LAYOUTS

With a deep breath and a wince, I grabbed my wobbly right arm and prepared for the all too familiar pain.  My shoulder sluggishly scraped into its socket.  Grinding away at my strength of will and literally my bones.  And FINALLY the shoulder socket opens its gates and agrees to let my arm to plop in.  It’s all over now. I carefully test out the arm to see how bad it is, but the ligaments tense up into a knot like a shoelace tie that you pull on too hard in first grade. My body has betrayed me.  All for a flying plastic toy.  So you’re probably wondering was it worth taking the chance to injure myself, maybe it was a national tournament or something of significance? Nope, it was just a normal practice this fall.  Also, this has already been the fifth or sixth time I've dislocated both my shoulders.  Unfortunately, its back to months of physical therapy for me.

To be honest it was all my fault, I was too eager to get back on the Ultimate playing field even though I promised myself I would not be on the field again in 2012.  I am not the only player I know of playing much too early for their injury to heal and I guess you could look at it to a testament to how much enjoyment people get from playing and being in the Ultimate community.  Both my arm injuries happen on one kind of play in Ultimate frisbee called the layout or “going ho” because your body is creating a horizontal line.  It looks like this:

Or if you want to see some live action:

Laying out for a defensive play or for a huge offensive gain is one of Ultimate’s most glorious plays.  No matter if you’re part of the finals club game or just a random throwing session with your buds, a layout shows how far you are willing to go for the game, teammates, and to impress the ladies.  I think the athletic speed and agility required to execute a successful layout grab or D (defensive play) distinguishes Ultimate Frisbee from a group of friends tossing a frisbee on the beach.  

Although it seems like it, laying out isn't just heaving your body as far as it's willing to take you.  Not only do they require a bit of bravery especially in crowded parts of the field, but the execution of the layout also requires quite a bit of skill and technique to keep the play relatively safe.  One key point of completing this play in a safe fashion is to lead with your chest, which should be taking the force of the landing.  Another important part is that the jump should be in the horizontal direction which will allow you to extend your body and hopefully give yourself enough to catch the disc.  This blog does an extremely thorough job explaining each step of the layout or this one to promote laying out safely.

Even with Ultimate still not in the mainstream, layouts get at least a little airplay on sports news channels and I think that demonstrates some of the legitimacy in Ultimate Frisbee  Maybe the key to taking the sport to the next level is to layout more?  Go try laying out and spread the word! I gave my cleats to an off-campus friend so I can't get tempted into playing, so I'll be researching techniques and strategy in the meantime.