ON OFFENSE
BY MATT MACKEY
A Mind for
Adjustments
Cut with a mind for adjustments. When you make a move–finally picking
a direction, and committing to going hard in that direction–be thinking about where you’ll be going next. You’ve already put your body in gear to go where you initially wanted; when do you want to give that body its next directive? If you’re wide open, maybe you’re just
catching the frisbee, and you have nothing to worry about (other than watching the disc into your hands, of course). But maybe there’s confusion around the disc, maybe there’s a timing issue, maybe your man has you read perfectly on this cut. All of those are TEMPORARY conditions that will make this current cut ineffective. The question, then, is what will make
your NEXT cut effective? Is it simply a matter of reading your defender and changing direction? Where is new space being created? Anticipate what will happen next: see the handler streaking upline for the disc, and plan on cutting deep for him BEFORE he gets the frisbee in power position (so you’re better prepared to respond and set up space/your man correctly). Notice the man underneath clearing out and plan on making a move in BEFORE your defender realizes that that space is a threat. Anticipate what will happen next. Cut
with a mind for adjusting your cut to enhance its effectiveness–just because you’re moving currently, doesn’t mean you can’t immediately threaten in another direction. Au contraire, it’s absolutely
necessary if you plan on being an effective cutter. Use your extra information– knowledge of how your team’s system works/chemistry with other players, or the simple fact that your defender has to follow you AND the disc, while you can focus on just the disc–to gain an extra edge.
Create Space
There are two kinds of cuts in ultimate: 1) Cuts where you attack space to get
the frisbee 2) Cuts where you threaten space to
create attackable space elsewhere The second is referred to by some as “a
clear,” but this category also includes set- up cuts, which is what I’m focusing on in this post.
WHAT DO I MEAN?
Cutting, simply, is creating space and
attacking space. The sooner you can stop thinking in terms of “beating your man” and can start thinking in terms of “getting to space first,” the more effective a cutter (and defender) you’ll be. When I cut, my first motions are always
of the two categories above. If my defender is behind me and is behind me by a step or two (such that he won’t catch me in a straight sprint), I won’t bother with setup and will take the opportunity cut if the situation is appropriate (ie, player with the disc is looking upfield and there’s enough space for me to run into). If the situation is not appropriate, that’s
where things get more interesting. Instead of just running to space, now you have
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to run with a purpose–you run deep to set up space to attack underneath, for instance. The finer points of ensuring your man is out of position to defend both options is something I’ll flesh out over time, but fundamentally, if you don’t like what you have right now, then you need to cut to get somewhere you DO like and can attack from. We often talk about “7 hard steps” as the rule of the day for setting up your cuts and it’s no lie–if you run hard in one direction for 7 steps you’ll be setting up space for you to attack in the opposite direction. Also, note that category 1 cuts can
quickly become or can overlap with category 2 cuts. If I make a hard cut in and get looked off, my cut attacking space has just created space deep which I can now attack. This is the principle behind butterfly cutting–as you run hard in one direction (in) you’re a threat to get the disc and you’re also setting up space to go the other way and be a threat (the “butterfly” term comes from the fact that you don’t just do this on one side of the field, but switch from open to break side as you go). Threatening more than one area is key to good cutting–when you’re making a cut to create space, you should almost always be moving in such a way that you can threaten multiple directions at once. If you’re only a threat one way (you’re too deep, for instance, so all you can do is run in) a smart defender will take it away and leave you with nothing. This is a lot more talky than I envisioned
starting out. Think about space and how you can create it, for yourself and for your teammates.
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