[Christian Schneider]

I assume the intention of adding “focused on” to the definition of guarding should make it clearer that a defending player cannot claim guarding a player while poaching (Pick) or being part of a defence cup e.g. facing the disc instead of the player while crashing (Double Team).

As this is an addition to the rules all previous instances of Pick or Double Team are unchanged. I would hope that it helps the discussion about Pick / Double Team but time will tell.

It is somewhat similar to the addition about jumping / diving related to the question of who created the contact. I like the addition but we will see if it works as intended.

[Christian Schneider]

I think there are two sides to this issue:
– Who is the target for the Advanced test? Maybe forcing players on a beginner to medium level with little game experience to take the Advanced test is not the right approach due to the problems mentioned above, that is something which has to be reevaluated. The way I saw the Advanced test used originally was mainly for international competitions like Worlds and I think to this day there are questions in the test focusing on difference in rules (USAUltimate vs. WFDF) and addressing cultural differences in rules interpretation.
– I’d be in favour of making the test more engaging but I would be careful with video parts: I’ve spent too many hours looking at learning videos containing very little relevant information (*cough* WADA *cough*). Keeping videos short and to the point would be very important to me.

But I totally agree that the self-refereeing part of Ultimate is a unique selling point and I’d encourage WFDF to spend some resources on making the rules as accessible as possible, even if that means hiring professional writers / learning experts.

[Christian Schneider]

+1

[Christian Schneider]

+1

[Christian Schneider]

I am arguing for the opposite:
1. I would like to bring the brick mark up to the mid-point of the central zone and
2. I would even consider allowing going to the brick if a pull rolls out.

Reasoning: The Pull is supposed to start the game, not be the first stoppage. And any player can put have the pull stay inside the field if they really want to, even in windy conditions.

History: In the late 90s the brick mark was only 9m in front of the end zone and a lot of teams didn’t care and just pulled out of bounds to be able to set up the D. The community found that counter-productive (both from a player’s as well as a spectator’s perspective) and decided to increase the penalty for out-of-bound pulls. Now 20 years later we are back to square one and I’m proposing to reevaluate the idea of the Pull and possibly increase the penalty again.

[Christian Schneider]

-1, I’d rather see a change to allow substitutes during time-outs to make time-outs more valuable. I sincerely do not believe that time-outs are stopping the flow of the game, there are many other reasons (like out-of-bounds pulls or marking infractions) causing break-of-flow, I’d rather address those.

[Christian Schneider]

My main argument against this is that this completely ruins the game for beginner to mid-level players: If you double team a beginner they will not be able to get a pass off.

Now you could argue that you could only play this at the elite level but this creates all sorts of new problems and I’m very much in favor of playing by the same rules no matter the level.

[Christian Schneider]

There are two reasons I do not want to change this:
– An offense player could then use another defender to pick’n’roll to get free, defensive players cannot always avoid that. Right now more and more people tend to cut very close around the marker and I think not enough Picks are currently called for this.
– More importantly: The Pick rules was introduced to avoid collisions and it does not matter who would collide. All players having to avoid picks reduces injuries which IMHO has priority.

[Christian Schneider]

+1

[Christian Schneider]

I would propose another approach: Double the “disc space” to something like 0.5 meters and reduce the stall count to 7.
Close marks are causing too many stoppages and are IMHO not effective against a good thrower anyway.

Quick look at history: The WUCC 2002 Open final between two US teams had 37 marking infraction stoppages in the first half time alone and soon after that the US rules where adapted and the players changed their marking behavior. This is something which should be done across the globe.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Christian Schneider.

[Christian Schneider]

+1

PS: I think we should also add a gender marker to the score board to keep track of ABBA, similar to the counters for time-outs. This would simplify things at the (IMHO minimal) cost of having to move one more thing when scoring a point.

[Christian Schneider]

Doing nothing about it leaves me with the problem that
a) People look confused / get angry when I call such a travel
b) Almost nobody calls it but more people start doing this move.

Which leaves me wondering if the community wants to change it or if I should ignore it like everybody else.

[Christian Schneider]

The field being smaller I think it is well possible to keep it in bounds, even with the sliding. But that requires skill again which you are a big fan of I thought 😉
It would require to people to focus on hang time instead of getting as close to the edges of the field but I’m not against that.

[Christian Schneider]

One argument for changing the rule would be to keep indoor and beach rules (where the rule change could be considered more beneficial) in line with the main outdoor rules.
But I agree that so far there was little thought spent on this but over time the issue might come up again, and then you heard it here first 🙂

[Christian Schneider]

I don’t agree with the “require sufficient skill on a full grass field that I’m OK with them being rewarded” argument for the following reasons:
– The pulls I’ve seen aimed for a 2/3 of the field reach, that’s around 40m and I (being a medium level thrower) can do that, i.e. skill level medium
– Throwing out of the back requires more skill but we still deem it undesirable and punish it with the brick option
– Done badly it can bend/damage the disc

Interestingly enough the videos on both your articles

Pulling, Part 3 – Blades

and especially

Pulling, Part 4 – Rollers

illustrate what I’m talking about:
Do you really think the stop of play and setup time after the pull makes for an exciting game or would you rather have the game start immediately like in the “bad” first pull in the video on the later page?

On the other hand I don’t think keeping the pull stay in the field is that big a deal and if it requires skill then by your argument should be rewarded. I very much like your thoughts at

On Pulling for Distance

that a good pull doesn’t only have to be about length and hang time can be more important.