A good mark is hard to find

Preface: Nearly all of what I said in the post regarding not pivoting can be made to be not true if marks were a lot better. Now if only someone knew how to do that...

Throwers move and fake. Markers react. What's the problem here for markers? If you answered that they never have the advantage, you'd be correct! You win 1/3 of a car (rounded down of course) Occasionally markers can react to others telling them "inside", "around", or any other marking help, but people don't always have the sideline/on-the-field players talking, leading to a lack of information most of the time. Markers, therefore, have to take the advantage by other means in order to make the throwers do what they want to do.

The three basic principles of marking are an athletic stance, movement, and taking away opportunities. An athletic stance requires you to lower your center of gravity by bending at the legs (not the waist), be on your toes, and extend your arms (that doesn't mean all the way - you put your hands far enough out while you still can move around with ease). Movement means small shuffles rather than large lunges - lunges should be saved for only (and I mean literally no other time) when you are about to get a stall (within one second). Taking away opportunities is the most important part, and it is hard to define; if it weren't, people would have much better marks.

As the mark, instead of focusing on taking away half of the field, try to take away opportunities that you know are happening or will happen. Typically people shift when the stall count is getting higher, citing a desire to take away an easy dump. Why then wouldn't the person shift to the open side on early stalls to take away an easy throw. I wouldn't advocate doing this frequently, but all you need are this to be done a few times a game, and it will both cause your thrower to think about it (and therefore not be thinking about throwing) and stop a look or two a game, which means more frequent chances for D.

This can also come into play in other situations on the mark. Randomly shifting around and inside while the thrower looks dump mean the thrower doesn't know where you'll be when a look opens up. This doesn't mean you give the thrower easy looks; if the thrower clearly wants to throw an around backhand and you shift to an inside, you were random for no reason. Instead, recognize what the thrower probably wants, and try to take that away. That's how the marker gets the advantage, and that's what separates a good mark from a great mark.