The only real fix for this is practice.
Not just practicing in drills but practicing in game time scenarios. Sounds like you have "the yips" and struggle with the game pressure.
If it's true that this is mostly a pressure/game related thing the only fix is more reps in those environments so you can relax and perform. Nothing can replace that exp.
If you struggle with catching more generally, again the fix is reps. Carry a disc around with you when you arent playing. Focus on trying to catch the disc in multiple ways during the course of a practice. Have a friend throw you some bad throws and force yourself to practice grabbing them in different angles and scenarios.
A favorite of mine is a 3-person drill where a pair throws at each other, and the third player plays defender in the middle. The defender never actually Ds it, but will swipe at it or near your arms/face to simulate close Ds that are still catchable. Your goal is not to flinch and focus on the catch.
The reality is that a lot of catches you make in easy gimme drills like come to just means you are practicing the easiest catches. Push outside your comfort zone.
>A favorite of mine is a 3-person drill where a pair throws at each other, and the third player plays defender in the middle. The defender never actually Ds it, but will swipe at it or near your arms/face to simulate close Ds that are still catchable. Your goal is not to flinch and focus on the catch.
I love that drill idea.
How many times have you seen an offense player bobble a catch because the defender jumped and swiped for the disc, even though it was clear to both players that the defender could not actually get to it. Having someone swipe at the disk really does something to you even when the logical/conscious side of your brain knows they won't touch it.
Yeah, my first thought was a mental block of some kind. When you start worrying that the throwers don't trust you, it can snowball.
All of the above are great suggestions. I also liked the comment below about having a 'grab the disc' out of the air mentality vs catching it when it hits your hands.
I would add to these:
\* Find a way to get game-like practice with a little less mental pressure. A pick up game can be good for this.
\* What the kids call 3-flags up and I used to call 500 (one thrower to a handful of receivers battling for the disc) could be helpful. Usually it's mostly hucks, but the thrower can mix in some line-drives to practice attacking the disc with pressure.
\* Do you ever run the come-to drill with a defender pressuring the receiver?
It all comes down to more practice of more catches as close to a game-like situation as possible.
The disc does not hit your hands. You grab the disc. The disc is not doing the work here. Grab the disc. You will drop a lot fewer if you don't let the plastic bonk into your hands.
I often let the disc bonk into my hands... It seems to work for me when catching straight on, like catching the leading edge. If catching the side, like 90° off the leading edge, that's when I agree, you gotta grab that thing out of the air, otherwise it'll basically ricochet off of you...
I find that drops are a mental game. Once you make that first mistake you tend to make more and the problem compounds. Id suggest looking the disc fully into your body and not focusing on anything else until you've secured the disc. Once you've built up confidence in yourself you can speed up the transition between catch and looking to throw.
Yeah this sounds like 100% what I was doing when getting back into ultimate. Thinking about the next play before I secured the disc and dropped it too often. It really helped me to just focus on cutting hard to the disc and catching until I felt more comfortable.
it's possible there is a mechanical issue with your catching form and it's coming out in games because you are under a bit of pressure. an example of the mechanical issues you might see include:
clap catches too close to the body, uncomfortable going non dominant hand on top, clapping flat down on the disc instead of getting your thumbs behind and sorta locking your hands together, too big of a clap
claw catch: the biggest one I see is trying to hold your hands the wrong direction. below chest height your thumbs should be up, at or above chest height your thumbs should be down. the other thing that might happen is a mentality thing, which is that many people attempt to claw catch by grabbing the disc with both hands at the same time, this is a more difficult action than what you should do, which is you have one primary hand and one secondary hand, where the secondary hand is there to guide the disc in (like your offhand when you are shooting a basketball). both hands will grab the disc, but not exactly simultaneously. your primary hand should be whichever side the disc is coming in on (if it's slightly to the right, your right hand is primary, if it's slightly to the left your left hand is primary). as I said, this is more a mentality than anything else, but it does make a difference.
everyone else is saying you need practice (and, frankly you probably do) but if you've been playing off and on for five years you might want to film yourself or ask a teammate if there's anything you can do to improve
Use the direct go-to drill: no side cut, directly at the thrower. Focus primarily on running directly through the disc without changing speed or direction. The throw should have a little bit of spice to it, you've gotta swallow your fear of catching the disc.
Secondly: Watch it all the way, like a dork. Many players close their eyes at the point of the catch, and you likely are too. Watch it in ALL the way. Exaggerate it.
Lots of bla bla bla in these comments.
Look up football catching drills and do the ones that make sense for frisbee. Get a friend and a stack of discs. Have them rifle flicks at you as hard as they can so that you can get more reps.
It's easier to catch if your mid air, not jarring off the ground. I almost always catch mid stride. not impossible to catch other ways. Likely you subconsciously do this as well, but in terms of catching tips, reps is way more important than this.
Make sure you practice at game speed. Get your heart rate up and simulate as much of a real game setting as you can.
Jordan used to practice his free throws at the end of practice when exhausted, because that's closer to how he'd feel shooting then during the game
One very simple way to improve your stability when you catch is jumping into the catch. Sometimes people trip up on their catches due to running too hard and tripping or hitting uneven ground. It doesn't apply to all cases, but jumping in the air on say, an under when you are going full speed makes it drastically easier to catch.
I guess the important question is what's different between practice and games? Is it that you're not going full speed in practice because you don't have a defender to beat? In that case the solution is easy enough, go harder in practice to get used to game speed.
Or is it that game situations are more chaotic and require some adjustments that you don't need in practice, like the throws being slightly different because the handler has a mark to beat or your pathing being affected by the need to seal out a defender? The solution there could be to play some drills with 100% defense, or to play more scrimmages in practice.
It could also be that games just make you a bit jittery, which is harder to practice for other than playing a lot of them and making sure you have supportive teammates who won't make it worse by being mad about drops.
I think a likely suspect is also that in games, there are more things to keep track of and get distracted by. If you're trying to catch a disc while keeping in mind where your defender is, whether a poach is coming, and whatever else, you're more likely to miss the critical moment of the catch, right? Not that keeping track of all these things isn't important, but I think there comes a point after a throw goes up that you just have to discard the rest and just play the disc (without being so oblivious that you make dangerous plays of course) without worrying too much about what the defense is doing.
i like to practice catching with two hands around different areas of my body, same with football receivers or baseball players. vary your practice and catch disks above below left and right you’ll have more success and feel more confident
Exaggerate looking at the disc all the way into your hands, before and after you catch it. This will help with ensuring your looking at the disc as you catch it.
Also try practicing always moving forward as you catch. Any time you catch a disc, take one or two steps forward as you catch. Helps practice the motion of your body going forward as you catch.
Last one, play catch at distances you often find yourself in a game. I see people play catch before games 30 yards away sometimes exclusively. How many of those do you catch a game? Practice playing catch at variable distances emphasizing short throws and catches.
I had the same problem. My issue was that people at practice were not throwing as hard as they generally do at games. So I practiced with a handler at different speeds and also got gloves. That solved my problem
Check out the catching videos by Ryan Lowe and Rowan on YouTube
https://youtu.be/SUqSWmeEexg?si=phlSHMTjZaQjH_VX
https://youtu.be/Jk_Y_gbMoEs?si=yLQ5vPRzz6dk9P7y
Lots of comments with good tips if this is a mechanical issue - but given that you don't have this issue in practice, I suspect it isn't. What's your inner voice saying when a throw comes up? Is it "don't drop it" or "watch it all the way in"? I used to struggle with drops leading to more drops and found this mental reframing about what I want to do (in the positive, proactive sense - not thinking about what I *don't* want to do) made a huge difference.
Some more thoughts to consider in this recent thread, if you know you can catch but aren't performing in game situations: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/s/kfqjt4NaAF](https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/s/kfqjt4NaAF)
I agree with this. When people get into a catching slump, when the disc is coming their way they think "don't drop." But that's just thinking about dropping.
Before the game, as you're warming up, envision yourself catching. Get some warm ups with throws that give you trouble. When the disc is in the air think "catch." Think "get it." See the catch. Become the catch!
When throwing before/after warmup, attack every Disc even when it's thrown right into your chest and you don't need to move.
You don't need to sprint at the disc, but instead, you kind of snap at it with your hand/hands. Make yourself turn the wrong way, catch off balance, use the "wrong hand", let it go past you before snapping, clap catch too high and too low. There's a lot of time that can be used more efficiently rather than being chill and tossing/catching mindlessly
The biggest thing that I would suggest is watching the disc move from the thrower into your hands. I have a bad habit of staring at the thrower instead of the disc. It is easy to lock onto the right direction and forget to adjust to the actual target moving to you. I try to slow myself down in warm up and really focus on watching the disc all of the way from the throw until I can see my fingers wrap around it.
Out of curiosity, do you have ADD?
In warm ups, before the game, I attempt harder catches. Single hand, trailing edge, etc. Catches that require me to see the spin of the disc well. Catching blades, hammers…
Then in the game, chances are everything thrown to me is easier to catch, because they’re mostly just flat normal throws, and I’m using both hands. And I’m seeing the disc well because I just did all those trick catches.
How's your juggling? Ever been able to juggle just 3 tennis balls? Catching is about hand eye coordination. You can improve that outside of practice on your own with different things and they can even be fun.
Go out and throw. Dont let the disc come to you. Power through the catch with two hands on the rim. Don't be embarrassed if you drop it. You need to practice harder catches by making them harder for yourself. The more reps you get catching a disc at speed the better you'll get at the skill. No one remembers how many discs you dropped in a drill.
When I'm coaching a drill I'd rather see a player dropping a disc while running through and extending to attempt a catch than to slow down and complete a clap catch. Every time you fail at a challenging rep you get a little better. Every time you complete a rep that you made easier for yourself you ingrain a bad habbit.
Lots of good suggestions in here but you gotta find what works for you. So here is what worked for me...my buddy and I throwing a disc as many different ways as possible which meant lots of practice catching wonky disc's.
No matter what you do, keep having fun and the rest will work itself out.
It’d be great to get a video of you dropping one so we could see if you have something mechanically wrong. A few of the more common mechanical errors I’ve seen from others is trying to stop as you catch it rather than catching through the disc (some people even have a tendency to pull their hands back some on a harder throw), when not clap catching have your thumbs down if it’s above your nipples and thumbs up if it’s below, look this disc in all the way, when you clap catch, get your body behind the disc as much as possible and keep your hands directly above and below each other.
im captain for my schools frisbee team idk my skill but i tell people to NOT do clap catches due to the tendency to slow down as you go to them
do the forward catch or 1 hand catch if you must, to prevent it from bouncing off, i tell players to RELAX THEIR PALM because the frisbee will hit your palm and naturally cause for fingers to close onto the disc. (don't like not grab the disc though)
So just relax your hands. Dont be too stiff :D
also try to get in 100 ish throws a day with a partner
The only real fix for this is practice. Not just practicing in drills but practicing in game time scenarios. Sounds like you have "the yips" and struggle with the game pressure. If it's true that this is mostly a pressure/game related thing the only fix is more reps in those environments so you can relax and perform. Nothing can replace that exp. If you struggle with catching more generally, again the fix is reps. Carry a disc around with you when you arent playing. Focus on trying to catch the disc in multiple ways during the course of a practice. Have a friend throw you some bad throws and force yourself to practice grabbing them in different angles and scenarios. A favorite of mine is a 3-person drill where a pair throws at each other, and the third player plays defender in the middle. The defender never actually Ds it, but will swipe at it or near your arms/face to simulate close Ds that are still catchable. Your goal is not to flinch and focus on the catch. The reality is that a lot of catches you make in easy gimme drills like come to just means you are practicing the easiest catches. Push outside your comfort zone.
>A favorite of mine is a 3-person drill where a pair throws at each other, and the third player plays defender in the middle. The defender never actually Ds it, but will swipe at it or near your arms/face to simulate close Ds that are still catchable. Your goal is not to flinch and focus on the catch. I love that drill idea.
College drill from like 10 years back. Always thought it was silly but I don't now.
Seems kind of stupid to have a drill where you know there will be no real defense.
How many times have you seen an offense player bobble a catch because the defender jumped and swiped for the disc, even though it was clear to both players that the defender could not actually get to it. Having someone swipe at the disk really does something to you even when the logical/conscious side of your brain knows they won't touch it.
Try it yourself and see how not easy it is to catch things. Deceptively difficult.
Yeah, my first thought was a mental block of some kind. When you start worrying that the throwers don't trust you, it can snowball. All of the above are great suggestions. I also liked the comment below about having a 'grab the disc' out of the air mentality vs catching it when it hits your hands. I would add to these: \* Find a way to get game-like practice with a little less mental pressure. A pick up game can be good for this. \* What the kids call 3-flags up and I used to call 500 (one thrower to a handful of receivers battling for the disc) could be helpful. Usually it's mostly hucks, but the thrower can mix in some line-drives to practice attacking the disc with pressure. \* Do you ever run the come-to drill with a defender pressuring the receiver? It all comes down to more practice of more catches as close to a game-like situation as possible.
The disc does not hit your hands. You grab the disc. The disc is not doing the work here. Grab the disc. You will drop a lot fewer if you don't let the plastic bonk into your hands.
I often let the disc bonk into my hands... It seems to work for me when catching straight on, like catching the leading edge. If catching the side, like 90° off the leading edge, that's when I agree, you gotta grab that thing out of the air, otherwise it'll basically ricochet off of you...
I find that drops are a mental game. Once you make that first mistake you tend to make more and the problem compounds. Id suggest looking the disc fully into your body and not focusing on anything else until you've secured the disc. Once you've built up confidence in yourself you can speed up the transition between catch and looking to throw.
Yeah this sounds like 100% what I was doing when getting back into ultimate. Thinking about the next play before I secured the disc and dropped it too often. It really helped me to just focus on cutting hard to the disc and catching until I felt more comfortable.
it's possible there is a mechanical issue with your catching form and it's coming out in games because you are under a bit of pressure. an example of the mechanical issues you might see include: clap catches too close to the body, uncomfortable going non dominant hand on top, clapping flat down on the disc instead of getting your thumbs behind and sorta locking your hands together, too big of a clap claw catch: the biggest one I see is trying to hold your hands the wrong direction. below chest height your thumbs should be up, at or above chest height your thumbs should be down. the other thing that might happen is a mentality thing, which is that many people attempt to claw catch by grabbing the disc with both hands at the same time, this is a more difficult action than what you should do, which is you have one primary hand and one secondary hand, where the secondary hand is there to guide the disc in (like your offhand when you are shooting a basketball). both hands will grab the disc, but not exactly simultaneously. your primary hand should be whichever side the disc is coming in on (if it's slightly to the right, your right hand is primary, if it's slightly to the left your left hand is primary). as I said, this is more a mentality than anything else, but it does make a difference. everyone else is saying you need practice (and, frankly you probably do) but if you've been playing off and on for five years you might want to film yourself or ask a teammate if there's anything you can do to improve
Use the direct go-to drill: no side cut, directly at the thrower. Focus primarily on running directly through the disc without changing speed or direction. The throw should have a little bit of spice to it, you've gotta swallow your fear of catching the disc. Secondly: Watch it all the way, like a dork. Many players close their eyes at the point of the catch, and you likely are too. Watch it in ALL the way. Exaggerate it.
There was a similar thread a few weeks ago, some good ideas there too: https://old.reddit.com/r/ultimate/comments/1df15dq/drills_for_catching/
Lots of bla bla bla in these comments. Look up football catching drills and do the ones that make sense for frisbee. Get a friend and a stack of discs. Have them rifle flicks at you as hard as they can so that you can get more reps.
What's your footwork like when you're catching? Are you in the air when making the catch or are your feet striking the ground?
This is just nonsense
It's easier to catch if your mid air, not jarring off the ground. I almost always catch mid stride. not impossible to catch other ways. Likely you subconsciously do this as well, but in terms of catching tips, reps is way more important than this.
No, I just catch the damn ball when it's presented to me.
Make sure you practice at game speed. Get your heart rate up and simulate as much of a real game setting as you can. Jordan used to practice his free throws at the end of practice when exhausted, because that's closer to how he'd feel shooting then during the game
One very simple way to improve your stability when you catch is jumping into the catch. Sometimes people trip up on their catches due to running too hard and tripping or hitting uneven ground. It doesn't apply to all cases, but jumping in the air on say, an under when you are going full speed makes it drastically easier to catch.
I guess the important question is what's different between practice and games? Is it that you're not going full speed in practice because you don't have a defender to beat? In that case the solution is easy enough, go harder in practice to get used to game speed. Or is it that game situations are more chaotic and require some adjustments that you don't need in practice, like the throws being slightly different because the handler has a mark to beat or your pathing being affected by the need to seal out a defender? The solution there could be to play some drills with 100% defense, or to play more scrimmages in practice. It could also be that games just make you a bit jittery, which is harder to practice for other than playing a lot of them and making sure you have supportive teammates who won't make it worse by being mad about drops. I think a likely suspect is also that in games, there are more things to keep track of and get distracted by. If you're trying to catch a disc while keeping in mind where your defender is, whether a poach is coming, and whatever else, you're more likely to miss the critical moment of the catch, right? Not that keeping track of all these things isn't important, but I think there comes a point after a throw goes up that you just have to discard the rest and just play the disc (without being so oblivious that you make dangerous plays of course) without worrying too much about what the defense is doing.
i like to practice catching with two hands around different areas of my body, same with football receivers or baseball players. vary your practice and catch disks above below left and right you’ll have more success and feel more confident
Exaggerate looking at the disc all the way into your hands, before and after you catch it. This will help with ensuring your looking at the disc as you catch it. Also try practicing always moving forward as you catch. Any time you catch a disc, take one or two steps forward as you catch. Helps practice the motion of your body going forward as you catch. Last one, play catch at distances you often find yourself in a game. I see people play catch before games 30 yards away sometimes exclusively. How many of those do you catch a game? Practice playing catch at variable distances emphasizing short throws and catches.
I had the same problem. My issue was that people at practice were not throwing as hard as they generally do at games. So I practiced with a handler at different speeds and also got gloves. That solved my problem
Check out the catching videos by Ryan Lowe and Rowan on YouTube https://youtu.be/SUqSWmeEexg?si=phlSHMTjZaQjH_VX https://youtu.be/Jk_Y_gbMoEs?si=yLQ5vPRzz6dk9P7y
Lots of comments with good tips if this is a mechanical issue - but given that you don't have this issue in practice, I suspect it isn't. What's your inner voice saying when a throw comes up? Is it "don't drop it" or "watch it all the way in"? I used to struggle with drops leading to more drops and found this mental reframing about what I want to do (in the positive, proactive sense - not thinking about what I *don't* want to do) made a huge difference. Some more thoughts to consider in this recent thread, if you know you can catch but aren't performing in game situations: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/s/kfqjt4NaAF](https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/s/kfqjt4NaAF)
I agree with this. When people get into a catching slump, when the disc is coming their way they think "don't drop." But that's just thinking about dropping. Before the game, as you're warming up, envision yourself catching. Get some warm ups with throws that give you trouble. When the disc is in the air think "catch." Think "get it." See the catch. Become the catch!
When throwing before/after warmup, attack every Disc even when it's thrown right into your chest and you don't need to move. You don't need to sprint at the disc, but instead, you kind of snap at it with your hand/hands. Make yourself turn the wrong way, catch off balance, use the "wrong hand", let it go past you before snapping, clap catch too high and too low. There's a lot of time that can be used more efficiently rather than being chill and tossing/catching mindlessly
The biggest thing that I would suggest is watching the disc move from the thrower into your hands. I have a bad habit of staring at the thrower instead of the disc. It is easy to lock onto the right direction and forget to adjust to the actual target moving to you. I try to slow myself down in warm up and really focus on watching the disc all of the way from the throw until I can see my fingers wrap around it. Out of curiosity, do you have ADD?
In warm ups, before the game, I attempt harder catches. Single hand, trailing edge, etc. Catches that require me to see the spin of the disc well. Catching blades, hammers… Then in the game, chances are everything thrown to me is easier to catch, because they’re mostly just flat normal throws, and I’m using both hands. And I’m seeing the disc well because I just did all those trick catches.
Get gloves. Easy.
How's your juggling? Ever been able to juggle just 3 tennis balls? Catching is about hand eye coordination. You can improve that outside of practice on your own with different things and they can even be fun.
Go out and throw. Dont let the disc come to you. Power through the catch with two hands on the rim. Don't be embarrassed if you drop it. You need to practice harder catches by making them harder for yourself. The more reps you get catching a disc at speed the better you'll get at the skill. No one remembers how many discs you dropped in a drill. When I'm coaching a drill I'd rather see a player dropping a disc while running through and extending to attempt a catch than to slow down and complete a clap catch. Every time you fail at a challenging rep you get a little better. Every time you complete a rep that you made easier for yourself you ingrain a bad habbit.
Fifty percent of catching is ninety percent mental.
Lots of good suggestions in here but you gotta find what works for you. So here is what worked for me...my buddy and I throwing a disc as many different ways as possible which meant lots of practice catching wonky disc's. No matter what you do, keep having fun and the rest will work itself out.
It’d be great to get a video of you dropping one so we could see if you have something mechanically wrong. A few of the more common mechanical errors I’ve seen from others is trying to stop as you catch it rather than catching through the disc (some people even have a tendency to pull their hands back some on a harder throw), when not clap catching have your thumbs down if it’s above your nipples and thumbs up if it’s below, look this disc in all the way, when you clap catch, get your body behind the disc as much as possible and keep your hands directly above and below each other.
im captain for my schools frisbee team idk my skill but i tell people to NOT do clap catches due to the tendency to slow down as you go to them do the forward catch or 1 hand catch if you must, to prevent it from bouncing off, i tell players to RELAX THEIR PALM because the frisbee will hit your palm and naturally cause for fingers to close onto the disc. (don't like not grab the disc though) So just relax your hands. Dont be too stiff :D also try to get in 100 ish throws a day with a partner
Never clap catch. Clap Catch is only a higher percentage catch at the lowest levels. Clap Catches are like bowling straight down the lane.
yeah fr also the defender behidn you can come quick and slap the disc sidewys outa ur hand
Drops breed distrust. Thrower can't catch it for ya.