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The jam game is an anything goes, push the limits, push your creativity and take a lot of risks game. Jamming is spontaneous and what most players enjoy the most. It’s fun and it’s the soul of Freestyle. The jam is about making something out of nothing with the other players in your jam. Creating magical freestyle moments. In competition you want to create magical moments too. But success in the competition game is about managing risk. In competition you have four or five minutes where you and your teammates have got to be able to pull off your best moves and give the crowd some big moments. Time is the factor in competition. A jam on the other hand can last as long as your fitness level allows. A good jam can get hot for a brilliant 5 minutes or 30 minutes or sometimes even an hour. Competition, on the other hand, is a condensed format, where you spend an hour, or months preparing for your four minutes. Hence, two different approaches are required. But both a good jam game helps your competitive game and visa versa. Lately I’ve been trying to bring more of my jam game into my competitive game, mostly because I’m generally more relaxed and pushing the edge when I’m jamming. In a jam there is no downside to missing a move or dropping the disc. Sometimes I use the jam to practice my competitive game, when a crowd forms to watch us jam, I try to practice pulling of big combos that include the moves that I want to do in competition this year. The person who is the best at bringing the jam into competition is Tommy Leitner. His approach to competition is to improvise as much as possible. He prizes spontaneity. This can be great if his team gets into the jam mentality and gets in the zone, and if you’re as good as Tommy is at playing spontaneously. If can be “off the charts” amazing, which was the case in 1999 Ventura Invitational where Tommy, Chip Bell and Mikey Reid went huge. They were in the zone and hit a variety of moves and passes that could only have been done in a jam. They had some moments that never could be repeated that could have only happened “on the fly”. A spontaneous routine is thought of “on the spot” and the downside to this is that players tend to repeat a lot of the same moves and catches, even if they play great and catch everything. A routine, on the other hand, that is well thought out and worked out ahead of time can have a structure where big moments are designed into the routine and spaced throughout the routine. Variety, tension and release, difficulty, flow and excitement and connectivity can be built into the routine. The designed routine after it’s practiced and worked out then relies on jam skills to pull it off. That’s because no routine is every done the same way twice. There is an ebb and flow of spontaneity in every pre-designed and worked out routine. There is constant adjustment to the conditions, to the passes and throws that come to you from your teammates. Players constantly adjust their moves and game according to how the routine is going. For example, if you are halfway through the routine with no drops, you can raise the bar a little, perhaps throw in an extra spin, do a bigger combo where there is even more risk involved. If your team just dropped the disc twice, then you have to pull back a little and regain the momentum first. If you were planning on a particular move off of your partners pass and the frisbee comes in too high, then do a different move. Have moves in your back pocket. So in essence, a worked out routine must be played spontaneously. But ultimately you have to do whatever works for your personality. Some people need to know what their going to do ahead of time (like me), and some people prize not knowing what their going to do before they do it (Tommy Leitner). I like to know what I’m going to do before I start the competition because it makes me more relaxed and it makes it easier for me to prepare for the competition. It allows me to visualize the routine before I go out there, and practice certain moves that I know I’m going to need and practice the key sets and passes to my partners. But when I’m actually in the round itself I find myself changing the predetermined moves slightly to fit the conditions and reacting to what is happening in the moment by make the necessary adjustments. Figure out what situation will make you the most comfortable and confident out there. That’s more important than anything else. Freestyle is really all about confidence. |
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