Frisbee seminar: the dump-swing
Introduction
First, watch 2 minutes of this video from Ben Wiggins (video starts at 0:34, watch at least until 2:30, when he finishes discussing the dump-swing for a vertical stack). This video explains how to execute the "dump swing," a common component of a lot of frisbee offenses. After you watch these 2 minutes, keep reading to learn why this maneuver is useful.
If you want, you can watch the whole video, although it is a lot of information to absorb and we won't be discussing most of it. Right now, we just care about the basics. Also, if you do watch the rest of the video, you can completely ignore the "ho stack" section immediately after 2:30 since it will be irrelevant for our own offense.
Definitions
The "dump swing" is the maneuver we were working on at one of drills at practice last week (and in fact in the video Ben Wiggins has UW run that same drill!)
A "dump" is a short pass that doesn't move the disc towards the endzone your team is attacking, and in fact often moves it backwards. A dump is also often called a "reset."
"Dump" or "reset" is also often used (as Ben Wiggins does in the video) to describe the person whose job it is to catch the dump pass. So if I ever yell "look at your dump!" while you're holding the disc at practice, I mean "look at the person who's standing in the right spot to catch a reset pass."
The "swing" is just the follow-up pass to the dump, which sends the disc over to the opposite side of the field.
Motivation
Below are a couple of examples of the dump-swing maneuver in action, from a men's pool play game at 2014 college nationals. I'm going to take these examples apart to try and convince you of one basic offensive principle: moving the disc horizontally is really helpful for the offense. This principle is really important, and it's the reason we will be basically building our entire offense around the dump-swing. So let's see how it works.
(Incidentally, by "horizontal" I mean "perpendicular to the direction that the offense is trying to score.")
Example 1
This first clip starts at 15:54. Watch it until the Carleton (white) score at 16:30, and while you watch, pay attention to Carleton's horizontal disc movement.
Here's a clip of the first dump-swing (and the follow-up pass) from the video. Look at how the first Carleton player does exactly what Ben Wiggins says: he looks downfield for maybe a couple of seconds before he turns to throw the dump. Then, the dump immediately turns to look for a well-timed swing cut to continue the horizontal motion of the disc:
Let's take this a piece at a time to highlight how the sideline-to-sideline disc movement makes it much easier for the downfield cutter to get open.
Here's what the field looks like right before the dump-swing. First, notice that Oregon is forcing forehand, so that the open side is towards the bottom of the screen. The Oregon defenders are all doing a good job staying on the open side of their person—the Oregon defender in blue is even facing away from his matchup, in green, because he knows that the guy with the disc is really only able to throw into the yellow area of the field. (In the picture, the mark is on the ground after a defensive play, but he will quickly stand and set up.)
Now, here's the field right after the swing pass. The Oregon mark (in red) is not yet in position, but he will be trying to prevent throws into the red area of the field. The Carleton cutter (in green) is cutting directly into that red area of the field, in the hopes of getting to it before the Oregon mark has time to prevent the throw.
Watch the green player get the disc:
Here's an image of the field after the swing. The yellow area is now an open throwing lane. Before the dump-swing, it was closed off to the offense by the mark and the positioning of the rest of the players.
Because of the quick horizontal disc movement, the defender isn't in a good position to defend the yellow space, and Carleton cutter is able to use it to get an easy upfield throw.
In the first video, Ben Wiggins talks about "changing the angle of attack," and this is what he means. The key is that previously inaccessible areas of the field can now be thrown to, because of the motion of the disc—and, as we learned last week, it's really hard for defenders to take away every area of the field at once.
Example 2
Here's some more clinical offense from Carleton, and another example of how quick disc movement can put defenders out of position and help players get open.
The clip starts at 8:47; watch until the Carleton turnover at 9:17. Again, see how the Carleton players do exactly what Ben Wiggins talks about in the first video: after they catch the disc, they look upfield for maybe 3 seconds, determine that they don't have an open player to throw to, and throw a dump pass, which is quickly followed by a throw to a well-timed swing. If you have sound on, you can even hear the commentators identify the dump-swing right after it happens.
Here's the dump-swing (and the next two passes):
This huck ends up being incomplete, but honestly I don't care, this is still excellent offense. The reciever was open and the thrower made the right decision.
Again, the really instructive thing to do here is to watch the receiver who runs deep and the defender who is guarding him, so we can see how the horizontal movement of the disc affects the offense's ability to get open.
Here's the field right before the dump-swing:
The green-circled player ends up making the deep cut, and the blue circled player is the one guarding him.
The first thing to note here is that Oregon is forcing backhand on this point. So, the open side is towards the bottom of the screen. If you've been paying attention, you might wonder: why isn't the blue Oregon defender positioned on the open side?
This is a good question. The Oregon defender is actually playing good defense here. Even though the open side is at the bottom of the screen, the defender recognizes that it's still very difficult to actually complete a throw to the open side when the disc is on the top sideline—the disc has to go over or around the rest of the players, which is hard to do accurately.
Both of the throws in red are extremely difficult to complete, even for a skilled thrower. The disc needs to somehow avoid all of the players in the middle of the field, while still not curving too far to go out of bounds. So the blue Oregon defender doesn't bother trying to stand between his person (in green) and the open space, because he knows the thrower can't throw into it from where he is.
Carleton's dump-swing does just what we talked about: by moving the disc, it quickly makes those areas of the field more attackable, before the defense has time to respond.
Here's the field after the dump-swing. The Oregon defender in blue is still not on the open side of his person. But now that the disc has moved to the other side of the field, there's a nice wide-open throwing lane for the Carleton thrower, which he takes advantage of.
This is more "changing the angle of attack." By swinging the disc to a different part of the field, you change which parts of the field are easy to throw to—and if you do this quickly and fluidly, the defense won't be able to adjust in time and you'll have open throws downfield.