How do you teach Spirit?

I helped deliver 10 workshops on Spirit of the Game in Colombia last year through Project Play Colombia. I had never done anything like it before, and the experience has now given me a lot more food for thought on how you would teach Spirit to a team or group of players.

Possible elements:

• practising how to learn the rules, through a role play of a scenario and then group discussion (either en masse or in pairs, then everyone)
• discussion of the players' interpretation and understanding of what Spirit is
• play a game with a prize at stake (or nominate an important game in the near future). Film the game, then watch the footage, discussing the calls made by both team
• give each player a rule to learn, and refer to them when a relevant call arises during a scrimmage
• discuss how you perceive your team's Spirit, and then bring in people external to the team (particularly rivals) for their perceptions

Some of these things can be done in a one-time event. However, like a lot of learning, many are best done on several occasions with the team or setting where you want to see it used.

Open Spirit winners of WUCC2006, Fakulti

Olympics and ultimate

FFindr has a post on why ultimate is not in the Olympics.

I am not a huge supporter of getting ultimate in the Olympics. My goals for ultimate are growing the number of players at all levels, maintaining the positive aspects of our sport and improving the weaknesses.

Growing the number of players and public awareness is the path to getting to the Olympics. But the benefit of being in the Olympics is the same thing. Plus a slight sense of "ha, I told you I play a real sport on the weekends" which is pretty self-righteous, and worth avoiding.

Being admitted to the Olympics would likely mean changes to our sport that we may not want: different rules or refereeing, large corporations influencing the direction of the sport, people playing for the money, not the enjoyment or competition. There are some ugly aspects to the Olympics.

The Olympics are not the only time and place for great international sporting competition - the IOC and the funds of sponsors just work hard to make it seem that way.

10 metre throw

Ok, here's the scenario. You're the thrower in the middle of the field. Your stall count is on 5.

The marker is forcing straight up on you, knees bent, his long arms spread out wide. A cutter is running straight at you from 20 metres upfield. He is very open.

A wide release backhand would be really tough because of another cutter clearing out nearby on that side with his defender, and your marker's large wingspan.

A wide release forehand would be tough as well, because your dump's defender is near that side. And you have the big arms of your marker to deal with.

Do you have a high release throw that can hit this cutter?

If your answer is "no", then you likely have to turn, engage your dump, and your team will reset the offence.

If your answer is "yes, I have a throw for this" then you can gain yards, and can attack (because throwing is a great starting place for a cut, whether it's cutting upfield 8 metres for a dishy pass back, or a long cut deep or flaring wide to draw your defender out of there).

The throw only needs to travel 10 metres. A little float to it will make it easier to catch. It is only a "twitch" throw (requires no significant wind-up, or repositioning of your torso by lunging etc).

Twitch throws give the marker no time to react if you have the disc in a position ready to release, and they don't have their hand in the way. Twitch backhands seem like a big new trend for North American elite open ultimate.

I have thought about this scenario a bit, and seeing how often a "no" slows down the offence can be painful to watch. I have thrown more and more scoobers in the last 12 months in this scenario, which is a throw from either forehand stance, backhand stance or while pivoting across.

And I am working on getting more and more high backhands and high forehands out (for the backhand and forehand stances respectively). One way to get there - lots of three man drill (aka thrower-marker drill), making sure you are in ready stance and with the stall count coming in on 9.

Spirit at TEP Medellín

The final part of the academic program of TEP was a forum focussed on spirit and development of the sport. Eight presentations were given on ultimate and growth in Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, USA, Canada, the Dominican Republic and Australia. I gave a talk on Australian ultimate. My focus was basically the "other ultimate" that is a big part of our community, calendar and culture, as it is to varying degrees in many countries. 

During the tournament itself, every game that I saw was a positive experience.

For the spirit prizes, the winners for TEP 2009 were Revolution in the women´s division and Sockeye in the men´s. The TD, Mauro, was very happy that two finalists took home the spirit awards, illustrating his point that spirit is compatible with high level play.

My personal experiences included calling, discussing, then withdrawing two fouls in the game against Kiê, and bottling up some serious frustration against Warao. That involved getting fouled on a throw (and feeling the smack firmly on the back of my hand), and then four Warao sideline players instinctively yelling "no" loudly when I called foul. The lack of perspective or trust from them had me silently jumping up and down for seconds, wanting to yell back.  

My team Oso-Matanga had none of the really negative experiences of Nationals. The wish to play with spirit was repeatedly mentioned by several of our leaders. This really reaped rewards against a team like Warao who were motivated and who we knew to be a big challenge, but we seem to deflate them by discussing calls calmly and briefly, and even accepting some tight line-calls that weren´t in our favour. They lacked "fire" as a result, which helped us play our game, and win. I felt that we had decided to make the game spirited, and we controlled this.

I received the even more cheery news that Oso played a very spirited rematch against Euforia two weeks later, in the final of Disco Volador 2600. Without foreigners like Sockeye or Furious (or myself) around, and with some established hotheads back on both teams, these two rivals met in an important final and played a spirited game. I hope it is a pattern from here on in.

Day 3 of TEP Medellín 2009 - the finals

The women's semis were up first. Riot toppled Wayra convincingly. The other game was tighter. Traffic struggled to contain the break throws of Revolution, and were pipped in the end - a North American team was defeated by a Colombian team. These are the milestones in the progress of South American ultimate.

The men's semis followed. Warao (Venezuela) threw everything at Sockeye, but Sockeye prevailed 15-9.

In the Oso - Furious match-up, we jumped to 2-0 lead, prompting an emotional timeout from Furious George. They pegged it back to 6-6, Oso's speed matching Furious' experience and height. But the story of the game soon matched that of many other previous games: a Colombian team unable to maintain composed offence and pressure defence once the legs fatigue slightly. Furious ran out 15-9 winners.

Oso working against the Furious zone

After lunch, the women's final took place before an audience of around 1500. Riot vs Revolution. Team names these days sound like everyone wants to fight the system...

Revolution have so many young players - almost everyone is a teenager. Their skills were so impressive. The score edged from 4-4 to 8-7 Riot, and then the North American dominance prevailed, as Riot pulled out the win 15-10. Awesome match for spectators.

Riot (black) and Revolution (pink) after the final

The men's final was a classic derby between Sockeye and Furious. I believe the first time either team took a two-point lead was Furious at 12-10. Then Sockeye stepped up. They clawed back points to come to 13-13. A Sam Harkness block of a huck to Andrew Brown helped them go to 14-13.

Then on match point, the primary handler for Furious, Mauro Ortiz, stayed on the bench. On the second pass, Skip Sewell read the throw of the replacement Furious handler to perfection, with a layout block. Possession to Sockeye. A pass or two, and the disc is on the endzone line. Is it in? Reminiscent of the final moment of 2005 World Games, the players finally agree it is a goal, and Sockeye are inaugural open champions of the Torneo Eterna Primavera.

 Scobel photographs Hassell getting one over Seth

A great finish by Sockeye, with two athletic defensive plays on the end of a long and hot tournament, to cap a 4-1 comeback and win. An ideal spectacle of elite, spirited ultimate for Colombian players and fans to see at the conclusion of the biggest ever ultimate event in South America.

Big congratulations to Mauro Moore and his colleagues for creating such an impressive event. Can't wait to see it return in the future.

Day 1 and 2 of TEP Medellín 2009

My team, Oso, has now completed the pool games at TEP Medellín after two days. Most of the results are online now.

We polished off Mamoots, Argentina, Warao (from Venezuela) on day 1, and defeated Caobos (Venezuela) to start day 2.

The Sockeye game was enjoyable. We took an early 3-1 lead, held on til 7-6 down, then faded in the sun, to lose 15-8. Sockeye used their aggressive zone fairly often, with four tall guys up front trying to trap the disc.

Euforia (white) play Sockeye (red).

The final game of Friday for us was with Medellín's strongest team, Kie. The winner would advance to the semis, as we had both lost to Sockeye and defeated other teams in our pool. We pegged out an early 6-2 lead and kept it throughout, winning 15-10. Our team had four spectacular grabs, rivalled today only by Seth Wiggins' layout fading blade catch in a different game. Certainly fires up the team and the crowd.

Oso (white) with Kiê (blue)

Tomorrow we will play our semi-final with Furious. Their points differential per game (+5.5) is worse than Sockeye's (+7.3), so we theoretically have a better shot at a win than Euforia Warao, who emerge from the other pool to play Sockeye.

Furious and Sockeye are heavy favourites to meet in the final of course, but I am keen to see what happens.

Meanwhile in the women's, Riot topped Traffic in pool play. Both were otherwise undefeated. Revolution gave the best showing among the Colombian teams, losing 14-13 to Riot. Tomorrow, Riot will play Wayra and Traffic will meet Revolution.

Tonight is trade night, so I am sure no North American will leave without having traded their much-coveted uniforms from teams past.

Opening Night of TEP Medellín

The opening ceremony for TEP was equivalent to that of any Worlds: a parade of nations, freestyle demonstrations, dance routines, national anthems, thanks to the volunteers, and an audience hungry for the demonstration game.

The opening game for TEP was Canada vs USA, consisting of players from Riot, Sockeye, Traffic and Furious George.

The stands filled up so the spectators without seats were asked to sit down on the field too.

The match started strongly with barely a break for the first 8-9 points. Then errors crept in. USA proved too strong, and won by a few.

The best part was having a few thousand ultimate players and others getting to watch a high quality match featuring stars of the North American game.

6 days of coaching

Just finished 6 long days of coaching in the TEP Academic Program.

First was a day coaching the sports teachers from the INDER Escuelas Populares.

Day 2 and 3 was training coaches from all over the country (and Mexico), along side players from Riot and Furious George. Without much background on the coaches or chance to plan together, we started with a session finding out what they wanted to learn. We explained many of the approaches and organisational systems of our teams. The second day was smoother, giving all the attendees opportunities to coach the others (who role-played beginner players) and then evaluate that coaching.

There is an insatiable thirst for ultimate knowledge here in Colombia - folks are keen to learn whatever they can. And when players from some of the strongest clubs in the world turn up, they will ask questions on everything.

I also discovered there are three accredited ultimate coaches in Colombia. They did a course in Bogotá through a state department. I'll find out more.

On Day 4 and 5, Alyson and I coached a high school team from Colegio de San José de Las Vegas. They were boys from 13-16 years old. We worked with them on their offensive cutting system (they have a fairly sophisticated set-up) and their marking of the thrower (they are lacking a lot of fundamentals). I think there will be more instances of this in the near future - Colombians implementing whatever new info they discover, when they haven't been presented with fundamentals first.

The lads had excellent patience to train for seven hours a day for two days. By the end, they had a dynamic zone offence, improved marking and guarding, stronger pulls and impressive O flow, due to the effort they put in. So impressive. And this was a team that was already one of the strongest high schools in all of Latin America.

In some ways, the Colombians have better development pathways than Australia. Three of the Las Vegas high school players train and compete with the senior men's clubs, and many clubs (men and women) here have junior teams (16-20 year olds). There are many instances of talented teenagers moving into the senior competitions with lots of tutelage.

Day 6 was a visit to an Escuela Popular. Picture 30 kids from 6 to 19 years old on a hot, dry, sand soccer pitch, plonked in the middle of a sea of three-storey housing. An occasional dog wanders through, and frisbees worn down to 3/4 of their original weight fly everywhere. Every kid has a solid forehand, but most have shoes that have seen much better days. The two teachers organised the introductions, then we spent two hours coaching and having fun. The level of chaos slowly increased, and we left to catch our bus at the end, with swarms of kids wanting autographs on shirts and shorts.

There are somewhere between 600 and 1200 kids in the region, learning ulti through these Escuelas Populares. Creating social change and teaching life-skills to overcome disadvantaged backgrounds are the main aims. The teachers are doing awesome work.

The INDER program in Medellín

INDER is the sports department in the Colombian city of Medellín.

They manage lots of public sports facilities and programs, including Las Escuelas Populares, devoted solely to teaching sport to youth. There are about 50 escuelas here, and about 14 run ultimate. I am told that INDER love ultimate (well, they are certainly funding and supporting TEP).

They also offer scholarships to a selected 30 of the hundreds of students learning ultimate in the escuelas, many who are from disadvantaged backgrounds. The scholarships give them some funding for uniforms, travel, food and an invitation to play with the elite ultimate clubs in Medellín.

Basically its awesome. Four of the girls came along to today's coaching workshop for teachers from the escuelas populares today, and had fun. Ultimate seems to be a pretty fantastic aspect of their lives now.

The workshop itself was an chance for teachers to problem-solve their issues related to constructively resolving calls on the fields, gender inequalities, building comradery with other teams and teaching self-refereeing. Maddy and Loriana (from Riot), Eva (Traffic) and I were the organisers.

Also, 30 more people now know how to play schtick. They were possibly the best group of beginners I've ever seen playing schtick.

Today's workshop was one of the dozens of coaching sessions that 13 players from Riot, Traffic and Furious George (plus Nicky and I) are running during the 7-day academic program. Medellín ultimate is being bombarded with coaching. This is the epicentre of ultimate coaching anywhere in the world this week (maybe this year?), and the major cultural differences ensures everyone is learning something (have you ever coached with a translator?). 

Tomorrow, and Friday, I am working with 30 university and club coaches of ultimate from around the country. Saturday and Sunday I help coach a university team, while Monday and Tuesday will be the big forum “Convivencia y desarrollo en el Ultimate: Respiraprofundo”. Monday will also see our North American coaches visit the 14 different Escualas Populares to run a session with the kids.

Torneo Eterna Primavera: TEP Medellín 2009

TEP Medellín 2009 will be an impressive tournament. TEP is the biggest thing Colombian Ultimate has ever organised. It is effectively a Pan-American championships with teams coming from Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Canada and the US. It will be one of the best tournaments of the year, anywhere.



The Institute of Sport and Recreation, Medellín, is investing some serious funds into the tournament. These funds are supporting the travel and accommodation costs of Furious George, Traffic, Sockeye and Riot.

I stayed at the apartment of Mauro Moore, the TD, for a few days last month, and he has been working on this tournament since about March. There are mountains of discs, rulebooks, jerseys, cones and more, filling one of his rooms.

TEP is more of a gala event than just a tournament. Along side the main three-day ultimate tournament are a one-day mini-hat tournament, a three-day guts clinic, a three-day guts tournament, and the first Pan-American WFDF congress. A lot of things are on the scale of a Worlds or World Clubs tournament.

The venue for the ultimate is Unidad Deportiva Atanasio Girardot, the premier sporting complex in Medellín. Selected ultimate games will be broadcast live on TeleMedellín, a local TV station.

Additionally, in the week prior to the tournament, there is an academic program. This will involve seminars, forums and training sessions for new and experienced ultimate players and teams. There is even a workshop on ultimate photography, presented by the experienced Scobel Wiggins. I have been invited to contribute to some of these academic events, including a forum on international experiences of ultimate and community transformation through ultimate. That last topic may not mean much in a Western country, but in a country like Colombia it has relevance.

The ultimate starts on November 26th; the academic program on November 17th.

Exploring parameter space

(Warning, this is post is nerdy, even for a blog about ultimate. Read with caution.)

There is a well-known throwing set in Australia. Part of it includes throwing forehands and backhands. For the backhands, you vary the angle: throw 10 outside-in throws, then 10 flat throws, then 10 inside-out throws. Then likewise for forehands.

There are two parameters at work here: backhand/forehand, and the throwing angle.

Someone chose two options for the first parameter and three options for the second. So in total we have 2 x 3 = 6 options, right?

Basic maths, but we often shun certain possibilities created by multiplying the parameters.

A few years back, some folks must have looked at the release points of throws: low-release backhand, I can do that, medium-height release backhand, check, high-release backhand, yep can do. Three options on that side. For the forehands, low and medium, yes - but who could throw the high-release? Wasn't that a bit hard or silly? But it was tested and practised and mastered and now there are 15 year old kids in Ibagué and Seattle and Osaka who can nail it, after we had spent years shunning that seemingly awkward corner of parameter space.

What else is out there?

Look out for reverse forehands. What's a reverse forehand?

Well, in the beginning there were right-handed people. And right-handed folk liked throwing right-handed. To reach wider, they pivoted by moving their right foot. And all was good. Then along came the lefty backhand, and these folk started using it - because the 3 metre forehand is so pesky when throwing a little dump pass. And this involved not moving the feet, because habits are habits, and it was hard enough to change hands without thinking about feet too.

Recently along came those right-handed folk who worked out how to throw lefty backhands and pivot with that left foot. And they had more options. And all was good.

However they were only using half the parameter space of left/right hand and left/right foot.

What about another point in this parameter space: moving the left foot to throw right-handed? We've all "corrected" a beginner who was pivoting that way, and we've pointed out that it was the "wrong" way to pivot, because it gives you less reach. Plus we humans find it comforting to tell others that they are wrong, especially when they say "oh, I see" shortly afterwards.

But what about when this "wrong" pivot gives you more reach? Stand facing your target, feet just over one metre apart, disc in right hand. You have a certain reach out to your right side for that righty forehand. But if, instead, you move your left foot to the right, voila, one metre more reach. And a marker caught off guard by a unsuspected pivot foot.

You get all the reach of a surprise lefty backhand, with the power and accuracy of your well-known righty forehand. The idea is to not commit to a pivot foot until you are ready to throw. Idris pointed out that you usually don´t need to pivot anyway.

Those who follow cricket might see an analogy with the sweep shot and the newer reverse sweep (which used to be "wrong", but now is important in one-day cricket).

And what about zone defences and parameter space? Zones are often described by a few numbers that add to 7: for instance, the 3-3-1 zone and the 1-3-2-1 zone. Why not try your own combination of numbers, then try to construct a zone out of it?

For me, this mindset of parameters moves me away from thinking "right" and "wrong", towards three approximate groupings: "tested and currently working", "tested and not working currently" and "untested".

Lastly, avoid facehorns from your teammates, and use the word "options" instead of "parameters" if you are throwing ideas around at a team training.

A week of clinics

Lucho, Laurel, Nicky and I have finished our fifth and last clinic for this mini-tour. We now have lots of friends in the cities of Cali and Ibagué.

We aimed to leave the players with a friendly and positive experience of ultimate shared with players they usually only play against. We shared our perspectives on spirit from our three countries. And offered some tools for the future: proactive methods for learning spirit, tips for discussing calls on the field and activities to use after an ultimate match.

All the players were so welcoming of new ideas, and so many offered thanks for the clinics. The challenge now is to evaluate them and see what impact they make on the communities we visited. They can't just vanish into the past - the aim of the clinics is to help build the communication and spirit in ongoing local ultimate.

By the way, if one day you ever see that topless dude in this photo, holding up a trophy for winning a major tournament in the future, I met him when he was just learning to play ultimate in Cali, and moving like Bruce Lee.

During the week, we also got to participate in a demo-game during half-time of a Cali futbol match. A few dramatic macs and hucks entertained the soccer fans. It was a very exciting experience for the local ultimate players out on the beautiful turf under the big lights. It was eight minutes of fun before the paid professionals returned to play their sport and not layout.

There was also a day of ultimate in Ibagué on Saturday - hot, humid and fun.

Project Play Colombia

Project Play Colombia is a project worth checking out. There is a blog and a facebook page.

The aim is to develop conflict resolution skills in ultimate players while teaching the skills of ultimate.

The project is run by Lucho, a mover and shaker on the Colombian ultimate scene who has recently returned from the fertile fields of Vancouver ultimate.

Laurel, Nicky and I will be his fellow coaches for a series of clinics this week in the cities of Cali and Ibagué. We will run clinics with established men's, women's and university clubs.

A proposal for building stronger spirit

My last post talked about my observations with spirit in Colombia and, to an extent, Venezuela. Between my arrival here in Colombia, the recent Huddle blogposts on spirit and the discussion on line assistants in Australia, the topic seems, well, topical.

There are several factors at work when spirit goes bad.

I believe one of the key ones is a “them and us” attitude. A minority of players adopt a mindset that individuals, or other teams in general, have behaved poorly and are likely to do so again in the future. These other people are framed as “them” in comparison to “us”.

“They” are cheats; “they” often play dirty; “they” think “we” shouldn't have won that last match, but “they” are wrong.

This attitude is built by what ultimate is available.

In Australia, players train and compete with elite clubs during the elite season. It is “them” and “us”.

But, importantly, there is also Other Ultimate, which elite men take part in. There are weekly mixed city leagues. There are numerous mixed tournaments. There are hat tournaments. There are numerous training camps and selection events prior to World Championships. And Australia tends to do well in spirit scores at international tournaments. A bit of a leap to assume causation, but the extent of Other Ultimate in other countries and their reputation for spirit seems to roughly correlate, at first glance.

And this Other Ultimate forces elite players to play with, socialise with and befriend other players outside their club. Ultimate becomes a community, moreso than a collection of clubs where some players happen to know other players, and socialise when they happen to meet.

In a true community, “them” and “us” dissolve into just “us”.

So this is a theory. And there are some facts I have pointed out that seem to support it.

I don't think refining spirit score systems or adding observers address this underlying issue.

I have a different proposal.

The proposal is for the countries and regions that have the desire, to build community through “other ultimate”.

The national organisations and local leaders can build “other ultimate” through many means: ask elite clubs to host hat tournaments, build an annual calendar where mixed ultimate and open/womens ultimate doesn't clash, subsidise travel or minimise travel costs in general, expand selection and development events for National teams, hold gala dinners where a broad range of folk can attend, create incentives for the open club season to be restricted to certain months. When US players head to Kaimana and Paganello on teams with a real mix of players, as they regularly do, this is a positive thing.

And a big "goodonya" for everyone who has built and is building this ultimate.

In the end, with Other Ultimate in place, it's much less likely that Joe Handler will yell abuse at Fred Receiver and complain about Fred when he is in the pub that night, if Fred is on his mixed league team and played a hat tournament with him last year.

Spirit in Colombia

In my two weeks in Colombia, I have seen some worrying incidents relating to spirit in the open division. I have also had a number of Colombians and non-Colombians recount incidents of very poor spirit to me, from intense arguing and border-line cheating to pushing, shoving and punching on the field.

My previous experiences with South American men's ultimate were playing a very fiery Venezuela team and a more subdued Colombian team at Worlds 2008. I also saw that South American teams had very low rankings in Spirit scores for Worlds 2008 in a number of divisions, particularly Open.

The poor spirit has arisen particularly in certain team match-ups and from certain players.

Many other games across Regionals and Nationals had excellent spirit, and this was acknowledged after the game within the teams.

But in a way, spirit is a chain as strong as its weakest link.

Immediately after those disappointing quarterfinals at Nationals, I started talking to players about spirit. It seems to be evolving into a social research project worthy of several PhDs. The more people I talk to, the more I learn.

Many players are aware of the issues with spirit, and have pointed out a range of factors: the strong focus on club ultimate, the culture and history of Colombia (as this Columbian columnist discusses, this country has had "una cultura de justificación de la violencia y de la venganza"), the isolation from other international ultimate, and the lack of restraints or sanctions on those given power within teams.

In my next post, I'll offer an inkling of a proposal aimed at one of these factors. I have started to share this idea with the movers and shakers of Colombia during my time here, and see what they think of it. So far the responses have been supportive.