Elite players looking away from the disc

Tracking the disc doesn't mean running blindly

Someone asked on Reddit a while back:

...I was just wondering if there was any advice or techniques on not running into or knocking people over as you keep your eyes fixed on the disc and not in front of you...

A similar question came up in another recent thread:

How do you deal with players who don't respect the concept - "the space you're running into is occupied by another player"?

Their eyes are always on the disc (which is high in the air), and they never check behind their shoulder before backpedalling like a cartoon character…

I replied to that first post, mainly pointing out that you *shouldn't* keep your eyes fixed on the disc:

...[Good players are] NOT keeping their "eyes fixed on the disc". They're looking around, and they're also gathering information from their peripheral vision when they're looking at the disc...

But is it actually true that skilled players don't keep their eyes fixed on the disc? I figure my claim will be more convincing if I provide evidence, so here are some clips I've been able to find.

In this clip from Chicago Machine's 2019 Nationals Highlights, Joe White takes his eyes off the disc just before he catches a goal on his deep cut:

I think in this case, Joe probably knows (from looking around when he started his cut) that there's no defenders in front of him, but wants to confirm where the goal line and sidelines are.

In the clip below, Rowan McDonnell uses a similar peek to find the goal line before catching a huck:

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In the following play from "Justin Burnett's Most Impressive Plays of the 2023 Season", Justin looks away from the disc to check where the other players are *THREE SEPARATE TIMES*:

Burnett’s motion isn't quite as obvious as Joe White's, but you can still clearly see him nodding his head down to check where he's running.

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I was a bystander to a play at summer league recently where a cutter was trying to track a disc coming in from his right side while running to his left. He made contact with a defender in that blind spot, resulting in a contested call.

Afterwards, he asked me for feedback. One thing he was wondering about was whether he should've given up on the disc because it's a recreational league where safety is highly valued.

He felt like he couldn't have caught the disc if he'd looked away to check his blind spot. But I disagree that playing at a high level is necessarily more dangerous (and I'm certainly not the first person to make this point). Yes, there's some increased risk at a higher level of play, as running faster means larger collisions when they do happen. But that's offset by great players having great awareness (and body control). Elite players can make great plays even while being careful and checking their surroundings.

So, yes, I think my friend should've given up on the disc if he felt he had no choice but to run blindly. But that has little-to-no relation to the question of whether it's OK to be competitive in summer league. Elite players are also elite at checking their blind spots while tracking down the disc.

I found this clip of Atlanta’s Adam Miller checking his blind spot on a play that’s vaguely similar to the one I just described—his teammate’s huck floats past him from right to left, and he checks the blind spot for defenders before moving into it:

I don’t mean to use this UFA example to suggest my friend definitely had time to check his blind spot. Every play is different and sometimes in sports things really are going to come down to split-second decisions. I don’t think it’s possible to create a version of frisbee that’s truly, completely non-contact. But take this example as the kind of play you should aspire to, in most situations.

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Other commenters make a good point in the first Reddit post linked above: when you're skilled at reading the disc, you can quickly determine where the disc is going from an initial glance. As you head to that spot, you can then glance around the field to make sure you're moving safely—while still mostly focused on the disc to make small positioning adjustments as necessary. That’s exactly what we see Justin Burnett doing in the example above.

David Epstein points out in The Sports Gene that great hitters in baseball don’t have superhuman reaction times in general. However, they’re superhumanly good at interpreting the earliest possible cues from the pitcher that hint where the ball is headed. Top frisbee players, I assume, are likewise quite good at figuring out where a disc is going with the smallest possible amount of information. That leaves them leftover “cycles” with their eyes and mind to figure out what the other players on the field are up to.

I'll update the post as I find more example clips in the future.

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Update (2024-08-07):

On this huck from 2024 College Nationals, Leo Gordon looks backwards to scope out how close the defense is:

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Update (2024-09-17):

Here’s a play from the 2024 World Ultimate Championships that I think exemplifies what you *shouldn’t* do. The disc isn’t going anywhere, take a quick peek around to make sure you’re not about to run over a teammate! (And this also highlights how looking around isn’t just safe, it’s a good strategy, too—the US is lucky their easy goal wasn’t a turnover when the two teammates ran into each other.)