Advice for Timing your Cut

As a cutter for the second pass...

[via RISE UP Ultimate]

Happiness includes Flow

Happiness = Pleasure. Flow. Meaning.



[via Explore]

Ultimate Player's Decalogue

Ultimate Player's Decalogue 

1. Open space is thy heritage, and the fields are sacred. See that thou leave them unlittered and undamaged.

2. Thou shalt use footwear that will not scar the grass, floor, turf, beach; lest thou slip and dash thyself against the ground.

3. Thy cleats and thy socks must fit, for blisters make playing a misery.

4. Thou shalt equip thyself against the worst weather the sky may produce, but shalt schlep spare garments until needed.

5. Thou shalt take with thee enough water & food to spare, for a hungry player is a tired player and thy play may last longer than didst plan.

6. Thou shall not omit thy field map and thy schedule.

7. Thou shalt not throw plastic discs atop concrete for damage is not reversible.

8. See that thou ford not a flow in flood, for that is a quick way to a sure break.

9. Thou shalt knoweth and understandeth the rules, and heed Spirit of the Game.

10. Thou shalt support companies who support thy game for which our affection hath an unknown bottom.

Happy Thought

It's Labor Day. 
Attaining Ultimate F L O W should embrace this "non-work" principle.

"Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else."
-- J.M. [James Matthew] Barrie
(creator of Peter Pan, 1860-1937)

To The Point

"Hell is a place where nothing connects with nothing."
-- T. S. Eliot, Introduction to Dante’s Inferno.

Mr. Eliot may as well as been referring to an Ultimate offense that is not catching what is supposed to be caught and not throwing what ought to be thrown.

In the Flow Zone

You want flow on the Ultimate field? Get your individual fill of flow. 

Scientists zap brains to see if it will help trigger 'flow' [WP . 2.13.12]

I am in... in pursuit of an elusive mental state known as "flow" - that feeling of effortless concentration that characterizes outstanding performance in all kinds of skills.

Flow has been maddeningly difficult to pin down, let alone harness, but a wealth of new technologies could soon allow us all to conjure up this state. The plan is to provide a shortcut to virtuosity, slashing the amount of time it takes to master a new skill.

That will be welcome news to anyone embarking on the tortuous road to expertise. ...it normally takes 10,000 hours of practice to become expert in any discipline. Over that time, your brain knits together a wealth of new circuits that eventually allow you to execute the skill automatically, without consciously considering each action.

Flow typically accompanies these actions. It involves a Zenlike feeling of intense concentration, with time seeming to stop as you focus completely on the activity in hand. The experience crops up repeatedly when experts describe what it feels like to be at the top of their game, and with years of practice it becomes second nature to enter that state.

In one groundbreaking study, he interviewed a few hundred talented people, including athletes, artists, chess players, rock climbers and surgeons, enabling him to pin down four key features that characterize flow.

Flow Demo

Albeit in a different sport than Ultimate; the execution of flow remains the same -- Controlled Excitement plus balancing Challenge & Skill. 

Watch Shaun White's perfect 100 run in SuperPipe at Winter X Games 2012:

Flow Chart II

"Wherefore art thou Flow?" The unteachable ultimate goal for an Ultimate offense. Found it! 

The graph below shows FLOW sandwiched between "Arousal" & "Control", and similar to another Chart of Flow charts FLOW based on levels of Challenge and Skill.

Flow-er Power

FLOW-ter

FLOW is not uncharted territory, but looks interesting as photographs.

Phil Nesmith’s “Flow” - a collection of nearly two dozen photographs of this year’s BP oil spill - is an unusual example of hyper-current imagery & positively ancient technology. Nesmith uses the wet-plate collodion method. His rationale for employing the process-it was the standard photographic technique at the time oil was discovered in the U.S. in the 1850s.

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Flow Chart

Do you ever wonder about flow?

Such an important, yet unteachable element of ultimate frisbee! It ain't as pretty, but see below for FLOW - the sweet spot between Skill Level + Task Difficulty. Is this an accurate depiction?

Leafy Flow

Does your brain see the many moving leaves? The brown leaf shapes against a green background make this look as if the entire group is flowing—making waves if you focus on the picture as a whole.