Analysis Compilation – AU22 Finals 2018

Clips from analysis used on the live stream of the Australian Ultimate U22 Nationals Finals, plus unseen extras.

Extended Analysis – Blue Devils 2018 Live Analysis Session

Recording of a Live Online Video Analysis session between felixultimate.com and the Blue Devils U22 2018 Australia ultimate frisbee team.
Blue Devils had been learning Hex Offence, with a few players having played it before on club/uni teams.

Analysis / discussion – 2 times the stadium bigscreen settled foul calls in the EUCF Final 2018

Analysis: Excerpts from Live Analysis with Blue Devils U22 (Victoria State) Australian team playing Hex

Also check out 37 second clip / summary of this video if you’re pushed for time!

Hexagon Offence v2.32

v 2.32 – January 2021
Concept first published 1st Jan 2013
Older version also available en Français (v2.1)

Hex is a naturally fast-paced offence, which flows organically and is a lot of fun to play. If you want to win and have fun, follow these three guidelines:

1. Keep the disc moving (movement)
2. Maintain team shape (spacing)
3. Control your balance (technique)

Players work together as a team to maximise options, meaning there are tons of opportunities to get involved in the play. For beginners this means more disc time, less restrictions, and more fun. For high level teams this means the offence can adapt quickly to defensive change by utilising the spread nature and quick disc movement. Training Hex will typically develop more intuitive, well-rounded players who are comfortable with the disc, as opposed to specific role fillers.


full image of the Hex Movement Decision Tree

1. Keep the disc moving

Sustained flow is very valuable and hard to defend against, so players should take any open pass available to them without hesitation. The decision tree is a guideline for how players should move, and where they should look, in order to have the best shot at keeping the disc moving.

In this video from 2018 I talk through the decision tree, and look at a point of hex being played from it’s perspective.


2. Maintain team shape

Players should maintain good spacing between each other and the disc throughout their possession, as this will maximise their options. The shape that forms naturally with equal spacing between 7 players is a hexagon made of equilateral triangles;

The shape will deform naturally whenever the disc or players move – it doesn’t need to be perfect, but shape maintenance is an ongoing task for each player which will benefit the team. The disc should be on the outside of the shape, and as the disc position moves across the field, the shape extending from it rotates a full 180 degrees – so the central point is directly towards the centre of the field when the disc is on the sidelines. Players should gravitate towards shape positions when flow has stopped – the focus of the analysis of these clips from Australian club team Outbreak Mountain;

When a team focuses on maintaining their shape and keeping the disc moving, they can generate and sustain flow – as explained in this analysis of USA D3 team Stevens IoT;

3. Control your balance

In terms of individual technique, being in control of your balance whilst catching and throwing means you are in control of your body’s acceleration and deceleration as well as the flow/direction of the disc – a powerful combination! When used to counter defensive imbalance and/or exploit space, a thrower (who is part of an offence with good shape) can generate flow and penetrate through defensive setups. This video shows New Zealand team Hammertron using their shape and balance control to provide multiple options to keep the disc moving;

There are two basic types of throw: the pivot-throw, and the throw’n’go (or half-pivot). Immediately after releasing the disc from a pivot-throw, the thrower is static, where immediately after a throw’n’go, they are running. Pivot throws are useful for getting the disc around a defender and adding power, whereas throw’n’go technique is useful for getting away from your defender and offering an immediate return option. Here’s analysis of Tyler Kinley from Sockeye, using throw’n’go technique to execute a dribble;

Combine and train these three elements – movement, shape, and technique – with freedom, creativity, and spirit – and you’ll not only enjoy training and playing more, but you’ll develop faster and start to see great results.

What’s next?

Looking to implement some of these principles into your team? For drills and exercises, check out the felixultimate How to Train Hex series;

For a 1-to-1 chat/meet with Felix, or to get Felix into your team’s braintrust and collaborating with planning elements of your trainings & season, check out the higher tiers on Patreon! Felix can also travel to run a Hex Clinic in your city, or live stream video analysis with your team – email felix at felixultimate.com with your request.

Video examples – non-stop footage of Hex Offence in action from multiple teams;


Further reading:


Extra notes for players who are familiar with / trained in stack offences:

  • De-prioritise gaining yards – hex values flow over yardage, so take the open pass regardless of yardage, field position, or stall count. Look to initiate and continue flow, instead of looking downfield to potentially gain yards
  • Spread out – clumping together in a stack maximises space at the expense of options, which does not work well with a flow-based offence. Make equilateral triangles locally, and resist the temptation to flood (or ‘clear’) downfield when the disc is on the sideline (50% of the players should be behind the disc to keep balanced shape)
  • Follow your throw – when throwing, instead of viewing nearby space as just areas for your receivers to cut to, view them as areas which you can attack immediately after releasing the disc, receive passes back to, and then use the momentum of your defender against them
  • Face infield – the centre of the space – soon after catching the disc, instead of looking downfield

Next: How to Train Hex

Amsterdam Hex Clinic

Amsterdam Hex Clinic, 29-30th September 2018

Last weekend saw players from all over Netherlands and Belgium come together to learn Hex Offence and Flex Defence at the Amsterdam Hex Clinic, put together with help from Sjoerd Druven. The clinic started with a classroom session on Flexagon Defence theory – the group discussed common offensive mistakes and shortcomings, and thought about which were the most noticed, and which are rarely considered to contribute to turnovers. Then we looked at how defence could change to take advantage of the less noticed offensive shortcomings, and how such a defence could be trained.

… read more & see videos of drills …

We headed out onto the field after lunch to put into practice what we had been talking about – running a few drills without a disc involved, focusing on defensive movement. Here are clips from Trent’s Drill (credit to Trent Simmons from 10milliondiscs.org) and the Surrounding Stack Drill, which aim to get players used to moving and reacting to multiple offensive players in a group, rather than just 1-to-1 marking.



Casper / ulti.tv filmed the first outdoors session, so when we went inside we were able to immediately use the footage for video analysis! This was really beneficial to everyone – to be able to replay exactly what happened and consider alternative actions is a great way to learn quickly. After the analysis session we headed out again for the Triple-Sandwich drill, and more games!

Saturday night we had a meal at a Turkish restaurant and played some Dobble before going out for a couple of drinks & then back to Sjoerd’s house (picturesque – next to a canal).

Sunday was Hexagon Offence day – starting again with a classroom session where we looked at the history of offence, broke down the shared fundamental elements of offence, and looked at how different offensive systems prioritise different values – and how Hex fits into the picture. Hex, which values flow above all else, was explained through Movement, Shape, and Technique – each of which are very different compared to conventional stack offences.

Then we headed out onto the field again! We trained technique first, emphasising the throw-and-go / dribble-throw technique, and had a Dribble Slalom Race:


Then we incorporated the dribble technique into the Brilliance Box Drill, which adds some more game-like realism:


After everyone got some practice building shape, we went into games, and the offence worked smoothly – it was tough to defend against and everyone was discovering new throws and movements in the fast-moving style. The most common feedback was that it was surprisingly good FUN to play!

ulti.tv filming with a pole cam

Ulti.tv were filming again, so we were able to go inside and immediately have an analysis session. During this session I noticed that everyone was analysing their own play – I didn’t really need to contribute much because the theory knowledge from earlier was being put into action, and everyone could see what they could do better in any situation, and what was working well.

Although it was quite a light turnout this time around, we had 7v7 and I felt the clinic was a huge success. Everyone understood the theory, implemented it well, saw another side of ultimate strategy, and many players said they were keen to take the O/D back to their teams.

I learnt more about how to teach the strategies and implemented a few new drills with great success. Most importantly though, everybody had FUN playing Hex & Flex!

Hex Movement Decision Tree

 

 

… read transcript / summary …

Hex Movement Decision Tree: Brief explanation / shortened transcript of video

The way I’ve been looking at offence recently is to break it into three elements; Movement, Structure, and Technique.
This decision tree is a guideline for how to sustain and generate movement of the disc. The left side pertains to movement of the disc, and the right side is more focused on players who are off-disc.

If you have the disc in your hands then you have three questions; Is someone open in front of you?, Is the previous thrower open?, and Can you continue the path of the disc? If the answer is Yes to any of these three questions then you take the open pass, and look for the return pass, before returning to the start of the decision tree. If the return pass is successful then you enter a loop on the top left of the tree, which is where give-go / dribbling moves thrive.

If the answer to any of the three ‘open’ questions is Maybe, then you fake. The answer could be ‘maybe’ because you’re not confident with the distance or type of throw the option is asking of you, or because the defender is half-covering the throw, or for any reason you’re not happy with the option – in this case, fake, and return to asking “Is someone open in front of you?” – which may be the player you just faked an option to.

In some situations it’s better to look to continue the path of the disc before looking back to the previous thrower. Looking back to previous thrower lends itself to a more dribbling-style of Hex, but looking first to continue the path of the disc fits in quite nicely with techniques players have learnt from conventional offences.
If all then ‘open’ answers are ‘No’, then you should face the centre of the space. In Hex, this means you face where the Hat position is (the central player), and you should have all your team mates within your field of view. At this point you return to asking yourself if anyone is open in front of you.

Let’s say you go for the return pass and don’t get the disc back into your hands. The first question to ask yourself is ‘Am I in good hex shape?‘. The details about hex shape / structure are defined in another video, but if you decide you are not in good hex shape then you should reposition – with urgency. Repositioning moves are like cuts, and simply repositioning may well provide the thrower with a viable passing option.

If you are in good hex shape, ask yourself if you are open. If you are, communicate with the thrower by gesticulation or vocalisation, to let the thrower know you are a potential option for them to hit or fake to.

If you aren’t open, see if the thrower is looking at you. If they are, you should try to generate an option for them to either hit or fake to – by moving, or by gesticulating towards space. This will create further options for your team mates.

If you’re in good hex shape, not open, and the thrower is not looking at you, then you should see whether you can create useful space for a team mate. This means looking around to take note of your team mates positions and their defenders relative positions, and working out whether you moving in any direction could create a space, or occupy another defender, which would be useful for your team mate. If you can, then you should generate this option.

If none of these things are the case, then you should chill – don’t stress or feel pressure to create an option, because if everyone on your team is going through the same decision process then the thrower will be faking to half-options, looking at players to generate options, and so on, and the options will come. Continue monitoring the situation to see if you can create useful space for a team mate, to make sure you’re in good hex shape (as a team), and to see if you’re free or if the thrower is looking at you, but aim to become comfortable being in the position of sustaining offensive possession as a team.

Analysis: Live Stream with Oakland playing Vertical Stack

Excerpt:

Oakland’s coach Valerio got in touch about reviewing some footage of his team. They play conventional offence and defence – here is an excerpt from a Live Streamed Analysis session I ran with them.

Here’s the full 2hr video:

Hex Strategy Overview vs Conventional Ultimate – Amsterdam Hex Clinic

Vlog – Top 3 moments from WUCC & AO All-stars, plus USP Catching clips & Hex Movement Decision Tree

Check out the Catching module at http://www.ultyresults.com