Small Wonder

Last week, a co-worker, Steve, gave me the RCA Small Wonder, a mini camcorder. We've played around with it for the past week. We missed some things like Owen taking some steps while holding onto a walker toy he has, and climbing up the stairs. But we did manage to get more laughter tonight. That's the best, anyway, right?



Odd things will make Owen laugh. Tonight it was me smacking myself in the head. Hopefully he won't become desensitized to it and I won't have to ratchet up the self abuse to continue to amuse him.

Red Rock Country

Owen, Grandma Kozlik and I made Owen's first trip up to Sedona this past week. The reason for the trip was three-fold: to use up vacation time (I can only carry over 20 hours into the new year), to get Owen out of town for a mini adventure, and to play around with the camera outdoors. Originally Keith was going to go instead of Grandma, but Keith had something pop up at work. We couldn't change the date because we reserved a night at my parent's time share.

I will never tire of Sedona. Even though I've been there over a dozen times, the scenery still amazes me. Which made it easy for me to have fun playing with the camera. I took ~120 pictures, although many of them were of the same scene, I just changed the settings to see what effect it would have. We started off at Bell Rock. We tried to find the trail that went around Bell Rock (and not around Courthouse since we didn't have time), but apparently it doesn't exist. We took BR "Pathway" to BR "Trail", then went back the way we came.

Then we headed to Red Rock State Park, which now costs $8 to go to. I'm not sure we got our money's worth due to the time we spent there and our lack of desire to do much hiking, but the view of Cathedral Rock is pretty spectacular. I was surprised at how good the fall colors were - we saw some very bright gold trees. Based on our hike a couple of weeks ago at Seven Springs I would have thought all the leaves would be off the trees.

Even though we didn't have the correct connector piece for it, I brought our tripod anyway, so I wanted to catch some good sunset and twilight pictures. Our plan was to go up to the Airport lookout, which has some beautiful views. Unfortunately we missed the actual sunset, but I was able to play around with some twilight pictures using the tripod (I just sat the camera on the tripod and used the timer function). Didn't catch anything spectacular, but it was neat to see how things turned out in that light. We now have the right connector piece, so I'm looking forward to playing around with it more.

As I mentioned earlier, we stayed at my parent's time share, which is just outside of Sedona. After unloading everything (it's amazing how much stuff we had for one night!), we had a quick McDonald's dinner (my first time having McD's probably since college), and put Owen to bed. I took a nice soak in the jacuzzi tub, watched the end of The Christmas Story, and went happily to bed.

The next morning we went up to the Catholic church, which is up on a hill with some great views. It has to be the most beautiful church I've been to, at least in the States. The plan was then to do some shopping at the Sedona Outlet mall, but Owen fell asleep right before we got there, so we decided to keep driving and go to the Anthem Outlets.

Then it was back home to check out the pics!

Ultimate Owen

Owen started creeping (moving forward on his stomach) about a week ago. Boy, does he learn fast - he was all over the place today! We now have to be careful about anything we put within reach anywhere we put him down.

Owen rolled over to Daddy's Ultimate bag earlier today. I was worried he might grab the suntan lotion out of the side pocket, so I watched him closely. Instead of grabbing the lotion, he pulled out the two discs that were in the bag. Go Owen! They were old dirty ones, so I took them away from him and instead gave him one from on the wall. He played with it for about 10 minutes.

Later in the day, I set him on the ground. He creeped past the toys that were in front of him, and picked up the frisbee!

Looks like we have a future Ultimate player on our hands!!

And if today is any indication, he'll be fast and hard to catch. ;-)

More laughs with dad

I'm not quite sure what it is about me, but Owen thinks I'm hilarious.



Well, until lift off.

Memo to self: laughter before lift off does not lead to its continuation, but no laughter then lift off causes it to start.

Owen's First Halloween

Other than the helmet, it's been a while since we've done an update on Owen. So here goes!

On the subject of the helmet, he seems to mostly be used to it. He bats at his head every once in a while, but he seems to notice it more when it's off, than when it's on. For Halloween we decorated it as a NY Giants football helmet, complete with NY logo and his number 3 (for his birthday).

Owen's first tooth broke through the day before his 7 month birthday. The second one followed a few days later (both on the bottom). His third one, this time on the top, broke through today, one day before is 8 month birthday. He hasn't complained too much about them. When he does, the Orajel or a cold teether usually calms him down. Now we have to figure out how to fit in brushing his teeth into his schedule.

Owen had his first solid food (rice cereal) at the end of July. He had various cereals once a day for a few months until it was obvious that he got the hang of it and needed some more sustenance (he woke up consistently at 4:30am hungry). Since then he's had carrots, peas, pears, and sweet potatoes, his favorite so far, and eats solid food 3 times a day.

Owen has been sitting up on his own now for about 2 months. He can't crawl yet, but he can scoot himself backwards and has the turn-around-on-his-tummy thing down pat. He squirms around more when he sits in my lap, such that I have to be careful not to drop him.

He only now is starting to complain if we take things away from him, which I'm sure means more trouble is ahead. His favorite toys are ones that he can put in his mouth and/or make music/light up. He's getting away from the larger toys (swing, rocker, seat), but I'm guessing that will change once Christmas comes around.

On that note, I'm thinking that the large Christmas tree will stay in the garage this year and we'll get a table top one. That's kind of a bummer to me, but will also be less work. But it should be exciting to share the season with Owen.

We successfully moved him from 3 hour to 4 hour feeding schedule, which turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. The Hog said that would help him nap longer during the day (not to mention one less feeding is easier on me). We've had minimal success with that. Most of his naps are still only 30-45 minutes long, 3 times a day, but he has started to take some longer naps and appears to be almost ready to move to 2 naps a day.

Overall he's still a pretty mellow fellow. Keith had a work dinner at Olive and Ivy in Scottsdale, and we decided to take him along. It probably wasn't the best idea (inappropriate for the circumstances), but he behaved beautifully and was a good topic of conversation since we didn't know most of the people at the table.

Well, another weekend gone without getting much done around the house. We were pretty lazy before Owen arrived, and having him as an excuse just makes it more difficult. It's really hard not to choose Owen over housework - but really, what's more important?

I might just be a moron

As I go through life, I continue to find more evidence that I am simply not as smart as I think I am. Or, at least not as smart as I used to be. The latest example:

This post was going to have a more benign title of something like "benefits enrollment" since I didn't really have anything more creative to use in an analysis of our employer healthcare options. But I'll go ahead and do that post before getting my possible idiocy.

Actually, I'm not sure that's possible, since the premise of that analysis is based entirely on the aforementioned lack of intelligence.

This is the deal: We've always used Joanne's health coverage from Motorola/Freescale rather than what I could get from ASU. This was largely based on the direct cost of the plan to us--the monthly premium was cheaper on her plan for the two of us, than it was for each of us individually on our own plans. Or at least that's what I recall to be the case.

We sat down tonight to explore shifting from a no deductible/no copay coverage to a high deductible/small copay coverage, or something in the middle. This is the pricing of Freescale's options (this isn't quite comprehensive--I deleted options I knew we wouldn't consider):


Last year we had essentially the max coverage. I considered for a brief time reducing that, but in the calculation tools, child birth made it a moot point. I also pondered shifting it after Owen was born as I though the middle deductible plan was a sweet spot, but wasn't sure how a new deductible would work, so I stuck with the plan (0 deductible/90%/no copays), with the intention of doing a better analysis for 2009, which would be made easier with better knowledge/expectations of the medical needs of a child.

So I tested various expected service needs: primary visits, specialist visits, immunizations, lab work, general checkups, ER visits, out patient surgery, the Hale family plan, etc. In most scenarios, the high deductible plan was the winner. When it lost, it was because of extended stay hospital visits, but even then it wasn't that much. The main reason was because with the copay option, that covered all general office visits, so the deductible did not apply. But with a 0 deductible/no copay option, it goes straight to coinsurance, which isn't always cheaper than the copay.

We settled on the $1500 deductible/80% coinsurance/$10-$50 copay plan since it seemed to offer the highest liklihood of being the cheapest, not only for monthly deductions ($15/month!) but for overall annual medical expenses. In most of the models we tested, we never did max out the deductible, since so much ended up being covered by the copay. We also found that the lower coinsurance was likely to be better, since we'd have to have nearly $4000 in bills beyond the deductible to have it cost more. Admittedly, that is certainly possible--one extended stay in the hospital would be enough. But much like our other insurance policies, we can afford a certain amount of risk because we have the resources to self insure to an extent. The likelihood is that we are more likely to save $300 than spend an extra $500, and if the latter happens, well, we can deal with that.

After we got the medical portion done, we started looking at vision and dental and whether it was time to add Owen to both. That's when I got out my ASU benefits booklet for a point of comparison to the family costs of Freescale's vision/dental benefits. I then looked at the costs of the medical coverage. Or more specifically the coverages of the available plans.

ASU/State of Arizona offers an HMO plan, 2 EPO plans and a PPO plan. The PPO plan is a lot more than Freescale's (also a PPO) best coverage. The HMO is 30% more. The EPO plans are about the same. But the coverages! Everything is covered! There's a small copay ($10-20), but outside of that, nada!

No deductible, no coinsurance, no nothing.

I'm looking at it and thinking to myself "wait, this isn't what I remember". I recall the plan all costing significantly more than Freescale's options. In that regard, the PPO held true, but the EPO? That seems like a good deal at $150/month for a family, with a token amount out of pocket on top of that. The only thing I can think of is that I rejected the EPO option long ago because there is no out-of-network benefit. But don't you think it would have been smart to look into the extensiveness of the network? Or way the liklihood of needing to go outside of the network? I did a brief search this evening and our pediatrician, Joanne's OB/GYN and Banner Desert and Chandler Regional are all in network.

As the subject says, I might just be a moron.

The only other point in my defense is that ASU's enrollment period is 6 weeks before Freescale's, so a direct comarison isn't possible. But you'd think with 4 years of practice/having to make these elections, I would have noticed that ASU's benefits deserved much more scrutiny than I ever game them.

On a tangetial point: If we had family coverage through ASU, that would be an $1100/month benefit Im not receving. Just at the individual level, it is $461/month. It'd be nice if there was some way to get that $5000-$13,00 that ASU/State of Arizona is willing to spend on me to, you know, just give it to me.

Catching a Falling Knife

Tuesday was the day I finally rebalanced our investment accounts.

Wednesday I felt the sting of catching the blade and not the handle. Tis but a flesh would, right?

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This is my first greater-that-just-a-market-correction experience--it's supposed to be good for us, right? We're still accumulating, so the lower prices are good. But there's enough negativity (which according the Efficient Market Hypothesis, is supposed to be priced into the market) to still be unnerving. During market peaks/bubbles, the thought is that "this time it's different". That exists at the bottom too. What if things don't recover? That 50% fall requires a 100% increase just to get back where you started. I guess we're not at the "Death of Equities" stage yet, but it might be a long slog back to being ahead.

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Our allocation plan is 45% US, 30% International, 20% Bonds/Fixed and 5% real estate. The market plummet was one reason to rebalance. The other was that I had recently vested at work. This resulted in the 5 years of employer matching being added into my 401a. Not knowing exactly when it was being deposited (October 15), or how much (considerably more than in my personally directed portion), I directed it to a money market in the account and planned on redirecting it fairly quickly.

There are multiple school of thought on rebalancing:

• One is that it's not that big of a deal--the gains from buying low/selling high is diminished by the loss of "momentum" in classes that are highly volatile (think selling out of real estate or emerging markets in 2005, missing out on a year plus of continued high growth).
• Another is the annual/set schedule rebalance--fixed, pre-determined times to rebalance, generally a year or more apart.
• Another is when asset classes get outside of a pre-determined range, it is time to rebalance, say +/- 5% from a large target.
  

The last was our primary justification to say we're not market timing: our bond/fixed allocation was approaching 40%, twice what it's supposed to be, so we bought. Where the market timing comes in, though, is the day to actually do it. I passed on Monday since the market was up. I went and transferred assets on Tuesday because it was down. It just happened to continue doing down on Wednesday.

Unlucky.

Good think I didn't do all the rebalancing, but it was still about 75% of it.

Helmet time

Pretty much from birth, Owen preferred looking to the right when laying down. He developed a small flat spot behind his right ear. No matter how much we altered his position in his rocker, or propped up the shoulder when sleeping, he seemed to find that spot. Still, his head was soft enough to have some hope that it would correct.

We had him in our room for his first 3 months in a bassinet and pack-n-play. He finally moved into his room and his crib in July. I got what is generally considered one of the very best mattresses, the Colgate Classica I, a very firm mattress that is considered high quality. My mother noted how firm it was when we got it--this is what's recommended though.

Within a week it seemed, Owen developed another, larger flat spot, also on the right side of his head. We again made efforts to get him to look left when laying down, and it would work for a little bit, but eventually he would find the spot, so it never self corrected. We knew what was coming next--the helmet. At our last check up in September, we were told, yes, we should visit a specialist. We were referred to Cranial Technologies (in network provider), and in looking at their before and after photos, I thought to myself, "Yep, that's Owen's head."

After the initial consultation and fitting, Owen got his helmet today:



He seems to be OK with it. The biggest change (after having it for 7 hours) is we can't see his forehead, which is key in a lot of the faces he makes. Now when he lifts his eyebrows, his forehead scrunches up and he just looks a little pissed off. Maybe he is.

As I mentioned before, Cranial Tech is covered by our insurance, which means an out-of-pocket cost for us of $200 (10% of the $2000 contracted rate). However, at the consultation, we were told they have had some issues in Aetna (our provider) accepting the claim. If they didn't, we're on the hook for the full amount ($3600)--we don't even get the contracted rate. We were told we could file a determination, but Aetna is good about taking the full 30 days to give you an answer. Since the longer one waits for the helmet, the longer it has to be worn, we opted to skip the determination since we felt like we were going to get it anyway to fix his head.

In retrospect, I do wonder how firm a mattress needs to be. The bassinet feature on a pack and play to any crib mattress will be quite different. Where the PNP can mold to the baby a bit more (hammock style), the crib mattress stays flat. But if a baby is sleeping on its back, does the mattress really need to be super firm? The softness/plushness, I surmise, is primarily a factor if they are side or stomach sleeper. If they're on their back, though, can't they have a little cushion, to get a little more conforming? Maybe the mattress was only a small factor. Maybe Owen just has a soft head because he was early. Or maybe we didn't do something we didn't know we should be doing.

But Owen will survive. After all, there's nothing wrong with having a helmet at this time of the year. He's just ready for some football!

P.S. If anyone has any small NY Giants stickers, please send them our way.

More ultimate

Since the comments have been substantive, I thought I'd address/clarify points that were raised. Too much is on drills and the deep cut, which might be too specific for my questionably worded thesis.

"Theory" approach.

As long as the previous post was, I may not have been as specific on the how to get players to think about ultimate theory. Lawrence said “You mentioned discussing very specific situations with players, so that they can generalize from there. But what about the players that want rules - and haven't had this structure free epiphany yet - and just take your specific situation as one more rule they have to remember?”

My point on the specific situations was to go into detail about situations to not only over the what, but the why. If it stops there, then it is just another “rule” to remember. The goal/hope is that by focusing on the why stuff is happening, players will be more reflective about what happened when they’re playing. I concede this may be too much to throw at new league players, and my thinking is this more applicable to the intermediate/new club player. It might work with new players, but you can’t stop a league game or open play and go over the situation.

At a team practice, there’s always been the idea of calling “stop!” during the scrimmage portion, but it rarely ever happens. I may be overselling the “theory” approach as a cure-all. What I mean by it is that a greater emphasis needs to be placed on how players think about space and spacing, rather than the diagram of a play. And the first step is to get people to think and reflect about the situations they're in and how to recognize what the options are (cut, clear, stop, etc). If doing so is a new concept to them, then it is a matter of teaching them to think about situations and then how to do so. I don't have a better way to do this than to trust players to

Drills

I think I came off as anti-drill overall, which isn’t completely the case. I don’t really care for most drills anymore, but I recognize they are important to developing skills. I just really dislike the way drills are run. This is a function of what Lawrence called “thoughtless reps”. Once everyone has the basic routine of the drill, the focus becomes the drill itself, rather than its applicability. In a cutter/defender drill, the defender always sets up in the same spot. In a thrower/cutter drill, the thrower is always set up in the middle of the field or on the line, never anywhere else. In a dump drill the cut is always to the thrower. It could just be the teams I’ve played on that do this, but those are the teams I care about.

Drills become more useful the more they mimic game situations, and the tendency I see is for drills to become less game-like, either as a result of some amount of laziness, inattention, cheating (in the sense of shortcuts the drill allows rather than what the game), sloppiness or terrible rhythm. If players/teams think more about what the point of the drill is, rather than just running it after basic instructions, they can be more effective.

I’ll use the endzone drill as an example. Three common problems I see with it: (1) Back of the stack to the front cone. No, it should be on a line about 5 yards or so inside of the cone, leaving the cutter more room to adjust out. (2) The person who threw for the score gets the disc on the line. Why? That’s just dumb. It reinforces the dump coming to the line, and makes the swing unrealistic, as it either becomes too long of a throw to get across the field, or it leaves the swing on the wrong side of the field. (3) the Swing cutter makes a “C” cut towards the thrower (they cut away, then curl to the thrower)[this is the least common of the three problems, but I still see it], rather than making the fake to the thrower and going away, so that they get more yards laterally across the field. What happens when all 3 of these happen? The person catching the swing is on the wrong half of the field to have a good angle to throw for the score, as it becomes too similar to someone making a flat (perpendicular) cut.

To address the other drills that were commented on--the diamond drill is probably not the square drill (box?), it's the leading go to drill, so that the two lines are two points and the reception points are the other 2 points of the diamond. I think for new players it's fine to always set up the lines directly across from each other, but for club players? Vary it up a bit. Or at least change the angle of the cut--i see it too often become too flat or too close.

As for the three person marker drill. Aside from the bad habits that I think it can reinforce, what aggravates me more is when the marker backs up. This makes the throw straight up much harder because they no longer have to commit as much to a side to take away a throw. In the drill, markers get conditioned to do this because the thrower has a tendency to step forward rather than out on their fakes/pivots. I don't step forward, but my marker invariably still ends up taking a step or two back, killing any throwing angle i might have unless it's a hard outside in. What do I do? I step backwards. This generally makes the marker feel like they are too far away, so they come back into me. As they move in, they're unprepared to go side to side and I break them. It's not as automatic as it used to be. This tells me that people are playing to the drill (dropping back) rather than the focusing on the side to side movement of a tight mark. I think it should be emphasized to throwers to decide what throw you want to make before starting.

These are probably minor issues, but they speak to how drills become too routine and not as beneficial as they could be. Thinking about a the function of a drill makes them more effective and efficient and can minimize flaws in the setup of a drill.

The Deep Cut

Justin commented: I'm still not sold on your deep cut angle preference. I personally like to cut up the sideline as it's harder for the marker to defend and easier for me to box out the defender if I need to. Plus I feel like it forces the thrower to focus on where to put the disc. If I can put the disc to the right or left side of the field I usually have to take an extra split second to decide and I feel like I make a poorer throw.

Justin, I think your preference is wrong. The thrower’s job is to put into the endzone in a way that allows the cutter to be running full speed at the catch. If you get into a position where you need to box out, it was either a bad cut or a bad throw. If you’re not sure which side to throw to, then your prospective receiver is giving you a bad cut, or you’re overthinking it way too much. Jot disagreed as well, but I think that more a case of me oversimplifying (stay to the center as long as possible) [or not].

The ideal deep cut allows the cutter to triangulate to see the throw and decide where they can catch it. In my experience, a cut straight away from the thrower is more likely to lead to a poor throw (particularly on the sideline where it’s much more likely to hook too far to the middle). In my mind, the only time a deep cut is straight away from a thrower is when they have more than half of the field (laterally) to cut out to, ie if the thrower is being forced flick and trapped, the deep cut straight away from them should NOT be expecting a blady flick--they should be expecting a hammer or backhand to the other sideline.

Speed/creating space between you and the defender and giving the thrower a clear area (not spot!) to put the throw are the most important things about a deep cut. Height/boxing out/laying out is there as a back up when there’s a breakdown in the first part.

The diagram below hopefully illustrates my point. The left is a throw to a spot--it's limited in the area the receiver can get it. The middle, by triangulating, the receiver, chooses where they can get the disc. If the throws short, the receiver can adjust. If it's long, the receiver can adjust. If it's blady swill hooking to the middle of the field, the receiver can read it and maybe still make a play on it. The bottom right, is the only expectation a cut straight away from the thrower should have.





Has understanding theory improved your play or is that just hypothesis? Are your team's faring better or worse because you put yourself in less risky/productive situations?

I would assume so, if people think I’m a better player now even though my physical skills are considerably worse. My understanding of spacing and team play is much better than it used to be. I went through a period last year where I felt like I was never in the wrong position (not that I could always do something from the right position), but that’s faded a bit as I adjust to be slower and not able to get in and out of spots as quickly as I think I might. Hard to say about impact during league, but I no longer run into clusters to attempt to save a thrower, and I wait for space to open up--that's a plus, even if the team isn't as "successful."

Structure versus theory

At league draft 2 weeks ago, a small group hung around afterward and talked various things ultimate. In the course of the discussion, two different people noted that they think I've been playing better in the past year than they've ever seen me play. This shocked the hell out of me. I don't run as well. I don't break as well. I don't cut as well. I touch the disc a lot less. I think my hands are worse. My longer forehands have gotten better, but it's not like they scare anyone. So how could anyone possibly think I got better?

While I disagree with that notion, I do believe I've gotten better at understanding my role in an offense. Back in aught six, I drafted a team with the goal of it being as athletic as possible and seeing where that would get us. I tried using a horizontal stack. We won our first couple, but the offense wasn't that pretty. I think i bailed on it by the third game of the season because we didn't have the consistent threat of a deep game to pull it off, so we kept on getting fronted and weren't able to do much. But I remember in those games being the dominant handler on the field, and with the horizontal, sometimes finding myself on the wide side of the play, ie, not involved. My old habit would have been to dive into the play, but I let the offense do the work (partially because I thought my defender would have me covered), and we often able to work it a bit.

This helped me realize that it isn't necessary to always be doing something. Sometimes you're out of the play and you should keep it that way. Sometimes you just need to move (not even a cut) to open up space for a teammate. The common trait I think of the people that I played the most with was that we were all decent athletically, but not great, so we all learned to work and cycle until we got space. Maybe this is what we had to do, but it's not necessarily the best thing to do.

A difference I've noted in the better teams we've played is that they make one cut, and if they make that one cut well, they get the disc. Teams I've been a part of, that's not always the case--it's cut, cut, cut, and maybe you'll get the disc. But you might not because the thrower's already looked you off, or someone else is cutting into the same area.

And this happens over and over again because of what I've believe is an over reliance on a team structure (who cuts where when) and plays rather than a focus on how to just play ultimate--ie an understanding of what is best situationally. The focus is on sticking to the structure (someone needs to cut there; I will cut there) rather than situation (what is the best thing for me to do from here). Ultimate is not football--a playbook is just a guide, it's not set in stone.

This might be closer to an epiphany, but it's been slow. I've long realized I am no good at strategy/overall team strategy, particularly in a reactive sense--I simply do not pick up on what other teams are doing and think of a way to counteract that. The extent of my strategy is "let's force backhand". But what I am good at (or better at as compared to team strategy) is the what to do in a specific instance and why to do that thing. And it took me a long time to get there. I remember being told after I'd been playing for 4-5 years "You run around a lot, but you have no idea where you're going." I didn't expect that, but then again I've rarely been coached individually/directly. So my teaching approach reflects the desire to address that--most comment I might make is based on the situation/individual. Some of it borders on standard "plays", but the basis is "what do I do in this situation."

Watching practices this weekend crystalized this--the emphasis on a team strategy--plays and/or the offensive is not as effective as it can be because there's a gap in understanding what is happening on the field and why. Any offense can work in theory. Until the defense changes up in a way you weren't expecting. Then what?

I see this in drills and how people are taught to throw or cut. It reinforces habits that may not be applicable to a game.

As a thrower, player are told to practice your fakes. You're nothing without fakes. Fakes aren't bad, but the point of a fake is to get the marker out of position, or to open up a throw. But it's not always the most effective way, and too often fakes become reflexive than purposeful. To me, footwork and pivoting is much more important. These get added into faking, but often take a back seat. Even when pivoting is encouraged, it's still treated like a fake--something automatically done, rather than for a purpose. Back when I was a good thrower (ie could and would break anyone), I knew from the moment I picked up the disc if I could break them, and where the throwing lane was. Didn't require any fakes, and it was one hard pivot (with purpose!). I will concede that was a specialized skill that not many people have, but it was the mindsight of being able to recognize what the marker was giving me and what I could take.

As a cutter, the general approach is the checkmark--a hard change of direction. Obviously that is a good skill to practice and have. But I think teaching cutting theory is lacking (or more "movement theory)--when to cut, where to cut, how to cut for throwers, when to just make a clear cut to open up space for teammates, when to just stay out of the way, when to recognize it is your turn because the movement of the disc has put your defender at a disadvantage. I've been in situations in which I'm defending people far, far superior to me athletically that didn't get the disc because they spent more time trying to get me out of position than identifying when it was the best time to make that cut. One case in particular, someone was open on me for 4 passes. Never got the disc even though he was always on the open side and never too far down field. Admittedly, part of this was due to cuts from teammates that perhaps shouldn't have been made, but, to me, it was bad recognition of when to go, and when to hold up for things to clear out.

The other part of cutting is setting up the space for the thrower to throw to. Generally speaking the in cut should be easy/obvious, but not always. One of the two best compliments I ever got as a player was someone telling me (this was 04/05) was that I always made cuts that were easy to throw to. I never thought of myself as doing anything special, but I knew I never made any amazing catches on my in cuts--nothing really great to "save" the thrower from a turn, and maybe that's why. The other part of incuts--to the breakside, is dual recognition from the thrower and cutter to recognize what the marker is giving up, the inside out, or the around throw.

As for long cuts, a lot of players don't set up the angle to make it easier. The deep cut is understood as a vertical cut, when really it isn't. Ideally the cutter stays to the middle (generally) as long as possible, so it is easier to see the thrower, the disc and whether it's smarter to continue the deep cut, or break it off and come underneath. The good deep cut and throw isn't the one where the receiver is running full speed to catch it at a certain spot (ie vertically to the back of the endzone), it's the one where they can choose the angle to get to it the fastest (ie, the intersection of the arc of the flight of the disc and the cut). This may come of as basic skills, but it is rooted in the mental approach to the game--where am i cutting to that allows me to run hard, allows me to see the disc, and makes the throw easy(er). Maybe that isn't teachable, maybe it only comes from experience, but I think going into great detail about what to do in a specific situation can help players create their own mental framework about how to think about situations on their own, including drills.

Too often drills are rote repetition that reinforce not beneficial habits. There are a lot of drills that I used to like that I know longer do because of this. I also get frustrated with drills because they aren't run like a game situation in terms of angles, approach or mindset.

• The three person marker drill overdoes fakes, teaches throws to bad target areas (straight through the marker), and teaches the marker to lunge and over commit. This doesn't even get into the tendency of the marker to back up, to take away the straight throw, which is a mark they'd never do in a game.
• The diamond drill, like many drills starts with the cutter straight away from the thrower cutting out an angle, which pretty much only occurs on a brick. Except it doesn't even happen then because the defense is set. It also emphasizes a 45 degree angle on the cut, which I've decided is dumb. It should be closer to 30 degrees--it make the cut more to the thrower, minimizes the risk of a throw more to the middle, provides plenty of room for the cutter to adjust out and can provide the right flare if it is to the outside to gather momentum into the continuation throw.
• A variation of the diamond drill to the break side--this is actually what turned me against drills 4 years ago--the marker would overcommit to stopping the break, the thrower would throw some swilling outside in pass that would be D'd everytime. This kind of scenario in which the marker is "cheating" provides the cutter the opportunity to recognize what space to cut to.
  
• Dump cut drills are invariably a cut to the thrower. The space behind the dump, past their defender is never utilized. Back in '05 at a tournament, Guy threw me a dump pass like that--out into space to the middle of the field, so I'd catch it going away from him. I don't think I even moved--using that space never occurred to me.
• In a cutter/defender drill, most people have the tendency defensively to always set up in the same spot. Thinking about it more situationally might inspire trying different approaches--out in space, up really tight, trailing just behind.

I may be expecting too much from this theory approach to learning/team building. The adoption of it in practice still requires thought while playing, but instead of thinking "is it my turn to cut?" and the focus because on "what can i do/should i be doing from this position?" and from a team performance perspective, that is more important. Taking a situation and thinking about the outcome, or what effects that outcome is critical to improvement because it maximizes one's contributions. Sometimes that contribution is the good cut. Sometimes it's recognizing the easy dump or swing right away. Sometimes it's just getting out of a teammate's way. But the only way to learn from it is to analyze it individually.