2010...should be interesting. The closer I'm getting to being back at 100% post ACL tear, the less enthusiastic I am about writing about Ultimate. Its been 133 days since I last played a game of ultimate. I'm very much out of the Ultimate Frisbee way of living where weekends are mostly spent training or at a tournament, most parties are with frisbee friends and most travel is frisbee related. Just need to vent...give me a minute. I'm still motivated to get back to playing but with (what feels like) so long away from it all, I think I've started to forget why I care so much. I'm swimming, running and cycling at a good level everyday, I could compete in triathlons as I am but could I play ultimate yet? no...regardless of how well I can travel in one direction there's still a high risk of re-tearing for at least another couple of months if I play ultimate. It's such a bitch!
Not playing has, as expected, resulted in my not feeling the need to talk about UK Ultimate on a regular basis. I'm now just thinking about being able to get back on D...
There are a number of ways we as a community can all contribute to the sustained growth of our sport. With so many tournaments having taken place across the UK in so many different venues, it would be great to have all of these available to view in one online resource. So if in the past few years you have been a Tournament Director or have helped run a tournament, you would be helping the UK Ultimate community if you took 2 minutes to pass on some very useful information regarding the venue. I may make this a series of posts covering other aspects of running a tournament that will help future TDs in their planning.
So either respond in the comments section below or email me directly at greenie141(at)hotmail.com. Other comments regarding +ve and -ve things about venues you've experienced will also be very useful!
Let everyone know:
What was the name and location of the venue? What was the name of your tournament? Was it indoors/outdoors or beach/ How many players did the venue host? How many teams? How many pitches did you use? How many days did you tournament last? Was there food on-site? Was there on-site camping? How much did the venue cost per day? How would you rate the venue facilities out of 10? How would you rate the playing surface out of 10? Would you use it again? Overall subjective score of the venue you used out of 10 Want to add anything else?
Great! If everyone comes together on this and actually contributes a bit of information and time then I'll put together a list of sorts and send it out. I can't help but think that a list of 100 or so venues across the UK will be a great place to start for wannabe TDs.
For everyone to do their own research seperately, when for years the same questions have been asked of the same venues doesn't make any real sense when we all have the same goal of good quality Ultimate Tournaments. Some venues are Ultimate friendly while others aren't, so let the rest of the community know!
A very useful resource to get you started on planning your tournament can already be found on the UKUA website with the UKUA guide for TDs as well as others specific to running tour events.
Like I mentioned in an earlier post, for almost as long as Ultimate has existed, so has the debate about referees. There are valid arguments for and against, take a look here for some of them. The recent goings on with Henry and his now infamous handball triggered a whole load of discussion with not a great deal of new content but still. I personally think that an active linesman role is required while the players continue self refereeing.
Heres the incident with Henry
And his interesting rection to the situaiton highlighting perhaps the dangers of taking a level responsibility away fromt the players.
Heres an extreme case of what can happen within a sport here players see the opponent as the enemy and disregard all else.
This video came up when I was looking for 'Dirty womens football'...disgusting.
I had planned to write a post on the recent discussions taking place on the EuroDisc mail list. There are plenty of interesting, if not original, suggestions and comments going around regarding the age old referees/observer quandry we find ourselves in. Unfortunately, I ran out of things to do at work today and so went for a swim instead. This meant I wasn't at the computer from which I post here. On the way home from work I got my 2nd puncture while cycling this week (different wheel each time) and so had to get the bus. With little to do with my time I looked to see if I could have a read online via my phone, whaddya know, I could! As you may now have guessed, I am now having a go at writing a post from my phone. I'm not technophobic, I'm sometimes just a bit slow at seeing how a particular new technology may benefit me. Once I see it however, its all good! Anyway, this I mostly just a test really. I imagine something funky will happen with the formatting. Either way, here's to technology making it all the more difficult to get away, hurrah!
Check out this video from Emerald City Classic 09. As many of you know, Clapham went to ECC and one of the teams they played was Rhino. They are based in Portland, Oregon, and have a couple of guys with decent camera equipment. The Rhino highlights (= Clapham lowlights) begin at 3:08. Rhino won 15-11.
Good ultimate in good quality is still relatively scarce on the internet. I personally don't want to watch DVDs of coverage from a whole game, I find them a bit, well, boring. I've never really heard of people buying DVDs of their favourite/own football teams season games. Once you have watched a game live and know the result, that's it. Afterwards, all you have is the highlights and top 10s, these I don't find boring. I actually love the NBA top 10s...
There are also some really simple rules that, when followed, produce high entertainment to time spent watching value:
Use HD recording equipment. A tripod. Fancy yet generic countdown animations. Unobtrusive yet entertaining commentary. Regular speed replay followed by: Multiple alternate angle slow motion replay (as many as you have [that are of good quality]...)
Even rubbish highlights look good when in HD, if you are going to do it, do it properly! Grainy videos are less entertaining than no video at all. (Don't watch the video below...)
Understandably, Ultimate lacks any sort of dedicated professionals with equipment and experience and a market for coverage of games on DVD. Fine. Thankfully we do have are a number of people in the Ultimate community who still put a lot of effort into producing DVDs and they do a good job (PushPass andUltiVillage spring to mind)
As I have said before however, I think the best grabs, Ds and hucks of Ultimate rival the best dunks, bombs, tackles and shots of other mainstream sports. We just have more difficulty showing everyone.
I know this can all be seen as moot with the simple arguement, why be mainstream with all the crap that comes with it? Well, hopefully I'll be able to expand upon that in a future post.
You might also like to have a read of these past posts:
I play Ultimate in the UK and I'm a PhD student. The best way for me to combine my skills is to write about Ultimate while in the lab and think about how I'm going to get through my Phd while on the field.
