Develop Field Sense Through Video

A simple game to help you get better

Happy New Year! I hope you are well rested and ready to emerge from the offseason into another season. Best of luck with your goals for the season.

One of the most frequent questions I am asked and see asked is how to improve game sense and knowledge through video analysis. While I think there are many excellent resources available of developing knowledge through video work - such as this very good post on Ultiworld - I think they’re mainly strong at improving knowledge, and I don’t think knowledge translates to game sense as smoothly as assumed. You need to work a bit harder for that.

The Outcome Prison

The major shortfall with developing field sense specifically through the commonly recommended techniques is you are judging the outcome of what already happened. And this is great education - understanding how and why phases of play succeed or fail is really powerful.

However, knowing the outcome is going to result in your analysis being rooted in that result, whether you are directly evaluating the merit of that approach, or thinking of alternative paths that you are still contrasting with the outcome that actually happened.

OK - I hope that made sense and you’re still with me. The issue with this when developing game sense is that game sense is about being able to understand all the possibilities that could occur. In order to develop this you need the uncertainty that you’ll actually have in a game.

So here’s a way to practice that.

What Happens Next

UK and Ireland readers will probably be familiar with a segment of this name on the long-running sports quiz show ‘A Question of Sport’ where the panelists have to guess what unlikely scenario happens next in a clip.

We can take this same idea and use it for more educational purposes. It’s a very simple concept: just pause a game during any part and think about what could happen next.

Here are some questions I recommend you ask yourself. Not all at the same time, pick one to focus on at a time.

• Where do you think the disc actually goes vs. where do you think it should go? 

• List all the options available to the thrower now - and what options you think they will have in 2 seconds. Which one would you take?

• What do you hope X cutter does or doesn't do next?

• Pick a defender - how should they be reacting and positioning now and for the next phase of play? What is the biggest danger to them, or where can they make an impact?

OK - let’s test it out.

This is a the first point from Mooncatcher vs GOAT from WUCC in 2022. You can find the first half of the game here, along with a lot of other games with great drone footage.

Let’s start with a simple question: who do you think gets the next pass and where do they receive it?

(you will need to pause the video before it ends - the 12 second mark is perfect!)

A screenshot in case you’re having difficulty pausing

Drone footage like this is ideal starting out as you can clearly see everything that is happening on the pitch and so you can see all the potential options. However, pretty much any game filmed from the sideline with some elevation is going to be good enough.

Here’s a second example, from Troubles vs JinX at EUCF. This time we’re looking at a handler getting into power position and I want you to think about:

a) What are the top 3 options for them in the first 2-3 seconds of the stall

b) What do you think actually happens?

A screenshot in case you’re having difficulty pausing

For both these points I’ve put the full phase of play at the bottom of this post, plus there’s a bonus question for Troubles vs JinX!

How to Use this Concept

i) Pick a game

ii) Pick a situation

You’ll be more productive when starting out if you focus on a single area for a block of time, rather than bouncing around randomly. I would recommend you choose a theme and stop for a certain number of examples e.g. pick a topic such as pull plays, continuation after yardage gains, redzone offence and commit to looking at 5-10 examples. Alternatively, choosing a particular player (such as yourself) and stopping when they get into certain positions.

With that said, I do think you should be random sometimes. It’s going to be more of a test of your overall game sense and understanding.

c) Write down your thoughts/test yourself

If you want to get the most out of any type of video work you really need to do it actively. You’ll get the most out of this by actually writing down your answers and ‘testing’ yourself on if they were good ideas or not.

Another way to do this is to make this a group or team activity. Have everyone show up with a few clips and questions for them - or you can even do this virtually in your slack/discord. This means less prep work for everyone individually and it is bound to spark some interesting debates.

d) Time Limit

When you actually play the game you don’t have as long as you want to think about all the options, so you should not train like that. Give yourself a time limit whether that’s formal (with a timer) or informal (hold yourself to doing it quickly).

---

Bonus Question for Troubles vs JinX

c) Has your opinion of the top 3 options changed now that you see the outcome?