Inspirational People of Today:
Martin “Tincho” Gottschalk
Today i would like to share an another ultimate player who i’m inspired of and also became a close friend now.
Martin, who is a cyclist traveling the world with lovely Veronica and an ultimate player from Argentina(WFDF Spirit Committee Member and also past coach of @actitudpizza).
We have met with him first at ITU Tournament 2019 in Istanbul then they came to Fethiye to see ultimate scene here and also took care of our cats while we were on vacation. In this short time of weeks/months, we had a lot to share about Ultimate, Spirit of The Game and things related with both.
Coaching: Simple and Effective
I have been playing Ultimate about 11 years now, since the beginning i have been teaching it for a long time but coaching a team is some other experience which i had started with ITU Team(@frizbiteknik) in 2010 and some other teaching/coaching experience but not much until now which i had just started to coach Fethiye Flamingos in late 2019. Long story short; being a captain/coach of a team is much more than it sounds!
I have been to Train The Trainer(TTT-Istanbul) course by EUF, learned so many different ways of teaching&drills by different players, worked on various tactics/games about Ultimate so far and i have tried to implement all to Fethiye Flamingos in a kind of schedule. When Martin has joined our practices we let him to do it in his coaching way. By doing this we have learned new approaches such as;
- Regardless of different level of players, making practice as much as simple and effective on fundamentals. Instead of working on a system/a stack play or else, aiming all to improve their fundamental play.
- Putting more fun to practices by simple games and challenges to make practice more enjoyable to increase attendance.
- Preparing/selecting drills for various number of groups due to unknown attendance to increase playing time instead of waiting time, letting them to focus more and killing(finishing) the practice on time(not giving more time to pick-up game or else)
Briefly much thanks to Martin for new drills/games, warming/stretching ways and such different coaching aspect.
Spirit of The Game: WFDF Committee Member
Meeting a WFDF Committee Member was such an inspiring experience. Personally i was also a member of national SOTG committee and sharing SOTG issues with eachother was really amazing. We had so many things to talk about the spirit generally and i have learned from his SOTG Tournament Director experience which we had tried to do here couple times. We both had similar issues regarding the spirit and also we both met with Trent Simmons(The Spirit of the Game Foundation/10Million Disc) by coincidence. I have really enjoyed all the conversation with him, even calculations about probability of different calls by players :).
I’m glad that we have met with Martin and Veronica, learned/shared so many things in such short time, not just about ultimate also life itself. They were first our guests and they became our close friends after all.
I hope they will have a safe cycling journey with full of ultimate for the rest of their trip.(After Corona ofcourse) And we shall meet again somewhere…
Cem Gurses
04.05.2020
