Aerial Battles by Caroline Ma
Breaking down the skills required to be successful at aerial contests prioritises reading the disc and boxing out before adding jumping.
Setup:
Receiver, B, starts 10 to 15m away from thrower. Defender, d2, starts a few metres behind B to simulate game like positions.
Rotation:
d1 > A > d2 > B. A may be a designated thrower with d1 removed to provide consistency.
Step 1
- This drill is split into three stages:
- 1: No Jumping
Firstly, both participants cannot jump at any point when trying to catch the disc. Inherently the offence will have an advantage so it’s important to emphasise boxing out to the defender.
Boxing out means using your body to seal out your player, keeping yourself between them and the disc. Like getting a rebound in basketball.
Pre-Requisite Drills:
Tips:
Caroline Ma says:
When boxing out, encourage participants to establish positioning in the play first, and avoid body contact in the air as much as possible.
It may be helpful to have a designated thrower who can provide consistency that allows receivers to work on their technique.
Version 3 of this drill can also be a scored game:
0 Points - Offence drop
1 Point - Offence catch
1 Point - Defence block
2 Points - Defence catch
Of course you can apply these rules to any shape of cut and/or throw, so feel free to adapt the spacing & shapes to match your team. For instance, you might set up differently if you primarily play split stack or horizontal stack