Cool Shorts

Well, sadly this brings me to the end of this blogging adventure.

At first I thought writing this blog would make me despise Ultimate to be honest.  Sometimes dissecting the great things makes them less special (you never want to see the inner workings of a Disneyland ride).

This semester I decided I would stop playing Ultimate after I graduate after my last summer. :(
It's just weird, I want to get serious. Get a job. Do that stuff.

But I love Ultimate. I love everything about it.  I like how ambiguous some calls are.  I get to be a referee or coach or player, whatever I want to be on my team.  The roles are endless.  I could simply spearhead cheering if i really wanted to... Up to you, it really is.

So...since that is settled.  And the fact that I probably wont be able to leave Ultimate...means a little  more Ultimate blog in the future.

Today I actually wanted to talk about shorts. SHORTS. ShoRTS.  Ultimate shorts, why are they so awesome?

So these are the lime tiger shorts.  You know that tiger print's got some sass.  And don't think your handler will even have a chance to miss you making your cut down field in that blaring neon yellow.

Ultimate shorts are so light and easy to move in. WHAT? **Science Air Alert **

Five Ultimate says "The important stuff: Made from 88% polyester, 12% elastane. " I'll tell you why this is important. Stretch the shorts from your knees to your toes. these shorts are SUPER stretchy-->comfortable, light, barely there.

CAN I GET A DRUM ROLL... My personal favorite shorts.  

Even though my team is not related to any kind of cattle...I NEED THESE.  They are so so smooth.

Shorts are your personality in Ultimate.  Black shorts dude is that guy that trains for Ultimate in his spare time as a busy heart surgeon.  Bright neon  blue shorts dude is that guy who thinks he's all that, and he might possibly be that haha.  Money bills shorts dude is just there to have fun and huck some frisbees.  I don't know what strawberry cow shorts dude is (haha), but all I know is that they are just a fun pair of shorts.

$29 bucks is a bit steep for a pair of shorts, but common look how awesome they are. PLUS they have a secret little pocket to hold you mp3 player.

So anyways, now that you know what I'll be wearing for the next year or so it's time to say farewell.  I had fun doing this blog, I got to prod into what makes Ultimate and Ultimate players tick...Women! Just kidding haha, it's really a diverse community and Ultimate serves a bunch of purposes for each individual.  Cardio, leadership training, being more vocal, speed and strength training, practice being a coach...Have a great time playing Ultimate and if you see someone throwing a disc, just say hello.

Ultimate people at the very least are friendly and happy to teach and share.

Tournament Time

Hey everyone,

I guess I want to just ramble about the tournament.  What we learned, the mistakes, the lessons, the things we did great. Everything.  I just want to get it down somewhere, to log it.

I'm going to break it down in to offensive and defensive categories:

Defense:

The Mark: This is THE part of the defense that holds the team together. The mark's job is the block one half of the field
I think our team this weekend was OKAY at playing the mark.  I felt like we could have stopped more break throws than we did.  However, for the first tournament with the whole squad, I think our marks were at least active and engaged.  We might have to teach the mark in a different way.

Down-field D:
We let a lot of deep shots with our down field defense.  What I saw on the field was slow reaction times, slow positioning, and almost lazy response to cuts.... That won't cut it. Down field defenders need to be aggressive and positioned correctly, so that we can generate turns not just wait for them.

SPEED:
I think our team also needs to get up to speed on conditioning in general.  #1 We need track practices.....That will definitely help our endurance and power.  One of the most important aspects is quickness and agility in cutting.  This comes from sprints Sprints and MORE SPRINTS.

During the springs part of the season, or even in the winter, we will begin to have mandatory track practices.
OH NO you say?? It's for the good of the team!

Modularity:
I guess you don't hear this in sports often...  I want our team to have an arsenal of different types of defenses not stuck and forced to use one, obvious man coverage deal.  I have linked defenses before in previous blogs.  I feel like our team this week was very predictable and did not surprise or make other teams think about or question the defense we used. BLAH.  Boring I know.  My goal for the rest of the season is to fix this situation.

Blog Essay

Hello World 

Ultimate Frisbee is INTENSE. I will go for the disc IN a crocodiles mouth.

What's going on, world?  Here's my ultimate Ultimate story:

My burly track Coach slung his disc like a shot putter.

The Frisbee coasted, high.

It was my turn but with the use of inferior tools, the feeble arms of a scrawny 4th grader.

I figured I'd take a crack at this......Big mistake.

My plastic disc fluttered, careened into a tree, ricocheted off a fence, and barely missed Mr. Adam’s, my intimidating math teacher, car in the faculty parking lot.

Shoooot, not a good start little man.

I guess, I couldn't throw yet, but I decided I'd keep practicing.  It just looked too damn cool.

My friends called ourselves the Frisbee-ers, creative right?

Surprisingly, a Frisbee was a wanted commodity on the playground.  The reason was simple.

There was one.

Our solution? We hid it . . . after every lunch break, diligently.  Yea it was mean, kids are mean.  I would like to formally apologize to my 1st grade buddies! You snooze you lose.

Frisbee created its own niche even in middle school.  We played a precursor to Ultimate Frisbee called durango, which only allowed 6 players total.  

Sorry that we had to deny you from the group--> Adam, Chris, Andrew.

I guess you could say the Ultimate Frisbee life is a tough life, haha!

A costume tournament team

So let's get down to the Ultimate. Currently, I am leading a college team on the West Coast. I obsess over exploring and discovering unique offensive, defensive, and leadership strategies used in Ultimate because weird unconventional things excite me (like a new defense we are trying that uses parts of 3 different systems).  I guess that's why I'm in a Frisbee sport.

 I want to emphasize that it is a Sport. Running. Catching. Throwing.  All sports actions. If you don't believe that it takes a mish-mosh of skill and physical prowess, look at the trademark Ultimate move.  The layout.

Frisbee matches test your physical limits and you will find yourself panting on the sideline. There are specific strategies and complex offensive/defensive systems similar to many sports.  I want to make this simple for the general public,  Ultimate takes skill and athleticism AND knowledge.  Ultimate even has several sports clothing lines.  Buy some of the gear, the shorts are extremely comfortable just for day to day use!

Five Ultimate Jersey

I am blogging about this up and coming sport because I want to provide exposure outside of the Ultimate Community. GIVE ME SOME PRESS.  Frankly, when Ultimate does get media attention, it is played off as childish and trivial. I want this to be a conversation among Frisbee players and non-Frisbee players, where knowledge and news about this unconventional sport can flourish and spark interest.

  I hope I have already convinced you in becoming involved in the awesome Ultimate Frisbee community.  This link connects you to the Ultimate Frisbee hive mind where you can find awesome people to play with any day of the week and connect with for information.  Lot's of quirky strategy blog posts coming up, stay tuned!  Hope to see you people on the fields too!

Profile Post

A Frisbee toy.  That's what the packaging says on Frisbee's at the mall!  Frisbee sports are stuck in this ever rotating (rotation physically required for a throw hahaha), stagnant realm of sub-sports, games, and sporty activities.

Ultimate Frisbee can’t possibly be more than chucking that piece of plastic as far as you can.  I mean, it can be that. Just like that time your cousin and you threw at the beach.  Good times.

But let's go journey through the basics.

What NON-Ultimate people think

Real Ultimate (crazy socks included, possibly required)

The PROBLEM
Ultimate Frisbee has simple objectives.  Get a flying piece of plastic in an end zone.

The SOLUTION

Ultimate Strategy, strategy, strategy.

Maybe we need to look inside the brain of an Ultimate Player to see what strategy is required to be successful. With my super snazzy Ultimate blog research, I ran across a blog written by Matt Mackey called "Thoughts. Ultimate Rambling".  This blog is very focused and marketed towards in tune Ultimate players.  It has a large following because of it's depth, organization, and references to a famous Ultimate blog called the Huddle.

CHECK it out.  Everything you need to LIVE BREATH BE the Ultimate mojo is contained in this little blog container.  Matt Mackey played for and coached the Dartmouth team. . . They're goooood.

Dartmouth's Team Name/Logo

What makes the blog so useful and appealing is his organization into blog categories: Stories, Fitness, Offense, Defense, Strategy.  He's GOT what you need.  His organization allows the blog to go into great detail without confusing the reader going off topic.  He has a WHOLE SECTION to go off topic, yea I'm looking at that stories section buddy.

I know that all of you are not completely caught up with the Ultimate lingo, so I'll pull an example from Ultimate players' "physical conditioning strategy" that easily explains the real depth and firepower of this blog:

One section I really enjoy reading is his Ultimate Fitness section specifically his post about Tabata sprints which are "Brief but intense: 8 sets of 20 seconds hard running, 10 seconds jogging/rest." He also provides some notes on the workout so that you can gauge  how well you are doing the workout:

-Think just faster than 200 pace (or just slower than 100 pace) as a target speed
-I got through 3 1/4 laps or so on the track, if you want a standard for comparison

As you can see, his workouts are specific and applicable to the sport (because Ultimate consists of a lot of sprints-jog-sprint situations ughh).  Later in this post he describes why this workout is important biologically because of what energy pathways it depletes (but luckily for you guys I will spare you those notes).

On another fitness post about running form, he brings in information on 5 key form-related tidbits.  His information is gathered from a multitude of sources like his track coach, experience, and the internet; but the important part is that he organizes it in an easy-to-digest bullets.  Here's one of the five key bullet points:

Arm Swing: Straight forward and back rather than across the chest, angle around 90 degrees (a little less on backswing and a little more on upswing). When you’re jogging this angle increases, but when sprinting your hand should go from hip to lip. My old track coach used to cue us to imagine grabbing potato chips from our pockets and bringing them up to our mouth to eat while running. Swing from the shoulders, keep your elbows close to your body, and relax.

As an Ultimate player myself, these posts really give me some things to change every practice or every time I am running in general.

*I actually had to go run in the middle of reading his fitness section to go run, damn.  Arm swing makes a HUGE difference, it's surprising to say the least.*

I think his experience and simplicity gives his notes and recommendations extra umph in my mind.

Not only does he have detailed descriptions, but for certain explanations, especially strategy, he uses very simple but informative diagrams like the one shown below.

This is a diagram of his clam defense (circles are defense, x's are offense, the square is where the disc is)

This diagram provides a lot of information such as positional information for everyone on the team.  Also it gives information on where the defenders should be moving towards when the disc is in "play".

Mackey's detailed but clear-cut methods paired with his organization really provide a great resource for Ultiamte Frisbee players.  Please go check out his blog and SPREAD the word of our Ultimate sport!

Voice Post

Engine SLUGE

Let's focus on some sludge today. Ew sludge.

I guess I should explain myself.  This is an Ultimate blog after all right?

I feel like that in order to morph Ultimate's image we need to follow a team. A real Ultimate team, with players, coaches, the whole shabang.

I found SLUDGE.  The blog describes the Sludge Ultimate team's journey through their seasons.  Sludge game recaps, team rankings, sludge videos, strategy explanations, and even product placement.  This blog is fun, personal, and informative.  Each post takes on it's own tone depending on the content, but each type of content has a specific and constant voice.

1-The first thing I noticed is that Sludge is always in bold and in a mud brown: "Sludge".  I honestly couldn't help but say their team name out loud in a gritty, dirty tone EVERY time it is mentioned. SLUDGGGGGE. I just wanna be part of the sludge I guess, feels like a very fun loving, united team.

2-Let's take a look at the text. Bold text is used to emphasize important parts of sentences paragraphs. Also hyper links litter the blog in a GREAT way, very useful. Every portion of the blog can send you on a internet scavenger hunt, I ended up with several new resources myself.

3-The game recap sections of the blog seem to be very fast paced.  The sentence structure adds to this feeling because the blog uses short sentences, numbers, and action.  This type of sentence structure is a common theme in describing the events in a game:

"At full strength, Sludge kept pace until 5's. Joe to Brian; 1-2. Sarah's leading flick to MicHael; 2-2. Andrew's floater to Nigel; 2-3."

Game recaps of games you are personally not actively part of are boring. . . . THERE I SAID IT, but Sludge manages to cut the crud (haha!) and keep things interesting.  Conversely, the Sludge blog spends more time on special plays:

"Then at universe point (11's), RacHel's knockDown (ahem, a missed Callahan) in the endzone allowed Henry to flick to Nigel who secured his bobble for the final point. Win 12-11."

This "knockdown" is THE game winning play, but the team pokes fun at the fact that RacHel could have gotten a Callahan (defensive play + score).  The "ahem" really shows the camaraderie, fun, and comfortable perspective and relationship of the author with the team.  Gives that section some edge.

The diction used in the game recap sections reveals some of the excitement and voice in the author's love for the game.  The blog breaks out of the action-scene bullet points with phrases like "some super goal line defense" or "sweet sky D".  You can really hear his awe in the authors descriptions because of these casual and conversational words.

4-  Sludge is NOT afraid to make fun of themselves and often the blog seems lighthearted in the glimpses of  the non-Ultimate banter.

After two games, Sludge is losing a match:

After being down 0-1, the Sludge sideline happily remarked: 'One point closer to Saturday pickup'. Like Brian after (3) Advil, (1) beer, (sips) homemade liqueur & (1) PB&J, Sludge was feeling pretty good.

Winning is obviously NOT Sludge's goal.  Having a great time is, however.  How does the author convey this?  The sideline "happily" gave up on a game? This never happens, especially on teams with such great spirit.  The sarcasm of the sideline brings out the amiable nature of the team, and displays to the reader that this team keeps the Ultimate Frisbee world in perspective.

Also, Sludge is comparing Brian's hypothetical (or quite possibly true) intoxicated state to the team's lack of caring for the score of the game.  Sludge knows they are simply happy to be together on that team playing a game they enjoy.  Anything else is just bonus sludge for this team.

5-Sludge's explanations of strategy are quite concise and helpful.  Take note that the style changes dramatically from the short and sweet game play writing, to a descriptive and informative tone.  In one of the posts, the how to's of a horizontal stack or HO STACK (I LOVE this offense because of it's ability to create a big play) is described:

"In this strategy, there are 4 cutters spread across the field 10-20 yards from the 3 handlers who are setup like a zone offense. Horizontal offense relies on keeping the middle of the field clear at all times. Players in the stack make active cuts directly towards or away from the disc - never in the same direction - so that they are always in their assigned lane (numbered). Also, cutters should not cut to the same place. The cutters in lanes 2 and 4 go deep while simultaneous cut from lanes 1 and 3 have more space to get open."

The prose  uses a more powerful tone with verbs like "relies", "directly", "Players . . . make".  The sentences also are longer and more complex, allowing the author to describe a specific type of offensive strategy.  In these sections, the reader understands that the author means business with the use of the diagram and a commanding tone.

Well Sludge seems to have their team situated and their blog is obviously somethign that adds to that team's identity.  IDEA, I'll try to bring this blogging atmosphere to my team! Never thought I would be proposing a blog rather than a strategy at the captains meetings.

Here it goes....I'll keep everyone updated!

Tournament Time

It's Tournament Season!  What do Ultimate Frisbee players look forward to in tournaments......well there's the Ultimate part of it for sure.  Ultimate Frisbee matches usually resides in the form of tournaments with schools of clubs around the country.  The most local tournaments are called sectionals.  A bigger area is regional   And than the all illusive national tournament.  Why havn't we reached that yet? I have no idea, we have the spunk but maybe we don't have the drive haha, we'll roll the dice this year.

What's the point of a tournament? Ultimate teams are flashy, they want to show off what they got.
Maybe it's those sweet almost blinding neon green jerseys or perfectly coordinated team cleats making up the color of the rainbow.  Each team brings their own sass and culture to the table and the mish mosh of Ultimate communities is an interesting dynamic kinda like when you blop red paint in blue paint the colors intertwine but don't mix completely.

But what's the real reason you want to be there? You want to use that new zone defense your team has been working on for weeks to research and implement to crush teams' potent offensive strategies.  Does it not work as well on real life teams? What adjustments need to be made? Personnel problems?  Strategy in Ultimate Frisbee really interests me.  There are a lot of options.  Love it.  Each strategy works for different groups of players.  Tournaments are where you can finally release that autonomous robot you've been coding for months and months, see how it does in the real world with real world problems, but Frisbee so nothing is truly real world.  You get my point, we just wanna see how our work has progressed.  Good/bad/horrible/great? and how the hell do we fix that gaping whole in our defensive 3 man cup??? These are the questions that we will try to answer this coming weekend at our tournament.

My keys for the weekend are:
1-introduce the rookies to tournament environment-don't be intimidated by anyone, this is frisbee afterall
2-test our our zone defense-this defense will be quite useful in the future where we need to switch up the defensive look that we give to the opposing team
3-score some glorious points-you gotta fuel that frisbee ego
4-learn how to coach/captain/play at the same time without messing everything up
5-enjoy my time
6-throw an awesome pass for a score

So those are my goals as a captain and I think they are all pretty attainable considering the time we've spent on practicing.  I'll have an update for you in the next couple weeks on our tournament results and how I feel about the progress of the team.

Chick on Chick

Yes I know "Chick on Chick" sounds like last weekend's house party girl on girl cat fight, but let me explain.  Chick on Chick is Ultimate Frisbee with a twist, a little pizzazz   As all my avid blog followers know, Ultimate Frisbee is a sport that supports and does not distinguish between men's and women's Ultimate, and also coed leagues exist.  Chick on chick smashes that all together in one event.  GUYS versus GIRLS!  Now you must be thinking, that's not that big of a twist and I've let you down horribly.  The catch is that the boys, the men, have to wear regular day to day women's clothing in the likes of dresses, bras, blouses....you get the idea.  ALSO, each man has to have 2 water balloons held in their shirt by their bra; WHOA there, things just got a bit ridiculous.  So the rules are the same plus one extra rule: a water balloon that pops on accident or due to the assault of the women's team is a negative point for the men's team.

Although almost feels like  happy go lucky party type of deal, there is definitely an air of competitiveness.  The men have never won.......ever.  Secretly, the guys team always tries to set a strategy usually to avoid getting your balloons popped instead of focusing on scoring the frisbee.  This year, the men's team hung in there till it was 3-3.  This actually frustrated the women because in years past the game is a blowout.  Because of this the game took a turn for the physical kind of out of retaliation, where girls started wrapping up the guys like football players to pop their balloons.  Those balloon seeking nails of the girls started to find their targets, and within 5 minutes the boys were in the negatives on the scoreboard.  The girls also had a strategy to camp on a turned frisbee; basically the men are forced to pick up the frisbee while trying to protect their balloons.  This was a losing cause, and was the reason for the change in momentum.  The score ended up being a bunch to a negative number, favoring the girls. again.

It was a fun night all in all, the guys got the chance to meet the girls team in the context of our sport, and I think it is one of the best bonding moments between the men's and women's team at our school.  I also think it is a great bonding moment for the guys on the team because they get to do something embarrassing  but at least it is together.  Can't wait to be part of next years Chick on Chick!

Voice Post

            Although it was a bit tricky to find a blog with a distinct voice, I think I found one with a more somber tone which comes from the way he presents his day at possibly his last Ultimate Frisbee tournament.  The blog is called Parinella's blog and it talks about many facets of the Ultimate Frisbee experience.  The author also displays his go with the flow personality that seems to stick with him throughout his Ultimate career. The blog author starts with a quote of himself about the fact that he was thinking of hanging up his Ultimate Frisbee cleats.  The quote gives a sense of his personality through his reflection of his previous self and his change of heart.  It gives the reader a quick background of his relationship to the game without divulging too much information.  After the big self quote he says “Another year, another Nationals”; although his shows his love for the game you get a sense that he is almost tired out by the sport, and maybe the culture and people.  From this phrase, he doesn't seem to be overly excited to play on his team in pretty big tournament, the National Championships.  This is NOT the normal sentiment towards Ultimate where there is a giddy feeling to getting on that nationals field.  A line that stood out from the section on his physical condition was “my neck muscles are sore now” because it adds to sense of his weariness in the game physically and mentally.  Phrases alluding to what used to happen give a sense of his beloved pastime like “Wife and son stayed home this year. Just me and 1500 of my closest friends”.  This sentence also reveals a bit of sarcasm because he is generalizing all of the Ultimate community as his friends even though he sees the people changing and the culture changing.

            On a more general note, he uses short sentences to show his emotion to whatever situation he is speaking about.  Some examples are “Second game was uneventful” or “I don't know what's next.” Or “it’s all good”.  These tid bits give his writing a flare off his personality, it gives him a laid back and go with the flow kind of feeling, which kind of ties to the beginning of his post where he says “Another year, another Nationals” right after his story about his last time he was going to play competitive Ultimate.  The section about the “beer tent” also brings out his go with the flow and spontaneous personality because of the way he phrases visiting the tent: “just to see who was there” and to drink “gunni”.  This shows that he is kind of re-living his good old days.

            His last paragraph almost merge these two personality traits of being happy to play if anyone else wants to play and accepting the fact that he isn't going to play Ultimate for too much longer. He displays a lot of nostalgia and sadness through his word choice like “get the band back” and “it’s all good” and “it is what it is”.  I think these word choice decisions also show the loss of the capability to choose to play or not, it is out of his hands.

            The UltimateStrategy and Coaching blog is written by Martin, who seems to be an Ultimate Frisbee coach in person.  This blogger regularly watches club ultimate frisbee matches and is up to date with the direction of the sport.  He focuses on the current news in the Master’s Ultimate National series.  He has very good insider, insight towards the sport and gives not only a newcomer but an Ultimate player a good view of the inner workings of the Ultimate Community and leagues.

            One of his posts highlights one of the problems of the national championship system which is the roster turnover.  Roster turnover refers to the fact that rosters are not very constant in the Ultimate Frisbee world, whether it is club or pickup games.  This presents a problem for strategically planning because the players on the other team can be random.  His solution to this problem is to make the team’s strategy very modular and experimental; the team should be prepared to use many different defenses.  The importance of a coach that recognizes the weaknesses of the opposing team is vital to the defenses that are thrown at the other team.

            Martin also describes the necessities of a coach in Ultimate Frisbee.  Not only has he been a coach on and off, but attended a USA Ultimate Coach Certification session; this only provided very basic information according to him.  What is interesting about his perspective is that he evaluates himself as a coach and in this manner you can see inside the mind of an actively working Ultimate leader.

            Coach Martin does not enjoy the new leadership in the Ultimate competition organization, named Ultimate Players Association.  It has been re-branded to USA Ultimate and he feels that the new CEO does not value the concerns and desires of the new players and coaches in the Ultimate Community.

            I think this blog relates to my blog in several different facets including the topics of USA Ultimate and coaching in general.  Although the blog is not strictly academic, it provides a breadth of information from one coach’s perspective which can be very valuable.  Each of his topics or posts are pretty detailed and gives pertinent information if you are connected to the Ultimate Community as a casual follower on the internet.  I also think playing Ultimate Frisbee and being an active part of the Ultimate Community in real life is required because some of the things he references are common topics among Ultimate Players.   Therefore, I think his audience is the Ultimate Community.  I think this blog could feed my work because of some of the new topics that Martin brings up from a coach’s (or outside) perspective since I am only a player.  I think the different perspective will not only bring different viewpoints on some of the topics I discuss in my blog but bring new ideas and issues to the table that I had not thought of before.  Following and interacting with Martin’s blog will be an interesting endeavor

My Ultimate Friend

My search for someone online that enjoys finding Ultimate Frisbee stuff was actually harder than expected.  Not only did I want to find  a person on the topic of Ultimate Frisbee, but one that was specifically interested in the strategies used in the game.  Using diigo turned out to be fruitless, so I tried me luck on the delicious website.  The searches on Ultimate lead me to one of their public users and they had a decent amount of interest in Ultimate.  This person actually had some websites on Ultimate Frisbee unknown to me.  Here are some of the interesting and useful ones: 

Ultimate Rob’s blog seems to be a well established website with articles on almost any aspect about the sport of Ultimate Frisbee or even disc sports in general.  I think Ultimate Rob is a great resource for improving yourself as a individual player with throwing skill, physical fitness, and keeping on top of the rules.  Ultimate Rob also has a section on psychology, which is unique to most websites about Ultimate Frisbee.  This part of the blog explains how the mental aspect of the game can effect the the events that occur on field greatly.  For example, he has a section on the "pull' which is the first throw of the game similar to a kickoff in football.  In Ultimate, Ultimate Rob explains that a well placed pull allows the defense to get set and show their "intent"; basically this allows the defense to set up and get into the right mindset to shut down the offense.  A pull is a very minute part of Ultimate Frisbee in most people's eyes, but Ultimate Rob brings attention to this play because it almost serves as the anchor for the rest of the point.

One of my favorite Ultimate Frisbee blogs was also publicly linked by this dude: The Huddle.  This blog website is always an easy read for any Ultimate player wanting to learn about strategy or individual tips and tricks.  The Huddle is separated into Issues and Features.  The issues usually are tidbits about skills needed in Ultimate, which is really helpful for a player wanting to improve.  The features are more of whats happening in the Ultimate world and the growth of the game from an insiders point of view, this will be very useful to me in the future for my blog topics.

One of the websites I did not know about is this wikipedia type page for Ultimate: Ultipedia. This website has a huge scope of the history and links to a lot of teams around the world.  Although it is pretty weak on the strategy, it gives a thorough background on how the game was created and progressed over the years.  It also provides information on all notable teams and tournaments available for the Ultimate Community.  This website seems like a hub for all Ultimate related information and directs people to whatever they are interested in.  I will be exploring this website further in the next couple weeks.

GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS

                Men are better than woman at sports. Men do not play on women’s teams.  And a man playing against a woman is not fair.  These are the unspoken rules of sports in a nutshell.  I would say that I understand why these social norms exist because they coincide with other ways that women are treated differently in daily life; for example if a woman is trying to carry something heavy, it is a MAN’s job to carry it for her because we are strong and tough and never break sweat.  In sports, I want to believe the gender divide has only to do with fairness because as everyone knows men are biologically slightly taller, stronger, faster blah blah blah.  I guess Ultimate doesn’t care about these norms for one reason or the other, probably because of the fact that Ultimate Frisbee grew up with the hippies and therefore their mentalities were transferred upon frisbee.  

During pickup games and even specific leagues, men and women are allowed to play on the same team and to play each other.  Not only can they be on the same team but they can match up man to man however they would like, there are no rules on who has to play who (besides the fact that there should be equal number of each gender which is determined by one of the lines each point).  I think this is a HUGE advantage for the sport.  You can play with girls?? That’s how we pull in men at the our USC involvement fair, and it seems to work like a charm.  The only trick is to make sure that the girls are there!  The interesting part about playing with girls in Ultimate Frisbee is that there is not a stigma against it, its not just allowed by the rules.  As long as everyone on the team understands some of the basic principles of the game, it seems to work out quite well as a competitive match.  One of the results of this is the extra sense of community that this brings because it is less of a “men’s club” and more of a extended family feel, and I think it is one of the parts of frisbee that make it so comfortable to just join, learn as a new player, and just to be interested in general.

One thing that does change when playing with girls is that the guys seem to try a bit harder to show off hahaha, this is inevitable and slightly amusing to me (I feel like I can't stop myself from doing it neither).  There is just something that happens when you start playing with women, where you have the need to prove yourself.  Some Ultimate Frisbee girls have actually told me that watching men play did change their perception of whether they liked or disliked that person, so its not just in the men's heads.  But either way, I think this is harmless form of showing off for the girls and just adds to the excitement of playing on mixed gender teams, it really is that fun!

Success! Our turnout for the first practice for the Men's Ultimate Team was great.  At least 30-40 new guys (mostly freshman) decided that it was time to bail on all those fun parties on Thursday nights and pickup a sweet new game.  I feel like sometimes that parties are the only thing that people enjoy around here, but the strong new class of freshman give me a little hope every year.  You are probably thinking that Ultimate Frisbee is still just a game, why should people change their plans for a game?  I feel like this mentality permeates USC more than other universities in the US.  Despite having 17,000 students, only around 50 play on the team.  For me, there's something skewed about those numbers.  Ultimate is THE college sport.  It has all the elements.

1. free form lacking any strict rules if  need be. 

2. supports creative ideas for strategy, jerseys, cheers for your team and other teams

3. You can throw a frisbee anywhere.....as long as you dont hit anyone

4. it has cool traditions like dressing up to play croquet, one of my classier moments in my college career

5. Frisbee's look awesome in flight!

So why isn't the Men's Ultimate Frisbee team teeming with new talent? I don't man, I don't know.  My only guess the blanket of greek life here at USC and it's college football traditions.  I could also have something to do with having almost no green on our  campus, 2 turfs fields is where we practice and there is  a quad where we have to throw over the foot traffic.  However, our Ultimate team is very resourceful and we make use of what we have, and more importantly the city that we live in.  There are many types of frisbee sports that we use to bring interest to Ultimate Frisbee.

One of my favorite types of Ultimate is beach ultimate.  Contrary to your belief  beach ultimate frisbee requires a whole new set of skills.  A great Ultimate frisbee player on grass does not translate into a great on sand.  These beach days or tournaments usually have a casual but competitive tone ending with some kind of hang out session or party later in the day.

A favorite among many Ultimate Frisbee players is Disc Golf.  It is exactly what it sounds like except the targets are statues or any land marker instead of a hole like in golf.  Disc Golf gives a chance to release all your power into your driving throw to see how far you can accurately target something.  Although Disc Golf does not get much publicity, there are courses specifically made for Disc Golf all over Los Angeles and it is a good place to practice throws and technique.

At USC we have a game called "mini" which is a variety of Ultimate Frisbee which is a 3v3 matchup and gameplay never stops.  The only difference between mini and regular Ultimate is the fact that when the offense scores in the endzone, the field switches and the offense can go to the other end for another score immediately.  We use this when we have limited field space and to keep our bodies fit for the spring season. 

Between all these games and the quirky traditions, Ultimate Frisbee brings in a wide variety of people.  Our team is happy to teach and play with people of all skill levels.  The USC program is growing quicly, and we are working hard to make this happen.  Hopefully with some of these interesting tidbits of Ultimate, we can at one point be one of the largest club sports on campus! 

  

LAYOUTS

With a deep breath and a wince, I grabbed my wobbly right arm and prepared for the all too familiar pain.  My shoulder sluggishly scraped into its socket.  Grinding away at my strength of will and literally my bones.  And FINALLY the shoulder socket opens its gates and agrees to let my arm to plop in.  It’s all over now. I carefully test out the arm to see how bad it is, but the ligaments tense up into a knot like a shoelace tie that you pull on too hard in first grade. My body has betrayed me.  All for a flying plastic toy.  So you’re probably wondering was it worth taking the chance to injure myself, maybe it was a national tournament or something of significance? Nope, it was just a normal practice this fall.  Also, this has already been the fifth or sixth time I've dislocated both my shoulders.  Unfortunately, its back to months of physical therapy for me.

To be honest it was all my fault, I was too eager to get back on the Ultimate playing field even though I promised myself I would not be on the field again in 2012.  I am not the only player I know of playing much too early for their injury to heal and I guess you could look at it to a testament to how much enjoyment people get from playing and being in the Ultimate community.  Both my arm injuries happen on one kind of play in Ultimate frisbee called the layout or “going ho” because your body is creating a horizontal line.  It looks like this:

Or if you want to see some live action:

Laying out for a defensive play or for a huge offensive gain is one of Ultimate’s most glorious plays.  No matter if you’re part of the finals club game or just a random throwing session with your buds, a layout shows how far you are willing to go for the game, teammates, and to impress the ladies.  I think the athletic speed and agility required to execute a successful layout grab or D (defensive play) distinguishes Ultimate Frisbee from a group of friends tossing a frisbee on the beach.  

Although it seems like it, laying out isn't just heaving your body as far as it's willing to take you.  Not only do they require a bit of bravery especially in crowded parts of the field, but the execution of the layout also requires quite a bit of skill and technique to keep the play relatively safe.  One key point of completing this play in a safe fashion is to lead with your chest, which should be taking the force of the landing.  Another important part is that the jump should be in the horizontal direction which will allow you to extend your body and hopefully give yourself enough to catch the disc.  This blog does an extremely thorough job explaining each step of the layout or this one to promote laying out safely.

Even with Ultimate still not in the mainstream, layouts get at least a little airplay on sports news channels and I think that demonstrates some of the legitimacy in Ultimate Frisbee  Maybe the key to taking the sport to the next level is to layout more?  Go try laying out and spread the word! I gave my cleats to an off-campus friend so I can't get tempted into playing, so I'll be researching techniques and strategy in the meantime.

Hey everyone!

Let’s dive into some of the trademark skills of Ultimate Frisbee which define a team and each individual’s style of play.  This will also give a glimpse of some strategy involved with this sport.

Throwing is an integral part of the game since you cannot run (besides pivoting on one foot) in possession of the frisbee.  As a thrower in possession of the disc, you ARE the focus of the defenders and your teammates; you have control of where the frisbee goes and movement of your players.  The throwers, often called handlers, usually have calm and cool personas because they are experienced players and need to make the best decision on where and who to throw too.  Each possession counts and should be valued.  

I am sure most of you are familiar with a pretty basic frisbee throw called a backhand which looks like this:

But unlike most sports, there are at least six very distinct types of throws that I can list just off the top of my head, and each one has some important variations.  As a player, I think of throwing as the artistic and aesthetic side of ultimate frisbee.   With throwing skills, an individual can unravel a whole defense by finding weak spots with accurate and decisive throws.  On the flip side, inexperienced throwers can become very nervous and clog up the offenses flow.  Seeing a pull (like a kickoff) hang in the air and hammer throws that twist and turn are some of my personal favorite feats of ultimate frisbee throwing skill, and never fail to amuse an audience your parents and friends.  Playing Ultimate can be a very creative endeavor, and I like it that way.  Each individual has their own throwing style which adds wrinkles to your team identity…..and some trick throws to show off for the ladies.

Since throwing is such a controlling part of the sport, one of the most important defensive positions is the mark which is the person guarding the thrower.  The mark's job is to prevent the handler from having a free throw to any part of the field.  Unfortunately playing the mark won't provide many highlight reel plays to impress your lady friends, but it's THE position that anchors the rest of the defense.  In a basic defensive set, the mark's job is to block the thrower from putting the disc to the right half of the field:

Behind #17 would be considered "right" half for my example

While the mark (#17) does his job, the down field defense will be on the left side of the field:

In a perfect world, the whole field is covered and you are unstoppable.  But like everything in frisbee, it is situational and there is always counter strategies to every strategy.  A handler with skill and quick pivoting can keep the mark off balance to throw to the right half of the field effectively breaking the defense; this is why a throw to the right half is called a "break".  Also, one of the offensive players can simply out run their defender in the spot they are trying to guard.  Frisbee is not a sport to be taken too lightly. 

I’m pretty sure a lot of you didn't think that any frisbee games could have much strategy, or even rudimentary rules.  Just a few years ago, I was no different than you.  Before joining a team, playing frisbee for me consisted of chucking the frisbee as far as possible, hoping someone would come down with it.  Ultimate frisbee however is much more elaborate than that and I hope I gave you a glimpse of the intricacies of the strategy used.  I feel like these schemes build a team’s identity, it definitely dictates how aggressive or passive or cool a team plays. 

Frisbee players really love pie.

This is partially a lie. Not all frisbee players actually love pie although I doubt that your team would complain if you brought some post-game celebration pie. Plus, you’d probably get a quirky pie related nickname.

So I’ll divulge my findings on this pie situation. I was exploring the roots of the actual frisbee disc in an article called “The Origins and Development of Ultimate Frisbee”. The seeds of the sport were sprung at Yale University circa 1887, where students would buy “Frisbie Pies” from a bakery and throw them like modern day Frisbees after they feasted on the delicious cobbler held inside (Griggs 2009).

There’s a debate on whether it was either pie tins or cookie tins. One Yale student’s account is pretty convincing in this important distinction: “I clearly remember the cookies; and I also recall that the cover of the tin box was used by the older kids just the same way Frisbees are now used” (Griggs 2009). But after talking to the widow of the Frisbie bakery, the official story the frisbee legends go with is the pie trays.

All that the sport of frisbee needed to grow was a frisbee made to fly, not made to hold pie. So in 1948, an inventor created a plastic version of the pie tin and improved it with several prototypes. With a solid frisbee design in place, the game grew to a “Frisbee Football” type of game which was the precursor to the best version of all the frisbee games, ultimate frisbee (Griggs 2009).

I know some of you are wondering about how ultimate frisbee works, so I’ll be explaining some basic rules and situations today hopefully without boring you with too many details:

Ultimate Frisbee is played 7 on 7 and is considered a non-contact sport; but incidental contact always happens. There is a stall count which the person guarding the thrower will count out loud to 10 seconds (this is kind of like a shot clock); before 10 seconds the thrower must throw it to a teammate to reset the clock or it is a turnover to the opponent. You cannot run with the disc, but you can pivot on one foot like in basketball. You must throw the disc to advance it to your teammates. If your teammate drops the disc or a defender deflects it to the ground, possession is turned to the opposing team. While both teams are on the field, play continues until one team scores or until a foul is called. Catching the frisbee in the opponents endzone will earn your team 1 point. Games are played to a score selected before the game starts, usually pre-determined in the tournament rules.

So, I’m going to show you a video and I here’s a list of ultimate frisbee keywords you might encounter.
Handler=a throwing position (much like quarterback in football)
Cutter=a receiving position (much like receivers in football)
Mark=defender guarding the thrower
Someone screaming “inside” or “around”=people on the sideline giving the mark information on where to move
A break=scoring on a point in which you started as the defender
Pull=the first throw of the match (like a kickoff in football)
Huck=a long pass
Dump=a short pass usually to another handler for no gain to reset the stall count


The easiest way to see how Ultimate Frisbee looks like is by video so just check this club match.




Griggs, Gerald. "The Origins and Development of Ultimate Frisbee." The Sport Journal12.3 (2009): Academic OneFile. Web. 2 Sept. 2012.

Hello to everyone that loves or is interested in Ultimate Frisbee,

Dunking in basketball, bending a shot in soccer, and striking a golf ball for a hole in one are impressive feats of physical ability in sports. But, have you ever had a moment when you were impressed by a frisbee?

Watching my coach sling a frisbee like a shot putter in the Olympics and having the frisbee soar swiftly across an entire football field, amazed my middle school self in an instant. Unfortunately, my turn did not look nearly as glorious as my plastic disc fluttered, careened into a tree, ricocheted off a fence, and barely missed Mr. Adam’s, my intimidating math teacher, car in the faculty parking lot. Although my physical skills were not honed in yet, my interest did not dwindle and I was not the only one to try this new game among my group of friends. Don’t get me wrong, most of the school never heard of frisbee as a sport and there was only one frisbee provided during break, which we elected to hide in a crevice in between our science and math rooms buildings after recess. Not many people played frisbee and it seemed to create its own niche even in middle school. Little did I know I would be launching accurate hucks with my own ultimate frisbee team just a few years later in college.

Currently, I am exploring the world of ultimate frisbee and leading a college team on the west coast. I like exploring new offensive, defensive, and leadership strategies used in ultimate to get my team as ready as possible. I want to divulge a swig of ultimate frisbee’s history so I can focus on the counter culture of the sport, the things that I want improved, how to get involved, and the direction of ultimate frisbee in Los Angeles and abroad.

As many of you frisbee goers understand, ultimate (ultimate frisbee) is not only a sport but a way of living. Most people, myself included, are involved in several facets of the sport: frolf (disc golf), casual summer leagues, club teams, and many more. This way of thinking and living usually is usually light hearted and a bit comical. For example, the Los Angeles Organization of Ultimate Teams (LAOUT) hosts a quirky hat tournament where each player is encouraged to compete in ridiculous, home-made, or otherwise interesting hats to use during a game and the tournament will have special rules governing these hats. The funny thing is that these matches will still test your physical limits and you will usually be finding yourself panting on the sideline. The “ultimate” community is a unique haven of casual but competitive environment, where sportsmanship takes on a new meaning with the self-refereeing aspect of ultimate frisbee. This also has to do with the fact that a lot of ultimate frisbee players like to hang out, drink, and generally have a good time with each other outside of playing ultimate frisbee.

I am blogging about this up and coming sport because I want it to have some exposure outside of the ultimate community since it receives limited media exposure, and frankly when it does get media play, it is played off as childish and trivial. I want this to be a conversation among frisbee players and non frisbee players, where knowledge and news about this unconventional sport can flourish and spark interest.

  I hope I have already convinced you in becoming involved in the awesome ultimate frisbee community.