Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 16:02:11 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff 'Shiv' Flynn Subject: That Knot in Your Belly Bones, Ever since Sectionals, I've done a lot of sleeping. (Well, I've been sick - but I'm nearly recovered! Besides, I enjoy sleep and am pretty good at it.) Anyway, during these periods of rest, I've had some dreams. Some folks might call them "visions"; I call them dreams. Okay? Okay. Whereas almost none of these dreams involved Chris Sheridan telling me "Do 14 pushups!", at least some of them might have involved a disc. I guess that goes to show you. (What that shows you, I am not sure, but if you could let me know when you find out, I would appreciate it.) During halftime (or maybe a time-out) of the Ashland game, Hamby talked about the knot we all felt in our stomachs. After I got over the panicing because Kelley knew that I indeed had a knot in my gullet, I decided I liked that little guy. (The knot that is -- I've always liked Kelley.) I had him there all weekend, and we got to be friends. I've tried to keep him there until regionals. Because of this, I've also kept ultimate on the brain. When watching a bit of football last weekend, I kept calling for the QB to "huck it!" and when he did but it didn't work, I commented that "he should have thrown the hammer." Luckily, all people in the room were disc players and appreciated where I was coming from. The point of this is that the knot is good. The edge that we're sitting on when we're pushing ourselves beyond that which we've been able to do before is the right place for regionals. Hopefully, that edge will also help me remember that it's better to use the dump when there's nothing promising downfield and the count is getting high. I doubt that it will hold me back from the aggressive but reasonable throws that I know I have, but at least it may remind me that I'm facing a headwind sometimes and that my huck doesn't go quite as far when I am. I hope that edge adds something to your game as well. Folks get psyched up by recalling our play during the Ashland game and rightfully so. Hey, it was a big game. We thought it was for the final regionals bid. However, a game that I thought was just as important was the Hubcap game in pool play. In the past, we would have been intimidated going into such a game. They had a very impressive lineup. However, instead of letting Chuck's "worry about _our_ game, not their game. focus on us, not them" bit of advice sneak past us like the big yummy gumballs always do after we put in our quarter, turn the knob and open the metal door, we did just that. We concentrated on ourselves and ended up kicking ass. When people ask me about Hubcap (why their play sucked and they aren't going to regionals), I don't have anything to say. All I remember is that they made a few mistakes and we played great. We didn't care who they were; we just played some disc. I'm psyched to do the same against RFBF and the rest of the teams at regionals. I also edited out the part of my sectionals writeup for the newsletter that said "you can't just throw together a bunch of good players and expect them to play as a team and win in the fall series any more." Finally, when I haven't been sleeping, working or creatively standing, I've been thinking. I've thought about ordinary teams doing great things by playing as great _teams_. I've thought about Saturday's Klienman Pigs game. I've thought about that Hubcap pool play game. I've thought about the hammer I should have thrown to Shaggy in the Tacky Paw game instead of the arching backhand that went over his head because it took longer than a hammer would have to get to the back corner of the endzone. I've thought about the Ashland game. I've thought about how great it felt to have the disc in my hand and score 3 times on a single point because we were working like an efficient goal-scoring-no-turnover machine. I've thought about the 1980 Olympic hockey team. (Sure, I didn't play on the team. I was only 6. I didn't even watch it on TV. I think of it nonetheless.) I've thought about the final game against Bend. We played great at sectionals because everyone contributed, and, just as significantly, because nobody tried to do more than their share. I've played on (or watched) plenty of teams where a single player tries to take over a game and will the win themselves. Nobody tried to do that. Instead, we trusted each other and played as well as a team as we ever have. We'll do it again. Back to sleep! -shiv