PAF

PAF & Training

This is the online home of Pyramus And Frisbee (PAF). We're a friendly bunch of people who enjoy running around outside chasing after plastic discs (frisbees for the uninitiated.)

We have training every Saturday from 11am to 2pm on Clapham Common,
right outside Clapham South, and we're open to anyone who wants to come along, including complete beginners. We're a mixed team so men and women are both welcome.

All you need to do is show up in suitable sports kit (there will be lots of running around), with a light and a dark top, water to stop you getting thirsty, and be keen to get your hands on a disc.

If you have any questions, feel free to drop me an email first: waftycranker (a t) gmail (d o t) com

Cheers,

Nick

Summer League - PAF vs Clissold Critters - Weds 28th July

Hey PAF

 

Last night Balham saw an epic EPIC game of PAF vs Clissold Critters (last year’s division 3 winners.)

 

PAF was limited to an iron man team of:

Harry

Wendy

Smiler

Strider

JoyAnne

Pope

Nick

And no prospect of any subs turning up…

 

Not necessarily a bad thing – we always seem to play really well as a team when we have limited (no) subs.

 

We started the game really strong and took an early lead, which we then capitalised on by using our patented Brownie zone against them.

Really stepped things up from then on to take the half 8 – 3.

 

Then things got hairy.

 

Critters came out hard from the half, and despite still playing as well as had in the first half, they were just playing better, and our mistakes just built up, giving them point after point.

We managed to sneak a couple of points in, but they brought the game back 9-8, 10-9, 11-10, 11-11. Eeep.

 

Now level pegging, with everything to play for, running low on legs, and low on water, we stepped it up a notch and kept the Critters at bay enough to trade points, with PAF taking the lead only for the Critters to bring it back level again and again. 12-11, 12-12, 13-12, 13-13, 14-13.

 

At last the chance to close out the game was upon us… we only had to get the D and score the upwind point to win.

Unfortunately with the light failing, we just couldn’t make the passes, and I put the disc just too far ahead of Harry for him to get a good hold on it, leading to a turn, and Critters bringing the score to 14-14.

We were into the realm beyond the soft-cap… and needed to win by two, or take it to the hard-cap at 17…

 

We took the next point, only for Critters to return it, levelling the scores at 15-15.

 

Danger Will Robinson! Danger!

 

They pulled to us, we made a couple of passes, Smiler put the disc up the line to me, my man a step behind, Harry open in the endzone, and a flat disc giving Wendy a haircut, straight to him, meant that we were up 16-15.

 

To finish the game in style, without the need for a sudden death point, we needed to make the next point the last of the game…

We pulled to them, they hucked wildly, the disc fell over, and we had possession. All that was left to do was keep the disc all the way into the endzone. Many passes later, and much running later, we found ourselves stood on the edge of the endzone. Wild cutting, and slow clearing meant that there weren’t any options open, as the stall count went up, and up, and up…

 

Then Harry stepped out from the melee of the stack, heading straight upfield, a big fake, the marker bit hard, allowing a pass out, a sprinkle of footwork, and we’d scored THE WINNING POINT!

 

17 – 15. The closest game we’ve played all summer. This is how ultimate should be played. This is what PAF is about. Snatching GLORY from the jaws of Summer League.

 

Awesome. OARsome work PAF. I could not have chosen an MVP from everyone who played. Everyone made greatness possible. Everyone gave it their all. Everyone has sore legs today. With performances like that I am proud to be PAF.

 

Thanks everyone who played.

 

Love,

Nick

Summer League - PAF vs Old Masters - Weds 12th May

Mini-writeup:

First game of the summer PAF weren't as honed as we were at Winter League, and made a few more basic errors than we should have done.

Fortunately, the opposition just wasn't able to capitalise on our mistakes, and we won convincingly 15-6.

Yay PAF!

Things to work on...
Keeping the force (remembering what it should be!)
Catching without juggling the disc
Taking the easy passes - not trying to huck to someone who's marked, or put the disc right past a D-player

More chat from the sideline - helps if they know what the force should be

Nick

Winter League 4 (3 was cancelled) Sunday 14th Feb

Much delayed writeup of last Winter League... Sorry.

The fourth and final Winter League of the season took place on Sunday 14th Feb. As we set off the weather was dry, cold, and cloudy, and we were keen to get into our first game vs Curve.

Curve is one of the better teams in division 2, and they were seeded 2nd to our 7th seed, so we knew it'd be a tough game. What we hadn't predicted was that there would only be 6 of us at the pitch 10 minutes before the game… Cue frantic phone calls, much pondering of sanity, and significant thoughts of ironman. It transpired that Nick Z and Joy had removed themselves from a bus that was going the right way, and decided to start walking in the wrong direction. Pope was simply AWOL and later claimed to have been confused by the alleged existence of Roehampton within London. (He thought it was near Rio and was looking forward to staying for the Carnivale after the matches.) Anyway, Will arrived in time for the game, so we had 7 players, and took to the field to throw the disc at the opposition. They swiftly gave it back, we ran around a little, and then someone ran over a line and caught the disc for the first point. PAF 1 – Curve 0. Great start to the game.

Curve then decided that they were going to win, and went on to take the half 7 – 2. We were still down a Pope and Nick and Joy were lost in the wilds of London. So we grabbed a drink, and went back to playing ironman.

Generally our flow was really good, and I think we put together a nice set of passes in every point before someone got a bit too confident and threw it away. (And it wasn't always me thanks.) Unfortunately, they were the stronger team, so took it 13 – 4, but I felt that we'd make them work for every point, and that they couldn't just relax and win easily.

Our next game was against Ovathrow (a team we beat in Winter League 2), so we knew that we had the opportunity to take the game to them and make them really work for any points. Bonus for us was noticing that they were missing their star player, which always makes things easier. Anyway, the game was fairly unmemorable, but we played decent solid ultimate not making too many simple mistakes, and generally putting the disc home when we got near the endzone. Final score was something like PAF 9 - Ovathrow 5.

Final Game vs Curve 2

So having given Curve a tough game in our first outing, we thought that Curve 2 would be an easier prospect... Unfortunately it turned out that although Curve was the technically better team, Curve 2 had us for stamina and speed pretty much across their whole line meaning that we'd have to work extra hard. We started out fairly well, and traded the first couple of points to about 2-2, but then they took the game away from us for the next 5 to take the half. PAF were left feeling demoralised and we were unable to get more than a couple of passes together before Curve stepped in to get a D. Despite the feeling of defeat noone gave up, and everyone kept on playing to the best of their ability, not just giving up on D and leaving their marks to get away on O. Towards the end of the game we resorted to huck and D tactics, which saw us score a few more points, but Curve 2 were just too far ahead, and we weren't able to convert enough into points. Final score 13 - 4.

Despite only winning one game of the day, we played two tough teams and held our ground really well against the first team, and then again against the second.

I was very proud of PAF for slugging away in the last game of the day with the rain coming down, and little chance of winning the game everyone just kept going.

Anyway, a great day of ultimate, and if you missed it...

Just you wait until Summer League. (Or Mixed Tour with POKE!)

Nick

Training 8th Jan

It was bitingly cold, but still the PAF ventured forth in swarms!

 

We had 16 people show up, which is incredible given the temperature was pretty close to 0, and even more so given that we were playing on a field of snow. We even had to relocate a snowman out of the endzone.

 

Given the cold, and that we had so many people, I didn’t want anyone to have to stand around for too long so most of the session was dedicated to staying warm whenever possible.

 

Warmup was a jog twice round the field. Then we moved onto throwing 10’s, followed by a sprint ladder, then distance throwing (in pairs start 15 yards apart throw back and forth, two consecutive catches while keeping a pivot foot, then both step back a large pace), followed by Zone (Brownie), and leading straight into a full game 7 vs 7.

 

Fricking awesome. Great work the PAF.

 

Extra special kudos to Bridget and Kal for showing up to their first ever session while there was snow on the ground.

Much kudos to everyone else. You have all earned 1 brownie point.

 

I love the new, improved, original flavour hardcore ‘we don’t take no sh*t from the weather’ PAF team.

Nick

Winter League 2 - 6th Dec

Winter League happened on Sunday and PAF were up against Ovathrow for our first game at the respectable hour of 10.35.

The team was at the pitch in plenty of time, and with 14 players, we looked to be in a good position against an Ovathrow team of 4...
By the time the game kicked off they were up to 6, but they were set to play, so we pulled to them and took advantage of the mismatch by scoring the first point. And the next. They then managed to sneak one in, which we returned to take the game to 3-1. About then their 7th player showed up (chap called Manny who is one of the best ultimate players I know.)
But we didn't let that get us down, and decided that it was time to play our JUNK zone.
The zone started off a little scrappy, but we tidied it up and by the end of the game they basically couldn't get the disc anywhere once we had the cup set up.
Awesomely, we ended the game 7 - 4 up.

Next up was RUF.
RUF are a bunch of university students from Roehampton, so they're all young and runny. But we had some young (and not so young) runny players of our own...
We started the game strong, and set up our JUNK zone upwind and downwind, and destroyed their handlers. The cup did an awesome job chasing and pretty much stopped the disc getting off the sideline with a safe pass at all, and didn't make it very far up the pitch either...
In fact, we destroyed their handlers so thoroughly, and transitioned to Offense so well, that we were 7-1 up at half-time.
They never really looked like a threat, and the only point they scored was off a good cross-field pass into the endzone before the cup setup.
Final score 10 - 1 to us.

Our third game was supposed to be against Kent Touch This, but Kent sucked and pulled out at 1am, so we were done for the day.

But the general consensus was that everyone wanted to play some more, so with our 14 players we were good to play 7 on 7 on one of the spare pitches.
Final result 7-4 to PAF vs PAF.

The ultimate was then rounded off with a trip to the pub for lunch. Perfect day.

An incredibly fantastic day of results and I look forward to continuing the PAF record of winning streak next month on 17th January.

Everyone played really well, and I'm really happy with how well everyone did in the new zone, and especially proud of all the new people who kept running all throughout the day.

Awesome. And Oarsome.

Great play everyone and have fun at training on Saturday. I won't be there, but Garrett is very keen to make sure that everyone still remembers how to play zone and our endzone plays, so make sure you're there on time. (That's 11am for those of you who mised the memo, Vannina.;-)

Hugs and Kisses,

Nick

Training 5th December

Not a huge turnout for what actually turned out to be a fairly nice day, only 12 people to start with, but Dhiraj and Will showed up later. And Vannina showed up much later.

Warmup:

Couple of laps, sidesteps, skipping, bounds, high knees/heels, lunges, grapevine, toes, heels

Drills:

Handling, Breakforce, fakes, more breakforce, lesson in Junk zone, and practise of Junk zone on Offense and Defense - game with stops for training.

Game with zone in play. And some man D.

Good warmup and training for Winter League on Sunday.

Cheers,

Nick

Training 28th November

So folks, as I was unable to run around on Saturday, the session was a little shorter than usual, and a bit more gentler as well.

Attendance: 11 (plus me)

James led the warmup, and then added a bit of fitness with 2 minutes of plank, and ladder sprints.

Drills:

Went through switching hold from forehand to backhand quickly - a vital skill that will make a competent thrower a good handler.

Throwing 10's

The Rules of Cutting

1. Take what they give you. 2.If you want a cut, fake until they give it to you. 3.If you're not sure what you want, fake until they give you something. 4. CLEAR OUT and let someone else have a go.

Straight on into:

Game.

Game was stopped whenever I saw something that I thought was being done wrongly, ie sideways cutting, marking on the wrong side, etc.

That was it.

Cheers,

Nick

Training 21st November

Last Saturday was beautifully warm and dry, perfect ultimate practice weather. We warmed up with a couple of laps of the pitch and some dynamic stretching, and then some sprinting at 50%, 75% and 103%.

Drills: box drill; throwing in pairs, newbies paired with experienced, forehand and backhand but just flat as it was a bit too windy for foolishness with inside-outs etc - when it's windy keep it flat! And we did a cutting drill with attention on running through the disc.

And then we played; and then we played some more; then a few people headed off, and we had some three against three.

Strider

PS The weather's looking mostly dry again, so come on out everyone..

Training 14th November

The weather was awesome. Awesome. There was sunshine, rain, hail, strong wind, gusts, calm. Fun. Turnout was a bit lower than the past few weeks... only 11 people. Still pretty awesome considering.

Warm-up:

4 laps of the pitch, followed by grapevine, skipping fast, high, and for distance, side shuffles, high heels, high knees.

Fitness:

Ladder (25%, 50%, 75%, 100% effort jogging back), 4 minute fitness

Drills:

Throwing 10's (flick / back / roll & skip - 10 each, 60 total), lead pass throwing in pairs. Apparently the wind affects the disc a bit.

Game:

Warmup points, then game to 5 with one sub. (5 on each team.)

Bonus:

Layout training in the mud. Fun.

Let me know what you liked, what worked, what you'd really really like to work on. If you don't tell me, I won't know for next time.

Cheers,

Nick

PS Feedback received... faceplanting in mud was more fun than expected...

Training 7th November

Huge turnout again. 22 people. HUGE. But a fairly gentle session as promised.

Warm-up:

3 laps of the pitch, followed by grapevine, skipping fast, high, and for distance, side shuffles, high heels, high knees, jogging forwards, and backwards and some gentle stretching.

Fitness:

Squirms, backward forward forward jumps

Drills:

Throwing 10's (flick / back / roll & skip - 10 each, 60 total), Box drill (near and far), pivot & fakes as thrower, mirroring D on mark

Game:

Split into 3 teams and played games to three, then followed with a big game to 7.

Let me know what you liked, what worked, what you'd really really like to work on. If you don't tell me, I won't know for next time.

Cheers,

Nick

PS Suggestions for future training... Zone, playing a short game (ie not hucking, continuation, resetting the stack), improving game intensity during training