the importance of friends

there's the joke about how to tell who your friends are.

a friend will come bail you out of jail, but a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "damn we fucked up, but we had fun doing it."

you know who those true friends are in life. hold onto them. you might move to opposite sides of the country or the world, but stay in touch, and they'll always be there for you.

sleep

whatever you do, make sure you're getting enough sleep.  i just finished four years of sleep-deprived high school and it sucked.  i'd suggest looking into the research that dr. james maas, a professor at cornell who has done extensive research on the effects of sleep on the body, both mentally and physically.  from personal experience, i can say definitively that the more sleep i get, the better i play.  it's easier for me to concentrate and i notice a difference in my play.  the amount of sleep needed varies slightly from person to person, but research suggests that EVERYBODY needs a minimum of 7 hours per night for optimum performance.  in teenagers, this goes up to 9 1/4 hours of sleep per night.

baby powder

before a big game or tournament, or even just a long, hot day out on the field, baby powder the shit out of your feet, socks, cleats, and shorts. it'll make a huge difference late in the day when everyone else is tired and sweaty, and you've still got dry feet. for that matter, baby powder your hands too. it helps keep them dry so you can grip the disc better. climbing chalk also works well. whatever you use though, it never hurts to take a second to dry your hands when you first get the disc. unless there's an open throw, it's better to take that one second to wipe your hands so you can be sure of your throw.

nothing to report

it's been a slow day in the 603, woke up late, went to the gym, built some shelves for my room, played guitar. unfortunately no ultimate was involved. sometimes these days come around. second to last summer league game is on wednesday, and two of our handlers are down with injuries, so i'm thinking i'll get a lot of touches. my ankle is still slightly swollen, so i'm thinking tomorrow will be another down day to give it some rest.

that actually sparked a brainwave.

tip of the day: listen to your body. as a disclaimer, being hurt is my least favorite thing in the world, hands down, so 90% of the time, when i'm hurt, i will do my absolute best to try and play through the pain. however, there comes a point when playing through the pain is detrimental. so, that said, listen to your body. when it says you're done, or you can't move your knees, or whatever other ailment you might have, listen. the field will always be there another day. as the concussion poster in the trainer's room at school says, 'it's better to miss a game than a whole season.' case in point, three weeks ago i was backpacking and i woke up one morning and was unable to move my ankle without pain. thinking it was just tight, i laced up my boots and started hiking. about an hour later, after ibuprofen, my ankle still made me wince with every step. deciding it would be better to hike out to the road i just crossed instead of hiking the ten miles to the next road, i came out. when i got it checked out, i found out that i had bursitis in my ankle, and if i had kept walking, it could have turned into full-blown tendinitis. it still hurts, and i need to ice it, but at least i can walk and run. so listen.

camp, cycling, and running

i guess it's not a good sign that within a few days of starting a blog i disappear for about a week and a half. in my defense, we just moved, and then i took off for amherst, ma for an ultimate camp, then when i got back i went to maine for a 50-mile bike race the next day, so i've been busy to say the least. since i've been gone so long, this post will be appropriately sized. i've included convenient headings so the topics are easy to distinguish from each other.

ULTIMATE

anyway, the week in amherst at NUTC was one of the most fun things i've done recently. spending a week playing ultimate with some of the best high school players in the country was an opportunity that i was incredibly lucky to have. unfortunately i had to play the whole time with a bum ankle, thanks to bursitis i picked up while backpacking, but i was able to gut it out and at least hold my own. for anyone who is interested in ultimate, i would absolutely suggest NUTC. tiina booth and the rest of the staff there are second to none. for example, this year one of the counselors was sarah 'surge' griffith, who is one of the captains of seattle riot, one of the best defenders in the game, and who recently returned from prague where she was playing with riot in the WUCC tournament.

CYCLING

right after returning from NUTC, i took off for maine to ride in a 50-mile bike race with a friend from school. she's on the cycling team and has ridden this ride before, and somehow she managed to drag me into riding it with her. just so you know, the furthest i've ever ridden on a bike before this is ten miles. because my road bike (which i salvaged from a trash heap) is broken right now, i had to borrow my mom's bike, which is about as old as i am (still younger than my own bike). it has old-school shifters on the bottom tube, and baskets instead of clips for pedals, so i wasn't expecting much. put simply, at the end of the race, my friend comes up to me and says, "why the hell didn't you try out for the varsity cycling team at school?"

RUNNING

i recently finished Born To Run. it was sitting on my bedside table for a while, and i meant to read it, but never got around to it. then at NUTC, darden, one of the counselors said, "put it at the top of your list. period. i'm not big on organized religion or religion by the book, but if i had to choose a gospel, it would be this book." darden is a pretty cool guy, so i took his word for it and started reading it. a day later, i was done. it's that good. put simply, it will change the way you look at not only running, but how you live your life. thoreau went to walden pond to 'live deliberately'. i think he would find a similar spirit in Born To Run. it's not so much a book about running as it is a book about becoming a runner, not simply a person who runs.

and with that, i'm done. take it easy.

Zip's Tips

part of the inspiration to create this blog comes from Josh Ziperstein, who is one of the most respected members of the Ultimate community. not only is he one of the most skilled players in the game today, he's also one of the smartest. he went to Brown as an undergrad and won both a national title and a Callahan while he was there, so he's prime time. for a while he ran a site called Zip's Tips, in which he gave daily thoughts about becoming a world class Ultimate player. obviously i don't have the experience that Zip's got, but i'll give it a shot from my own years of playing high school, summer league, and soon, high level college Ultimate.

so to start off, stealing blatantly from Zip: visualize greatness. when you have a free moment, visualize that huge layout D or skying your defender on a huck. this starts ingraining the image in your mind and so when the moment comes, you won't have to think. you'll just do it. visualizing greatness can help mentally prepare you for the split-second decisions you'll have to make while playing.

What's up?

I guess I should take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Matt Zia and I'm from New Hampshire. Next year I'm taking off to Colorado College as a freshman. I guess this blog is a way for people to keep in touch with me, or rather, for me to keep in touch with people from 2000 miles away.

The name of the blog comes from two of my favorite things in the world, Ultimate, and Life. I'm what you'd call an Ultimate junkie. I live and breathe Ultimate and have since as long as I can remember. Growing up I played soccer and hockey, but Ultimate was what really stuck with me. Maybe it's because I'm a heck of a lot better at it than I ever was at soccer or hockey, but regardless, I absolutely love the sport, ignoring the fact that many people still don't consider it as such.

Anyway, I'll be using this as a way to try and keep people back home, and everywhere else in touch with me. I'm going to try and post daily thoughts. On what? Well...The Good Stuff: Thoughts on Ultimate and Life.