Tournaments!

This weekend we've got a tournament in Rexburg, Idaho. It's Sectionals for the fall club season. BYU is going by the alias Madd Dogg. It's kind of a shout out to a freshman player from last year that really came on the scene and made a difference (Austin Alpeter). We adopted the name for our club team after he left for his mission.

I believe the order of tournaments in the collegiate circuit is Sectionals, Regionals, Nationals. Unfortunately, BYU is disqualified from ever participating in Nationals because of Sunday play. In fact, we rarely make it out of Regionals because of our Sunday forfeits. BYU as a school requires all of it's athletics to avoid Sunday play, which is fine for other sports that keep their tournaments off Sundays, but USAU, the NCAA of Ultimate, has yet to recognize the need to do this. Our goal as a team is to make a big enough splash in the college scene to warrant a consideration of suspending Sunday play.

At our opening team meeting, Bryce Merrill, volunteer coach of Y Mens Ultimate, communicated his goal of breaking the top 25 in our USAU collegiate rankings this year. Last season BYU peaked at number 28 before dropping due to Sunday forfeits. We lost some key players, but many players have stepped up like Jacob Redford, Nate Freystätter, and Cody de la Rosa. They've really picked up their games since last season, and we may not miss a beat. I truly believe that our program should be in the top 10. We shouldn't settle for anything less. With our Sunday losses, it may be impossible. We will break the top 25 this year.

Anyways, back to Rexburg. We are going to drive up on Saturday morning (4 hr drive) and play 3 games, then drive back home. If we play well, we will have no problem winning ANY of our games. We are a very very very talented team that I haven't seen the equal to when we are at our prime.

Here is the schedule: http://scores.usaultimate.org/scores/#open/tournament/13192

I will Update on here as soon as we finish.

Injury Update/ What do you want?

I wanted to start off with an injury update: I am back on the field at partial speed. I'm running at roughly 75% of my full speed. After a week and a half, the injury had not changed very much, which worried me. So, I went in to see the doctor. He recommended that we do some x-rays, which came back negative. He was able to show me in the x-rays where blood is pooling in my knee, as well as where some of my ligaments are calcifying. He said not to worry about that. Overall, his diagnoses was KNEE TENDONITIS. I was shocked at first, but then he told me that I should take three days off, three days of partial activity, and be back to playing again. I am soooo thankful for that!

After my own reevaluations as I have been coming back from the injury, I have determined it to be more definitely identified as IT BAND SYNDROME, which is less ambiguous, especially with treatment. I have since been doing special stretching to alleviate the symptoms. Here are some of the videos I recommend:

Since the injury, I have been adding a morning short stretching routine, followed by a nightly 15 minute stretch. I have been stretching specifically my hip flexors and IT band in the morning, and my hamstrings, groin, and thighs at night. I think it will help me to avoid injury during this season. My biggest weakness in Ultimate has been being able to stay on the field. I will keep you updated as the season progresses by tagging my posts with the tag or label of "Injuries."

I also wanted to say a little about knowing what you want. I often think of our existences having two sides to them: Our desires, and our actions. I often find that the happiest people in the world are those whose desires match their actions almost exactly. When they feel that they ought to do something, they do it. It brings happiness because it avoids the sinking feelings of regret and shame. On the reverse, I have found that people who say they will do something or feel that they ought to and subsequently don't, are always feeling regretful and unhappy.

This principle applies to sports and Ultimate. If I feel like I need to spend time outside of practice working on my low-release forehands and I don't, It creates athletic unhappiness and athletic regret, where your body feels like dragging itself down. I notice that when I realize that I need to work on something and I spend the time outside of practice making it to the gym, or throwing with a buddy, or going on a run, I am always ready to perform at an elite level when the time comes.

That's it for today. GO CHI!