7 weeks to mixed tour 1...

It's looking like I'll be playing at MT1, I really can't wait. I've upped my track workouts to at least 2 lengthy sessions each week. I do fartleks, tabatas, core work and throwing if I go with someone else. At least once a week I go for a swim and twice a week to the gym alternating between upper and lower body. Then on top of this I started going back to actual training sessions, monday and wednesdays. Sure it's just my uni team and I go more as a coach figure than a player but I find I'm now able to play, somewhat, in the games.

I've got an image in my head that I'm aiming for, I'm on D and I'm completely shutting my man down. He can't get free whatever he tries and every time a disc is thrown to him, I beat him to it. I'm just faster and in better shape than he is.

So that's the vision...I find it helps to focus on when the burn starts to kick in and I've still got 8 x 100m at 100% to go.

I'm willing to give it a real go, the time investment on the track, the determination and the motivation to be better than my opponent. After almost 6 months (?-dont care to check anymore) of not playing I feel so close to getting back out there and having the opportunity to give 100%. Everything that has happened with my knee is just history and bad memories and I can almost leave it all behind and just look forwards.

Windmill Windup 2010? Mixed nationals 2010? Open nationals 2010? Hell yes.

Happy New Year!

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...

Tournament Ideas

Get ideas for running your own tournament from others who do it in a professional manner which results in good times all round!

No Wisconsequences 2009 from Cultimate on Vimeo.

Hosting a Tournament - The Venue.

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.

Related posts:

Tournaments Over The Festive Season

Pre Tournament Hype

Monkey Foo - What a Venue

Indoors, State Side

Referees?

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.

ED, work, bike and technology

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!

Highlight Videos

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.

Rhino 2009 ECC Highlights from Dave Collins on Vimeo.

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.

Club UPA Nationals 2007 - Rhino from luke johnson on Vimeo.

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:

My Favourite Highlight Videos

xEUCF Update, ECC and Chesapeake

Film and Photography Competition