Forces:

Forcing is positioning yourself in a specific way when you are covering a player who has the disc. Forcing is split up in three main ways, forcing the forehand side of the field, the backhand side, or covering straight up.

The forehand side of the field is the area to the right of the thrower. The backhand side is the opposite, the area left of the thrower. It doesnt actually whether or not the thrower is left or right handed, its still set by the left or right sides, than what throws he actually does to those sides. Straight up covering involves standing in front of the thrower, trying to hinder as much as possible the throwers ability to see and throw up the field. This is better for stopping hucks and for slowing down strategies such as give-and-go. However, youll rarely be covering straight up on someone in a game of ultimate, and mostly forcing one side of the field.

To lower confusion, we use Home and Away forcing. This forces sides of the field independent of the direction the thrower is facing. Home is forcing the side of the field that weve placed our gear on. Away is forcing the side of the field opposite our gear.

When you’re forcing a person to throw to a side of the field, you want to stand on the side of their body opposite to the direction you want them to throw. You are allowing them to throw to the side of the field you are forcing them to with only a little hassle. The idea is to block the other side of the field and allow your teammates to cover their players more easily. The side of the field you don’t want them to throw to is called the break side of the field. If they throw to the side of the field you are trying to block, it’s called a break throw.

When you are covering a person, you want to be on the balls of your feet, moving around to get your body and limbs in front of their throws. Your body is the biggest obstacle for their throws, but try to read their fakes and not overcommit to a block, or else they will move around you and throw past you on the other side. When you’re forcing, you should have one arm blocking higher, and one arm blocking lower, about waist height. The higher block is the arm that is behind the thrower, and the lower block is the arm that’s in front of the thrower. Those are about where they should start, but you should move them around based on how the thrower moves the disc. You can’t actually block their throwing motion by stopping their arm movement as they throw, but you can block the paths they will use to throw by making them unable to begin the motion of throwing.