Winter Ultimate Rocket League Championship 2020

20 teams have entered the Rocket League Championship being hosted on felixultimate this weekend (December 19-20th)!
Signups close 10am Saturday – Sign-up here

What’s the same:
-Streamed on the felixultimate Youtube Channel.
-Tournament Organizers and Commentators who delivered the event smoothly in Summer.
-Lots of fun Rocket League games.

What’s new:
-NEW beginners division for players who started since Rocket League became free.
-The opportunity for all teams to play on Saturday and Sunday.
-Among us, Disc Space and more between your games.
-Prizes for top 3 teams in both divisions.
-Hopefully even more teams than last time.

Sign-up here!

Top 5 Goals – PoNY v Machine – USAU 2019 Nationals Semi

Felix provides quick analysis of the Top 5 goals from the USA Ultimate Frisbee 2019 Men’s Club Nationals Semi-Final between New York PoNY and Chicago Machine. Keen to see more? These clips were taken from the Every Goal (25) analysed + stats video which provides 14 minutes of similar entertainment for just a buck, plus some actual conclusions / takeaways!

… reddit thread & comments about this video …

Ultiworld / EuroZone interview with Felix Shardlow

Head over to Ultiworld to catch the latest EuroZone Podcast, which includes an interview with Felix!

Click for more info / the topics covered!

0:00 Ravi & Liam talk about PELT’s Movember campaign
7:30 Ravi introduces me, begin lockdown chat
8:50 Story about the first time I played ultimate
11:50 Why I could already jump high when I started playing
12:50 Ravi asks about my playing history
17:25 Liam asks where I think I would be if I quit in 2010, we talk about Roller Derby for a while
18:25 Ravi asks ‘What is Flex?’ (I don’t give a very good explanation imo! At least compared to the videos)
23:00 Why I’ve been releasing my strategic ideas publicly and how they have been received (innovation in defence vs innovation in offence)
24:45 The importance of communication & field awareness in Flex
26:15 Liam asks “When you’re coming up with these new strategies, are you ever scared of being ‘Franked'”?
29:00 Ravi asks which clubs are using hex/flex philosophies in Europe / NA – I completely fail to mention the Sussex Uni team I coach
31:00 Talking about the development of offence in ultimate (American Football influence vs what it’d look like with more Soccer influence, Japan’s alternative style getting results)
32:55 Ravi asks about being a content creator – how did I get into video analysis etc? (I talk about how the “Japan v USA – Every Turnover of the match analysed” video came about)
36:40 Talking about the livestream series
37:30 Talking about what it’s like to work production crew at a tournament
38:40 Ravi asks why I stopped the livestreams
41:10 Ravi asks if I have any tips for people who might want to get into content creation
42:25 Liam asks how I find interaction with social media, where is the best reception and what do I find weird
44:15 felixultimate TikTok?
45:00 Rocket League tournament upcoming & Disc Space developments
48:00 Ravi & Liam talk about the Queen’s Gambit netflix show

I’m still scratching my head wondering how, when Ravi asked about teams that adopted hex/flex, I completely failed to mention the Sussex Uni club I’ve been coaching for 17 years, and who won Nationals in 2010, 2011, 2017 & 2019. Without training that club and running those sessions, a lot of the hex/flex stuff would still be theoretical and very untested. Implementing the ideas with Sussex week upon week, developing some ideas and throwing others out, and seeing how the teams perform against the others in the region and the country year upon year has kept the ideas fresh and allowed them to mature far beyond theory, to a point where I’m confident enough to produce videos on them. Can’t believe I barely mentioned Sussex – perhaps they’re somehow so close that I overlooked them? Probably just interview nerves. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the listen!

Top 3 Plays from Disc Space Inaugural Final

Felix takes a look at the new Ultimate Frisbee computer game Disc Space, available for free on Steam, and picks the Top 3 Plays from the Grand Final of the DSL Inaugural Tournament.

Get Disc Space on Steam
Check out Villanueva’s Meta Analysis

…reddit post & comments about this video…

Flexagon Defence (Spectrum of D pt 5)



reddit post & comments about this video…

5th and final part from the Spectrum of Defensive Coverage in Ultimate series. In this video we look at how flexagon defence combines principles of switching and surrounding the opponents in order to complicate situations and gain advantage from offences which focus on clustering players or running set plays.

Top 3 Notable Turnovers + quick analysis – PoNY v Machine – USAU 2019 Nationals Semi

Full video – Every Turn + analysis: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44251596
Felix provides quick analysis of the top 3 most notable turnovers from the USA Ultimate Frisbee 2019 Men’s Club Nationals Semi-Final between New York PoNY and Chicago Machine.

reddit post & comments about this video…

Ultimate Frisbee Official Rules 1970

Take a look at this copy of the 1st edition (?) of the rules – given to me as an MVP prize by a long forgotten team, after a game at Paganello many years ago. Loads of quirky and interesting things within, including travels being turnovers, “this sport can be played with as many as 20 or 30 per team”, and the suggestion that hills or rivers are used as natural sideline boundaries.

Surrounding Stacks (Flex Defence Part 3)


Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/felixultimate
Part 3 of the Flexagon Defence series, focusing on surrounding stacks – initial positioning, and then how to react to offensive movement. Felix explains in detail with help from animated illustrations, and video examples with analysis.

reddit post & comments about this video…

Sustained Poaching (Spectrum of D pt 4)



reddit post & comments about this video…
… full transcript …

Sustained poaching is the technique of covering a space on the field that is particularly valuable to the offence. If an offence makes disproportionate use of deep throws for example, then a poaching defender in the deep space can increase the difficulty of a deep throw, and force the offence to make shorter passes. The deep poach also allows 1 to 1 defenders to take away the under aggressively in the knowledge that the deep poach will help if they get beat deep. Similar tactics can be used with a poach in the open side lane, with other defenders aggressively covering the deep space, or a combination of a sustained under poach and a deep poach, often seen utilised against vertical stacks.

Combatting sustained poaching comes in two main styles. Either an offence continues to create options in the poached area by running through that space and drawing the poaching player out of position, leaving the space free for a cut. Alternatively the offence can look to use other areas of the field to work the disc up to the endzone. When a team uses a sustained poach it also requires other downfield defenders to switch off their mark and onto the poached player when they make a cut, which requires communication and field awareness. If the defence chooses not to do this when the poached player cuts away from the poach, they generate a large amount of separation and the space is left exposed.

In the 2019 EUCF final CUSB La Fotta used sustained poaching against Clapham to take away both the deep and under space at different parts in the game. Here you can see Justin Ford cut deep only to see a deep poach and look visibly frustrated, and here is a near poach d from Bruno Mine as he lingers in the under space. Check out full analysis of the game in 4 part series on the felixultimate channel.