Walking before cutting II: Make it hard for your defender to see you and the disc
Blind spot awareness, featuring Jack Williams
I've already written about walking into the perfect position to set up your cut. But I want to add another way you can set up your cut that wasn't covered in the first article. I often use walking or jogging before I start my "real cut" to get myself into positions where I make it difficult for the defender to watch both me and the disc at the same time.
A theme that runs through my blog is the idea of information. What are you paying attention to? What is your defender paying attention to? And how can we use the things we're noticing and the information we're gathering to succeed on the frisbee field?
As I wrote in the article linked above, a good defender will try to pay attention to other things besides the player they're guarding. Knowing where the disc is and where the other players on the field are enables a defender to predict where their cutter will go next.
So, as a cutter I want to cut my defender off from being able to obtain this extra information. It's often possible to achieve this through continuously making slight changes to your position, walking yourself out of your defender's line of sight.
Here's a video of retired NBA star Ray Allen explaining how he uses this technique on the basketball court. The video will start at 2:20, watch for about the next 70 seconds:
It might be hard to understand for people who aren't super familiar with basketball, so allow me to give my own interpretation (if you understood the video, feel free to skip this):
When he's setting up to receive a pass in the corner, he will often move all the way into the very corner of the court, even though that actually puts him slightly behind the basket (which hangs out a few feet past the end line of the court). The reason he does this is that it makes it harder for his defender to have both him and the person with the ball (who's standing near the center of the court) in their field of vision. When the defender looks back towards the ball, he can make a hard cut to the basket.
Sometimes he'll constantly change position, roaming 10 feet up and down the sideline. This will force his defender to think harder, or could lull him into a false sense of security (he starts higher up, and while the defender is more focused on the ball, he slowly moves past the edge of his defender's field of vision, and then makes his cut).
The defender doesn't want to drop down closer to the end line, because then he's further from the other action and less able to help play team defense. Ray forces him to choose — either drop down so he can see Ray, but play less help defense, or stay up higher but be vulnerable to Ray cutting from his blind spot.
I thought about making a second diagram to show an example on a frisbee field, but I decided I'd be drawing the same picture with different field lines underneath. Hopefully it's clear that we can use the same technique in ultimate.
I don't have any good video examples yet, but I'll work on finding some. This isn't a trick that will help you much when all five cutters are lined up in a basic vertical stack and someone needs to get open. Instead, you'll get the benefit from this technique when the disc is moving and the players are spread across the field.
Awareness of the defender's blind spot is also useful against zone defenses. While the defender in your area is watching the disc, slip into a position that's behind their back, making it harder for them to pay attention to you and to the disc. Especially in summer league, I see cutters facing a zone defense making big cuts back and forth, when often all they really need to do is sneak into their defender's blind spot, and then find the right moment to jump into an open passing lane.
In this video, Jack Williams explains the concept of cutting into your defender's blind spot. It's a great video to watch if you haven't seen it yet. My article is teaching a slightly different (but related) skill. The examples in the video show active cutters making hard cuts to get into the blind spot of defenders who are generally already not in the optimal position.
But I'm saying something a bit different: even when you defenders are in optimal position, you can constantly make their job more of a hassle by walking out of their blind spot and forcing them to choose whether they want to be able to see you or see the disc. Jack's tip is relevant to cutters actively making cuts; this article applies to cutters who are setting up future cuts. Both are important concepts, but are best used in different situations.
Have you seen any good examples on video? I love the idea. Moving around a bit, even if only slowly walking, makes things more difficult for the defender.