UTalkRaw: Ultimate Frisbee Conversations

Benji Heywood is back on the show answering a great question about coaching from a listener.

Benji shared his story of building a career as a professional coach back in Episode 1 and since then he has started the excellent UnderstandingUltimate blog.

In this episode we start with a listener question about how to diagnose & fix mistakes when coaching Ultimate players. We really deep dive into the discussion to try and answer the question in as much detail as possible.

In this episode I talk to Brady Meisenhelder from pulleddisc.com about coaching and improving your and your player's skills.

I came across Brady's excellent coaching videos on pulleddisc.com via the wonderful Melissa Witmer - so huge thanks to Melissa! (you can hear Melissa on Episode 20 of UTalkRaw).  

The discussion with Brady about his background as a player and a coach and his approach to Ultimate coaching is really fascinating. I believe it will be valuable to anyone leading, coaching or captaining an Ultimate Frisbee team. 

This week I talk to the legend that is Simon Hill, CEO of UK Ultimate. We chat about UK Ultimate's strategic plan and the future of Ultimate in the UK. UK Ultimate is the national governing for our sport in the UK and Si is the driving force behind it. Si is also chair of the WFDF Ultimate committee as well as on the Rules, Spirit and championships for WFDF! Oh, and he plays too. In this episode though we talk about UK Ultimate. Why the organisation exists, what it does and the existing goals laid out in the new UK Ultimate strategic plan. Listen to hear Si explain the full details and find out how to get involved! Links for this show:

• UK Ultimate
• UK Ultimate's Strategic plan

For this show I've finally managed to corner the ever busy Mark Earley. Mark is the dynamic force behind ultimateinterviews.com and has been an integral part of the Irish Ultimate scene for many years. This is a fascinating episode, Mark reveals the huge amount of energy and time that he puts into making Ultimate Interviews the amazing site that it is. He also mentions some of the interviews that have had the most impact for him personally. We then discuss some of his many other Ultimate related commitments; including as a player and coach! Links for this show:

• Ultimate Interviews
• Get Horizontal
• Furious Ultimate
• The Show Game

This episode I have the huge pleasure of welcoming "Ultimate Rob" on to the show. I'm really excited about this interview and I hope you find it interesting too. Rob McLeod is a disc sports competitor living in Alberta, Canada. He competes in ultimate frisbee, disc golf, dog disc and overall flying disc competitions. Rob currently holds 9 World Records (which includes 2 Guinness World Records) and has won 3 World Championships. Rob founded ultimaterob.com in 2009. Listen out for a UTalkRaw exclusive scoop in this episode!  We are delighted to have Rob share some news with UTalkRaw before anyone else... Links mentioned in this show:

• Ultimate Rob
• Melissa, Ultimate Results
• The Future Of Ultimate: UCPC Panel Discussion
• Rise Up Ultimate
• Savage Ultimate Apparel
• Skyd Magazine

This episode is a little different. I have invited Felix Shardlow back on the show and we discuss 8 simple things that will make you a better Ultimate coach. For our purposes a "coach" is anyone who organises or runs training sessions for an Ultimate team or club of any level; you could be the captain, training coordinator, team coach or just the guy or gal who gets landed with the job of running training. Now many of you will (or indeed should) be familiar with advice such as plan-do-review or attended coaching courses so we will not be discussing much of that; we have assumed you are already planning your training sessions, writing things down and so on. Instead we have tried to identify some of those little tips and tricks which are easy to implement and could have a huge impact on your coaching! I hope that if you are a coach that you will find it fun and interesting. Please do get in touch if you think we have missed something vital or if you disagree with anything we say! PS If you haven't yet listened to episode 9 where Felix explains how he combines coaching, videos, events and playing to live the Ultimate life - then you need to check that out!

This episode was recorded on Mothers day in the UK and international Womens day has just happened. I mention this because in this episode we are talking about Womens Ultimate; and specifically about recruiting and keeping female players. I have the great pleasure of welcoming Saz and Jen from Nice Bristols - one of the largest and most consistently successful womens clubs in the UK. Links mentioned in this show:

• Nice Bristols Website
• Nice Bristols on Twitter

Today we are talking about rule number 1 - Spirit of the Game. I have the great honour of speaking to Wayne Davey & Alize 'Bob' Clough from the UK Ultimate Spirit of The Game committee. We talk about the purpose and role of the UK Ultimate SOTG committee, some of the things they are introducing as well as the international picture and the WFDF Spirit Committee. “The integrity of Ultimate depends on each player's responsibility to uphold the Spirit of the Game, and this responsibility should remain paramount." Links mentioned in this show:

• UK Ultimate SOTG Committee
• WFDF SPIRIT OF THE GAME
• WFDF downloads

This episode is with Felix Shardlow, he talks about living a life focused around Ultimate with income from coaching and his video production company, Push Pass. Felix was a founding father of Brighton Ultimate in 2004, part of the team that won mixed Euros in 2009, played for Clapham (open nationals gold, euros silver) and GB Open (euros silver) in 2011. He also coached the Mohawks team that won Uni open and women's nationals in both 2011 and 2012. Here are two of the links mentioned in this episode: riseupultimate.com and Ultimate Techniques and Tactics book.

In this episode I am once again speaking to Liam Kelly, who is "Coaching and Development Manager" at UK Ultimate.  This time we are chatting about the UK coach education courses and the importance of great coaching.