Thoughts on Cutting

Cutting serves as one of Ultimate's most fundamental and important skills. With well-made cuts, you can win even if your team doesn't have dominant throws. A familiar refrain on the Jojah offense the last two years has been, "beat them with our legs." That said, here are a few cutting philosophies from frisbee players and elite athletes which I try to apply. I apologize for the Jojah-centrism of this article, but my lack of interaction with great cutters outside of UGA requires it.

"Cut Mean": Greg Swanson relayed this to me. He heard it in a Terrell Owens interview. Whatever your opinions on TO, the man makes a living cutting up some of the best defensive athletes in the world; we would do well to listen to anything he says. There are a lot of ways this idea is phrased. I use "cut downhill", Coach AJ Tiarsmith repeats "just get the disc", and I've heard a ton of others("beat him to the cone", "don't be denied", etc.). It seems to me to be the most basic advice on cutting: when you cut, just get open. Sometimes, we hold back just a little bit when we're running cuts; we're not a hundred percent sure that we're going to get open. TO tells us to BE a hundred percent sure. Swanson gets a look of such determination on his face when he's cutting that you know he's going to get open. It's a matter of having aggression and a mentally tough approach to the game, and it's a piece of advice that, despite its obviousness, many of us stand to learn from.

"Run Forever", aka "The Louis": Louis, the standout Jojah receiver, owes much of his unheralded cutting success to phenomenal (yet somehow underrated) athleticism and field presence. But he's able to maximize those abilities by simply never stopping. In this, a cut from Louis is never "shut down"; if a defender stops an in-cut, Louis turns it into a set-up for a deep cut. Every step Louis takes brings him closer to openness. In fact, the most consistently effective cut I've ever seen is also among the simplest: Louis runs deep, his defender commits to the deep throw, Louis cuts under, Louis gets the disc. It is effective because Lou turns the corner better and faster and more sharply than just about anybody, but it is unstoppable because the defender must overcommit to the deep (otherwise, easy goal). By the end of a point guarding Louis, it feels like riding a bull--his movement is so constant that keeping him shut down the whole time is simply impossible.

"Break the String": this comes from Jerry Rice. Rice was never the fastest or the most athletic receiver in the NFL, yet he's widely considered to be not just the best all-time at his position but also the greatest player at ANY position the league has ever seen. When asked how he gets open, Rice said that he imagines a string on his chest connecting him to his defender. To get open, he visualizes breaking the string through jukes, fakes, and hard route-running. This brings up an interesting point: one common link among elite athletes in team sports seems to be their ability to utilize visualization. These athletes see themselves accomplish something, then they do it. Their success indicates that they might be onto something; we should try to follow their lead.

"Beat Him with Your Shoulder" (aka, "The Great Name" philosophy): Ben Bain is the king of this concept. An undersized former Jojah receiver lacking in blazing speed, Bain is revered around the frisbee fields of Athens for his constant ability to get open on open-side in-cuts. I asked him about it once, and he said it's all about positioning--just find a way to get your outside shoulder in front of the inside of the defender. (So, if they're forcing flick, get your left shoulder around your defender's right side.) From this position, you've got the inside track. The thrower just needs to give you a good lead, and you'll get it every time, because the defender must now go THROUGH you to get the d.

That's what I've learned and try to apply from TO, Jerry Rice, Louis G., Ben Bain, and Swanie. Do any of y'all--especially other successful cutters--have tools or strategies YOU use to get open? Dusty, Noah, Paul, Frank, others? Please post them in the comments; insights from these guys has proven invaluable, and I need all the help I can get.

Amble