hey what's up excel ultimate welcome to another newsletter video today we got a special project for you where we break down one of the best marks i've ever seen on film and then we get a chance to talk to troy holland himself and hear how ulti world's second runner-up defensive player of the year was able to set the perfect mark let's take a look [Music] all right let's start by looking at the film first we're just going to let the play roll from start to finish [Applause] matt russell looking to break the mark determined to break the mark that's right wouldn't let him happen we have a force flick mark on kind of trapping the sideline and a negative reset so right now when choice player 30 is going to be catching the disc there's going to be nobody in the reset space and that's going to help troy realize where the threats are and where they're not as you'll hear from him later it's really important to know these things and kind of have a plan going into the mark so you're not just aimlessly chasing the disc getting broken or in the wrong position so as we kind of play a few frames you're going to notice that the force flick mark is in and also a really important part to this is the thrower is holding flick 2. now even if it's if it's force flick and your players kind of stepped out in a and maybe a big backhand stance like over here holding the disc out you can definitely take a few steps over there and try to stop that throw you know we call it stopping the shown throw and it's really important you know even though technically you do have to force one way you can cheat a little bit depending on where the the thrower is holding the disc the next thing that we're gonna see as we kind of go frame by frame is the thrower is gonna try to throw a couple of shimmies to break the mark you can even hear it in the announcer but troy does a good job of if you look at his uh width and his base look at these uh legs and just how wide he is that's going to allow him to keep his center of mass low and also no he's not lunging he's got his legs are wider than his hips and his shoulders you know he's not going to be like that teapot leaning over so here's our first shimmy you see the disc kind of come out to the opposite sides of the thor's body and you're not going to see troy all of a sudden lunge way over here with that base and athletic stance he's now able to kind of stay right upright and you know as the disc came back you know from here it's coming coming back he's only bit a couple of inches so he's really still in position stays with the shimmy and then throws that left hand out to start to attack this cut right here so troy's already stopped one look now he's stopping the second look with that flash with the hand and we're even going to take a look he's going to stop eventually two or three more looks so now we're kind of getting towards that stall forced all five stall counts rising and now we have our second shimmy you know if you see from here he dips his shoulders tries to hit this inside window and look our defender at the front of the stack has already slipped so now this player is going to be wide open for this inside if troy had fallen even more for the shimmy then this break would have easily come up and sakai would have been off to the races on the break side but by staying home staying wide staying balanced troy's essentially stopped a player who doesn't even have a defender on them the next look is equally important you see as troy puts pressure on that inside now the thrower has recognized that since troy stopped this throw they want to pivot over to break around most marks aren't going to be able to kind of stop both sides but since troy is so upright and balanced now as the thrower starts to really step out you'll notice in this frame the player with the disc has committed to this backhand their right foot's off the ground traveling now troy for the first time stands upright two feet right next to each other so he can push off the left foot and cover that around now you'll hear kind of troy's philosophy here on this foot flash but basically after he takes those two steps gets that foot way up again this player is still wide open and the thrower really wants to get it there but since troy's foot is now in the throwing lane he has to pump fake again and this time the stall is probably eight or nine i didn't count but we have a wide open sockeye player getting looked off just because of the mark and now they're forced to throw kind of a high stall bailout which goes to nobody and results in a turnover so now that we've looked at it on film we get a great chance to actually talk to troy himself and hear what's going through his mind as a mark specifically for this play and also in general let's listen up come in uh with a plan so i think in this play we were running uh not necessarily sell out on the around but we wanted to take away the around throw so i think in the mark if i'm if i'm going back to it in my mind we're not going to want to sit way behind rowan and kind of give him the inside lane we want to stay necessarily even with him but the whole point of the mark then is to challenge all of his throws if he's got his his disc and his flick side i want the main part of my body covering that now if he shimmies with his body i'm just staying with the disc if he wants to move the disc a little more to the center with his shimmy i might move a little bit of the center but i'm not going to go for something way around with a little shimmy i think in the mark the big kind of to do is eventually when he actually commits to something i'm not falling over with my body i'm not lunging i want my body to stay straight up the key is then that these movements are small small small small and i think once he commits to kind of an around throw i want to get myself into a position where i'm balanced we talk about balance and throwing but think about balance when you're marking and kind of a hot tip that i learned in college was whenever you're going for a foot block it's significantly easier to kind of block down as opposed to block up because if rowan decides to then pivot back if i block down i'm already having a base to now come back if i block up i'm way out and it's just an easier route [Music] you