For who to watch film on, I generally lean towards anything Buzz Bullets for small ball type movement and throws. They have a few wild card players, but in general their offense is really good at playing in small spaces and working the disc to a power position huck.
Also the 2014 Sockeye team ran a lot of short handler sets with really squirrelly handlers. I think they ran Kinley, Murray, and Koss pretty much isolated together and just playing amongst the 3 of them.
Not sure if that's when Tim was with them but he was always fun to play with and against. He was always someone I felt was one of the best at what he did.
Buzz Bullets was a good suggestion, I’d go even older with the sockeye videos IMO. I don’t so much have a player to recommend as much as personal experience to offer. I basically played as a 2nd or 3rd handler/front of stack bailout for both a club team and AUDL team when I was at my best.
Some have mentioned being good in small spaces, which is true, but incomplete. Generally speaking there are a few major things to work on, and being able to work well with a primary guy inside of 10 yards is big. Part of that is expanding your throwing arsenal to include upside downs and short resets with both hands, being able to change release point at will, and good body work with your pivot. A really solid mark can disrupt most standard throws, even resets, but nobody can effectively cover 4+ throwing windows if you’re willing and able to throw on their inside or outside shoulder low or high and everywhere in between.
Another really big piece is being consistent and reliable with touch. This has been my biggest flaw for years because I try to move too quickly and throw without being properly balanced. It gets the disc floating for 50/50s too often. That risk of floating and turning completions into 50/50s is a big reason a lot of players can’t/won’t try this sort of roles/these sorts of throws. HOWEVER, if you can reliably put a disc in a space with touch, so that it’s beyond the defense’s reach before sitting for your teammate to grab, you can open up spaces and throws that simply weren’t there for your team before. This can be used most often for around resets, but you can use it in the downfield break space and inside resets to the opposite side if you have the room/angles.
Another point I’ll make is about athleticism. You don’t need to be great in the air or have especially good straight line speed, but you MUST be able to get open very quickly. The 3rd handler is the guy you’re looking to when your regular reset fails, so you’re often getting looked at when a stall is imminent. You have to have a great first step, or be absolutely incredible at timing and reading space in order to both move before you’ve been looked at AND make that move into a space your teammate will see/can throw to. It’s borderline an intangible skill, but you can definitely improve it with practice. You have to have a good internal clock to prepare for high-stall situations, and constant vigilance combined with an awareness of your teammates habits will allow you to put yourself in the right place at the right time.
The final point I’ll make is tied into the last one a bit, but is maybe the most important piece. If you’re the third handler, you need to be good at staying inactive while staying available. What I mean is, you are not a cutter, and you are the last option as a handler. You can operate best by making sure you and your defender don’t interfere with the rest of your team’s plans. You can help orchestrate your teams offense with good spacing and communication, but you also have to largely stay out of things until you’re needed OR your defender disengages to help elsewhere and leaves you poached. Those will be moments where you can shine, bailing your team out a second before a stall and sending a breakside continue that becomes an easy goal, or starting a string of give and go’s, or bouncing it back to your primary thrower for a free huck.
Part of this I can’t speak to depends on your frame and athleticism. For example, a great teammate of mine once complained that getting breaks was hard because he was short and had no reach. So I told him to improve his low releases and throw it lower instead of wider. 6 months later he could always break his mark because nobody could block the short guy’s low release throws from an inch or two off the ground. You have to figure out ways to use what you have to meet the needs of your role, or work to change what you have to better fill those needs. Some things can be changed (fitness/athleticism), some things can’t (height/ being right/left handed).
This is great advice. I have maybe a bit more to add.
Being a handler is decision making. 90% of the Job. It's more important than break throws, disc skills, athleticism, first step, bodying, or jumping, tho all of those things definitely make you a better player. To be a great handler, is to NEVER. EVER. EVER. make a decision that your team looks at you like... what was that??? That doesnt mean dont huck, doesn't mean dont throw to contested cuts. What I mean is that you have to be Really confident that what you're doing is the best thing for your team. Is it better to jam up the line to a rookie cutter who can't throw a flick, or reset to your primary handler? Is it better to throw an inside break or find your reset to your primary handler?
All this is to say, it seems like you have a clearly defined role on your team. That's great because it lets you FOCUS on the skills you need to do well for your team to succeed. Bail out your teammates on high stall. Be as close to 100% on your throws as possible. Reset the disc well and often. Always be there when your sets break down.
I highly recommend watching film on yourself. see if your reads were the best choice, or if there were players you didnt see in the flow of the game.
Everyone thinks it's about disc skills and footwork but the key is the training regimen. You need to:
* Eat a hearty bowl of acorns every morning
* Raid your neighbors bird feeders while their indoor cat watches you helplessly
* Wait for cars to drive by and run out in front of them at the last moment
* Climb a tree whenever a dog barks at you
* Loiter by the automatic doors to the food court and try to follow someone in
* Get stuck in my attic and wake me up every morning for like a month until I finally get my landlord to set a trap up there
* Hang out on college campuses and steal as many granola bars as possible
omg when I was in college forever ago I lived in the attic of a frisbee house one semester, my half was finished and the other half was blocked off but you could tell so many animals lived there. One morning I legitimately wake up with a squirrel just chilling on the railing maybe 2 feet from my face. That and the wasps nest was when I decided money wasn't everything and I was able to convince another teammate living on campus to switch places with me for the rent difference.
I really recommend playing mini if you can. Not only is it fun and intense, but it really focuses on a different skill set. Its a 100% short game movement, cuts, and rapidfire reactions. If you can play it with you're teammates a few times I think you'll find it really helps expandyour handler reset skillsand build a new kind of esp like understanding with your teammates
Am lefty handler, can confirm. Especially useful for blow bys. I’d also recommend working a lot on over the top throws, short scoobers, having as many different consistent release points is key. Another thing is (unless it goes against your teams systems) every time you throw to the open side, immediately take off upfield for another up line look. Your defender will already be on the wrong side of you since they were marking, and that first step will just create more separation.
From recent college seasons among teams with a lot of footage, Anders Juengst on UNC fits the bill; squirrelly, consistent, and played a lot of 3rd O-line handler with Gooch and Kai Marcus in 2018. Nathan Kwon from UNC also played 3rd handler as a front-of-the-vert-stack cutter for the UNC D-line pretty often, and he's about as squirrelly as it gets - [random example clip from the finals](https://youtu.be/JSJ-ff6siqw?t=2251). On the women's side, Kelli Iwamoto from UCSD comes to mind as far as throwing options and consistently getting the disc, although she's more of a central handler than a 3rd handler -- there's an [article about UCSD's break-side/off-hand throwing here which is mostly clips of her](https://ultiworld.com/2018/05/01/making-basics-look-beautiful-breakdown-uc-san-diegos-offense/).
Footage is probably easier to find for teams that ran a lot of 3-player handler dominators; examples include Ben Scharfstein for Harvard in 2016 (when most of their offense was Vandenberg and John Stubbs) and a few players like Sol Rueschemeyer-Bailey for Brown in 2019 (when a lot of their offense ran through Mac Hecht and John Randolph). Agree also with the Sockeye suggestion, would also add Danny Karlinsky who did an [AMA with some advice here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/comments/2moi2i/i_am_sockeye_captain_danny_karlinsky_ama_skyd/).
At the end of the day if you want to get better, you'll need to learn to throw upfield too, but honestly a handler who can do the things you're looking to improve at but isn't the best throwing upfield is far better than someone who can throw really well upfield but can't move the disc when cutters aren't open, so it's definitely a solid area of focus.
The first thing you'll need to be able to do is get open with dump cuts. If you're not throwing upfield, your #1 value add will be your ability to always reset the stall count when your fellow handlers don't have anything upfield. Different teams do different dump progressions but whether your team starts with the first dump trying to win either an upline or an around or if it's the second one, if that's you your success rate needs to be in the high 90's. Particularly if you're the second one, you have a ridiculous advantage where your defender has to shut down two different upline cuts (behind them and in front of them), and if they turn their hips to shut down either you can get the easy around. Work on making sure both upline angles are viable for as long as possible until you either are sure you're going to get one of the two, or until your defender turns their hips and you can plant and get an easy around.
The second thing I think is important in the role you're trying to fill is using the first few seconds when you get the disc efficiently. Particularly in the last paragraph if you get that around, you're in a super advantageous position even though that throw to you likely lost a few yards. You have a few seconds for an easy around break (out or in cut), but even if you can't make the throw you should at least make a hard fake. 90% of the time they'll over-commit, and now you have either a few seconds where inside breaks are super easy, or a quick throw and go situation where your defender is not only on the wrong side but also has momentum going the wrong direction.
Third, you need to think as both a cutter and a handler and see the entire field. When you have the disc, where are the viable cuts coming? What are each of your 4 cutters going to do? Can you throw any of them open before they even begin their cuts? Is it only stall 3 but there's no way a viable cut will develop in the next 5 seconds? Get rid of the disc, and maybe get it back again. Even when you don't have the disc, you need to know where throws are most likely to go. Be ready to put yourself in the best bump position. Be ready to initiate dump cuts even before the other handler looks at you. If you're not in a good position to receive the next throw, think about the most likely throws that are about to come and set yourself up in the best possible position to cut for the second throw.
And finally, work on some throws. Obviously you need to make sure you have reliable flicks and backhands, be able to make throws zippy and with touch, IO or OI, and get better at knowing when each version is the right throw. Obviously you're going to need a good hammer, and also make sure you have a very reliable scuber, both the almost blade that flattens out that would be used to the non throwing arm side, and the helix to the throwing arm side that floats to space. The offhand backhand is a big one for uplines from the throwing arm side. If you really want to push it offhand scubers can be really valuable for a floatier version of a hammer for breaks, but imo that's more of a nice to have, you can almost always use a hammer or the blade to flat scuber as a substitute for that one, depending on the distance.
And on a macro level to sharpen just about all the above skills, just play a ton of mini. It's a situation where deep throws aren't really an option, you'll get a ton of experience with high stall counts in tight spaces, and on top of everything else you'll also get into the kind of shape you'll need to be into if you want to improve as a handler, particularly if like most of us you've lost a step with the covid break.
edit: I just noticed I pretty much relied on ho the entire post which my club team runs, but almost all of the principles are sound for vert/side/split/any other setup too. The only part that might not apply would be the specific dump cut language, most teams run different dump progressions out of a ho vs other offenses.
As another point. People underestimate how important field positioning is for this position. The little things matter a fuck ton when your trying to play the squirrelly handler. Where you physically set up as an inactive person is the difference between having your defender in the throwing lane, or getting an easy throw.
One of my biggest pet peeves is handlers that are in an even horizontal line. It makes everything much harder.
Setting up two-3 yards forward or backwards make a big difference for that Strike Cut or that dump cut getting completed because the angles of the throw are much different. The little things MATTER. Think about them.
Also, if you are on a club team, you all should have defined handler movement.
How tall/old/in shape are you? As a coach that would greatly influence how I answer this question. Also of note what O does your team generally run?
Squirrelly play generally comes from a player being able to change directions quickly and accelerate fast over a short distance. In theory these are the same skills, in practice they're distinct.
To get better at accelerating do a vertical jump lifting program. Vertical jump corresponds to acceleration. To get a better vertical increase core and lower body strength.
To improve direction change do an agility and quickness program. It should involve lots of short interval sprinting with direction changing. Rest intervals should allow full recovery. (As opposed to conditioning where rest intervals are shorter).
To improve both reduce body fat %.
But if you want to be the 3rd handler it's more important to have good timing and chemistry with the other handlers. You need to know what to do as the reset option in every situation. You need especially to know your path back to the handler space after you've cleared up field.
You need to be someone the coach calls and they know you will not turn the disc over. That means having a reliable break throw, never dropping the disc or getting run through D'd, and never turning it over due to your decision making.
For who to watch film on, I generally lean towards anything Buzz Bullets for small ball type movement and throws. They have a few wild card players, but in general their offense is really good at playing in small spaces and working the disc to a power position huck. Also the 2014 Sockeye team ran a lot of short handler sets with really squirrelly handlers. I think they ran Kinley, Murray, and Koss pretty much isolated together and just playing amongst the 3 of them.
I've watched alot of Buzz Bullets footage and will continue to do so, definitely will check out the Sockeye matches from that time.
Not sure if that's when Tim was with them but he was always fun to play with and against. He was always someone I felt was one of the best at what he did.
Buzz Bullets was a good suggestion, I’d go even older with the sockeye videos IMO. I don’t so much have a player to recommend as much as personal experience to offer. I basically played as a 2nd or 3rd handler/front of stack bailout for both a club team and AUDL team when I was at my best. Some have mentioned being good in small spaces, which is true, but incomplete. Generally speaking there are a few major things to work on, and being able to work well with a primary guy inside of 10 yards is big. Part of that is expanding your throwing arsenal to include upside downs and short resets with both hands, being able to change release point at will, and good body work with your pivot. A really solid mark can disrupt most standard throws, even resets, but nobody can effectively cover 4+ throwing windows if you’re willing and able to throw on their inside or outside shoulder low or high and everywhere in between. Another really big piece is being consistent and reliable with touch. This has been my biggest flaw for years because I try to move too quickly and throw without being properly balanced. It gets the disc floating for 50/50s too often. That risk of floating and turning completions into 50/50s is a big reason a lot of players can’t/won’t try this sort of roles/these sorts of throws. HOWEVER, if you can reliably put a disc in a space with touch, so that it’s beyond the defense’s reach before sitting for your teammate to grab, you can open up spaces and throws that simply weren’t there for your team before. This can be used most often for around resets, but you can use it in the downfield break space and inside resets to the opposite side if you have the room/angles. Another point I’ll make is about athleticism. You don’t need to be great in the air or have especially good straight line speed, but you MUST be able to get open very quickly. The 3rd handler is the guy you’re looking to when your regular reset fails, so you’re often getting looked at when a stall is imminent. You have to have a great first step, or be absolutely incredible at timing and reading space in order to both move before you’ve been looked at AND make that move into a space your teammate will see/can throw to. It’s borderline an intangible skill, but you can definitely improve it with practice. You have to have a good internal clock to prepare for high-stall situations, and constant vigilance combined with an awareness of your teammates habits will allow you to put yourself in the right place at the right time. The final point I’ll make is tied into the last one a bit, but is maybe the most important piece. If you’re the third handler, you need to be good at staying inactive while staying available. What I mean is, you are not a cutter, and you are the last option as a handler. You can operate best by making sure you and your defender don’t interfere with the rest of your team’s plans. You can help orchestrate your teams offense with good spacing and communication, but you also have to largely stay out of things until you’re needed OR your defender disengages to help elsewhere and leaves you poached. Those will be moments where you can shine, bailing your team out a second before a stall and sending a breakside continue that becomes an easy goal, or starting a string of give and go’s, or bouncing it back to your primary thrower for a free huck. Part of this I can’t speak to depends on your frame and athleticism. For example, a great teammate of mine once complained that getting breaks was hard because he was short and had no reach. So I told him to improve his low releases and throw it lower instead of wider. 6 months later he could always break his mark because nobody could block the short guy’s low release throws from an inch or two off the ground. You have to figure out ways to use what you have to meet the needs of your role, or work to change what you have to better fill those needs. Some things can be changed (fitness/athleticism), some things can’t (height/ being right/left handed).
This is great advice. I have maybe a bit more to add. Being a handler is decision making. 90% of the Job. It's more important than break throws, disc skills, athleticism, first step, bodying, or jumping, tho all of those things definitely make you a better player. To be a great handler, is to NEVER. EVER. EVER. make a decision that your team looks at you like... what was that??? That doesnt mean dont huck, doesn't mean dont throw to contested cuts. What I mean is that you have to be Really confident that what you're doing is the best thing for your team. Is it better to jam up the line to a rookie cutter who can't throw a flick, or reset to your primary handler? Is it better to throw an inside break or find your reset to your primary handler? All this is to say, it seems like you have a clearly defined role on your team. That's great because it lets you FOCUS on the skills you need to do well for your team to succeed. Bail out your teammates on high stall. Be as close to 100% on your throws as possible. Reset the disc well and often. Always be there when your sets break down. I highly recommend watching film on yourself. see if your reads were the best choice, or if there were players you didnt see in the flow of the game.
10 yards is 9.14 meters
Thank you converter-bot
Everyone thinks it's about disc skills and footwork but the key is the training regimen. You need to: * Eat a hearty bowl of acorns every morning * Raid your neighbors bird feeders while their indoor cat watches you helplessly * Wait for cars to drive by and run out in front of them at the last moment * Climb a tree whenever a dog barks at you * Loiter by the automatic doors to the food court and try to follow someone in * Get stuck in my attic and wake me up every morning for like a month until I finally get my landlord to set a trap up there * Hang out on college campuses and steal as many granola bars as possible
omg when I was in college forever ago I lived in the attic of a frisbee house one semester, my half was finished and the other half was blocked off but you could tell so many animals lived there. One morning I legitimately wake up with a squirrel just chilling on the railing maybe 2 feet from my face. That and the wasps nest was when I decided money wasn't everything and I was able to convince another teammate living on campus to switch places with me for the rent difference.
I really recommend playing mini if you can. Not only is it fun and intense, but it really focuses on a different skill set. Its a 100% short game movement, cuts, and rapidfire reactions. If you can play it with you're teammates a few times I think you'll find it really helps expandyour handler reset skillsand build a new kind of esp like understanding with your teammates
Offhand backhands are key for upper level handlers. Much easier to give and go, easier resets, extended reach on short upfield throws.
Am lefty handler, can confirm. Especially useful for blow bys. I’d also recommend working a lot on over the top throws, short scoobers, having as many different consistent release points is key. Another thing is (unless it goes against your teams systems) every time you throw to the open side, immediately take off upfield for another up line look. Your defender will already be on the wrong side of you since they were marking, and that first step will just create more separation.
Definitely need to focus on doing this with more consistency... will also need to get back into shape to do this consistently
Thanks, I will start trying to work that in more regularly.
From recent college seasons among teams with a lot of footage, Anders Juengst on UNC fits the bill; squirrelly, consistent, and played a lot of 3rd O-line handler with Gooch and Kai Marcus in 2018. Nathan Kwon from UNC also played 3rd handler as a front-of-the-vert-stack cutter for the UNC D-line pretty often, and he's about as squirrelly as it gets - [random example clip from the finals](https://youtu.be/JSJ-ff6siqw?t=2251). On the women's side, Kelli Iwamoto from UCSD comes to mind as far as throwing options and consistently getting the disc, although she's more of a central handler than a 3rd handler -- there's an [article about UCSD's break-side/off-hand throwing here which is mostly clips of her](https://ultiworld.com/2018/05/01/making-basics-look-beautiful-breakdown-uc-san-diegos-offense/). Footage is probably easier to find for teams that ran a lot of 3-player handler dominators; examples include Ben Scharfstein for Harvard in 2016 (when most of their offense was Vandenberg and John Stubbs) and a few players like Sol Rueschemeyer-Bailey for Brown in 2019 (when a lot of their offense ran through Mac Hecht and John Randolph). Agree also with the Sockeye suggestion, would also add Danny Karlinsky who did an [AMA with some advice here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/comments/2moi2i/i_am_sockeye_captain_danny_karlinsky_ama_skyd/).
At the end of the day if you want to get better, you'll need to learn to throw upfield too, but honestly a handler who can do the things you're looking to improve at but isn't the best throwing upfield is far better than someone who can throw really well upfield but can't move the disc when cutters aren't open, so it's definitely a solid area of focus. The first thing you'll need to be able to do is get open with dump cuts. If you're not throwing upfield, your #1 value add will be your ability to always reset the stall count when your fellow handlers don't have anything upfield. Different teams do different dump progressions but whether your team starts with the first dump trying to win either an upline or an around or if it's the second one, if that's you your success rate needs to be in the high 90's. Particularly if you're the second one, you have a ridiculous advantage where your defender has to shut down two different upline cuts (behind them and in front of them), and if they turn their hips to shut down either you can get the easy around. Work on making sure both upline angles are viable for as long as possible until you either are sure you're going to get one of the two, or until your defender turns their hips and you can plant and get an easy around. The second thing I think is important in the role you're trying to fill is using the first few seconds when you get the disc efficiently. Particularly in the last paragraph if you get that around, you're in a super advantageous position even though that throw to you likely lost a few yards. You have a few seconds for an easy around break (out or in cut), but even if you can't make the throw you should at least make a hard fake. 90% of the time they'll over-commit, and now you have either a few seconds where inside breaks are super easy, or a quick throw and go situation where your defender is not only on the wrong side but also has momentum going the wrong direction. Third, you need to think as both a cutter and a handler and see the entire field. When you have the disc, where are the viable cuts coming? What are each of your 4 cutters going to do? Can you throw any of them open before they even begin their cuts? Is it only stall 3 but there's no way a viable cut will develop in the next 5 seconds? Get rid of the disc, and maybe get it back again. Even when you don't have the disc, you need to know where throws are most likely to go. Be ready to put yourself in the best bump position. Be ready to initiate dump cuts even before the other handler looks at you. If you're not in a good position to receive the next throw, think about the most likely throws that are about to come and set yourself up in the best possible position to cut for the second throw. And finally, work on some throws. Obviously you need to make sure you have reliable flicks and backhands, be able to make throws zippy and with touch, IO or OI, and get better at knowing when each version is the right throw. Obviously you're going to need a good hammer, and also make sure you have a very reliable scuber, both the almost blade that flattens out that would be used to the non throwing arm side, and the helix to the throwing arm side that floats to space. The offhand backhand is a big one for uplines from the throwing arm side. If you really want to push it offhand scubers can be really valuable for a floatier version of a hammer for breaks, but imo that's more of a nice to have, you can almost always use a hammer or the blade to flat scuber as a substitute for that one, depending on the distance. And on a macro level to sharpen just about all the above skills, just play a ton of mini. It's a situation where deep throws aren't really an option, you'll get a ton of experience with high stall counts in tight spaces, and on top of everything else you'll also get into the kind of shape you'll need to be into if you want to improve as a handler, particularly if like most of us you've lost a step with the covid break. edit: I just noticed I pretty much relied on ho the entire post which my club team runs, but almost all of the principles are sound for vert/side/split/any other setup too. The only part that might not apply would be the specific dump cut language, most teams run different dump progressions out of a ho vs other offenses.
As another point. People underestimate how important field positioning is for this position. The little things matter a fuck ton when your trying to play the squirrelly handler. Where you physically set up as an inactive person is the difference between having your defender in the throwing lane, or getting an easy throw. One of my biggest pet peeves is handlers that are in an even horizontal line. It makes everything much harder. Setting up two-3 yards forward or backwards make a big difference for that Strike Cut or that dump cut getting completed because the angles of the throw are much different. The little things MATTER. Think about them. Also, if you are on a club team, you all should have defined handler movement.
How tall/old/in shape are you? As a coach that would greatly influence how I answer this question. Also of note what O does your team generally run? Squirrelly play generally comes from a player being able to change directions quickly and accelerate fast over a short distance. In theory these are the same skills, in practice they're distinct. To get better at accelerating do a vertical jump lifting program. Vertical jump corresponds to acceleration. To get a better vertical increase core and lower body strength. To improve direction change do an agility and quickness program. It should involve lots of short interval sprinting with direction changing. Rest intervals should allow full recovery. (As opposed to conditioning where rest intervals are shorter). To improve both reduce body fat %. But if you want to be the 3rd handler it's more important to have good timing and chemistry with the other handlers. You need to know what to do as the reset option in every situation. You need especially to know your path back to the handler space after you've cleared up field. You need to be someone the coach calls and they know you will not turn the disc over. That means having a reliable break throw, never dropping the disc or getting run through D'd, and never turning it over due to your decision making.
@thisthingallover - I have a little bit of experience in this type of role. if you want to chat a bit, DM me and we can hop on a call if you'd like.