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.