I am an Ultimate Frisbee athlete

I am now an Ultimate Frisbee athlete. What is Ultimate Frisbee? Like the name suggests, it involves a frisbee and an organised group of people senseless enough to remain dedicated to an unrecognised sport in the name of personal fitness. In case you're wondering, there's about 40 people strong in the league.

League?
Yes, a league. Ultimate Frisbee, though not yet an Olympic sport, has rules and a governing body, complete with associations worldwide and a dedicated membership that is growing fast.

How to play?
it's like Football, Soccer and Rugby with a frisbee. When you have the frisbee, you cannot move, you can pass forward. A reception in the opponent's endzone scores your team a point and starts off another punt (called a "pull"). Strategy is key, to keep the disc moving before a 10 second countdown (similar to the "shot clock" of basketball) and to keep people open and throws received. The field is the length of a rugby field, but half as wide, and the game is non-contact. You contact the frisbee, and are free to tackle it as you see fit. That's all. There's a few high-fives and a 2 too-many butt-pats, but those are discretionary I'm told. That's the "Frisbee" part of Ulitimate Frisbee. The Ultimate part is the self-officiating aspect - the one I'm finding tricky to nail down. You see, you call your own fouls, or agree or disagree when one is called. In the aims of maintaining spirit, referees are avoded and one's honesty and integrity of the game is upheld.

Ultimate Misery
I can't keep up. I make up a group of young ones playing the sport, and damn those older people can run. I can barely play 10 minutes before citing some complaint about the use of a non-standard weighted frisbee or the ground touching the frisbee too many times before I get to it. The older ones are a source of optimism for me. There's a 10-year gap between myself and some of them...either I'm damn lazy and weak at my ripe age or I'll be lucky to push my legs around the block when I'm older.

4 ways to throw a frisbee - and counting.
There's your typical backhand throw. And there's your forehand throw (also called a "flick"), it's a real hard one to get down. Then there's, get this, an overhead throw. Yep. Called "the hammer" this goes sideways on its way up and lands - if executed properly - upside down - coming straight down. If executed improperly - it cuts the receiver's head in half like a flung rotor saw would, noise, blood and all. The fourth way is the Doug-Wai-Chung-Jesus! throw. This is an assortment of underhand throws that puts just the right amount of "wobble" on the frisbee to push any self-proclaimed veteran of the frisbee to scream "Jesus!" as a catch is attempted. This is a very difficult throw to master, as you have to take air-resistance, humidity and a tolerance for panic involved from the 10-second countdown shot window into consideration. I have been remarkable with mastering this throw, and will soon be giving more workshops as to the catching method when i know more about it.

Ultimately too much
I had a tournament last weeked - about 7 hours of "ultimate", it was really fun, but the remaining 6 and a half hours were gruelling. It started to rain, as it does in Hong Kong, and remaining games were played in lakes of water that bore creatures grabbing to your shoe. This was the first time I ever played a sport where I spit mud in the middle of a game. It was fun.


More photos from this group

Photos:
Registration Dinner
Tournament Day @ Aberdeen Stadium

Video Clips
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So I play every Wednesday and so far every Thursday. But I'm taking it too much - I had some sense knocked into me, literally.

So I went up to catch the frisbee, unknown to me my legs had the same idea. I jumped up high to get a catch over my opponent (a 5-year veteran of the game) and caught it while my legs were still rising in the air. I landed on my tailbone and bonked my head. I was dizzy for about 5 minutes and have been having a few dizzy spells here and there since. This followed a run in with the aforementioned 5-year veteran of the game who winded me / was winded by upon being in the way of physics carrying her momentum through me. Ultimate Ouch.

AthlEthic
So I'm not accustomed to this athletic ethic that athletes or the performance-geared-person has. I mean, I've always been active - and by active I mean putting in enough effort to be exhausted but not being good enough to get anywhere. I di the track and field, fencing too (I wanted to be the best among my friends in a sport, and since I didn't know anyone playing Fencing, I was the best my friends knew. Haha!), and I timidly competed for the title of "Most Bestest Badminton Player Ever among Tim & Doug" in our hastily-pursued games that fit conveniently in our Pool-playing and beer-drinking appointments. (I should mention my friend Tim won the title before I departed for Hong Kong, fair-and-square)

So it's important to stay fit, and treat the body as importantly as one treats the mind. I agree with Aristotle on this one, and after yesterday, I've crested the point where I could rely on the flexibility and invulnerability of my youthful self. Experience is key - the older players know how to play - and how to continue playing. To see that there will always be another play, and that if you land a catch while hitting your tailbone and your head - though it's a good play, you'll play a bad game. At least now I'll have an extra excuse to be off-field when I'm oh-so tired from trying to keep up with the rest of them.