childs-Walker flares out to take away the around continue to the break side, a common defensive technique. Doing so, however, allows Freechild to immediately take the upline again.
Defenders can be aware of these tendencies, and spend less energy trying to completely prevent the around pass. There's no perfect defense here—Freechild is a great player and has the flexibility to adapt to defenders who've keyed in on his preferences. But knowing our opponent's tendencies can give the defense a small edge.
Don't try to get handblocks
In my previous post on John McDonnell's handblock skills, I wrote:
To be honest, if I were to write about handblocks the first thing I'd write would be to put less effort into getting handblocks. Too many people get themselves out of position trying to stop a pass that they're not going to stop anyway.
Today's article is the perfect time to expand on that idea. Going for blocks is ineffective because point blocks are quite rare. How often do you get a point block, even if you're trying really hard? One out of every fifty throws? One out of every hundred? In exchange for that ~1% chance of a turnover, too many players leave themselves extremely vulnerable to give-and-go moves.
Give-and-go highlight videos often double as a lowlight reel of defenders trying way too hard to get blocks that were never going to happen. We've already seen a person jumping while marking Felix, the man himself. Here are a few other examples:
RISE UP Ultimate's give-and-go video features a marker jumping into the air because the thrower did nothing more than bring the disc across their body above their shoulders:
Hive Ultimate's How To Dribble video features a defender laying out at the thrower's backhand huck fake:
I had too much fun making this dumb meme, so I'm going to subject you all to it as well:
Moving on, in the video "Let's be Frank Ep 7; Dribbling redux", a defender kicks his foot out attempting a footblock, only to get burned by the give-and-go:
In Justin Burnett's Callahan video, a defender slips trying to get his hand in the way of a huck fake—after he's already been burned by a give-and-go. This one is admittedly the least egregious example, but there was no need to try to block the huck, given the give-and-go threat:
Handblocks get you on highlight videos. But if you're not John McDonnell, handblock attempts mostly get you on other people's highlight videos.
Resist the urge to stick your hand (or foot) out at every moving frisbee you see. As long as you stop the thrower from getting an easy pass to the breakside, you've done your job. Staying balanced and ready to move when the throw is released will help your team a lot more than getting a handblock once every 100 throws.
Resist the impulse to ball-watch
The urge to stick your hand out at every moving frisbee isn't the only urge you need to resist to be a great give-and-go defender. Great defenders can also resist the urge to stare at a flying disc after it's been thrown.
An old Hive video, Dribbling Analysis: Tyler Kinley, has an excellent example of this. Watch the mark defense after the first give-and-go is caught:
When Tyler Kinley's second throw goes up, his mark is staring downfield at the moving disc while Tyler is starting his give-and-go, accelerating into a sprint behind the marker's back. Here's a screenshot:
To be clear, the issue isn't just that the marker is looking downfield. They could probably see Kinley out of the corner of their eye. They're so close that they could probably even hear Kinley starting to move. The bigger issue is that they're so distracted watching the flying disc that they've forgotten to move—they've forgotten to play defense.
This is not the first time I've talked about ball-watching. In Cut before the thrower catches it, I highlighted another defensive player watching the disc and briefly losing their player. This is a general issue for defenders to overcome—not limited to give-and-go situations—but it's especially critical when defending the give-and-go.
It's true in other sports, too. In basketball, it's tempting for defenders to watch the ball after it's been shot. But if you get distracted by a ball in flight, the offensive player you're supposed to be guarding will have a great chance of getting an offensive rebound. One of the most common defensive rebounding tips is to find your assignment first, and then find the ball. NBA player JaVale McGee's first rebounding tip is to "look at your opponent and not just watch the ball":
I'm sure this is the case in other sports, as well. A ball or disc in motion is not an excuse to stop thinking, nor is it an excuse to stop playing defense—and if you do use it as an excuse, good offensive players will take advantage of that.
Be proactive about getting downfield
In the Reddit thread I linked above, user mdotbeezy comments:
Many players, on offense and defense, have a tendency to sit and watch the throw. Practice moving immediately after the throw...start your movement before the throw actually goes off (kind of an Ichiro-like cheat). Your chances of getting burned on a give-go are generally higher than of getting a point block, so if you've forced your mark into an open side throw or a difficult break, you've already done 98% of your job.
I tend to think of these as two slightly different skills. Even after breaking your ball watching habit, there's further benefit to being proactive about stopping the give-and-go, not just reacting to what the offense does.
I like mdotbeezy's Ichiro example, a baseball player who's famous for starting to run towards first base as he swings:
The first comparison that came to mind for me, however, was playing in the defensive backfield in American football. As a young football player, I was taught to start backpedaling as soon as the play started—regardless of what the receiver I was defending did. This was necessary because if a receiver started sprinting deep immediately, I'd get beat if I wasn't also moving back as soon as the play began. There wasn't enough time to wait and see what they did.
I couldn't find a perfect example of this, but here's a mediocre example. In this Thinking Football video, the narrator points out that the defensive safety "continues to bail post-snap" (i.e.—he backs up more as soon as the play starts) to defend against the offense's speedy players.
I like this example a little more than the Ichiro comparison because, like playing give-and-go defense, it involves a defender making proactive moves against the offense's speed.
Here's one last way to think about it: in his Understanding Ultimate article on the give-and-go, Benji suggests:
The basic rule is incredibly easy – after you throw, immediately run for two or three steps at about 45° to where the disc went. Don’t stop and think, just develop that habit.
This is another situation where it benefits us to Think about what our opponent is thinking. Realize that you are going up against players who have developed the habit of running as soon as they throw. The most effective response is for you to also engrain in yourself the habit of backing up as soon as the disc is thrown.
At the end of the recent Wildfire vs. Nightlock universe point video, you can see a defender who hasn't taken this lesson to heart yet:
They're lucky the person they're marking didn't take advantage more aggressively of the head start they were given. One of the reasons give-and-go moves are so powerful is that so many frisbee players—even at a relatively high level—play defense like this. Develop the habit of consistently moving the moment the disc is thrown. You'll be playing better give-and-go defense than many Nationals-level players.
Play team defense
One of the most common tips for playing give-and-go defense is to play as a team. Felix at Hive Ultimate has some good content on defensive switching, such as this video:
The following play from the beginning of the 2023 AUDL season is an instructive example of a missed opportunity to switch:
A Flyers player picks up the disc and makes a give-and-go cut straight to the endzone. He manages to beat the entire DC defense deep...even though there are 5 defenders who are 10+ yards deeper than him at the moment he starts running:
This is a great moment to play help defense but everyone downfield is overly focused on their own assignment. But that's a defensive failure—if the other team scores a goal, it doesn't matter how many passes your assignment did or didn't catch.
Switching is a fundamental defensive technique that's still under-utilized in ultimate frisbee. But we also need to play the best defense we possibly can before switches are necessary, as I've focused on elsewhere in this essay. Depending on the level of play, your teammates may not have the skill to switch with you—even if you're world-class at switching defense, it often won't help you win summer league games. Let switching be a supplement that superpowers your great 1-on-1 defense, not a crutch that excuses a lack of awareness.
Final thoughts
Hopefully it's obvious from all of the links and video clips above that none of these ideas are especially original. But I've tried to bring you a more complete discussion—with more visual examples—than you can find in the scattered thoughts of various Reddit threads.
I'd like to share one last point. Defending someone who likes to give-and-go is often pretty tiring. And go give-and-go defense asks you to be even more attentive and proactive. This sounds like it should be even more tiring, but it's surprisingly not. When an offensive player knows they can give-and-go against you, they'll happily run you right into the ground. But once they learn the give-and-go won't work against you, they often don't even try.