Fundamentals To Focus On V.Y. Chow Strong fundamentals are the basic building blocks of winning teams and great players in any sport. Thus, developing good fundamentals from the outset is essential for younger players and teams. But sometimes we forget that fundamentals are really just the simple things and we often focus on things that are too advanced instead of a gradual progression of skills. For example, for any offense to work, everyone on the team must be able to throw and catch. Simple enough, but many teams work on all types of sexy throws (breakmarks, hucks, and overheads), but don’t spend enough time on the basic 10-yard forehand and backhand. Why the 10-yard forehand and backhand? Because the mechanics that a player learns will translate to the rest of her throws. It is akin to learning how to shoot a basketball. If a player can consistently make shots underneath the hoop then she has developed a myriad of tools at her disposal: the hand placement, the windup, the release, the stance, the fine motor skills, and the hand-eye coordination. Only then will she move onto reverses, hooks shots, fade-away and turn around jumpers, and whatnot. If everyone on your team can throw a confident 10-yard forehand and backhand, then your team will always be able to reset the stall count and give your offense another chance. So start with stationary throws and once everyone is confident, throw to a moving player. Once everyone has learned how to throw the 10-yard forehand and backhand, the next step is to focus on throwing to different targets on the O-players body (different sides of the body, different heights). Once again, start with stationary players and then progress to throwing to a moving target. The ability to throw to a particular side and height of the body provides the receiver with a huge advantage – the D-player will always have to get around the O-player to make a bid on the disc. The 10-yard pass might seem absurdly basic but it is actually quite a difficult throw to master because the margin of error in time and space is much smaller than throwing a 30-yard throw. Thus, if everyone on your team can consistently throw it with accuracy and precision, your offense will be unstoppable. Teaching how to play defense can get complicated very quickly particularly when talking about footwork, watching the hips of the O-player, and triangulating with the thrower. One of the best defensive players to ever play the game, Bill Rodriguez, had a great coaching tip - throw everything out the window and strip it down to the bare bones. Just focus on staying close to and on the proper side of the O-player. Forget trying to think about where the disc is, whether to front/back the O-player and forget about footwork. The most basic yet effective defense is to shut down the open side and instead of your D-players over-thinking how to do that, just tell them to be aggressive in their movements to corral their O-player by doing whatever they possibly can to stay on the correct side of their O-player. One task, one idea…instead of three different things to focus on will make it that much easier for your players and your team to perform. Keeping things simple even when teaching ‘fundamentals’ is a difficult task. The route to simplicity is to strip everything away and make things as easy as possible for people to think about – one basic concept and then slowly build on that one idea. Just think if every player on your team could reset the disc and play open-side D…
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