Episode 29

Connor McHale, a top-ranked ultimate Frisbee player from Europe, recently played in the United States with Team Great Britain and Chicago Machine. He had a great experience representing his country at the World Beach Ultimate Championship, where they won a bronze medal. He also played with Chicago Machine and finished second in the Championship Weekend. Playing in the US was a different experience with a different style of play, but Connor adapted well and appreciated the welcoming culture of the team. In Europe, teams work on a three to four year cycle, aiming to win a World Championship. Welcome back to the BreakSide Podcast, here for Episode 29. This is your ultimate destination for in-depth, collegiate and professional Frisbee discussions and interviews. I'm your host, David Adamides. This episode's guest has recently been ranked the second best malmatching player in Europe by UltiWorld. He has played on some of the biggest stages in the world, representing Team Great Britain, Flapp'Em Ultimate and Chicago Machine. Introducing Connor McHale. Connor, thanks for being here. How are you doing? Hi, David. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm good. How are you doing today? This is incredible. Yeah. Doing well. Thanks for being here. You're the first person we've had from overseas on this podcast. We have had one guest from Canada, but you're the first person from overseas, so it's quite the treat, quite the honor. So, just once again, thanks for being here. I'm honored to be here and glad to be representing Europe. Always. Definitely. So, you just came off an extended period of time where you're actually playing Ultimate over here in the United States. You played with Team Great Britain at the Beach World Championship. You played with Chicago Machine as well. But now you're back in the United Kingdom now, if I'm not mistaken. After all this travel, after all this Ultimate, does it just feel good to be home? Yeah, it really does. I had an incredible time over there and I have no regrets whatsoever. It's an amazing experience. Just the living in the U.S. and obviously the Ultimate as well, but I can't lie, it was nice to be back in my own band, a bit of routine. Even back in the office at work, it was good to be back. Definitely. There's nothing like coming home, right? So, that's incredible. But while you're over here, like I just mentioned, you played with Team Great Britain at the World Beach Ultimate Championship and you guys did very well, came home with a bronze medal there. Tell me about that experience. What was it like, you know, representing your country overseas and doing exceptionally well? It was great. Yeah. There's always been a bit of pressure competing in this tournament. I think GB Open have historically done very well at beach tournaments. They've come second in the last two Beach Worlds, falling to the U.S. in the final. So, we knew that was the kind of standard we wanted to meet and to maybe go one step further and try and beat the boys from USA. So, obviously, delighted to come away with a medal is amazing. And I think we deserve that with kind of a small roster and the tired legs by the end. But a little disappointed to not go all the way to the final. But for me, that was one of my first kind of senior national team performances playing open since 2019 with COVID and taking a break. So, it was nice to be back out there with the guys. Yeah, overall, amazing experience playing against some of the best players in the world is always amazing. So, I'm sure the talent level of competition was just through the roof at a tournament like that. And I think being, you know, in a home country, you know, the Americans probably had a little bit of advantage. You're just, you're familiar with things, but you're traveling across the world for this tournament. And, you know, just that small roster, just a group of guys from the home country. What was the living situation like? How did they house you? Just accommodations? How was the whole experience? Machine were very, very accommodating. They were keen to have me on board. I got back in touch almost a year ago today, actually, kind of November, December time, reaching out to a few different teams to see what was possible. Machine got back in touch pretty quickly. I met Joe whilst he was over playing in Paris last year on the European circuit. So, we discussed a little bit here and there, but wanted to really lock it in and kind of made it clear to them that if I was going to make this happen, I wouldn't be able to work whilst I was over there, really. And I kind of asked what the accommodation offers would be. And they were really accommodating. They've had Walt Janssen, one of the Dutch players from Groot over last year, the year before, doing a similar thing. So, they had some practice with bringing players in and hosting and trying to integrate them as well as possible, which really felt great to have that welcome from them. Definitely. I'm sure that's such a challenge, a unique challenge. But you mentioned those guys from Chicago Machine. You had that time with them. You were just talking about the great guys. And you went to Championship Weekend here with that Chicago Machine team. Yes. And you guys finished second, which is incredible as well. That was a battle of a game, a truck stop. And you guys, it was very exciting to watch. That whole weekend, I was following some of it. And you guys put up a great fight. Talk to me a little bit more about what it was like playing with the Chicago Machine team. It was great. It's always been a goal for the past few years, ever since coming over to the US for the first time in 2018 for world clubs to try and push myself to be the best in the world if I can. And part of that is by playing against the best players in the world across the best teams consistently. I think Europe are doing a really good job of stepping up that level now and getting closer and closer to that. But I think playing on the US circuit is currently just a step above. And it's something I knew I wanted to try and do. One thing it did make me realize is how important Clapham's synergy is with players who've been on the team for a long time. I think those connections that I have with some of those players on that team who I've been playing with for upwards of six to seven years is invaluable. And it's something that I had to really try and create and develop with the Machine guys, which by the end of Nationals, I think I was there with a good few of them, especially with the kind of lines that we were running. We were playing with similar people pretty much always, and so that really helped with that. But yeah, the level is great, the intensity is good, even the style of the defense is very different. So I pushed myself and learned a lot, but also made me very grateful to be part of a really tight-knit team back at home as well. You mentioned there just a different style of play, and that's something I've heard has come up a couple of different times in this podcast. I imagine regionally across the United States, people will mention different styles of play, and we're talking two different countries. Can you talk to me a little bit more about the styles of play that you experience that were different between your home country and then playing with Chicago Machine? Yeah, I've always kind of seen a lot of the U.S. Open teams specifically as kind of taking it upon themselves to be stronger and faster than their opposition, and especially on defense, a style of defense that is just shut down at all costs. And we, Platinum's 2022 World's Run was, at times, very similar to that, but our strategy was very much about how are we going to force teams to do something they don't want to do, to do something different, and then at what point do we then lock in and really pump up the pressure. And the style of D that we played on Machine and the type of D that I played against was very different to that. It seems it's from pass one, a lot of the time you are locked in and you are just going organs blazing to try and get an under block with a layout and being super physical. So a lot fewer kind of puzzles in that regard. I feel like the D was a little simpler and that's not a negative thing at all. But trying to play offense against it, it suddenly became less of a mental challenge and more of a physical challenge, which is something you don't get an awful lot of in the U.K. especially, but in wider Europe as well, there aren't many teams that are just full lock in, organs blazing, I'm going to go out physical you to get an under block. I think something as a new player coming out to a team, it's probably pretty challenging to assimilate yourself to a new culture, to a new style of play like you had to do this past season with Machine. What are some areas that were kind of a struggle for you to come on or areas that you found like this was a good culture that helped me embrace this new situation? I think Machine specifically have got a really great culture when it comes to bringing people on boards. We had a number of people out of state coming from Kentucky and from Indiana even. And so adding kind of Europeans to the mix and the Canadians to that mix didn't feel too out of place, I think, for the team. And so coming into that, it already felt as though there was almost like a welcome pack ready for me in terms of how we're going to integrate you into the style of play and things you would need to know about us specifically that we do differently to others. And the general, I think, US kind of year by year cycle that I think exists, I think, lends itself to that as well. We weren't looking to integrate us in a way that suited Machine in four years time. It was what can we do to get the best out of you in the next two months ahead of Nationals for us to win a title, which made things a lot easier, I think. Now, is that year to year cycle you mentioned in the United States, is that sounds like it's different from what you've experienced growing up playing Ultimate in the UK? Do you guys have a different cycle of play? What does that look like? I would say so, especially for the teams who are looking to push further on a European stage and on the world stage, we will tend to work on a three to four year cycle. Platinum specifically, we have the goal of trying to win a World Championship. That is the pinnacle of a lot of non-US Ultimate teams, I think. And because World is every four years, that cycle works towards that. So the first year after Worlds for us, we will tend to recruit a little deeper, bring on some new players with the goal of in four years time, then being ready to compete on the world stage. Whereas the year of Worlds recruitment might be slightly smaller and our focus may be more towards what are we going to do to get our performance to where it needs to be, as maybe as opposed to earlier in the cycle being more development based and upskilling everybody, that kind of thing. The US, from what I've spoken to people about, US Nationals is the pinnacle and I can completely appreciate that. But even to a point of the World Championships being less of a priority. And so you definitely have to structure that differently in terms of if we are trying to win a US title this year, how are we going to best prepare for that? Especially with, like I've said, traveling players coming in or new recruits, how are you going to best prepare them for that? Yeah, definitely very two different structures. One kind of long term, one short term, year to year here. And correct me if I'm wrong, it just it sounds like there isn't as much built up infrastructure of ultimate in the UK or European play where you have, like in America, you have that year to year championship. Is that correct? Am I understanding that correctly? Where it's, you know, four years of the goal, there isn't kind of these smaller goals, you look towards, you know, a UK championship or something like that. So we will still have everything in between. So we still have a national championships for most nations within Europe, so they will have that yearly. We also have the European Club Championships every year as well, which is kind of our equivalent of US Nats. That is our the best of Europe coming together for the final tournament of the year, usually a couple of weeks before US Nats. And that is from the season of qualification and playing against those of the European teams to to qualify for that. And then that's your kind of big wrap up. Clapham are very fortunate and have done very well in the past to have come away with a number of European titles. And so kind of the next step for us is that world stage, being able to do that against the top American teams as well as the top European teams. And then your teams from Australia and Japan and South America's being able to prove that we can do it against those teams as well as here in Europe has been a big goal for us for a while. Coming away with a bronze last year was was incredible. And I think with a real wake up call for us that all it takes is a slightly better result against Ring of Fire in the Power Pools or a better performance from us in the semis against Pony. And we are in a position to go and take that that world title. You mentioned the team Clapham several times now. That's that London based team you play for, which is obviously a very talented group of individuals that you just listed several accolades there. Those medals you guys received. Talk to me about how did you get with this team? How did you just kind of get into playing Ultimate and then your time with Clapham as well? Break that down for me. So I first made it in 2016. I was pretty fortunate to join the team at like 21, 22, so fairly young at the time, but had worked pretty hard. It was actually living pretty far out of London at the time, but was pushing myself to play at the highest level possible. And that meant playing for the best team possible. Since then, we have. Like I mentioned, attended world clubs in 2018 and 2022. I didn't actually make the team in 2018, so I ended up attending with a Danish team who were looking for pickups. So that was an amazing experience. And then going into 2022, I put a lot of work in to try and be the best player I could and was fortunate to be on that squad that went and won that bronze. This year, we were. Unfortunate, actually, to lose our national title for the first time since Clapham's inception. We were formed going into the 2021 season and have won nationals every year since. And then we lost for the first time. And so that was a big wake up call for us that we had a lot of work to do if we were going to go and win Europeans again. We kind of came away from that knowing that. It was work to do, that we hadn't made our best and that we maybe hadn't approached it in the way that we wanted. And so there was a lot done ahead of the European finals a few weeks later, which we were fortunate to regain after losing that last year. And so, yeah, ups and downs over time. Well, maybe more so this year than others, but absolutely delighted to be part of a team like this, honestly. Wonderful. I think, you know, so many attributes you just mentioned there make up what a team is good. Just that drive, even with, you mentioned, kind of struggles and low points of this team, but it seems that it gives you a chip on your shoulder and say, OK, we're going to go out there, we're going to work even harder and we're going to get back to that level we know we should be at and we have been at. So it sounds like an incredible time with Clapham there. Did you play before you got to Clapham at university level or what were your early experiences with the sport? Yeah, so I picked up at university in 2012, 2013 and played my first club season in winter of 2014. So I had about a full year of club before I decided to trial for Clapham. I was actually playing for a team at the time during trials. The World Ultimate Championships were in London in 2016 and so Clapham decided to hold post-Worlds trial. So it's kind of later in the year, kind of June, July time. So I essentially said to the team that I was playing for that I'm intending on going and trialling for this team and if I'm fortunate enough to make it on, I'll be jumping ship for the rest of the season. But I knew that's what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to push myself to be on the best team possible. Actually, prior to that was mostly field. So I've done a lot of that growing up from the age of about 10, 10, 11 with pole vaulting for a short while. But kind of lots of events that gave me a lot of drive growing up and kind of competitive nature that I was able to bring into Ultimate. But it's clearly that you're a very, very driven person here, Kai. Have there been role models in the sport of Ultimate that have helped push you to want to reach the highest level you possibly can? Yeah, for sure. When you join Clapham in the UK, there are a few names that always seem to stand out. Justin Ford has been playing at the highest level of the sport for as long as I've been playing the sport. He was part of the GB team in Sakai in 2012, World Games in Colombia in 2013, has been over to the US and played with Goats, with the Toronto Rush, has played as part of the Dream Cup team, if any of your listeners remember that. He's played with and against anyone you could mention in the sport at an incredibly high level and has consistently been one of the top players in Europe for a long time. So coming into the team and being able to play with him and against him every week was amazing for me. He continues to push all of us always, which is amazing. On a wider scale, people like Goose Helton, Jimmy Mick or Dylan Freechild are the usual names. Seeing them compete at the level that they do in the US has always been very inspirational. I was there in person in London for their final for Team USA against Japan. I remember just knowing that that was the level I wanted to be at. Actually playing against Dylan for the first time at US Nats with him playing for Rhinoslam was a little surreal. I was very, very confident in my position in that game and coming into the US Nationals, I knew I could hang at that level. But standing across from the Dylan Freechild and knowing he's going to be the guy, I'm going to mark this point. I'm going to do my best to try and shut him down. And then doing so, it was kind of a weird feeling for sure. I imagine pretty special. You're, like you said, shutting down the people you've looked up to for years. But it seems like you've kind of come into this role where I'm sure there's players out there that look up to you in turn. I mentioned this in the intro where UltiWorld ranked you the second best matching player in Europe, which is quite the honor. Talk to me about what that feeling is like when you saw that article come out. It was a pleasant surprise. I knew I've had a good year. And since 2021, kind of coming back from COVID, I think I found a newfound drive to really push myself to be the very best that I could. I was very happy with my performance at Worlds last year and helping the team to that bronze medal. Coming into this year, I knew if I was going to compete at the level that I needed to in the US that I was going to have to continue that trend. And again, I've been very fortunate to be able to play with Clapham and GB with some of the best players in Europe continuing to push me as well. And they actually mentioned in that article that my kind of role has shifted slightly more to an offensive role within the teams, which brings its own stresses and its own pressure. But I've been really fortunate to come away with some wins and some good performances that people obviously deem worthy of that spot. And I mean, Dan Demare coming in at number one has had an incredible year with Belgium and with the Mooncatchers. Thoroughly, thoroughly deserved. And the fact that he is eight years my younger and he's still got a long way to go is very exciting for the sport in Europe. I expect to see him ever in the US pushing his pushing his limits at some point as well. So yeah, to be kind of in the rankings with some of those top players in Europe was quite the honor. Was there ever points, you know, you're grinding this out, you're battling, you've mentioned several times now, you have this drive to be the best you can. Is something like this, you know, being named one of the top players in the entire continent, was that ever something you realized that I could do that, you know, or did this just kind of happen? What were your dreams or thoughts on this process? I think I've always had the self-belief that I can do it. I think you have to if you want to achieve those kinds of goals. I think you need to truly believe that you can do it. I think having played in Europe for such a long time, I started to gain confidence that I knew I could be incredibly influential in the right settings with the right team and playing with the right people given the chance to do so. For me this year, especially playing in the US and feeling as though I wasn't a step behind and that I was able to go toe to toe with some of these best players in the world. That was a big, big confidence booster for me. And I think it's that change of environment with new players and new teams. And when I actually got over there initially, I got over there for ProCamps weekend and there was a level of nerves there that Europe is always talked about as being a great level of ultimate and they're always on the up. But the US is always that next step, right? And even UltiWorld talk about the top 25 players in the game. And they're specifically talking about USAU and the US series and whatnot. So there's always that feeling of inferiority, I guess, there that kind of lingers that can I actually go and stick it with these top teams? Is it just the fact that Europe is a step down that I'm able to do so? But going over and feeling as happy with how I played as I did was a really big confidence booster going into internationals in San Diego, knowing that if I just played my best and I played my game and had the trust of my teammates and I trusted them that I was going to be going toe to toe with these guys without any problems. That was a huge boost for me this year. Definitely. And it kind of goes back to the idea of like a chip on your shoulder. But you've proven this past season must be such a good feeling for you. You've proven that you can hang with the best out there. And you're not just a good player. I think you're a great player. And you've proven that time and time again here. But there are a lot of good players out there. I'm sure there are certain attributes that kind of elevate a person to a certain level of being recognized as one of the top players in Europe or being able to go toe to toe on the some of the biggest stages and ultimate. And you've proven that with your medals, your accolades, your awards. What do you think are some attributes that take a person from just being a good player to a great player? I think I mean, we've mentioned it a couple of times. The drive and desire is so important. I've seen good players plateau and even leave the sport for a number of reasons. But I think they were potentially in a position that had they wanted to, had they really wanted to could have been incredible players. And it's by no means a criticism whatsoever. Like people have different priorities. And some of these people have gone on to do bigger and better things in their other other elements of their lives. And I have complete respect for that. I think people if people really, really want it, then they have to be able to to show that. And that is getting up at stupid hours in the morning or getting in stupidly late because of practice or just spending that extra 35 minutes of training working on that particular throw or that particular piece of form that they've been working on. It's never, never, never being happy. Just always having the desire to constantly get better. People will tell people who know me would would tell you that I'm not really someone who's very happy with their performances. Very often I'm quite critical of myself and how I perform. And I think that's because of the standard that I hold myself to in some regards. Even we mentioned Beach Worlds. I felt as though I'd had a good tournament at times, but I still threw far too many turnovers. And so I can come away from that tournament being somewhat happy, but still knowing there is massive room to to develop that element of my area of my game, should I say. Wasn't wasn't best pleased. And it's hard when you're winning a bronze medal to not be not be happy. But I think that is what pushes people to that next level. And I do think that's part of the reason that Team USA have always played in a way that they are comfortable with against other nations because they often win. But then you see these players play at US Nationals or Pro Champs or wherever, and it's just it's like a switch has been fixed. They are suddenly one of these players that are like, we have to play like this if we want to win this US championship. And that is, again, that desire, that drive to have to do that if they want to meet that goal, I think is really important and is very apparent from from those top players. So kind of based off that answer, I think this begs the question, where do you find your drive or your why with the sport? Good question. I think while there are still goals to achieve from a team standpoint, be that a world championship or another European championship or whatever it may be, I think there is always that that drive there. Until Clapham win the World Championships multiple times, we still have room to grow and develop. And we're now in a position where we have to do that in order to win our national championship in the UK, let alone a world title. And so if we can approach, continually year by year approach our development in a way that is towards that single goal, I think that will always continue to push me within that. Individually, knowing that I can go to a tournament, play pretty well, but still have too many turnovers, that for me is an individual goal. If I know that I want to be able to do that with fewer turns, then I will think about that going into my next event or my next training session or whatever. So I think it's probably a combination of both the team goals and that individual reflection. You want to be the best you can possibly be and you're going to put the effort into it. And I think, again, the results show that you did put an immense amount of effort into this 2023 year. I pulled up some just of the major tournaments you played in. You played mixed with Great Britain and the European Ultimate Championships. You played the European Ultimate Championships again with Clapham, that men's team. You played with Chicago Machine. You've played beach this past year. A lot of major tournaments, and I'm sure so many smaller tournaments in their games, practices. That can be exhausting for a lot of people. I think the question is, how's your body doing? Are you recovered? What's this? Now that you're not playing all these major tournaments, kind of the season's died down a little bit. What's your recovery look like now? I'm doing pretty all right. Yeah, I turned 30 this year, but don't feel it, which is very fortunate. I'm someone who pretty much makes ultimate their everything socially and tournament-wise and practice-wise. I'm pretty sure my body has got to a point now where it's just given up on having to achieve anything else other than just being good for ultimate. Something I did realize this year is that a lot of US players do work real hard on getting their bodies in a position where they can out-athlete most other people on the field. Part of my goal for off-season this year is to try and reflect that and get to a similar state. I've been pretty fortunate to be quite athletically gifted through my years of football or athletics, track and field, whatever. But I've been able to carry that through with less work than a lot of others. So that's an area for me to definitely improve and push, especially when I'm not getting any younger now. So probably worth getting the body in a position that it isn't going to break anytime soon. Definitely, I think, shout out here Jordan Kerr from Salt Lake Stripe. We had him on the podcast a while back. But I see on Instagram, he's posting every day his workouts. And that's what it takes to be great, though. It's a drive in the off-season when you don't have those games to look forward to. But I'm sure you've learned that and taken so much of that into your own personal routine here. So the off-season is a very important time just to recuperate for next year. Something I thought was kind of funny, kind of interesting you said is, you know, Ultimate is your everything right now. It's your social, it's your athletics, it's what you do in life, basically. And I believe you also have started doing some coaching outside of just playing now. Tell me about what that looks like, where the desire to start this thing comes from. Yeah. So I have just launched a new project to try and open up availability to Elite Ultimate Coaching, specifically in the UK, but also the wider Ultimate community as well. We in the UK have coaching available through our international governing bodies and through budding volunteers. And there aren't many opportunities, I don't think, for people to get to experience coaching from an Elite sense other than making Elite teams, which obviously not everybody can. And people have restrictions on their geography and everything. So I wanted to try and create something that would give a level of exposure of how I've learned how to play Ultimate through Clapham and how Clapham teaches its Ultimate, but on a smaller basis, kind of one-to-one or as a guest coach with a different team or even just in video analysis and video sessions. I'm hoping to get that launched properly in the new year and take inquiries. It's quite a big step for me to do so. I've coached a lot over the years, but never in this kind of formal setting. So it's exciting. And I am both nervous and excited to get started on it. But yeah, I really want to try and give back what I can and help push people to be the very best that they can. And again, coming back to that drive, there are people out there who are looking for this kind of thing, and it doesn't really exist at the moment unless you're in the right team at the right place at the right time. And so I want to try and give that outlet where possible. Incredible. I think something that's really important is when you are filled up in something, it's good to then turn and give to others. So I think this is exactly what you're trying to do. You're trying to elevate the game of Ultimate in your home country and abroad. So best of luck with that project there. Thank you very much. Definitely. And looking ahead to Ultimate in the UK, in the European Union, European scene, what do you hope to see in the growth of the sport? Good question. I would like us to be in a position that come the World Championships, European teams are no longer a second rate choice for who is going to win the tournament. We're still in a position currently where from an open sense, USA Open teams, club teams will tend to dominate. Even that Australian club team that went to finals in 2018 had a couple of big US names on there helping drive the bus. From a women's sense, Revolution have done incredible things, but they're always going to be facing, or have done so far, be facing a US opponent in semis or a final. Again, the Ellipsis women from Australia have been doing awesome things with that as well. I would like that to become more normal. I would like to see European teams in semifinals, in finals, pushing US teams as hard as other US teams tend to push them. From an open standpoint this year, having Clapham and Moon Catchers be in the semifinals is incredible. Having the first, I believe that was the first medal in the open division for a European team in 20 plus years. I would like to see that be the norm. I think a big part of that is that we need to believe that it's possible. Having not been too close in recent memory to then having two teams very close is amazing and that's a good starting point, but we need to be able to believe that we can take these teams on. Whilst at the same time really appreciating what it is that US club teams do that takes them a step beyond. What is it that they do that makes them better and what can we replicate there? When we start to replicate those elements, they may make us even better or they may be stuff that doesn't work for us, but either way, if we can come away from that with those learnings and then the belief, I think it's doable. I really think it's doable. That's what I'd like to see in the long run. If we can get that to the point where more teams are heading over to US Open and showing it there as well and even more individual Europeans heading over and playing the US series, I think World Championship starts to become a real realistic goal for a lot of European teams. It's all about the growth of the sport and I think you hit the nail on the head with that. You seem to have an incredible learning experience playing in America here and you get to take that back and you get to share that through your team, through this coaching initiative you have and then it's a win-win for everyone involved. The better competition there is, it drives the sport. It drives leadership. It drives growth. That's incredible and I definitely agree that I think it can reach that point where it is equal. There's level of parity there and it's good for the sport. Really, I think that's something that's important to track over the next couple of years just to see the results of that. And Connor, I just want to kind of open this a little bit. What kind of piece of advice would you give to someone that's trying to elevate their game to a next level? Watch more Frisbee than you ever think would be necessary. I'm not afraid to admit that I have watched very random games from very random tournaments that have high level ultimate players in there and I think everyone has the ability to mould themselves as a player and if you can take a lot of the best bits from a lot of the best players and just have the goal of forming yourself into this super player with all of those different skills, then you should be better at those skills than everybody else. But I think that comes from exposing yourself to the highest level that you can. If that is trialling for a top team and making it and exposing yourself, amazing. If that is just watching hours upon hours of YouTube videos or streams or footage or Rowan's coaching stuff or the World Final in 2016, all of these things are just building up our flipbook, our photo album of skills and of individual situations, knowing that if you throw it from this angle at this sort of speed like Jimmy does or if you jab step in this certain way like the Colombians do when they're running handler-dominator stuff and that kind of thing, if you can expose yourself to as many of these different ideas as possible and build up that photo album, you're going to put yourself in a position to grow from that. I would never want someone to be kind of stuck on what they think they know or on what they're being told directly from a couple of people. You need to be able to widen your horizons to grow in that way, I think. Great piece of advice, Connor. Really appreciate that. This brings us to the close of this interview, but before we sign off here, I really want to open the floor up. Is there anything else you'd like to share? Just thank you so much for having me on. I mean, I think Europe in general has had an amazing year for Ultimate. I know that Ultimate World has done a few bits on European Ultimate players competing in the US Series and pushing it all the way to the finals and even interviews like this really legitimize, I think, European Ultimate and I'm glad to be able to share my experiences and if anyone else wants to reach out and chat about it more, then I'd be happy to do so. Thank you so much for the discussion. Wonderful, Connor. Yeah, I appreciate it. I'm glad I was able to provide a voice for you and a platform for European Ultimate. It's been a treat having you on and just hearing the wealth of experience, the wealth of knowledge you have over the sport and especially your drive because that is what makes a good Ultimate player. So just once again, thank you so much for being here. Thanks so much for having me, David. Appreciate it. And make sure you check out the BreakSide Instagram at BreakSide underscore podcast. And that brings us to the end of Episode 29. This is David Adamaitis with Connor McHale of Team Great Britain. Thanks for listening and have a great night.