Umpires.

Okay, that's sassy, but here's the thing. Over the last 7 years after I was first introduced to some of the elements as an international umpire, I've tested Mission-Critical Positioning at all levels of play. It just works.

If you're an extremely fit and mobile umpire at the top of your game, first of all: good for you! Fitness is important for presentation, confidence, and the fallback for when truly unexpected things happen in the game. But fitness alone can't give you great positioning because the ball always moves faster than you possibly can.

Now, for the rest of us who are trying to keep up as the game gets faster, the skills go more aerial, and the players get younger as we don't: this is how you can be where you need to be so you can make credible, confident, and accurate mission-critical decisions.

Instead of chasing the play into your circle and catching your breath over the biggest calls while players scream at you, you're welcoming the play coming towards you, demonstrating utter calm as players look up to see you exactly where you need to be.

Put simply, after knowing the rules, it's the most important foundation for all decision-making.

If you can't see it, you can't call it. If you can't show the players you were in the right place to see it, you can't sell it. If you're spending all of your energy chasing the play, you can't use that to apply the complex interpretive principles to the discrete scenario in front of you accurately.

In my 16 years of international umpiring, 6 years in England's National League, and over 30 years of domestic experience, the one thing that frustrated me the most how often I would get big calls wrong. I knew the rules better than anyone else, worked my butt off to understand and apply the right principles, and trained like a beast against medical issues like osteoarthritis and hypothyroidism so I could keep up with players.

It wasn't enough to know I was making mistakes. I needed to understand why it kept happening.

I took the advice of a few umpire managers I'd worked with late in my international career who coached me to do what felt like some pretty radical things on the pitch. Like moving right to the middle when the play was in my colleague's deep corner. Or backpedalling when I was far enough ahead of the play (over 20 years ago, I got scolded for doing the same thing!).

I started putting these pieces together into a cohesive positioning method, experimenting with every aspect. The testing is still going on because I believe in always questioning “accepted wisdom”, including my own! But the results umpires who have committed to Mission-Critical Positioning experienced speak for themselves.

In Mission-Critical Positioning, you'll learn why the old J-hook movement pattern has been blocking your progress and performance, how to apply MCP to all phases of play, how to talk to your colleague and coaches about it, and how to train to execute it!

Maybe?

Look, I know all too well what it's like to hear different things from different coaches. I had the experience of going to one international tournament and being told I moved too much, only to go to the next weeks later and be told I was now moving too little! It happens all the time, and at all levels.

What we need to do is move away from umpire coaches who preach what they were taught decades ago without knowing the reasoning behind those practices. We all need to be being willing to find out what actually serves the game as it is today the best.

What's promising is that the momentum is building. At the 2023 NPUA Conference, 2024 Paris Olympic UM Roel van Eert gave a presentation that sketched the concepts we dive deeply into in MCP. Change is coming!

We've also included a section in the course on how to work with your UM/UC on MCP.

Working through the course and engaging in discussion with your fellow MCPers will give you all the tools you need to start changing your positioning for the better.

If you're a FHu3t Yellow member, you can book a debrief of your match video and have your MCP-ness evaluated by Keely and get a shiny digital Certificate of Performance you will undoubtedly want to get printed on expensive stock and hang in your living room beside your child's baby photos.

If you're not (yet) a FHu3t Yellow member, you can upgrade to the Mission-Critical Positioning + Performance Bonus package and get yourself assessed.

Remember, feedback is always available in the MCP course section of the FHumpires Discord, where you can post short clips of yourself.

Umpires who have taken the course are able to implement their learnings in their very next game and see difference!

That said, it does take work to change habits which may be a few years to a few decades old. But I believe in absolutely everyone's capacity to learn and change–especially you!

Absolutely! The course is provided within the FHumpires Discord, which has a myriad of options to ask questions and get feedback on your short video clips. (Rumour has it Keely has bonded fully with Discord such that it's an alternate plane of existence for her.)

You betcha.

The course is provided inside the FHumpires Discord server as a series of videos.