Friday, March 16, 2007
Ultimate Frisbee - A Glossary of Terms
I've recently started playing Ultimate Frisbee with a bunch of friends when we hang out at Cafe Del Mar on Sunday afternoons. It's good fun exercise to compensate for the beers.
I've recently started playing Ultimate Frisbee with a bunch of friends when we hang out at Cafe Del Mar on Sunday afternoons. It's good fun exercise to compensate for the beers.Ultimate isn't very popular in Singapore. I first heard of it and learnt how to play when I was in Canada shortly after law school visiting my then girlfriend. Back then, as a struggling law student, I learnt that dating exchange students guaranteed I had free accomodation when I visited their home countries :)
Anyway, back to Ultimate. It sure as hell beats just throwing a frisbee back and forth. And it has some funny / cool terms such as the following:
Throwing a Brick - A bad throw, especially one that lands out-of-bounds without being touched by anyone.
Cherry Picker - Someone who frequently stands in or near the end zone so that he can catch a point scoring pass easily.
The Law of Conservation of Greatness - When a player makes a difficult & heroic catch then immediately throws a brick. Greatness is conserved because the heroic catch is balanced by the bad throw.
Greatest - Jumping to catch a frisbee which is headed out-of-bounds and throwing the frisbee again whilst in mid-air before landing out-of-bounds.
Hell Point - In games where substitutions are only allowed immediately after a point is scored, a Hell Point is a point which takes very long to score, leaving the players on the field feeling very tired.
Hospital Throw - A throw which stays in the air for a long period of time, allowing many players to get under the frisbee to try to catch it and thereby greatly increasing the chances of collisions, injuries & players having to be sent to hospital. See image on right.
Layout - A dive to catch the frisbee. See image on left.
Sky - Leaping to catch the frisbee at maximum height over a defender. Usually results in serious gratification for the skyer and deep embarrassment for the player who got skyed.
Spike - Throwing the frisbee violently onto the ground in celebration after scoring a point. Sometimes frowned on because of the possibility of a taco.
Steve - (British) Scoring a point when standing in the end zone and your marker runs away from you for no good reason. If you manage to shrug your shoulders before catching the frisbee it's called a "Full Steve".
Taco - A frisbee which has become warped because it has been stepped on or spiked.
Cherry Picker - Someone who frequently stands in or near the end zone so that he can catch a point scoring pass easily.
The Law of Conservation of Greatness - When a player makes a difficult & heroic catch then immediately throws a brick. Greatness is conserved because the heroic catch is balanced by the bad throw.
Greatest - Jumping to catch a frisbee which is headed out-of-bounds and throwing the frisbee again whilst in mid-air before landing out-of-bounds.
Hell Point - In games where substitutions are only allowed immediately after a point is scored, a Hell Point is a point which takes very long to score, leaving the players on the field feeling very tired.
Hospital Throw - A throw which stays in the air for a long period of time, allowing many players to get under the frisbee to try to catch it and thereby greatly increasing the chances of collisions, injuries & players having to be sent to hospital. See image on right.
Layout - A dive to catch the frisbee. See image on left.Sky - Leaping to catch the frisbee at maximum height over a defender. Usually results in serious gratification for the skyer and deep embarrassment for the player who got skyed.
Spike - Throwing the frisbee violently onto the ground in celebration after scoring a point. Sometimes frowned on because of the possibility of a taco.
Steve - (British) Scoring a point when standing in the end zone and your marker runs away from you for no good reason. If you manage to shrug your shoulders before catching the frisbee it's called a "Full Steve".
Taco - A frisbee which has become warped because it has been stepped on or spiked.
So the next time you're at Cafe Del Mar on a Sunday afternoon, look out for my small band of Ultimate players. We're getting better so you might see a nice layout or sky. Although right now it's mostly bricks and hospital throws :)
# posted by Fore! @ 4:06 PM 
