I can’t but shake the feeling that European women’s Ultimate is not doing well. For years we had problems getting them to play, but they showed up anyway. However, this year there are 3 instances that make me think… hmmmm… are female Ultimate players becoming extinct?

1. The European Championships Beach Ultimate could not find 6 countries that could field 9 women to play in France this year
2. Wonderful Copenhagen Ultimate, spring’s biggest tournament, will not see any women participating this year
3. Bar do Peixe, one of the most female friendly tournaments in Portugal, had more than its fair share of women canceling this year.

Are European female (Beach) Ultimate players an endangered species? I hope not! Look at what the alternative is:

Games are more fun if there’s something on the line like a cup of beer. Gatorade can be substituted for beer. Boxed wine can be substituted for Gatorade but nothing can replace common sense.
Cups on Sticks – Secure two three-foot durable plastic sticks into the ground a disc-and-a-fist length apart with plastic cups overturned on top of them. Set up another pair directly across about 30 feet away. Two teams of two take turns throwing a disc to try to either knock the cups off the opponent’s sticks (1 point per cup) or get the disc through the sticks cleanly (2 points). If you knock a cup off an opponent’s stick but the cup is caught before it hits the ground you get no points. However, it must be caught one-handed, as the other hand must be holding a beer. Game to 11.
Beer Box – Played 2-on-2 or 3-on-3. A small square demarcated by cones or shoes forms the box. The object is to catch the disc inside the box. You have to reset about 20 yards outside of the box before attempting to score. There are cans or cups of beer as the reset markers. To reset and begin play you must first take a three-second sip of beer at the marker. If you finish the beer, your opponent has to run to the cooler to get another one while your team gets a 3-on-2 power play. You score by catching the disc inside the box.
With permission from Tony Leonardo’s book “Ultimate – The Greatest Sport Ever Invented By Man” (link to review)

You and a friend and a Frisbee…

“It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.”
— Thoreau, Walden 1854

What is it about modern culture that makes authorities feel the need to impose a foreign language, way of life and religion on a people that live in communion, unashamedly nude deep in an impenetrable forest? In a culture where no one bothers to keep track of their age, the well intended, but genocidal policies of outsiders have been ravaging western New Guinea’s highland tribes, as they slowly succumb to alien modernization.
One force driving this aboriginal extermination is the frontiersman psychology. Sledding to the Poles, summiting Everest, rowing across the Atlantic Ocean, it’s all been done. We live in an age when uncharted earthbound exploration is virtually at an end, yet I partook in a particularly unique adventure; I taught naked Frisbee to natives who still dwell in the Stone Age. Someone had to do it. (More…)

Only a few people know the real story behind the game… Forget the hippy stuff, Ultimate Frisbee was developed around 300 A.D. in the Aztec province of Yucatan, near the city of Palenque. Ultimate Frisbee (in the Aztec Ul-ta-kool Fusz-bah, literally “gliding death wheel”) was used both as a form of entertainment and to settle minor land or mineral rights disputes between Aztec tribes. The teams were typically comprised of slaves, widows, and orphans who played for pitchers of Ouaxchica, a sweet and refreshing Aztec rice drink.
The Aztec kings immediately recognized this peasant sport as a golden opportunity to ruin something good by making it a blood-sport. The “frisbee” was soon serrated and made razor-sharp; the losing team was fed to wild dogs, who were then drowned in lakes, which were then drained; and the frisbee fields were littered with small pieces of metal, chunks of diseased flesh, and swarms of killer bees. These innovations were undone in the 19th century by Lord Shelby Darrow, a noted Aztecologist, who is considered the father of modern Ultimate Frisbee, the step-father of Competitive Shuffleboard and the dead-beat dad of Ultimate Darts.
more… 🙂

Beach Ultimate has long got its players from the grass Ultimate scene. There are beach tournaments galore but few leagues. However this is slowly changing. Portugal had the first national Beach Ultimate organization: BUG-P. However a second organization just got started: Associação Paulista de Beach Ultimate (APBU) in Brazil. No grass, just beach 🙂
APBU is now organizing the national Beach Ultimate league March – September 2007. The first games will be on Praia do Centro in Peruibe. Here is a picture of the local team “Jararacas Beach Ultimate Team”:

Where will the next ‘beach-only’ Ultimate organization come from? Spain? Italy? New Zealand? US? Mexico? Any bets?

It’s pretty amazing that in one of the first stories ever recorded in a book, tossing a disc on a beach gets a mention…
“…and his men beside the break of the sea-beach amused themselves with discs…”

– The Iliad of Homer (Richmond Lattimore transl. Univ. Chicago 1967, Book II, line 773-774)
Thanks to Melissa Clarke and Chad Woods for bring this to our attention 🙂

Frisbee inventor Walter F. Morrison test flies a re-issue of the Pluto Platter Frisbee disc Thursday, Dec. 28, on the beach in Carpinteria, California. The original Pluto Platter Frisbee disc, designed by Morrison, made its debut in 1957.
link

It is a common claim made by Ultimate Frisbee players that ‘anyone’ could play the game. However Andrew Thornton, a long time Ultimate player, has published research that shows that Ultimate players struggle over their (athletic) embodiment and identity. His research shows that although Ultimate players reject and limit identifications with dominant sporting ideals they also continue to embrace some of their qualities. This process of identification suggests that maybe not ‘everyone’ will be able to become part of the Ultimate community…
Interested in reading more? Here is the published chapter (.pdf) of his PhD thesis. This chapter was originally published in 2004 by Belinda Wheaton (Ed.) in Understanding Lifestyle Sports: Consumption, Identity and Difference, London: Routledge, 175-196.
If you want to know more about Andrew, here is the link to Andrew’s homepage

Zeka, one of the Beach Ultimate players in Palmela (Portugal) recently got himself a new tattoo:

I think it is cool!
If you know of others that have (beach) Ultimate Frisbee tattoos, send them to patrick@beachultimate.org and we’ll start a collection here on the site.