One of the players at the World Championships contacted us to know if they could wear the Vibram FiveFingers footware.
This quickly sparked an interesting discussion on the WCBU facebook page.
Feel free to post your comments there or here…
Here is the ‘shoe’ in question:

Over the years there have been various companies that tried to compete with Discraft. Daredevil discs is one of them. They are “UPA approved” but I have no idea how successful they have been. I think that for most Ultimate players, if the price is almost the same and the disc is almost the same, they will still stick to Discraft. I know I do.
But what if the price drops significantly?
This might be a good option for poorer countries, players, or organizers who don’t want to risk a large investment.
Now there is a alternative.
YiKunSports (www.yikunsports.com) has a new Ultimate disc made in China. I had the opportunity to test their new version last week (hot from the press) and I must say I was impressed. I didn’t notice a difference with the Discraft disc. It was stable, same hardness/softness, and all-in-all a good disc.
Not extremely cheap, but still $2-3 per disc cheaper than Discraft (pricelist). Something to consider…

Christian, the founder of Ffindr just completed the addition of a new feature to the system: simple online registration and processing!
Players can register online and the TD will get a confirmation e-mail, plus a link to an ever up-to-date Excel file that reflects all submitted bids. TD’s and bidders can edit the submitted bids as long as they are logged in.
Once the registration is closed and the TD makes the choice among the bids (TD’s can move the bids around between the selected and waiting list by easy drag & drop), everything is ready to send out the invitations.
Sweet!

Read more on the ffindr blog

Wow! Ffindr.com is something that the disc community needed for a long time. A central depository of tournament info, leagues, pickup games for DDC, (Beach) Ultimate, Freestyle, Disc Golf, etc… They work with volunteers around the world to make sure as many disc events are added and the amount of listings they have already is enormous. I have yet to see anything that comes close.
But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Using Web 2.0 technology anyone can setup a filter to display what they are interested in. Only interested in Ultimate in the Iberian Peninsula? No problem! What about DDC worldwide? Any disc event in Africa? Just 3 clicks away! And still this is just the beginning. You can save filters as an RSS feed so you can immediately see when new events that you are interested in are added.
As if that wasn’t good enough, the real beauty comes when you then have webmasters integrate these feeds into their own websites. This is what BULA did. We created a filter to select all upcoming Beach Ultimate tournaments worldwide. Next we saved the filter/RSS feed and then, using some fairly straightforward coding, this feed was integrated into an existing page. Check it out: beachultimate.org/tournaments.html. The same was done on the Portuguese site: bug-p.org/teams.html and I am sure many more websites will follow.
Ffindr.com is like a pot of gold for anyone playing disc sports. Whether you are a player, a webmaster, or a tournament director. You can only gain by going to ffindr.com to add your event, select your event, or promote your event.
Thanks Christian. What you did was long over due!

Finally someone decided to put Ultimate on a game computer like the Nintendo DS. There have been some PC games about Ultimate out but this is the first one I heard about that worked on anything but a PC.

OFDS: Ultimate & Golf
Unfortunately, the reviews have been not very positive. One of the buyers on Amazon steers people away from buying it.
Why develop a game when it sucks? That is a waste of money. If you do something, do it well! Ultimate is a great game!

You might have seen American Football players wear them. You might even have seen Xtehn Titcomb wear them at the World Championships Beach Ultimate in Brazil, but do the Eye Black Stripes from Mueller really work?
I decided to try them during our league day in the Algarve last weekend and apart from the many comments I received on how ‘scary’ I look, I did not notice a difference. Perhaps when it is really really sunny out (this was just a winter sun) they might help, but in that case I will play with sunglasses.
The good thing about the strips is that they are easy to put on and take off, and I was pleasantly surprised that they stayed on all day, but you won’t be seeing me wear them any day soon, unless I want to look scary on the field… 🙂

Entertainment! That is how I would describe Blockstack TV. Steve Giguere (from Ultimate Gear company Lookfly) and Tom ‘The Voice of UK Ultimate’ Styles, are the brains behind this new venture that utilizes new technology such as video podcasts, RSS feeds, and Twitter.
Their videos are still a bit too long and UK centric to capture the imagination of a global audience but it is a great start. The two guys are funny and will travel around to Wonderful Copenhagen, Paganello and the WUGC 2008 in Vancouver to bring us pictures, podcasts, stories and results.
Check them out at www.blockstack.tv

I’ve read my fair share of Ultimate/Frisbee books and many are okay, but none of them made me laugh as much as Tony Leonardo’s “Ultimate – The Greatest Sport Ever Invented By Man”. He is so right on when it comes to the Ultimate scene/culture. He describes several Ultimate stereo types that are so true (I fit many of them :-). He describes our dress code and our desire to win the party. There is even a section about the Ultimate pickup scene and how lesbians and bisexuals can score. It is just funny.
My only critique is that the book is US biased. He doesn’t discuss the World Championships unless they were held in the US and according to him US teams are the best (ignoring Japans domination at the last World Championships).
Nevertheless, this book is a must-have for every player. Not only will you recognize yourself in this book, lend it to your friends that don’t play the sport and they will finally see you in your full glory… (although I am not sure if that is that a good thing… 😉
My favorite quote: “Being female and looking for action at an Ultimate tournament is like hunting deer in a disco. Even if the metaphor doesn’t make sense you can’t screw it up“.
Thanks Tony. You capture the weird world of Ultimate players well.
You can buy the book at: www.thegreatestsporteverinvented.com or in the Lookfly store. Alternatively, Tony is going to the Bangkok Hat Tournament, Boracay Open and Bali Nusantara Cup, and he will be bringing a few books with him. So if you are also attending, look for him.

I have no idea if this works, how this works, and why this works, but it looks cool: a dics with a video camera attached to the bottom. You can record up to 20 minutes of video and the smart wind vein on the top keeps the camera facing in one direction while it’s spinning through the air. Funky!

After the hillarious GlaxoSmithKline game, here is another game that you can play when the weather is still not good enough to play Beach Ultimate: Ultimade, the Ultimate board game. A fun strategy game that can be played anywhere.
Link