Pre season agenda

After agreeing to this blog, figuring out my goals, and writing my first post, I realized this blog is either A) going to take up a lot of time B) something that I do semi often - but more because I remember I have to write a post or C) Have about 10 posts by the end of the season. Note that there is no option for posting a decent amount as a side project that does not take up too much time. I figured it is going to be option A because when hasn't something Ultimate related taken up too much of my time?! After my first post I started thinking about what I wanted to talk about, write about, and think about (in no particular order). While yes, I am going to cover the Great Lakes Region, I did say I would write down thoughts as a captain as well.

Topic for today: Preparing for the season.

Maybe at some point, I will go back and write about preparing for the fall season, recruiting rookies, fall tournaments, etc etc. However, my main focus right now is the preparation for the Winter (the main) season.

A few days before Paula (my other captain) and I left Ann Arbor for our respective hometowns for Winter Break, we sat down with our two coaches Julia and Naomi. This was our second meeting after the Fall season ended. In our first meeting, we looked back on the fall - what we liked, didn't like, needed to change, etc and finalized our tournament schedule. However at this second meeting we now looked to what the new season was going to bring. I felt it was extremely beneficial to separate the two meetings 1) Because of the length of time both meetings took and 2) to keep the focus on the UPCOMING season. It is extremely important to always look ahead. You definitely need to remember the past so you can learn from it (I'm a history major so I know ALL about studying/understanding/memorizing/learning from the past...) but you will never go anywhere if you are only looking back. So our leadership core sat down at Arbor Brewing Co, grabbed a beer and food, and hashed out details.

The first thing on our agenda was our outside of practice workout plan. Last year Flywheel did CrossFit training throughout the season as the main way to get in/stay in shape and boy did it pay off. I would never have imagined that me, a 5'2'' 104 pound girl could be deadlifting 150lbs by the end of the season or doing other crazy things with something called a kettlebell (in addition to gaining 25 pounds of muscle...or at least that is what I tell myself). Last year due to complications and injuries, we brought a roster of 9 to Regionals and 12 to Nationals. There is no way that we could have competed the entire weekend of either of those tournaments without doing CrossFit throughout the season. I have never been stronger or in better shape and I can attribute that to this new form of training. Clearly, we wanted to continue this workout plan for this season and the new bunch of girls. The unfortunate part of this plan is that it costs a good amount of money, money that each girl has to pay for out of pocket. We presented the idea to the team, made it known we can help out any girl that had financial issues, and decided to go through with the idea after the team gave us support. *We definitely wanted to do this plan. However, if majority of the girls could not afford it, we were going to drop it. While I know CrossFit was awesome for me last year, the season is about the TEAM and not the individual. Go with what the team says, even if you may disagree*.

The second thing we discussed at length was our Michigan Indoor Tournament. I'll save the boring story for my teammates, close friends, or anyone who really cares about it. Yes it is a tournament. Yes we will be playing other teams. But No, majority of the nation does not need to know what we decided. I mean, deciding length of games, format, other details? Ehh I'd put you to sleep.

Then we moved onto our season and our goals. In the past Flywheel has been a good team but we never spoke of ourselves in that way. Each year whenever we talk about Nationals at least 3 or 4 people knock on wood. We always use the term "IF we make it out of Regionals" or "IF we somehow made it to Nationals" etc etc. While you cannot count your chickens before they hatch, you do have to be realistic. While our goal is to make it out of the Great Lakes Region, we cannot stop there. Our goal has to be a certain place at Nationals. It is important to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of your team before the season starts. Additionally, you need to know the potential of each member and what the team can achieve by the end of May. The coaches and captains set our team goal and moved on to how to achieve it.

While I am covering my team, I am in no way going to discuss our strategic plans or what type of game Flywheel intends to play this year. It would be too easy for you guys! But what I can discuss is how we came to such decisions. While you may be set on running a horizontal stack offense, if you don't have the huckers, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense for that to be your primary focus. Or if you have stronger cutters you know you have to spend an extremely amount of time on zone to get your handlers comfortable with each other or knowing how to break various zones. You cannot make a decision about team identity or play until you analyze the players you have on your roster. I would like to say we did that correctly and came up with an awesome game plan on how to dominate this season! Of course, being one of those at the meeting, I am 100% biased on that decision. Maybe come April/May when we have played in a few tournaments we can assess our strategic plans.

Each team has goals and objectives on what to teach and when. However, sometimes something you teach can go extremely wrong and you have to change your game plan. So we only planned our first two practices and decided to meet after that to plan the next few. We wanted to keep going with other strategic measures but by this time, it was over 2 hours since we sat down, my beer had been gone for a while, and I was ancy to move my legs. We said goodbye, walked off all of the calories we had just consumed, and left each other until January.

This meeting was extremely beneficial to the Flywheel leadership and the team. While the team may not realize all of the planning that goes into the season, if the practices are running smoothly and efficiently, the team will benefit. Additionally, it saved a LOT of emails being sent over Winter Break. While I am the Queen Bee of email, I do appreciate not being bombarded over break with a whole bunch of questions. (Although I have to admit, it is now the 29th, I'm over that stage and each time I check my email and don't see a new one, I get sad. It is close to when I am heading back to school and I want to get back to seeing 10+ emails each time I open up Gmail).

Whew, that is post longer than I intended. Throughout this post I already came up with at least three more topics I can write on before my season gets underway. Whether or not I actually post them... we'll see. All I know is that its 4:30 and I have not worked out yet. This writing is effective for me but if I am not doing my part, I am not helping the team. So here is to running in 25 degree weather - all for Flywheel, all for my team.

First post

I made this blog about a week and a half ago but I've been putting off my first post. I've attempted about three blogs throughout the course of my life, all of them to end up failing. So I've been nervous to actually start this mostly because I'm scared of failing for a fourth time. But then I thought to what the consequences of me failing would be. And the answer is basically nothing. I would have an empty bog that some people would read and then just stop after realizing I was not continuing. So really, there should be nothing holding me back.

Michelle Ng approached me via email and asked if I would be a writer of a blog that would document my season and my thoughts as a player and captain. This is through the partnership of Without Limits so of course I said yes. I figured this will be a source for all things Flywheel while a writing up on the Great Lakes region as well.

Once I agreed to the blog I figured I should make some goals in order to make this more effective. For one, I hope to become a better writer. In school I write many many pages of historical writing. However, for a blog, I can't see that being too entertaining - well I mean I do but I figure I am not like the average human. Additionally I want to explore all of the depths of being a captain: the planning and the strategizing all while being a player and teammate for Flywheel. To add another goal, I want to become more familiar with the teams in my region. I know a tad about each team but not really because, honestly, I am focused on Flywheel in a national sense. I look to and follow teams like UCSB, Wisconsin, Stanford, and others because those are always strong programs. However, that is not doing my region any good. I need to get to know my teams - their strengths and weaknesses - and to give them credit they deserve. So that I hope to change. On a slightly smaller scale, I hope to become funnier. I feel that many blog writers have a dry sense of humor that makes readers come back. I guess this goes along with my first goal but in a certainly specific way. That last goal is definitely subjective and I will not know if I achieve it or not in the end. I will not like you as readers any less if you don't consider me funny. I can only like you more. But then again, I will not know who the exact readers of my blog are. So really, it does not really matter that much, or at all. This is just a bit of a personal element to this blog that I discovered while thinking about starting this blog. And why I chose to share that? Not sure. I tend to keep certain thoughts and feelings, such as wanting to be funnier, to myself. But this is the 21st century - people share all sorts of things online! So what the hell - might as well put that on my blog.

And by the end of the season, I just hope I am happy with this blog. Whether I achieve my goals or not, that does not matter (although it would be quite nice). This is an exercise that I hope to tell all captains they should partake in. Well, enough of speculating. This is the end of my first post and introduction to the blog. Here is to the 2011 season!