Remember?

You're playing in a game matched up against a far more athletic player: one of those 6'4" hyper-energetic deep cutters and you immediately realize that this isn't going to be fun. You're a short, slow, handler, and the only reason you're matched up against each other is because it just so happens that you're the best players for each of your respective teams.

You try cutting, and you're shut down no matter what you do since your defender's just faster than you. You set up your cuts perfectly, but are shadowed so well that you throw in the towel and abandon your cuts early. Why keep wasting time? You then try your best to keep your defender from poaching off you, and so you cut to make space for your teammates: busting deep as fast as you can hoping he'll take the bait and setting up an easy in-cut for your teammate. You also cut straight for the disc with your defender all the while smelling an easy layout D, hoping the thrower doesn't try to somehow force it to you, the relative playmaker, and will instead see the open deep cut you helped set up.

On defense, you know you're at a huge disadvantage. You force your player in, but know not to dictate too much, because if you're caught on your heels, you'll give up an easy goal. You give him a big cushion and do a good job limiting him to in-cuts for the first few plays, but on the next possession, you fall asleep at the wheel as he just flat-out outruns you to catch an easy huck in the endzone.

Boy, this fucking sucks.

You then realize that although you could help start things for your offense if you can get the disc with a few smart cuts to get some flow going, you're not getting open and it just isn't working. After another bad turnover, they score again.

You're the last player to trudge back to the line, trying to think of something, anything that would help your team string a few points together. You're standing on the line with 6 other teammates who are beginning to lose all hope, and this time, you tell someone on your team to center it to you off the pull.

You get the disc on the first throw after the pull, and your defender, smelling a Callahan, bids trying to intercept that first throw. You narrowly catch it out in front of you as he hits the ground hard, but he gets up almost immediately and begins marking like a madman. He reminds you of a bulldog, as he's got too much energy and just won't quit.

No surprise: there are no open cuts for you to throw to, and so you look dump. But then something changes. The other team calls out "No break! No break!" on the sidelines, recognizing that it's stall 6 and you're the only player on your team capable of breaking anybody and everybody. You get off a quick, far-extension, low-release backhand break to your dump as your opponent yells "Broken!"

In a few seconds, your dump needs you to come get the disc back, and this time you resort to some trickery to beat your defender. With him faceguarding you like there's no tomorrow, you juke hard to the right and bust upfield, calling out "Upline!" to make sure your thrower recognizes that you're open. Your defender's ankles are broken by your juke shoes, but as he tries to get back on the mark, he's a second too late as you've already let out a beautiful, slightly O-I flick huck that carries beautifully until your cutter, who finally recognized the power position, catches it in stride in front of his defender for an easy goal.

Feeling some momentum and hope, you pull the disc, putting the other team further back in their endzone and making them start further back than they have all game. The other team is now beginning to fall apart from miscommunication and mounting frustration, and throws it away on the first throw. As the other team starts yelling at each other as they hastily scramble to get back on D, you trot to the disc with purpose this time, making sure your cutters, who are beginning to get into the moment, are stacked properly. As your marker starts barking, "Stalling one! Two! Three!" far too fast, you get off a quick breakmark forehand off to your dump, and then, channeling your inner George Stubbs, you start your cut almost before you get your throw off. While your mark is still recovering from being broken a second straight time, you milk the swing with a perfectly timed jump to catch the upline give-and-go inside the front cone of the endzone for an easy goal.

As the sideline rushes the field and your teammates smile and high-five like there's no tomorrow, your coach calls a timeout. You walk over slowly to the timeout huddle as your teammates rush past you, slapping you on the back.

You could swear that the water in that huddle is the best you've ever had.

If you're an ultimate player, chances are you've had an experience like this one before, and you know exactly how good this feels.

13 Weeks Post-Op

I've been here in Madrid a week now and it's been wonderful. Big fascinating city, with a lot of culture, history, and fun.

Yesterday, Mateo and I went to Madrid Ultimate's pickup game (Los Quijotes). It was in a big, dry, dusty lot surrounded by graffiti-ed walls (but good European graffiti, not the wack American kind) that was apparently a straight-up anthill. It was literally right behind the building where I have class, and 5 minutes away from my apartment, which are big pluses.

I get there an hour or so late, sneak under the hole in the fence, and get a bunch of awkward stares from the 4s waiting on the line for the pull. I toss a little bit with Mateo and meet this player from En Sabah Nur, the University of Pittsburgh. I also met two other American college kids studying at the Complutense (Universidad de Complutense), and one German transfer student and one French transfer student. From what I heard, most of the players were away at a tournament this weekend, which explains the meager turnout. One of the tired Spanish dudes was yelling at me to play as he was walking back to the line, but I hope he understood what I meant when I said I tore my ACL ("Desgarre los ligamentos de mi rodilla" doesn't quite come out too quick for me yet).

It was a good feeling to toss again, and I think I finally reached the point last season where throwing a disc is automatic. I haven't touched a disc in really four months (WMM doesn't count), and after some initial rustiness, I was chucking it a country mile again. I haven't reached that 10,000 hour benchmark for success yet, but I've definitely spent enough time playing this sport these past several years that throwing plastic is more than second nature to me, there's almost nothing else that feels more natural to me.

Afterwards, some of us went to this cafeteria in a dormitory to get a few beers. It was really interesting playing the whole name game and talking about the latest in ultimate news with the dude from UPitt, and discovering how similar the German ultimate scene is to ours in the states from the German transfer. I'm going to go back to toss and get to know more people this coming Wednesday, and it'll be cool to meet the rest of the team.

In physical therapy news, it's been kind of stagnant. The first few days I'd been here, I didn't really have time to workout, but then when I tried looking for the gym a few days ago, I found out that I need my university ID (and 50 euros) to go to the university gym a few subway stops away. I'm going to go on Tuesday or whenever I get my pass, but I've been stretching and doing some bodyweight workouts these past couple of days.

All in all, good stuff. Send me an email if you want to hear how the other 95% of my life (non-ultimate or physical therapy related) has been the past few days.

And here's an album of Cornell's invite. Lots of smiling faces of our guys. I'm happy.

11 Weeks Post-Op

Since my last post, I've gotten a lot of feedback in response to my announcement. Although I've already said it personally to you guys, thanks for all your support. It's been really wonderful.

I threw out my back two weeks ago while deadlifting, bad enough that that day, I got pangs of pain doing just about anything (shows you how important your core is). I had a similar injury lifting this past winter, and not only is it painful and debilitating, it's a fucking pain considering I don't know why it keeps happening. I'm pretty sure I keep proper form, I was lifting light loads to prevent exactly this from happening, I've been doing a lot of core work lately, and it was pretty scary since I was initially afraid that it'd be serious.

But surprisingly enough, in just a few days, I felt back to normal. It only took about 4-5 days for me to not feel any more fatigue, and it's pretty much fine now. It makes me wonder if all I did was strain a back muscle instead of any kind of structural damage, which indeed would have been bad news bears (and probably would have been way more serious). Still, I hope this doesn't become a chronic problem, and I'm either going to stop deadlifting forever or get a trainer to work with me on this.

I have to admit that lately, I've been slacking on the PT. Part of my excuse is that I've been taking it super easy since the back problem, just stretching and spending a lot of time on the bike instead. Another part is that since I've been at home, I haven't had all the equipment I had at my PT place, making it more difficult to do all the exercises. Yet another reason is that I haven't really felt much urgency. Without a clear light at the end of the tunnel, the way I see it, my recovery will get done in a matter or time, and what's a few days either way?

...further proof that goal-setting is integral in getting things done. Don't follow my example.

You know what sucks? Not being able to run or even jog. A few times, I've forgotten that I'm still rehabbing and I've tried to quickly cross the street or make a bus, only to find that my leg isn't entirely willing yet to move faster than walking speed. Being able to get from place to place at only one speed (read: slow) kinda sucks more than you know. Obviously, it's not as bad as feeling pain every time you move your leg or not being able to sleep due to pain, but it's a constant reminder that as normal and healthy I may seem to some random stranger in the street, I'm not all there yet.

Three more months.