Pics from Club Regionals

Thanks to Keith and Bryan who were our photographers for the weekend!

I think one of the cutters threw it to me as a bail-out dump cut. I almost missed the disc. The firetruck in the background was one of the many emergency vehicles that were called to the fields to take care of Morgan. (Btw, nothing is broken, just a bad sprain and she'll be in an aircast for a while.)

Nell, one of our D-line handlers


Jenny catching the disc, not sure what her defender is doing but it looks like she's falling backwards in terror =P


Full extension Smeri!


Brie, another one of our D-line handlers using her full 5'10"-ness (I actually don't know exactly how tall she is but she's pretty tall =P)


The only way I can get around big marks =P (I like Jin's expression in the back, like she's thinking, "OMG Karen's going to turf it!")


Me looking extremely proud of myself hahah


Not really sure what's going on here but I think Jin's setting a bad example of being a good SIDELINE


See, now Daphne and Doris are doing it too...


Smeri has having contact issues


Brie's flick. Bad mark. Don't mark like that please. Bend your knees more, feet farther apart, keep your arms down unless you're preventing a huck for a few stall counts, but otherwise, you should never look like this when you're marking.


Becky's so talllll...


and always so happy :)


Becky was trying to teach something called "Body Traversing" where you flip someone (hopefully someone smaller) over your shoulders and pull them out from between your legs.


They were trying to race but really Kate just dropped Kelly a bunch of times. There are videos in my picasa (username: midlifekaren). Apparently Becky and one of her college friends can do it in 4 seconds.


Yay friends :) Except during the college season THEY WON'T BE! (j/k) Far left is Kquan aka Butterball who plays on BC and Michelle plays for Northeastern and I still have one more year left on sMITe. :)

First sMITe practice! (for me)

New drill!: Give and go
I learned a new drill today! The goal of this drill, which I'm calling "give and go" is to work on quick releases and moving right after you throw (at least, that's what I got out of it). With a buddy, set up how you would set up in the yo-yo drill (or V-cut drill). If you don't know what either of those are, don't worry about it. Let's call the thrower Smeri and the cutter Doris. :)

Doris and Smeri set up about 10-15 yards away from each other. Doris makes a cut towards Smeri and Smeri throws it to her. Smeri immediately makes a "up-the-line" cut for Doris and Doris throws a short away-pass to her. Then Doris immediately sets up another in-cut and cuts in towards Smeri, again planting on the same foot. Smeri throws to her in-cut and immediately goes up the line for Doris. And so on and so forth. At first it looked really confusing and probably sounds even more confusing when you're reading it now (it did for me when I re-read my post), but it's not all that hard and when done right it actually looks really cool. Make sure you switch positions and then also switch the foot that you're cutting off of.

When you're throwing to the up-the-line cut, focus on leading the person you're throwing to (i.e. throw to space). It's easier for a person to see the disc and run it down rather than chasing something that's thrown "behind" them. In other words, throw to where they'll be by the time the disc gets there. After you throw, make sure to move immediately. In a game situation, when you move immediately after you throw, usually your mark isn't ready to follow yet and you can get a few steps on your defender! (A personal favorite of mine)

Next drill: 3 on 3, stall at 5
For the next drill we split up into teams of 3 and just played 3 on 3 from one endzone to the other. Offense can start wherever they want. Stall count was 5 and if the offense dropped the disc, they just picked it up and kept going. The goals of this drill was again to work on quick releases and moving immediately after you throw. Because the stall is at 5 and there is only 3 people on each team, everyone has to be cutting at all times. Fun times! :)

Scrimmage!
We started our scrimmage with 5s. Highlights included Clare's run-through D on Smeri on the first pass of the scrimmage, Mangpo's amazing 2-handed claw catches while jumping a foot of the ground, nice sharp in-cuts from Cindy, and seeing a lot of people like Heather, Daisy, and Anna step up as handlers. So exciting to see!

Home for me
I'm going home next Monday for a week and half. Hopefully that's enough time for my hamstring to heal. I played a game with Skoosh tonight and I realized that it still hurts when I sprint all out for more than 10 yards. :(

Hatch 2009
Pics from regionals coming soon...

Club Regionals Day 2

We only played two games on the second day of regionals. When we arrived at the fields at 7:30 in the morning for warm-up, there was frost on the ground! Our first game was against Bowdoin (Chaos Theory). We worked on our vertical stack. I don't remember much from this game except for the fact that we had a couple messy points, and even one point with 5 turnovers. After sectionals, I've realized how horrible and detrimental turnovers are. And once you have one turnover, they tend to accumulate and the point spirals into a chaotic mess of turnovers. :( Final score 13-2.

Our second game was against BC and it was probably the most fun game I've played this season. There was a strong wind so it was a very upwind/downwind game. We worked on our 4-man cup in both wind directions so I got to play in the cup a lot and then handle in zone O in upwind points (my favorite!!). BC's 4-man cup was pretty effective in containing movement of the disc when it was trapped on the sideline and for a while our zone O was very stagnant. We worked on getting the disc moving right away so that the cup couldn't set up... soo much fun!!! I felt like our handlers, wings, and poppers worked very well together in advancing the disc down the field.

Hatch season is over... time to focus on sMITe! :)

I have a quarter-sized bruise on my left quad from cleating myself while trying to take off my pants to get on the line. :(

Club Regionals

I'm really sad/disappointed/sleepy right now, so this is going to be a short update.

We started off the day with a game against Capitals. There was a slight wind during this game but it shouldn't have been strong enough to affect anything. They set a zone on us, and our O-line worked the disc up flawlessly and scored without a turnover (I think Doris would like it known that she was on that line.. hehe). But it was all downhill from there. There were ample turnovers from both teams and it was a very messy game in general, so no one can't say that we didn't have our chances, but we didn't score a single point for the rest of the game. I felt like our cutters weren't getting open, and then our dumps weren't getting open, and thus desperation hucks from handlers all around. One of my nightmare points occured the 3rd or 4th point into the game where I threw away 3 upwind flick hucks that came up short and got D-ed. I was so pissed at myself. Final score 1-13.

The next game was against Godiva. Both teams came out strong but like the Capitals game, it was a very messy game and there were a lot of turnovers from both teams. The wind picked up a little during this game and made throwing and catching a lot harder. During this game, my mark attempted a footblock and ended up kicking my hand after I got the throw off (to Doris). I was so stunned that I stood there shaking my hand out but it only increased in pain I called an injury a few stall counts later. People who don't know how to footblock properly should NOT be making footblocks because getting kicked in the hand freakin' hurts!!!

It was also during this game where Morgan made this awesome d on her cutter and she ended up landing weird (I think she stepped on her girl's foot actually), and was in a LOT of pain. Play stopped for like 10-15 minutes while trainers and then paramedics came and drove her to the hospital. Chelsey went with her so we were done two players for the day. :( Word came back later that night and Morgan might've torn a ligament in her ankle but it's not broken.

The last point in the Godiva game was epic and lasted about 15 minutes long. There was one pass where Brie threw to Becky who got D-ed, but it was so windy that the disc was knocked back towards Brie, about 20 yards away, and she caught it again! We ended up working it up to our endzone 2-3 times but every time we dropped the disc in the endzone. Ok I guess it wasn't super easy because it was windy and the throws were low and hard to catch, but still, it was a very nervewrecking game. We came out of the Godiva game pretty pumped up because even though we lost the game, we won the last point during hard cap. Final score 5-11.

The next game was against a Canadian team named Enigma. It was extremely windy during this game so it was fun to play zone O and throw in windy conditions. Final score 13-2.

Our last game of the day was against MissConnduct. It was also extremely windy (and cold!) during this game and the wind dictated the pace of the game with fast downwind points and slow upwind points. We were down a break early in the game and we spent most of the first half trying to regain that break, but we were unable to and we were down at half 5-7. After half, MissConduct went on a run and got two more breaks and we were down 5-11. They were mainly playing a four-man cup on us and it was really difficult to dump and swing around the cup especially when we were trapped. We tried crashing the cup a lot and it worked most of the time but play was very stagnant for a lot of the zone O points.

We needed at least 3 upwind breaks to win the game, so we pumped each other up and went on a 5-0 run to make the game 10-11 - our comeback! The wind died down a little during this time and the handlers were able to throw bendy throws to the poppers in the middle. At 11-11 hardcap went on, game to 13. Then 11-12, then a huck to Jenny in the endzone to make it 12-12 universe point. We still needed an upwind break to win the game and advance to the 2nd place bracket. We pulled the disc and they worked it up the field. We had some smart switching to cover in and away cuts but they scored and took the game. I'm sad to say that the score was to my girl too. She was almost O/B though. :( Final score 12-13.

I don't remember the last time I was this sad/disappointed because of ultimate. Tomorrow we're in the 7th place bracket with games starting at 8:30 and we'll probably play until 5:30 again. I'm exhausted. :(

I guess this wasn't that short of an update but I couldn't help reliving some points/moments throughout today and wishing that something different would've happened - a disc tipping a certain way so that it would favor our offense, or taking that extra step to run through to the disc, or putting a bit more spin on the hucks to make it sail a little farther. But it's over and there's nothing that can be done about it now. Forget the past and think only on how you can improve and play better, right?

Club Regionals is tomorrow!

The brackets are up:

http://www.upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=36&id=6104

Our first game is at 8:30am against Capitals and then everyone has a second round bye (weird?). Our second game is against Lady Godiva, third game against Enigma (haven't heard of them before), and then last game against Missconnduct. Omg sooo excited! So many good games tomorrow :D

You should come out and support us! Cathy Chu is here this weekend too :D Yayyyy

Club Regionals is this weekend!

This post is partly for Ewu who told me that my blog is lacking in ultimate content.

I have to be honest... for some reason I'm not as excited about club regionals this year as I was last year. I've even already gotten my semi-annual pre-regionals haircut already. Maybe it's because this year our region only has 2 bids to nationals. Maybe it's because of the lack of tournaments this season. (The only "real" tournament I've been to is Winston Cup in North Carolina and that seems ages ago (I didn't go to Boston Invite and club sectionals to me wasn't really a tournament.)) Maybe it's because our practice attendance has been lacking for the last couple weeks and thus we haven't been together to pump each other up. Whatever it is, I need to start mentally preparing myself for this weekend.

What do I normally do to mentally prepare for tournaments? I visualize what I'm going to do in game situations. It sounds dumb but seeing me doing something in my mind really helps me when I find myself on the field and I actually have to do it in real life. For example, I imagine myself as a dump, setting up on the breakside 15 yards away from the thrower and about 2-3 yards back. I imagine streaking upfield in 3-4 hard steps, planting hard, and then coming back along the same path that I took and clap-catching the disc. I also imagine myself trapped on the sideline, faking and pivoting and really stepping out to throw a backhand to get it the disc off to the dump. I even imagine myself calling fouls or disc space because sometimes, I get flustered and mess up my throws when I call "disc space." It's like I can't talk and throw at the same time or something. I also imagine cutters in a ho-stack making cuts and in my mind, I place defenders in certain locations on the field moving at certain speeds, and then decide in my mind which throw is the best decision. And then I imagine myself moving immediately after I make the throw to get the dish back or moving out of the way so someone else can make that cut. The one game situation that I've been visualizing the most is being trapped on the backhand side with the cutters in a ho-stack offense, and throwing a backhand I/O break to the sideline cutter. It gets me so excited! Hehe. :)

On defense, I imagine dictating a downfield cutter and staying low to the ground, on my toes, ready to maintain a buffer between me and my girl so that I can stay with her and shut her down. I imagine myself marking, knees bent, staying on my toes, taking a step off of the thrower (because I usually mark people bigger than me with longer arms) and watching the eyes of the thrower. Side note: what do you look at when you're marking? I know some people look at the disc, some people look at shoulders, some at their hips. I've done that before but then Bryan makes fun of me because it looks like I'm staring at the thrower's boobs (not that I should care anyway - I can look wherever I want, so hah). Anyway, I've started looking at peoples' eyes because 90% of the time, people throw to where they are looking.

I don't just imagine myself doing the normal things that I do every point - dump cutting, getting the dish, throwing, etc. I also imagine myself doing the awesome things that I never actually do in real life... making awesome layout grabs and layout Ds. And don't make fun of me because I know you do it too!! I think the more you visualize something and the more detailed-ly you visualize it happening, the more that you're likely to do it on the field with the correct form and timing.

Anyway, I started off this post not being that excited about regionals, but after writing about visualization and actually doing it as I'm writing, I'm pretty excited for regionals now. :)

Go Hatch!!

A fortune cookie called me a fatty

After getting our nails done, we had the wedding rehearsal and the dinner. We went to this Sichuan restaurant and had a huge 10-course meal. Everything was sooo yummy and I ate so much. After stuffing ourselves, a plate of fortune cookies went around and I, never one to pass up a fortune cookie, cracked one open, and this is what it said:


The fortune cookie just called me a fatty! Sadness... :(

A frisbee player gets her nails done...

This past weekend I went to Long Island for my friend Amy's wedding. I hopped on the Bolt Bus on Thursday afternoon right after my group meeting presentation (which I thought went well) and then took the LIRR from Penn Station to Massapequa Park where Amy's cousin lived. Her family is reeeeaally cute. Apparently right before I got there her uncle, who used to be a chef, made a 20-course Chinese dinner for everyone. When I got there they served me wild duck soup and ice cream cake (which they bought). Mmm...

Friday morning we went to a nail salon called Tiffany's to get manicures and pedicures. I had been thinking about this whole manicure/pedicure thing for a while, debating whether I wanted to get a manicure or a pedicure or both. I had practice on Sunday and regionals this coming weekend, and anything I do to my nails were going to get ruined anyway. But it was my friend's wedding and I didn't want to look out of place in the pictures so I decided to just get a manicure - my fingernails would look nice for the photos and it would only cost $15 anyway.

The other four girls got both manicures and pedicures but I wanted to be in on the girly talk so I awkwardly hovered around them while they were getting their pedicures and then when that got too awkward, I awkwardly sat in the lone chair in the waiting room reading gossip magazines. Then one of the managers of the store, a middle-aged Korean lady, came up to me and tried to convince me to get a pedicure too:

Korean lady: You!... pedi too?
(She reaches for my hand.)

Me: Uhhh

KL: Yes! Pedi too! Pedi too!
(She starts pulling me to my feet.)

Me: Uhhh no, I don't really want to
(I look over to the other girls for help, they're busy chatting and reading "People")

KL: Yes! Everyone beautiful! You pedi too! Pick color!

She ushered me over to the pedicure room where everyone was sitting on giant massage chairs with tubs of water at the feet. She roughly pushes my jeans up to my knees and rubs green gunk (soap?) all over my calves. Then she got out some more soap - a different color soap - and started washing my feet. After she toweled them off, she pulled out a nail file and starts filing away my nails... Now, everyone has some noise or feeling or sound that they can't stand. Amy can't stand the sound of styrofoam peanuts being rubbed together. Bryan can't stand the sound of ripping cardboard. I can't stand the feeling of my nails being filed. It drives me NUTS. I closed my eyes and cringed in my seat and counted backwards from 10 multiple times until she finished filing both nails. Afterwards I was super tense and starting to sweat in my seat. Ugh, I hate getting my nails filed.

Anyway, next she pulls out a buffing tool to scrap off dead skin off my feet. She picks up my left foot and starts scrubbing the sides and heel of my foot. Then she sees my giant callous on the side of my big toe...

KL: Oh... Wow...
It was more of a how-do-you-live-with-yourself wow rather than a you're-an-athlete! wow and she looks up at me and gives me this horrified look while poking gingerly at my callous.

Me: Um, yeah... I play sports... ...

KL: starts scrubbing vigorously on the side of my foot like there's no tomorrow.

Me: Nonononono! Leave it! Leave it! I need that...

KL: gives me another horrified look and puts my foot down.

I felt really awkward for the rest of the pedicure as she massaged my feet and calves, cleaned my toes, cut cuticles, and stuffed toilet paper between my toenails so they wouldn't touch each other. (So this is what it feels like to wear toesocks or Meri's vibram fivefingers.) Afterwards I couldn't help but wonder what her reaction would've been if Meri or Doris would've gotten pedicures at this place. Hehe =P

Next she painted my toenails bright red to match our bridesmaids dresses. From then on every time I looked at my toenails I would jump a little before remembering that my toenails were painted red on purpose and that some animal didn't die at my feet and bleed all over my toenails.

Btw, Amy's feet are on the far right. Her toes are so strange... her big toes are so much longer than normal big toes.

Anyway, next, the lady slides a pair of pink flip flops on my feet and leads me over to the manicure side of the room of the store. I sit down and put my wrists on this little pillow thing not unlike what some people use to keep their hands positioned in front of a keyboard. She starts washing my hands, cleaning my fingernails, and cutting away more skin. I was pretty shocked to see how much skin she can cut away from my fingernails. When I tell her I want a French manicure...

KL: Nails too short...

Me: I know, I keep them short.

KL: French mani need long nails

Me: I know, but you can still do them, right?

KL: Too short...

Me: Can you just make the white part smaller?

KL: Hm...

She does them anyway and they end up looking pretty good :)


When we're about to leave, the store people realize that most of us are wearing closed-toed shoes. So they seran-wrap all of our feet and help us into our socks and shoes and then we're on our way.

Overall a slightly-terrifying, slightly-amusing experience that I hope I don't have to endure anytime in the near future.