Photo by Kristýna Landová
To bring in the new year right, this past weekend was filled with many hours of jamming. Saturday was the most heinous day of them all. James Wiseman was in town and at one point he and I were playing one on one. It seemed like the we could do no wrong. We were flowing with both spins, turns overs, rolls, and setting each other for huge spinning catches. The pace was high and it only took a couple songs before we started to waver, but boy was it satisfying.
The following jam days just never measured up for me. Many perfect sets hit my hand but didn’t stay in, resulting in the dredded drop. As I watched my own catch percentage drop I saw others in the jam maintain their levels. Libby, a new jammer on the Portland scene, even seemed to increase her catching as the weekend progressed.
Before I pose this question, let’s define catch percentage. It’s the number of catches divided by the number combos in which either a catch was attempted or a drop was caused. Example:
- If I go for a gitis from Lori’s set, and catch it, I’m 1 for 1 (100%).
- Later Matt sets me and I drop a flamingosis; now I’m 1 for 2 (50%).
- A little later I try a spinning pull and drop it; now I’m 1 for 3 (33%).
Just to be clear, I don’t actually count every catch / drop / combo in a jam. For me, this is really just more of a gut feel. If you do count, let me know in the comments. So with that, this week’s poll:
What is Your Catch Percentage in a Jam?
[poll id=”51″]
Happy new year! Let’s all go shred in 2018.
This is tough to answer for most folks. I would call this the core value in creating a “Flow Chart.”
Too many drops = No Flow
The best of The Best (like you Jake) will have high percentage Jams most of the time and yet have the dreaded Roberto Duran (Manos de Piedra) Syndrome hit on occasion. For myself, I try to simplify as a reset, then increase in difficulty until Flow is back.
I agree that when the flow in a jam seems to be negatively impacted by a lot of drops, then “resetting” (so to speak) with simpler catches to boost up the rhythm of the flow is a good call. Great method to get the connections going again and keeping everyone involved in the disc movement between players.