-          - Josh Zipperstein, in Zip’s Tips

euiHappened to me today. I must have dropped no less than 8 times and thrown it away an equal number of times. (Yes. To their credit, my team mates did keep passing to me:) ) The first thing that came to my mind was the tip above. I honestly did put my head down and tried to make only high percentage passes. But I kept dropping. Then frustration crept in. I pretended that everything would go back to normal with one good throw, one good pass. I even tried inside out forehands and hammers! Here are firsthand tips from my experience today:

1. Recognise - Learn to recognise the ’signs’. May be you dont feel warmed up enough. May be your mind is not in the game. May be you are thinking too much. Whatever it is. Figure out the reason. only then can you recognise it (If not eliminate it). 
2. Acknowledge - Acknowledge that all is not well and something needs fixing. Denying it = More turn overs = crappier feeling.
3. Act - Do what it takes. May be you wont play the game of your life. But you will also not play the worst game of your life.

Hope this will prevent you from having an off day sometime!Insha Allah! I will never forget today’s game. Ever.

 It’s now been a complete decade that I have defined myself as an ultimate player first and student/teacher/writer/freestyler/etc. further down. A quick glance at most of the pictures I’m tagged in on Facebook will show me either playing Ultimate, or laughing and enjoying my life with teammates and opponents who do. Yet once again, like last year, I find myself at a crossroads: play this coming season, or put competitive ultimate on hold indefinitely. It moves beyond a decision to play a silly game; when I wrestle with what to do the problem becomes an existential one.The thing about competitive Ultimate - the beautiful and damning thing - is that it’s so consuming. You can’t do it successfully if you give an equivocating commitment, that road is littered with the mangled corpses of wasted seasons, where neither team nor player got much of anything out of it. Plus, I’m not one to do something like this half-assed.So again the dilemma, to play or not to play. Last year, as I considered taking some time off, the allure of playing a swan-song season with old college teammates before their dispersal proved too difficult to pass up. If you know Andrew Brown intimately, you’d understand, and admit I made the right decision. But as I’ve mentioned before, Sub Zero’s Madison substrate is dissolving, and even Madison Club will suffer the loss of a few of their prime players. Staying at home and helping build this team would be a labor of love that would require a role and level of leadership from me that I’m not entirely sure I can give or afford, and I’m mindful of that.But how fun our sport, how great this community! If you’re in college right now, maybe you can’t quite appreciate its true pleasure. In college you’ve got a reset button every 16 weeks that brings with it a whole new crop of potential friends and activities, but in the working world, new people in your life are hard to come by and breaking into a social circle is a conscious and concerned effort. If you don’t get along with your coworkers, your life will center around a very small nucleus of people. And that’s not a bad thing, by any means.But to play on a competitive club team is to have an entire family you can lean on in your life, and if you live far from your real family their support can’t be overstated. When I moved to Boulder I had recently broken up with the girl I was supposedly moving for. I felt disoriented, at best (teammates can enumerate stories of my despondence from that year’s Solstice). But I arrived to Bravo, and with my membership into that club came a home, job, friends, and future love interests all prepackaged for me to open at my discretion. It made the move effortless, and it made my move away heartbreaking.And so my dilemma. Fuck if playing competitive club Ultimate isn’t expensive, and tiring, and time consuming. It’s a resource sinkhole. But all the intangible things it gives in return! When I coached at Fairview High, and the B team here, and this year with the n00bs on the Hodags, I always reiterated a mantra that I firmly believe, and that lies at the heart of my decision to play each year: this sport will take a lot of your time and dedication, but it will give back to you everything you put into it and more, in immediately tangible ways and in some you won’t appreciate until years after you’ve bronzed your cleats.Because for those in this bubble community, they give everything to the others inside. But for the uninitiated, that have never played, it’s impossible to explain the gravitational weight of this sport and your team. Those on the outside are forever trying to clear the condensation of their normal life off the glass so they can peer into the world we have built and inhabit.They will occasionally catch a glimpse, a foggy notion of why we play. You return from a tourney breathless with stories for your friends. You’ll passionately explain to your boss why you absolutely cannot make that meeting at the end of October. Or you’ll visit the hometown, and come home from an alumni game with sloppy shirt and grin, and your parents will see it in your eyes. For a moment, for me at least, you’ll look happy. Content. Satisfied. And in that moment, fleeting as it is, both you and your parents believe it.  �

Original article here.

An opportunity to witness a game of Ultimate at the top level. Watch the best players in the city battle it out in this exhibition game. The stage is set for the best to showcase their skills - The lightning fast cuts, ‘stay in the air forever’ pulls, long hucks, high tosses, over-the-head hammers and the layout Dees. We promise you an ‘Ultimate’ Saturday evening filled with action. All are welcome.

Date: 27th September, 2008

Venue: Beasant Nagar Beach

Time: 1730 Hrs

Approximate Duration: 1.5 Hours

It’s free!

Don’t forget to spread the word amongst your friends, family and colleagues.

See you there!

Source: http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/andrewingram/entry/ultimate_frisbee/

“Vanakam!… Yesterday we all agreed that the Semi-Occasional Kodaikanal “Fly Baba” Ultimate Invitational will be Saturday 26 April and Sunday, 27 April 2008. All are welcome! Get the word out. The more the better. We can even find you floor space if necessary. ”

So if you play Ultimate and would like to enroll please get in touch with us. The more the merrier!

Update 1: The tournament will be a combination, hat, showcase and ‘pucka’ event. Arriving on saturday morning and leaving sunday night will be sufficient but you’re certainly welcome to stay longer.

You may contact Bryan Plymale (Organiser, Kodai International School)

on +91-9952505264

Update 2: There are going to be 3 teams from Kodai, and one each from Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore. Its going to be a lot of fun.

If you are in Kodai and would like to watch / play a game with us you can call Manu on +91-9940079016 or me on +91-9884234925

Go Ultimate!

Contact: Roopal Shah

(93776.99951)

ultimate@indicorps.org

www.indicorps.org

Ahmedabad, Gujarat – The Ultimate Spirit of any game – sportsmanship - got a big boost this past weekend when Indicorps-Manav Sadhna under the banner of “Ahmedabad Ultimate” hosted the first National Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Ultimate Frisbee is a fast-paced, non-contact sport with a unique spirit of sportsmanship that encourages a tradition of mutual respect and unity among all players – both on and off the field.
The tournament, held at St. Xavier’s College Football Ground on Sunday 24 February 2008 brought together multiple generations of Ultimate players. Ahmedabad Ultimate hosted three teams: Delhi, Chennai and our own Ahmedabad team of 10 dedicated players. Delhi, the most experienced team, won the tournament. Ahmadabad and Chennai both featured many “first time’ tournament players and fought very spiritedly against the champions.

Chennai player Sukrit Sarkar, 25, account manager Radio Mirchi, said: “This tournament was a victory for the sport of Ultimate in two ways. Firstly, it brought together talents from three different cities and was impressive to see the amount of talent and enthusiasm of the players. The second victory was interacting with a very unique group of people whose lives are being directly and positively affected by the sport.”

Two other teams of younger players (seventh standard students) from Abhay Ghat and the Gandhi Ashramshala had a chance to interact with the visiting Delhi and Chennai teams. Chennai Player Karthikeyan Vijayakumar, 25, entrepreneur in Chennai, stated: “We were really impressed with the children at Abhay Ghat and the Ashramshala who we played with on Saturday before the tournament. They have tremendous talent and great energy. It will be great for them to get additional mentorship/coaching to take them to the next level. It was also great fun to have them come cheer us on in today’s tournament – we’ve never had such enthusiastic fans!” The little people found new role models and aspirations for their own play.

In addition, the tournament strengthened the already existing, but decentralized community of Ultimate players in India. Anjali Dotson, 25, an Ultimate Player who has been working in Kutch since September 2006 stated that “More than showing how far Ultimate has come in India, this weekend’s tournament how far Ultimate can go.” Abhinav Vinayakh Shankar, 24, a consultant by profession, has been playing beach ultimate in Chennai for the last six months. “It is always fun playing Ultimate; more so when we have diverse teams and today was just a great day for Ultimate in India. I think this tournament will be the foundation stone for the future of Ultimate in India. It was an honor being part of a tournament.”

Karthik Raman, 25, who returned from the United States to India for a year-long health project in Naickaneri Hills, Tamil Nadu through Indicorps, and volunteered at Sunday’s tournament stated: “Activities such as Ultimate Frisbee are really important for India’s development to stem the growing concerns of dreaded diseases such as diabetes, and high blood pressure. Ultimate is a fast paced game that requires the participants to constantly move up and down the field. It is exciting not only for participants, but also for spectators. It is also a great game for both boys and girls!”

Ahmedabad Ultimate will join hands with Volunteer Ahmedabad/Indicorps to coordinate a 4-week Ultimate Camp for college students and young professionals in April-May 2008. Ahmedabad Ultimate hopes to promote the spirit of the game and get more young people involved in Ultimate fun! If interested, please email ultimate@indicorps.org.

Delhi has promised to host the next Ultimate tournament this fall. “We are going to beat you this time,” smiled Raju Thakor.

Wow, it was a totally AWESOME trip.

Great matches, super hospitality and awesome matches. We finally won 1 and lost 1, but the spirit throughout the trip was fantastic.

Excellent coordination and arrangements by everyone at IndiCorps and Manav Sadhna, including a lovely welcome.

The quality level of the games was a couple of notches above what we normally play. Great to see the Ahmedabad team play, they had some beautiful cuts and throws, and the Delhi team was very athletic on the jumps and runs. It was also an eye opener about how our team raised our game for the tournament, and the so many (many!) ways where we can become better. Hopefully, we should bring in this new level on our regular games.

And we got to put in a word about the little kids. They may be just waist high for us, but they throw the disc like bullets. I think I could take some classes from them.

Most importantly, it was SUPER FUN.

I was going through our usual fitness routine doing shuttle runs, stretches, horizontal nietchzes, power jumps and all the plyometrics that Sukrit had ‘drilled’ into our systems. There was this fruit vendor with a cart that I had kept passing during the course of my shuttle runs but had been oblivious of until he called out to me half way through my power jump routine.
“Bhai!”, he said, abandoning his cart and approaching me. I stopped and impulsively looked down at my shoe laces thinking they had become undone!
I was gasping for breath and determined to finish my routine at one go. And hence was impatient.
But I waited to hear what he had to say. And I am glad I did. In essence this is what he said, putting his arm around my shoulder (He spoke in Hindi. I have tried to reproduce the same in English because my Hindi is pathetic)–
a) I saw you doing the sprints earlier. I thought you were good. I smile. But you made a couple of mistakes. If I may point them out to you…
1. You were not running with your body tucked in. You were offering a lot of resistance to the wind because your hands and legs were flailing in the air. Make yourself as small as possible. It’s a waste of energy, my brother.
2. You were breathing heavily through your mouth. Try not to do that. You will be faster that way. Just try it. It worked for me.
b) Do not do power jumps on the road. Do it on grass or better on the beach. Else your knees will get damaged.

Needless to say, I was stunned.

He then proceeded to explain how he used to be a runner in school. His voice cracked as memories came flooding in. I didn’t push him, though I would have loved to hear more.

The unknown face. The patience and the kindness that expected nothing in return.
An often unacknowledged face of Mumbai…

“Nothing bonds like sport”