To start off our second season, we chat with USA Team member and Brute Squad and Gridlock star Amy "Doodle" Zhou. Co-hosted by Tulsa Douglas and Luisa Neves.
This episode, we talk with Amy Zhou. Amy, also known as "Doodle," tells us about how she started playing ultimate in college at Rutgers, and her experience playing in the Metro East in college. She details how she became a member of D.C. Scandal and later Brute Squad. Amy also tells us about how she developed as an ultimate player, both skill-wise, and mentally, as she moved from one team to the next. She talks in particular about how her mentality on defense has grown and shifted the longer she has played.
She and Tulsa then go into specifics about Brute Squad's new committee structure this year, the reasons for the change, and the benefits and difficulties that came along with it. Finally, Doodle discusses making Team USA in 2020 before the pandemic, as well as her thoughts on what playing in front of a crowd at PUL games means to her and her family.
This is the first episode of Season 2 of Share the Air. To listen to previous guests, check out our Season 1 episodes wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to hear even more of us, check out our Patreon page, where you can listen to bonus content every two weeks, as well as access other cool benefits! We already have a number of bonus episode out, filled with new interviews, thoughtful discussions, great stories, and extra content that we couldn't fit into the original episodes. Also, if you want to rep some sweet Share the Air gear, check out our new store, courtesy of VC Ultimate!
Share the Air is hosted by Tulsa Douglas and Luisa Neves. It is planned, edited, and produced by Tulsa Douglas, Luisa Neves, and Tim Bobrowski. Share the Air's music is by Grey Devlin and Christopher Hernandez. Share the Air is sponsored by the National Ultimate Training Camp, VC Ultimate, and the Centre for Applied Neuroscience.
Episode 11: Amy Zhou
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[00:00:00] Amy Zhou: Who's your Episode 01 guest? Can you tell me Was that on a story and you just hid it?
All right. I'll
[00:00:12] Luisa: you
Amy
[00:00:21] Amy Zhou: Oh,
[00:00:24] Luisa: Well, it's going to be you. Yeah, we got to promote it tomorrow.
[00:00:27] Amy Zhou: I was about to judge whoever your episode one person was no way they're better than me. They're exactly the same as me.
[00:00:46] Tulsa: Welcome to season two of Share the Air. We took a break from podcasting. We did a lot of ultimate, so it was not a break in general. Um, Our off season podcast season is our on season ultimate season. So we were both at Nationals, which is super fun yeah, we're looking forward to season two.
[00:01:07] Luisa: Yeah thank you to all of our patrons who supported us during our break. Our Patreon, for folks who are not aware, we've released bonus episodes on our Patreon, and we did that throughout our break. We'll do it throughout the next one, as well as throughout the season. So if you ever want to hear more tidbits from our episodes or extra content from other special guests, please check out our Patreon.
In addition to that, thanks to all of our listeners who also gave us feedback from season one, it was super helpful in setting up two.
[00:01:38] Tulsa: Yeah. And then thank you to our sponsors, the Centre for Applied Neuroscience, National Ultimate Training Camp and VC Ultimate. We're excited to be working with you all again this season.
[00:01:48] Luisa: Yeah we're super excited for season two. We have some really amazing guests some really cool conversations coming up. We've got a bunch of new ideas for listener engagement so thank you again for all the feedback that you've shared.
Listeners continue, please, to keep giving us feedback on social media, you can email us at team@sharetheirpodcast.com. It's super helpful for making this podcast the best that it can be and as enjoyable to listen for all of you. So please keep giving us feedback. We also want to share that one of our sponsors VC Ultimate has opened up a Share the Air store for us.
So if you're interested in purchasing some Share the Air merch, you can check out our Share the Air store at vcultimate.com.
[00:02:30] Tulsa: Yeah. And we are excited to share this first episode back with you. We have one of our most active patrons and one of our good friends and teammates, Amy Zhou joining us.
So we'll jump right into that conversation.
Joining us today is our teammate and friend Amy Zhou. Amy also known as Doodle, started playing ultimate at Rutgers University before joining New Jersey Jughandle for club. In 2016, Amy joined DC Scandal playing for and captaining the women's team until joining Boston Brute Squad for the 2021 season. In 2020, Amy was selected for the U.S. National Mixed team to compete at WUGC, which was unfortunately canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amy also plays for and has captained New York Gridlock in the PUL. Outside of ultimate, Amy works as a pharmacist, enjoys eating good food, and listening to Taylor Swift. Amy, welcome to Share the Air.
[00:03:41] Amy Zhou: Did you do all that research on your own? I could have just told you.
[00:03:43] Tulsa: No, we just knew it. We didn't even have to look anything up.
[00:03:47] Luisa: You're our friend. We know things about you.
[00:03:50] Amy Zhou: but like the Jughandle thing, like, I don't know.
[00:03:52] Luisa: I know Jedi, like
[00:03:55] Amy Zhou: Fair, fair, fair.
[00:03:56] Tulsa: Yeah.
[00:03:57] Luisa: So normally we start our episodes by like asking how did you get started playing ultimate? So I think you S you started in college at Rutgers, right?
[00:04:08] Amy Zhou: Yeah. So I started my sophomore year of Rutgers. I didn't do anything freshman year and I'd played sports in high school. And I was like, ah, I kind of want to do something, but I was never really good at the sports I played in high school. So I wanted to do something completely different. And I'd played a little bit of ultimate frisbee in gym class, but it was just, there was no stack.
There was no force, it was like 30 people on the field at once. So I wouldn't really count that. But I knew the captain of the ultimate team sort of, I met her once. She was roommates with a family friend and I met her over Christmas. So I was like, okay, I know one person on the team and that's enough to get me out to practice.
So I went to practice. It was pretty fun. And then my first tournament was Haverween. Lu, I don't know if you've been to that.
[00:04:59] Luisa: I have not as a player gone to it, but I did just attend it a couple of weeks ago to coach the college team that I coach.
[00:05:06] Amy Zhou: Did they, did they dress up in costumes?
[00:05:08] Luisa: Yes. So, my team went as the truffula trees from the Lorax and I was the Lorax. So this sweatshirt, this orange sweater that I'm wearing was part of the Lorax costume.
[00:05:21] Amy Zhou: Yeah. So back to Haverween, we dressed up as zombies and it was just so much fun. And I remember even at my first tournament, I was like, they're not playing me enough. I'm better than this. I need to get on the field. Um, so since then I was just absolutely hooked.
[00:05:40] Tulsa: Oh, that's great.
[00:05:41] Luisa: I'm I'm just, I'm not surprised at all that day one of ultimate Amy has the same energy as Amy now.
[00:05:48] Amy Zhou: Yeah. And I absolutely did not deserve to be on the field more than I was. I, couldn't throw at all. I didn't know what I was doing, but it was just so much fun.
[00:05:56] Luisa: Yeah, just that competitive, competitive nature.
[00:05:58] Amy Zhou: Yeah.
[00:06:00] Luisa: So how was playing with Rutgers? A couple of bonus episodes back, we talked about playing in the Metro East. So what was your Metro East experience?
[00:06:09] Amy Zhou: Yeah. It was rough. I mean, when I started, it was pretty good. We had good numbers, solid leadership, a coach. And then as those people graduated, we couldn't really retain any of the talent and the new people coming in. Weren't very committed to the team. There are a couple of people that were really good that stayed with us.
But for the most part, I'd say the majority of my time at Rutgers, we had fewer than 14 people at every practice we rarely got to do fulfilled scrimmage. It was just coming up with different games to get touches. And we must have gone through 6, 7, 8 coaches.
[00:06:52] Tulsa: Wow, a lot of turnover.
[00:06:53] Amy Zhou: Yeah. So it was, it was rough. I made some really good friends on the team, but every practice was a bit of a struggle to get the most out of it.
[00:07:03] Tulsa: What made you keep coming back? Cause I know you were captaining.
[00:07:07] Amy Zhou: Yeah, I forget how many years I captained but yeah.
[00:07:11] Tulsa: Yeah, I imagine it's draining to put the work in to organize all that and to not get a ton of return from people. So what made you keep doing it?
[00:07:18] Amy Zhou: Yeah. I, think part of my personality is I like to find something and just become obsessed with it and devote all of my time and attention and energy towards it. And I had chosen ultimate as that thing. And also, I guess I realized a couple years into playing, I had the potential to be really, really good and I couldn't get better if I wasn't playing.
And I, it just seemed like there was never a choice to be made. It was just like, this is what I'm doing and I'm going to do it to the best of my ability.
[00:07:45] Tulsa: When was it that you realized that you had the potential to be really good? And how did you notice that?
[00:07:50] Amy Zhou: It's actually one of the coaches for the, the guy's team. One of the coaches, Anthony Nunez, actually, I don't, I don't think he actually knows this, but he told me, or he said something that implied that I could one day be good.
And I just took that and I held onto it. And I think that was the little bit of confidence in like the boost that I needed to really commit myself to this sport.
[00:08:14] Tulsa: Before that, did you think you could be, and it was helpful to hear it from somebody else? Or was it like, oh, that's new, I guess I could be.
[00:08:22] Amy Zhou: Yeah, I think I was always pretty confident in myself, I know that I can be over-confident in certain aspects of my life, but to have that external validation from someone who actually knew the sport, that just confirmed my own suspicions.
[00:08:40] Tulsa: Yeah.
[00:08:41] Luisa: What did that work look like for college Amy playing in the Metro East? I, I don't even, I mean, I would imagine that Rutgers was similar to a lot of other Metro East teams, doesn't really travel out of the region, doesn't really see what other college competition can look like until you start playing club. So what did it look like for you?
[00:09:02] Amy Zhou: Yeah. Competition wise, we went to way too many ultimate tournaments where we played probably Princeton every single time. Outside of competition, I didn't start lifting until after college. So I don't remember what kind of workouts I did. I must've just been running and throwing, but, in the winter, like we didn't have indoor field space, so we would have winter practices in the hallways of the gym. We'd be sprinting down the hallways and there'd be like other teams trying to do practice in the hallways, too. Like there just wasn't enough space. So again, it was just trying to make something out of not very much. And that was the basic theme throughout my Metro East experience, I think.
[00:09:48] Luisa: I have a kind of funny story, from before us knowing each other is that my senior year. So I think that would have been your fifth and final year. We were at college regionals and I played with the University of Rochester and year in, year out the team to be was Ottawa. So.
[00:10:10] Amy Zhou: then
[00:10:11] Luisa: I remember being at that tournament. And all of a sudden people are talking about Rutgers and I was like, who's Rutgers? I don't even know who this team is. And everyone's talking like, yeah, there's this one player. And she's just tooling on everybody on this field right now. All of a sudden, here's this incredibly impactful player, totally changing one whole side of the bracket. And I think that's just very representative of what it's like to be a player coming out of the Metro East. But yeah, I didn't, I didn't learn until a couple of years later that that was that, that was you.
[00:10:43] Amy Zhou: Yeah. That's pretty funny. I remember that tournament. My parents had booked a family vacation to Alaska during Nationals. So it was like, we can't qualify for Nationals, this not going to happen. And then we kept winning and winning and we got to the game to go. I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do. Thankfully, we got absolutely smashed by Ottawa. So like, but yeah, that was funny.
[00:11:09] Luisa: So, was Jughandle your first club team?
[00:11:14] Amy Zhou: Technically, no, I got cut from another New Jersey mixed team. The first year I tried to play club. And so this team called Ex Pandas. They just came up during the series. So I played series with this team. I'm not sure we won any games. We might've won a couple, but that was my first club experience. And then the next year I was like, all right, I'm going to do this thing for real.
And then I made Jug and yeah, that's how it started.
[00:11:42] Luisa: What year was that? Were you still in college when you played with Jughandle?
[00:11:46] Amy Zhou: Oh my God. I, yeah, I think, cause I started Scandal my first year out of college. So I must have still been in college.
[00:11:53] Luisa: So those two years have been, I'm pretty sure you're only official mixed club experience you've played women's since then. Um, so what was early mixed experience like for you?
[00:12:06] Amy Zhou: It was fun. I, I feel like I got to do a lot and I felt like I was making a big impact on the field. Yeah I got to be like initiating cutter and I was very involved in the plays, but I think the thing that was tough was that even if I could match up against their best woman, if their men were better than our men, there was nothing I can do. And that happened a couple of times, just at regionals, we were a mid level regional scene. And when we lost, I just felt so helpless because there was nothing I could do to help out the men that were getting out matched. So yeah, I think within our team, the gender dynamics were good. I felt like the women were getting involved a lot. It was more that feeling of helplessness where I couldn't help the team win certain games.
[00:13:04] Luisa: That is something that was really shocking to feel. When I started playing mixed this year was how much that obviously gender plays a huge role in mixed, but those match-ups and how much of the actual game is impacted by that. And I think playing on a single gender team, you can do things with the defense in terms of poaches and switches. That can happen like pretty seamlessly. And of course, like, okay, well, you know, match up are people well against certain skillsets. But overall those tiny defensive adjustments can happen in the middle of a point and you can more or less be okay and it can even be ideally advantageous. But that was a really surprising thing to learn about the mixed game is that can't happen so often. Simply because then there is some sort of a mismatch, or even in the case of some people safety where they don't, you know, if a dowel doesn't, if a doubt prefers to not be marked by a DOM, you can't really have that sort of person switch.
It becomes poached sort of defense until you can find your person again.
[00:14:18] Tulsa: Lu, can you quickly define DOW and -
[00:14:21] Luisa: Yes, yes. Sorry. So to clarify, DOW and DOM, a DOW is a defender of women. So a person who defends women and a DOM is a defender of men. Asterix that that is not perfect language, and is still assuming of gender. But those are terms that, my team and, and a lot of teams in our region are using.
Let's talk about women's. So in 2016 you joined DC Scandal. Were you just more interested in switching to the women's division, after playing mixed? Was it just the closest team and was just a
[00:14:57] Tulsa: I mean, Scandal had just one, right?
A couple of years in a row.
[00:15:01] Amy Zhou: Yep.
[00:15:01] Luisa: Two years. 2014 and 2015.
[00:15:04] Tulsa: That's pretty appealing.
[00:15:05] Luisa: Yeah. That is true.
[00:15:07] Amy Zhou: They won in 2015.
[00:15:09] Luisa: Yeah, they
[00:15:10] Tulsa: No, no, that was Brutes first
[00:15:11] Amy Zhou: Yeah. There's
[00:15:12] Tulsa: they
[00:15:12] Luisa: Oh, so 20 13, 20 13, 20
[00:15:14] Amy Zhou: And then a lot of people left the year after and then, they lost in quarters in 2015. But my mind was not even on winning Nationals at the time. I really just wanted to make Nationals and it wasn't just to switch to the women's division. Actually, I thought about going to a different mixed team, but the closest mixed team that wasn't Nationals qualifier was amp, and I couldn't do that to Jughandle it. I just felt too bad jumping ship to amp. So I was like, okay, I'm just going to switch divisions. There, there can be no hard feelings with that. Right. And so, yeah, that's why I was between bent and Scandal. I just really, really wanted to go to Club Nationals and I felt like those two teams would give me the best chance.
[00:16:00] Tulsa: So what was the first season like on Scandal? I mean, that's like a they're well coached, solid program. What was it like jumping into that?
[00:16:10] Amy Zhou: It was so much fun. My God, I remember going to tryouts and just seeing these huge names like Jenny Fey, Sandy Jorgensen, Sarah Itoh. They were all at tryouts and I was completely starstruck. And then I got to practice with them and then I got to play with them and just, I think nothing really beats being a rookie in your first season of elite club, there's so much to learn. And obviously Dutchy is the coach. Like, I don't know how much more good ultimate I could've absorbed that year. And I think it was kind of good. I was a little bit not ignorant. I just didn't know all of the great players yet in the women's division. So going into some of those match-ups I did not know who I was up against for the better I would've been so intimately. I remember us open was my first tournament. And I got layout D'ed by Opi and Jenny Fey comes up to me after in the timeout. And she goes, she says something like welcome to the big leagues. And I was like, all right, I made it. And then, I think ulti world had like a block of the year bracket that year and I was on there twice getting deed. I was like, oh, this is great.
[00:17:30] Tulsa: Yeah. Yeah. That's the rookie season for most people.
[00:17:34] Amy Zhou: Yeah. Um, but I, it was, it was so much fun. It was awesome.
[00:17:39] Tulsa: What would you say in terms of like playing? Where would you say you made the most leaps and bounds in the first season? Under Duchy to,
[00:17:48] Amy Zhou: Ooh, that's a good question.
Yeah, I think, athletically, I was always decent, but I think my field sense was the part of my game that improved the most after being on that team for a season. in college, yeah, I was trying to be everywhere, but I didn't completely understand the dangerous spaces of the field. And then after being coached by Dutchy, I started to see the field differently and was able to identify where I could be most dangerous as a help defender.
And, how to position myself, even in person to person defense, to take away the most dangerous space. So I think that was my first introduction to seeing the field differently.
[00:18:37] Tulsa: Yeah.
I feel like for me coming into club, I played for Boston siege in 2016, actually, same year as you, we may have matched up at that us open. um, and then I played for Brute in 2017 and I think defense was definitely an area that I had to work a lot on. And especially, I mean, you know, in college, it's easy to bait stuff and play far off and close when you need to, and get in multiple places, you never really have to play shutdown defense unless the other team also has one good person.
And I think in club that was an adjustment for me is like repositioning being ready for my person to go at any time and like trying to actually think about where I want them to go and how to get them to, to go there.
[00:19:29] Amy Zhou: Yeah.
[00:19:30] Luisa: In talking about defense. So this is maybe jumping around your career a little bit, but I think anybody who would watch you play, considers you to be a centerpiece of most D-lines that you're on. Was that a role that you feel you were developing into even as a college player? Was that something you maybe found more on Scandal and has just developed on Brute and on Gridlock?
[00:20:01] Amy Zhou: Yeah, that's a, that's a tough question when I was on O-line on Jughandle. And then that was the last time anyone put me on a line and I don't know why I don't necessarily think I'm a D-line player. I'm not really sure what makes D-line verse O-line player exactly. But I like the D-line more.
[00:20:28] Tulsa: That makes you the D-line player now.
[00:20:32] Amy Zhou: I think part of it has to do with the, the ways that you get validation as a player. And I think that for some people they need. To touch the disc. They need goals. They need assists to feel like they're contributing to the team. And I've really tried to cultivate this mentality of, I don't need those things to contribute to a team.
I can be on a point, not touch the desk, not even get close to the disc and still feel okay about how I did that point. So I, guess in that sense, it makes me a D-line player. I still feel like my actual defense has a lot of room for improvement, especially after this last season with Brute. I'm like, okay, wow. I can still be a lot better at this thing.
[00:21:18] Tulsa: Yeah. I think what you said about changing the way you view having an impact on the field. I think that's super interesting and I imagine it can be hard for people coming from college, places where they touch the disc a lot and have a lot of impact to shift that mindset and to recognize it's kind of almost an outcome versus process goal. And it feels, I mean, I love talking about mental stuff, so I, I think it feels like outcome versus process and also it feels more controllable. So Russell Wallach, he once said this thing that kind of blew my mind. He was like, if you go up to a D-line and you're like, we got to get a break, our goal is to get a break. If that line doesn't get a break, they come off at, after that point feeling like they failed. Right? It's like, you didn't hit the goal. Versus if you go to the line and say, we want to come down hard on the pole and pressure, the first centering pass, we want to disrupt a pass, make them look off their first initiating cutter. Make them look off the pole, play those things are more controllable and less of like a, yes, we hit our goal because we broke. No, we didn't. And I think that kind of gets at what you're saying of, there are different ways to have an impact that isn't getting a block or throwing a goal, catching a goal. And I think that mindset more people should have it.
[00:22:41] Amy Zhou: Yeah. And I think with D-line you can get especially creative with your personal goal. Sometimes it's you want to make your matchups life absolutely miserable on the turn. You can run them to the ground. You just wreak havoc everywhere. And I think that's really fun and creative.
[00:22:58] Tulsa: Yeah. Right. Sometimes it's how can I see opportunities to leave this person and get in the way other places. Sometimes it's not letting trying to not let your person touch the desk or let them touch it and make them throw a pore throat. You know, I think that's, that's great. Like how creative you can think about the different ways, different individual goals.
You can have playing defense. Yeah.
[00:23:17] Luisa: Yeah, I feel like that's really unique to, well, it's not unique to ultimate, but that, that concept of it's not just about the touches you can get, it's not the stats you can rack up. There are really, really definitive things that don't end up on a traditional stat sheet that are so critical. And I think that concept is, a really cool part of being a defensive player or at least having defense as part of your game. It's not about actually getting the turn. There's so many pieces that lead up to that and are really important contributions.
[00:23:49] Amy Zhou: Yeah, it's wild because it seems so obvious now, but I guess at some point, none of us knew that.
[00:23:55] Tulsa: Yeah.
[00:23:57] Luisa: And now Share the Air will take a break to talk about today's Teachable Moment brought to you by our sponsor, the Centre for Applied Neuroscience.
[00:24:11] Tulsa: We introduced teachable moments in season one to explain the neuroscience behind some common tools and principles often used to enhance sports performance, such as visualization, routines, and positive feedback. If you want to hear those segments again, you can find them in episodes six through 10 and on the Centre for Applied Neuroscience is website.
[00:24:29] Luisa: For season two, we asked our audience what neuroscience you wanted explained, and we have Dr. Wintink here to answer your questions.
[00:24:36] Mandy: Hi.
[00:24:37] Tulsa: So today's question is about fatigue while playing. Is there a difference between mental and physical fatigue?
[00:24:44] Mandy: That is such a good question. And thinking with the mind versus the brain is probably not the best way of thinking about it because the mind is kind of like what the brain does. It's like a function of, of the brain. And so, in many ways that question kind of sums up how we usually think of it from a duality perspective and they're not different. So mental fatigue has a lot of underlying processes that happen in the brain. But there are a few differences in terms of how we've been studying it. So one thing is that physical exhaustion is fairly clearly understood, in terms of it comes because of exercise. Things that we do physically too long, and then we get physically exhausted because of it.
And so one of the, the neurochemicals that are known to be involved in that is, noradrenaline, which is related to like, arousal, and adenosine. Adenosine grows in the body. So it sort of accumulates in the body over time. And that's what leads us to sleeping. When we have too much adenosine, then our brain and our body starts to feel tired, and then we go to sleep. The interesting thing about mental exhaustion is that it seems to be also related to those same chemicals. So adrenaline, noradrenaline, and adenosine.
So again, it's like too much, exhaustion, too much stuff going on and our brain is getting the signals that we need to rest. But there seems to be another level to the mental exhaustion, which recruits dopamine and dopamine is the neurochemical that's involved in motivation and wanting and drive to do something.
So if you can imagine, like when you've ever been in that, state of mental exertion, , where you're like, I just don't want to do it. And that's because the dopamine is involved in that. So that's sort of it from a neurochemical perspective, but what's interesting is that when you become physically exerted, it seems to lead to mental exertion. It can drive that feeling of I don't want to do this. I can't do this. And one of the things that seems to be the biggest predictor of the mental exertion is that perception of effort. So when something seems really, really effortful, then, it seems more tiring, more exhausting, right? So they're, they're really interconnected, I guess, is one of the bottom lines.
[00:26:55] Luisa: Thanks to our sponsor, Dr. Mandy Wintink and the Center for Applied Neuroscience, for this Teachable Moment. Head to www.knowyourbrain.ca and see what courses they have to teach you more about your brain.
[00:27:06] Tulsa: If you mention you heard about them here, you'll get a 5% discount off course fees, and they will also donate 5% back to Share the Air.
[00:27:19] Luisa: Cool. I would love to talk about your experience on Brute Squad this past summer. This was your first season on Brute Squad. And based on what you just said, sounds like you both learned a lot and realize there's a lot more space to develop, especially on defense. So. What lessons did you pick up in your rookie season with them?
[00:27:38] Amy Zhou: Yeah, my, my God, I thought I was good at person defense until I got to Brute Squad. And I was like, oh my God, I'm trash at this. I think a lot of the physicality and the footwork and the muscle memory of person defense is something that I had to work on throughout the season. And it's just like something I didn't, I didn't know how much I was lacking in that part of the game until I got to Brute.
And then that's what they drilled constantly. And I could see constantly that I was falling short and Kimmy stayed with me for awhile over the summer. And every day she'd be like, Hey, do you want to go work on some defensive. Oh, that sounds really not fun.
I'd rather, I was like, I'd rather throw, but I can't really say no. So we worked on that a bunch and I, that actually made me so much better and it, it helped me realize that this is something that I can get better at pretty easily just by doing the reps.
[00:28:45] Luisa: So it sounds like you had both muscle memory takeaways from these sorts of drills, as well as a new understanding of the field, field awareness?
[00:28:54] Amy Zhou: Field awareness in the very small circle of space between me and my person. Where to set up if they're coming back under and how to take away the angle that they want. It's like, Yeah. I had worked on these things with the triangle drill before, but I feel like it was just something that we went into with so much more detail at Brute practice. And it's something that I thought about a lot more than I had ever thought about before.
[00:29:21] Tulsa: Okay. So also in your first year in Brute, I think it's, it's interesting to move from one women's club team to a different women's club team. What felt different in terms of the way things were organized, that kind of stuff?
[00:29:38] Amy Zhou: Everything. Scandal, we had two or three captains and Dutchy and Dutchy put in a ton of work. I did not realize how much work Dutchy was putting in until I came to Brute. I got to see how much time and energy had to be spent to get everything in order. With Brute's committee structure. do
[00:30:04] Tulsa: yeah, should, we should give some context. So previous seasons on Brute, we've done the kind of typical captains, two to four captains, I think. And then a couple of coaches and they basically do all the logistical stuff. All of the practice planning, all of the running of practice. Yeah, basically everything.
And then we had some committees that would kind of do some additional add on stuff. Some logistics for tournaments, finances, that kind of thing. And then in 2021, we had a whole bunch of conversations. We did a workshop series with both and, and we wanted to try out a different system to kind of distribute power across more people on the team and help more people feel invested and be able to focus on the areas of birth that they wanted to put energy into so that we would have less burnout among captains and leaders.
So everyone, this year was on at least one committee. You got to select what committee you're interested in and Doodle you were on the strategy committee, which I think was kind of one of the heaviest loads in terms of you met every week for at least two hours.
[00:31:13] Amy Zhou: Yeah. We spent a lot of time with the strategy committee. It's funny because I was excited to not captain for once and just play and enjoy myself. I was like, oh, this is a lot of work. Yeah. But
real quick, funny story for Lou about the committee. I don't know if you watched on one of the broadcasts. I think they were talking about, I think Evan Leffler was talking about the committees and he said something like they have a committee to oversee the other committees. like when you put it that way, it sounds ridiculous. But actually, yeah,
[00:31:46] Tulsa: It wasn't overseeing though, because we're all equal. It was communicate within committees.
[00:31:53] Luisa: oh that's very much needed.
[00:31:55] Amy Zhou: it's just so funny hearing Evan Leffler say it
that way.
[00:32:00] Tulsa: It's such an ultimate
thing. Yeah.
[00:32:02] Amy Zhou: It was like satirical.
[00:32:04] Luisa: we don't have captains, but I'm going to describe it in a way that makes it seem like there are captains
[00:32:09] Amy Zhou: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like with the committee structure, everyone had and got to contribute more to the team off the field. And because of that, and I don't know if Brute was different in the years before I got there, but it seemed like everyone was bought in. I don't want to say more than people were brought in, on Scandal, but in a different way. And it's felt nice that everyone was pulling a bit of their weight off the field.
[00:32:36] Luisa: Yeah. I want to dive into this a little bit and talk about maybe some of the reasons why you all wanted to switch to the structure and maybe some observations you made over the course of the season. Because I've certainly struggled with, leadership burnout and I've been on teams that have struggled with leadership burnout to the point where people quit playing ultimate which it feels both cruel and unsustainable.
And I always found that really, really difficult, especially because that puts so much work on a small group of people and a lot of expectation on a small group of people. And we're playing on these club teams that don't pay its players, we're all paying to be here. And there's a lot of work that goes into not just a season, but then carrying a team from one season to the next. And I think this, this distribution of power and, not asking a small group of people to do all of the work, just so that other people can play probably the most important thing for the sustainability of players year to year.
So I haven't been on a team that doesn't have a captain structure. And so I'm really curious, one. What were some of the reasons why Brute Squad decided to do that this year and two, what were some of the takeaways after this season? Is it something that you think Brute Squad will continue next year?
[00:34:07] Tulsa: Okay. I will try and give some background. there were kind of two main things that motivated the switch and one was the burnout and year to year, it was kind of a struggle. Who's going to captain this year, who's going to take one for the team and do this.
And I remember an older player saying to me, I think you'd be a great captain. And I was like, yeah. I would love to do it at some point. It's just hard to focus on playing, developing yourself as a player at the same time as doing all this organizational stuff. And she was like, yeah, some of us older players should, step up and do this so that newer players can play and get used to being in the club scene. And Also like it's not sustainable. it's less fun. It's tiring, you burn out fast. So part of it was just trying to relieve some of the burden from people and help people get to enjoy the season. And then some of it was also, we felt like, there was improvements we could make to the team culture especially in terms of valuing everyone on the team more for than just what they contribute on the field.
And, being able to hear more voices, hear what people want, more share more feedback.And so what we came up with was this committee system, where everyone was on a committee, we called it, Becky came up with the name, "Colla-Brute-ive", like roots in the middle of collaborative. So we try to help everyone find a role on, on some committee that would work well for them in terms of what they're interested in and what they might be doing anyway, like we had a social committee for people to play on hangouts, people who are interested in doing equity work.
We had a committee, so we were trying to find things that would work with people's interests and also with their lifestyle. So like, you know, being on the trout committee was heavier load in the beginning of the season and then less load over the rest of the season. So that's, the summary. We're working on getting feedback from the team about what people thought of it.
I'll be really curious to see what people think. I think in the beginning there was a lot of hesitation because it was a different system and we didn't know anybody who had done anything like it before Brute had always done captains. And like, in terms of on-field success, that model had clearly been successful.
You know, we won three national championships with it. So I think it was scary to, move away from that and try something else out. I do think one piece that I really liked about it was I think it gave individuals more autonomous. Because if you want something to change, there are clear ways to change it.
And oh yeah. One other piece of, of the committees was that we had every meeting be an open meeting and you could go join another committee meeting. If you wanted to share something or you saw something on their agenda that you wanted to talk about. So we were trying to kind of break down like the, these people make the decisions about this stuff.
And if you have something you want to change, here's here are some direct ways to change it. like to think that that made people feel more empowered for when they wanted to do things differently to help the team do things differently instead of just about it.
[00:37:09] Amy Zhou: Yeah. And I think by the end of the season, we started making jokes about committee structure. anything had to be done, people would be like, oh, let's make a committee about it. Which I think means that it's been accepted, but we'll see,
[00:37:22] Tulsa: Yeah.
[00:37:24] Luisa: What do you both feel worked really well about this committee system?
[00:37:29] Tulsa: I'll tell you it didn't work well.
[00:37:31] Luisa: Yeah. Tell me about.
[00:37:32] Tulsa: We dropped the ball on some things. So, so typically like basically all of these tasks would be the captain's job. And we almost messed up our rostering for a tournament. We did for one term we almost did for regionals. And then we forgot to show up at the captain's check-in for like pick up our wrist bands because we were, we just had an, assigned it to a committee.
It just fell through the cracks. So I think that was definitely, one of the challenges was making sure we catch all of the things that are coming in that we need to do and make sure we like divide them up amongst committees and know whose role things are.
[00:38:08] Amy Zhou: yeah. I think one thing that worked is it just made me thankful for the work that every single teammate was doing. You knew which teammate was on every committee. And it was just like, every time I thought about this committee, it was like, oh, I'm very grateful for these people who are putting in this amount of work. part was nice.
[00:38:26] Tulsa: Yeah.
I think it also kind of helped give insight for people that hadn't captained before into all of the things that have to be done. And also how much nuance there is in a lot of decisions. And sometimes as a player, if it's not, if there's a decision, I think playing time is a big one
that comes up.
There's a decision made about playing time that you don't like, it feels like, Ooh, the captains aren't doing what the team wants, or, And then you kind of get a glimpse into how the decisions are made. And there's so many factors that play in and so many things that have to be considered. And so I think understanding that nothing is as black and white, as you think it is as a player, helpful and more compassionate and understanding for all the decisions that are made.
[00:39:11] Amy Zhou: No one's ever allowed to complain that.
[00:39:16] Luisa: I want to respond to two things you said is one that piece about everything being so transparent and how awesome that sounds as someone who's a captain a couple of times. And I have changed my communication style in the years that I captain to be as transparent as possible when communicating, because the questions that would come up could be so frustrating to feel like I, to feel like my leadership committee, put so much thought and energy into arriving at a particular decision, but because that process to arrive at that decision wasn't shared with the team, people would come with questions or comments or something that in some ways could feel hurtful. To feel like a teammate felt that I hadn't considered X, Y, and Z in order to get to the decision that, that we feel that we're making for the team. So I think that is like a really cool piece of, of that sort of structure is truly making everything transparent. And really hopefully the team can feel that we arrived at this decision in the best interest of, of the team. The next thing I want to ask is I think in talking specifically about a competitive sports team, moving to the sort of leadership model, or I guess maybe almost lack of a leadership model,
[00:40:47] Tulsa: a ...leader...
[00:40:48] Luisa: ...a leader.
[00:40:50] Tulsa: Uh Yeah. Or, yeah, we did joke about that.
[00:40:53] Luisa: I think something that comes up for most people and it certainly came up for myself and having discussions about new leadership structures is what do you do when it comes to play time? And what do you do when it comes to making decisions about people's roles? How did Brute Squad handle those sorts of discussions, if you're saying they were transparent enough that everyone could be there... does Brute Squad have really open dialogue about people's abilities and skill sets? How does this leadership model work with this very particular aspect of competitive sports?
[00:41:25] Amy Zhou: yeah, I think the play time and roles discussion was probably the trickiest part of the strategy committee. And I forget exactly what phrase it was, but I think one of the things was when you're in these meetings, you speak about a player as if they were in the room. And could see the people in the committee practicing that. And I think actually when you change and shape your language in that way, it actually helps you think about the players differently and in that way. And I think that was a positive thing. Being more deliberate with your language helped us to, I think, find value in players, in ways that we might not have found if we weren't as conscious about the way that we were speaking. And then in terms of self-awareness, I think everyone is pretty self-aware, but we tried our best to be overly communicative about playing time enrolls. So before every tournament, we would try to make sure that people knew what to expect going in. I'm not sure how great of a job we did, but in the strategy committee, we also often joked about trying not to assume that everyone hates us, because we had to make some difficult decisions and communication is sometimes tough when you're talking about things like that. But I think, yeah, we had the tendency to be like, oh, everyone hates us. Cause we're making these decisions. They're not going to agree with us. But a lot of times we just had to take a step back and be like, no, people don't hate us. It's fine. we can have these difficult conversations and they can be okay.
[00:43:04] Tulsa: Can we share about the um, self-awareness thing? It was the self scouting report or is that away something?
[00:43:13] Amy Zhou: No.
[00:43:14] Tulsa: Okay. I just thought it was, I just thought it was a really good activity. I don't want to give it away if it's something that your committee came up with and you feel
[00:43:21] Amy Zhou: Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:43:23] Tulsa: Okay.
[00:43:24] Amy Zhou: like, what are you whispering about?
[00:43:27] Tulsa: So the strategy committee sent out this self scouting report and it had a bunch of questions, you know, like when I don't know what were some of the questions?
[00:43:37] Amy Zhou: was Like, what role do you see yourself in? What strengths do you think you have? Who do you work best with? How do you think you can contribute most to group.
[00:43:45] Tulsa: When the other team does blank, I play my best. When the other team does this, it's harder for me, that kind of thing. And I think it was, so each person on the team filled out their own scouting report about themselves, and then we sent it to the strategy committee and then we each had an individual conversation with somebody from the strategy committee about what our role is on Brute and how to kind of make sure we're being utilized for our strengths and also set up for success. And I think it was just a really interesting activity and self-awareness of like, here's what I see about myself. Here's what I can tell you. I'm good at, I want to do more of this. I don't want to do more of this. And like, here's how you all can help me fit in to the team. And I just think it was a really good activity.
[00:44:30] Amy Zhou: It definitely made the roles in playing time discussion, feel more collaborative than this is what the captains are saying. You just have to go along with it. I'm not going to lie. I stole this self-reflection thing from Scandal.
[00:44:43] Tulsa: Oh, nice. Okay. Good.
[00:44:45] Amy Zhou: I think part of it was also if the strategy committee is going to spend so much time thinking and discussing your role, we want you to put in that work as well. So, yeah.
[00:44:57] Tulsa: Yeah, that's fair.
[00:44:58] Amy Zhou: it.
[00:44:58] Tulsa: yeah, yeah.
[00:45:00] Luisa: If you want to summarize big takeaways from this sort of structure, maybe why other teams should consider it.
[00:45:07] Tulsa: Part of what made it not flop is that we had a bunch of conversations with the people returning from 2019 to 2021. And there was a big chunk of the team that wanted to do things differently somehow. And I think that, that made it, so we were willing to try something that we didn't know how it would work. I think it was, it felt risky and it was like stepping into the unknown. And I think because we had that motivation and we had had those conversations about wanting to change stuff, we were willing to try something new. So I feel like that's, that's a prior step. I mean, in the way that the committee format works, I don't think it would work for captains to say, Hey, we're not doing this, we're not, doing captains. Here's what we're doing. Like put it on people, you know? I mean, that's, kind of goes against the way this structure works.
[00:45:57] Amy Zhou: Yeah. And I think anytime you go through something like. There's sort of a bonding that comes with it because everyone is confused and lost and you're getting through it together.
[00:46:06] Tulsa: knows who's going to talk in the huddle it's just silence way too
[00:46:11] Amy Zhou: yeah. I feel like that brought us closer.
[00:46:14] Tulsa: Yeah. It was definitely like one of those kind of inside team jokes.
[00:46:19] Luisa: Share the Air will be right back, but first here's a quick word from our sponsors.
[00:46:23] Tulsa: Share the Air is sponsored by the National Ultimate Training Camp. Located in Western Massachusetts. NUTC is the longest running ultimate sleepover camp in the country. It has also gone international, hosting camps and teaching clinics all over the globe. With the most talented coaches in the world, NUTC is teaching ultimate for the next generation. Learn from the best at NUTC.
[00:46:44] Luisa: Share the Air is also sponsored by VC ultimate. VC has been producing custom uniforms and performance apparel since 1998. A company that proudly puts values and community before profit, VC is the world's best source for quality design and all your ultimate needs. You can support VC and rep Share the Air jerseys by checking out our team store at vcultimate.com.
[00:47:06] Tulsa: Okay, let's jump into national team stuff. So, uh, in 2020, February of 2020, right? All three of us were at the east coast national tryout for WGC and Doodle. You made the team, what was it like when you found out?
[00:47:25] Amy Zhou: Uh, I pretty sure I fell on the ground when I saw that email. So funny story of Nancy actually called me the day before the email came out, except that didn't pick up. Cause I thought she was spam. She didn't leave a message and she call back. So I didn't realize until like a month later, that she had tried to call me. So I was just sweating it out for an extra day I didn't have to. yeah, it was, it was a great feeling. For like the first couple of hours, I wasn't sure if I had been mistakenly emailed, um was like, did, do they think I'm Angela?
[00:48:05] Tulsa: But Angela was also on the team. So
[00:48:07] Amy Zhou: Yeah. So when I saw the roster and that Angela was on the team, I was like, okay. I'm, I'm meant to be here.
[00:48:14] Tulsa: that's funny because Sophie, Sophie knows a night joke about how we both only made the U 2014, because we look so similar that the coaches mix us up and thought we were one player that was like, had my skills of like, you know, throwing, well, I guess Sophie has throwing skills, but like she had the big bids and I don't do that.
So we're yeah, we helped each other. Make the team
was making a national team. One of your goals, did you have that in mind?
[00:48:41] Amy Zhou: Yeah. I forget when I set that as a goal. Sometime in my career, I was like, yeah, I want to make a national team. And part of that was just, I want to win something. I've never won anything.
[00:48:54] Tulsa: sorry.
[00:48:56] Amy Zhou: Yeah I just really, really want to win. I feel like if I made the national team, I would probably win something. So that kind of went hand in hand with that. But yeah, it, it had been a goal of mine, even though we don't do outcome goals.
[00:49:13] Tulsa: Yeah, do that.
[00:49:18] Luisa: Was that your first national tryout?
[00:49:20] Amy Zhou: Yeah. That was my first one. I really wanted to go to the U24 tryout when I was eligible, but I was still a nobody back then. I didn't even know who I could get to write my recommendation, so I even so,
[00:49:36] Luisa: Amy
[00:49:37] Amy Zhou: Was
was my first tryout.
[00:49:39] Luisa: What did you do to prepare, especially, never really having won anything, coming from the Metro East, I think there are things that maybe define other people's careers and maybe help with some of this preparation. So how did you prepare for this tryout to, not only perform well, but to make the team in the end?
[00:49:58] Amy Zhou: Yeah. I mean, physically, I, I can't remember what I did. It was like half of an off season. And then you have to start running around in 30 degree weather in New Jersey to get ready. physically, I think I did everything that I could do and asked for the rest of it. I definitely reached out to a lot of people who had more experience than me. I asked Dutchy and Lauren Boyle just further advice because they had experienced coaching national teams. So they gave me some insight and it forced me to do a lot of self-reflection on what kind of player I am, what my strengths and weaknesses are. And like typical Duchy fashion. I think his mindset towards these things is like, know what you're good at? Do those things know what you're bad at? Don't do those things. It's that simple. But at that same time I started having a sort of identity crisis about what kind of player I actually am because I've always been a cutter.
And then I sort of am a hybrid now, and I don't love the term hybrid, but I feel like I'm starting to make that transition. And I was starting to make that transition during that time. And then even within cutter in my continuation cutter, am I an initiating cutter? I feel like I've done those different things throughout my career. So it was really hard figuring out what my strengths and weaknesses were. And I never quite figured that out before tryouts. And I think that was actually okay for me because I found myself doing all of those things throughout tryouts. And I think that the different coaches actually wanted me to fill different roles. So I think that helped it.
[00:51:38] Tulsa: so in some way you went in being like, my strength is versatility you...
can me
[00:51:43] Amy Zhou: Which tough because if that's the player they want, then that works. If that's not the player they want, then it doesn't work. Right. And I think that that was one of my big takeaways from this tryout. It's like, if you don't make the team, it's not because you're not good. It's literally, because you did not fill this specific role that this one coach had in mind. And yeah. So, and then going back to that question about like, how did I feel when I got the email that I made the team? I think when I was younger, I was like, okay, if I make this team, that means I'm a good player. But in that moment, when I found out I made the team, it wasn't like, oh, I'm validated. I'm a great. It was like, I am so thankful that the coach wanted this type of flyer and that is the kind of player that I am like. That is literally how I felt.
[00:52:27] Tulsa: And it worked with the other people that they're piecing together. Yeah.
[00:52:30] Luisa: okay. a healthy takeaway.
[00:52:34] Amy Zhou: I had many, many weeks of working this mindset into, into my head. It was like, I need to think this way, otherwise I can't the rest of my career depending on this one
[00:52:47] Luisa: Yeah.
[00:52:55] Tulsa: Okay. So the PUL started in 2019 and you played for Gridlock in the first season of the PUL. What was exciting about the start of the PUL, when you heard about it and the first game? or something.
[00:53:10] Amy Zhou: I feel like the first PUL game was the biggest crowd that I've ever played in front of. I felt nervous. My hands were tingling and I was shaking. And I was like, this is awesome. And I think one of the things that thankful about is that it gave my parents the opportunity to come watch me. With club it's like, if you don't grow up with parents that are regularly attending athletic events, can be super awkward for them to show up to these fields. They don't know anyone, they're standing on the sideline. And my parents are immigrants, so they didn't really go to any of my games growing up. They just felt kind of out of place. Didn't feel comfortable talking to people so they didn't attend my games. And then for Gridlock, it was like, they could just go in the stands, sit with the other parents and they were spectators and it didn't feel out of place for them.
So that was the first time they came to watch my ultimate game in person. And they absolutely loved it. they were so into it. At one point I threw an OI flick and my mom was like, wow, you made the disc go in this weird shape. yeah, mom, what do you think I'm throwing 20 disks in a field for hours, like practicing some purpose. When yeah, it just gave them the chance to come watch me and not feel weird about it. So I was really thankful that they, they got to do that. And then they've just been following along with the streams and coming to games in person.
[00:54:41] Tulsa: Yeah. I think that visibility piece, both the accessibility of a single game and then game is being streamed and visible online huge.
[00:54:50] Amy Zhou: And it's interesting because Jenny, she coaches a college boys team and she said that for them, they don't really recognize any of the women's club teams. All they know is professional. So that visibility piece is super, super important for the younger players coming up.
[00:55:08] Tulsa: So I think one of the really unique things about Gridlock for me is that last season or 2019, at some point we had players from 9, 10, 11 different club teams. And it's kind of this mixing pot of people coming from different places from mixed from women's club. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that. What your experience has been like playing with a whole of different people from different places.
[00:55:31] Amy Zhou: Yeah. I was actually thinking about that too. Gridlock was actually the first time that I had gotten to become closer with you and Lu and even Stazi and other people that I consider pretty close friends now. it's funny because we're geographically, we're pretty close to each other, but because we play on different club teams, we hadn't interacted before Gridlock.
So it was really cool becoming teammates with people from New York, Philly, even New Jersey. There's some people that I've been in ultimate circles with, but have never been teammates with. So that part was really fun.
[00:56:08] Tulsa: Yeah.
I know. I think I liked that part too. And I think there, it was fun to get to play and get to know people better that I had heard of. I remember playing with Beezus one of the first two times. and I was just like, oh my God. Or Sarah Johnson, like seeing her at tryouts, was like, who is this person? And it was just so fun to get to know a bunch of different people and see how many good women's players there are in the area.
[00:56:33] Amy Zhou: Yeah.
[00:56:34] Tulsa: or willing to drive to the area.
[00:56:36] Amy Zhou: Yeah. And it's funny because I think that everyone is overrated until they're my teammate.
And I'm like oh, this actually legit.
[00:56:47] Tulsa: I'm with you on that.
[00:56:49] Luisa: I think playing with women in the mixed division was huge for me. I definitely think I've been in circles where the narrative is that women who play mixed are not as good as women who play women's and playing with women on Gridlock, it was so cool. It was same thing, learning these names, learning about these players, having played women's pretty much my whole career.
I really only paid attention to, who are the stars of the women's division and the best teams and what, what was the most recent women's season like and so I think that was a really cool experience that, Gridlock brought was being able to play with people from different divisions.
And on top of that learning different strategies and different games and how those people both play similarly differently, and what are the advantages of both? I think that does create a really cool space on Gridlock in terms of learning and employing strategy and things like that.
[00:57:44] Tulsa: Should we play our game?
[00:57:52] Luisa: Yes.
[00:57:53] Tulsa: Okay. So Doodle, we have a game it's called Frisbee Feud. You've probably seen Instagram that we've been polling questions and we put up a new set of questions yesterday, and I purposely hid this story from you so that you wouldn't see them be able to prepare. So remind after I have to go unhide you from the story.
I knew I know who you are. I know you would prepare and try and guess ahead of time.
I've always thought I would be terrible at Family Feud. I'm the kind of person that if I'm asked a question that I don't know, I will just freeze. Like I can see myself on TV, just freezing.
[00:58:31] Luisa: Well, we'll be able to cut out any
frozen moments you have
[00:58:36] Tulsa: Yeah.
[00:58:36] Luisa: We'll make it seem like you answered it super quick. So it's called Frisbee Feud and it's based off of Family Feud.
[00:58:45] Tulsa: So we have surveyed our listenership, our audience, uh, a series of questions and you're going to have to guess the top answers, like what most people said. So not, not necessarily what you would think the answer would be, but what most people respond to the answer is, and we're still working out the point system.
Yeah. But, but we have, we have top answers. Some of them have more top answers than others. Some it's just like, you get a point if you get something that somebody else guessed. So the first question is name a kind of shoe that ultimate players were.
[00:59:24] Amy Zhou: Crocs.
[00:59:25] Tulsa: Yes. That's number one. You can have two more guesses.
[00:59:30] Amy Zhou: Chacos.
[00:59:31] Tulsa: Okay.
[00:59:32] Amy Zhou: Bircken. Nope, definitely going with Chacos, I guess
[00:59:44] Tulsa: Tevas are on there. Chacos are not surprisingly. Yeah. But the second most popular answer was Birkenstocks.
should've gone with your Yeah. But Crocs
[00:59:57] Luisa: Not bad.
[00:59:57] Tulsa: was the most popular answer. Yeah.
[01:00:00] Luisa: Second question, name a pump-up song that an ultimate team plays.
[01:00:06] Amy Zhou: Oh my God. What are the Lizzo songs?
[01:00:13] Tulsa: You're close.
[01:00:14] Amy Zhou: Juice? Is that a song?
[01:00:17] Tulsa: No, but there are two, three Lizzo songs on you. Two, Lizzo songs on the list
[01:00:25] Amy Zhou: See, I don't listen to pump up music. Um, I can always think of the Brute ones.
[01:00:32] Tulsa: You do, but it's Carly Jepsen or
[01:00:34] Amy Zhou: I know no one else is answering that.
[01:00:39] Tulsa: Okay. I think we could give it to you because the top one is a Lizzo song, which is Good as Hell.
[01:00:44] Amy Zhou: Uh, oh,
that's
[01:00:46] Tulsa: And also, Karaoke by Lizzo is on there.
[01:00:49] Amy Zhou: Damn Jesse Shofner's impact on the sport is just
[01:00:53] Luisa: It's phenomenal, both on the field and in music.
[01:00:58] Tulsa: Do you want to guess? I think we can give you two more guesses if you want to guess anything else?
[01:01:03] Amy Zhou: Can you give me an artist because I can give it away.
[01:01:07] Tulsa: I'll give you a clue. One is a Brute song that we use for a specific warmup.
[01:01:12] Amy Zhou: Not Scat Man.
Level, Level Up.
[01:01:16] Tulsa: No, Timber.
[01:01:19] Amy Zhou: Really?
[01:01:20] Tulsa: Yeah, I think Schwam put that so.
[01:01:22] Amy Zhou: How old are the people answering these.
[01:01:28] Luisa: Yeah, demographics might be all over the place.
[01:01:30] Amy Zhou: I'm going to start thinking older.
[01:01:32] Tulsa: yeah. Think older. There are a couple older songs. One that is weird to me.
[01:01:38] Amy Zhou: I don't think I got anything.
[01:01:41] Tulsa: There's an Eminem song.
[01:01:42] Amy Zhou: Uh, Lose Yourself.
[01:01:44] Tulsa: Nice. There's there's also, Eye of the Tiger, Blue Suede Shoes, Yeah. I don't know. It must be some team inside joke. Wrecking Ball. We Are the Champions.
[01:02:01] Luisa: For Stazi, Dancing On My Own.
[01:02:03] Amy Zhou: Oh,
[01:02:04] Tulsa: Yeah,
[01:02:04] Amy Zhou: These are not like typical pump-up songs. I don't think.
[01:02:08] Tulsa: Yeah. Maybe our question was not the best.
best
[01:02:10] Amy Zhou: No, I think, think your listenership is awesome.
[01:02:19] Tulsa: Okay. The last question I picked specifically for you and it's tell us how early ultimate players show up for practice.
[01:02:26] Luisa: For people listening. Amy, just a huge eye roll.
[01:02:31] Amy Zhou: Okay.
[01:02:31] Tulsa: Like a pained eye-roll.
[01:02:33] Amy Zhou: I show up an hour early. I think other people show up 30 minutes early.
[01:02:38] Tulsa: That's generous, the the top answer is 15 minutes early.
There There
There were a couple people that said 30 minutes. There was also multiple that said 10 minutes, 20 minutes, five minutes, couple that said late 15 minutes late. Not early at all. Less than one minute. And then 10 minutes late. Yeah. A bunch of late and right on time.
[01:03:00] Luisa: To paint an image for our listeners. As Tulsa read that list, Amy's jaw dropped farther and farther to the floor.
[01:03:08] Amy Zhou: my God.
[01:03:12] Tulsa: Yeah.
[01:03:13] Amy Zhou: Wow. Uh, yeah, the one time I showed up late was for Scandal practice because I thought the practice started an hour later than it did. And I was then only like 10 minutes late.
[01:03:24] Tulsa: That's why you you get there an hour
[01:03:29] Amy Zhou: Never know with the time zones.
[01:03:33] Tulsa: Oh, sorry. I didn't give you all of your guesses for that one. I just you.
[01:03:39] Amy Zhou: I would
[01:03:39] Luisa: She
[01:03:39] Amy Zhou: guessed I would never
[01:03:40] Tulsa: Yeah. Yeah.
[01:03:41] Amy Zhou: 15 minutes late.
[01:03:45] Tulsa: Uh okay. Nice work. That's Frisbee Feud.
[01:03:48] Amy Zhou: I like that question.
[01:03:49] Luisa: Amy. Thank you for joining us on this episode of share that. it's just fun. It's fun to talk to friends and have these sorts of conversations, but thanks for sharing all your thoughts about team dynamics and playing in the women's division and stuff like that.
[01:04:03] Amy Zhou: No problem.
[01:04:04] Luisa: Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time. If you like the podcast and want to support us, here are a few things that you can do.
[01:04:13] Tulsa: You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @sharetheairpodcast and on Twitter @sharetheairpod.
[01:04:19] Luisa: You can also rate and review us, and most importantly, subscribe to our podcasts wherever you listen.
[01:04:24] Tulsa: And if you want to show more support or you just can't get enough of Share the Air, you can check out our Patrion at patreon.com/sharetheair. If you're interested in repping some Share the Air gear, check out our VC Ultimate store at vcultimate.com.
[01:04:36] Luisa: If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us team@sharetheirpodcast.com. We'd love to hear from you.
[01:04:42] Tulsa: Thanks so much for listening.
[01:04:44] Luisa: Share the Air is recorded and edited by Tulsa Douglas and Luisa Neves. It is planned and produced by Tulsa Douglas, Luisa, Neves, and Tim Bobrowski.
[01:04:53] Tulsa: Share the Air's music is by Grey Devlin and Christopher Hernandez.
[01:04:56] Luisa: Finally, thanks again to our sponsors, NUTC, VC Ultimate, and the Centre for Applied Neuroscience.