![Photo credit: Louise Dyring Nielsen [www.photoz.dk]](/images/masthead_layout.jpg)
Believe it our not, the Beach Ultimate tournament that started with just a few dedicated Ultimate Players tossing a Frisbee around on the sand in Santa Monica, California is turning a decade old. January 17 & 18, 2009 mark the tenth anniversary of Lei-Out.
This year promises to be a special year with upgrades in tournament sponsorships, event parties, and even better competition--not to mention spirit giveaways! The Lei-Out team is working hard to grow the tournament and bring in some new international flavor.
And teams with rosters consisting of over 50% of the players from outside of the United States will receive a special gift!
Check out www.leiout.com for more details or to register. Don't miss your chance to come to Lei-Out 2009...the tournament is filling up fast.
Burla Beach Cup video 1
Burla Beach Cup video 2
Last September saw the seventh edition of the Burla Beach Cup take place on the beach of Viareggio, near Pisa in Italy.
This tournament has been growing in numbers each year, with 82 teams taking part this year in 3 divisions. It’s easy to understand why: you’re guaranteed 3 days of beach ultimate, good weather, perfect beaches, great accommodation and a good party atmosphere all with an Italian style.
Viareggio is becoming like a second Rimini, 14 fields, increasingly high level and, to be fair, some of the disadvantages too! Paul Bernier, Max Vitali and the rest of the hard-working Tuscan team have done a fantastic job of expanding this great tournament, and they have committed to continuing to improve the experience for all comers.
In the open division CUSB Bologna (IT) beat the Rimini finalists SEXXXPENSIVE in a close final. The young Italians were perhaps less tired than the international thong legends and made slightly fewer mistakes with some tight defending. The Bologna junior team also won the third division; perhaps we can expect CUSB to start challenging for the Paganello title in future years? Cota Rica might have something to say about that, although they didn’t make it to Viareggio this time.
A special mention should go to Glasgow Open, who, having made a wrong call that decided a game, realized their mistake overnight and asked for the result to be changed! Spirito del gioco.
Full Results:
OPEN_1 div.
1. CUSB Bologna (IT)
2. SEXXXPENSIVE (Intl)
3. DJI SAM SOE (AT)
4. INEXXXPENSIVE (Intl)
SOTG
1. FREEZZZBEEZZZ (BE)
2. DJI SAM SOE (AT)
3. 4 STAZIONI (DE)
----------------------------------
OPEN_2 div.
1. COBRA KAI (UK)
2. INNERCIRCLE (AT)
3. SKYHAWKS (CH)
4. ULTEAM (NL)
SOTG
1. RADICAL (CH)
2. XLR8RS (BE)
3. SPIN (AT)
Another special award to GO (Glasgow Open)
----------------------------------
OPEN_3 div.
1. CUSB JUNIOR (IT)
2. NO FRILLS ( UK )
3. MYTHAGO ( UK )
4. BASIC ( UK )
8. Best women team: WOODCHICAS (DE)
SOTG
1. LES COLLEGUES (FR)
2. WOODCHICAS (BE)
3. LEAMONGTON LEMMINGS ( UK )
With the Porro Open this weekend in Barcelona it was perfect timing to get coverage about Spanish Beach Ultimate on TV3 from Catalunya.
The 2 minute report last Friday showed that in heavy winds there can still be a game. I wish TV3 would allow for others to embed the video (why not?), but that doesn't seem to be possible so you will have to click here: http://www.tv3.cat/videos/768109
Thanks to Christian, Gemma, Dima, Carlos, Sofia, the Italian Flying Disc Federation, and Eduardo the new WFDF/BULA Spirit of the Game scoring sheets are now available in Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Italian, and Brazilian:
http://beachultimate.org/blog/2008/05/sotg.html
Probably the first time in history: Beach Ultimate highschool intramurals. I wished I lived in Boracay!!! Check this out:
I wish all online communities would merge. It would make them much more valuable to the users. For example, Spinn-City (www.spinn-city.com) has some great features but not enough members (~80) to make it really useful for anyone.
Spinn City Disc Museum
I love this idea. So many discs are made and many have a special meaning to us. Whether it is our first disc to play with, a team disc, a fun tournament disc, or a special occasion disc. We remember our discs. Unfortunately we lose/break discs and when that happens we feel a loss. The disc museum is something that is a great feature on the site, if... more people would add to it.
Personal profile
Spinn City has something I have not seen in any other online disc community: Major sporting Achievements, Major spirit/party Achievements, and Most beautiful Tournaments. I like this feature!
Spinn City has other features such as an event calender and picture uploading, but those you can do better with ffindr and facebook.It is too bad that there is little action on the site and there is no real reason for return visits. Perhaps this will change in the future. If so, I will post it here on our blog again.
Earlier this year I wrote about a new LinkedIn group called Disc(o)Tech. Unfortunately I have not seen any use for/from it. However there is another disc related LinkedIn group that is more active: the Wonderful World of Ultimate. There are currently 181 members and a few days ago a new discussion was started: "Should the Ultimate Frisbee groups on Linked in merge? And how?".
So far only two responses, but give it time... :-)
I love LinkedIn for professional purposes, but is there any value in segregating it into hobby/sport groups? If I want to hang out online with my Beach Ultimate friends I go to Facebook (which I do not open to my professional network ;-). Facebook is great and has lots of Beach Ultimate players using it. Way more than LinkedIn users.
For example: at the 2008 Bar do Peixe Beach Ultimate tournament there were 140 players from 16 countries. Of those players, 27 made an online digital albums (=20%, which is probably a record in the Ultimate world). Of those 27 there were 23 (85%!) that used Facebook! That is amazing.
If you are not on Facebook, you might be missing out. I know there are privacy concerns and personally I don't download all the millions of applications. However it is a great way to keep in touch with your friends that are miles away.
With the 2009 Asian Championships Beach Ultimate in sight, we are discovering more Beach Ultimate in Asia. In Beijing there was even an artificial beach that saw the arrival of many players. Here is an excerpt from a blogger in China:
The sand was artificial and, at places, hurt like hell to land on (more on this later), but it was still a fun day at the beach, even if there was no water. Organized by the inimitable Jeff Orcutt et al., we split into four teams -- names drawn out of a hat -- and played four games each. More...
Five-on-five Beach Ultmate might the most popular Beach Ultimate format worldwide, but 4-on-4 Beach Ultimate is growing too. The Wildwood tournament, with 2,200 players, is a huge 4-on-4 event in the US.In Belgium, the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico, and New Zealand there also 4-on-4 tournaments.
This month, in the south of France, a 4-on-4 Beach Ultimate league has started.
For the last 3 years French players have been playing in a series of 4-on-4 Beach Ultimate tournaments "Collègues" on the Mediterranean coast. It was so successful that the organizer (Stéphane) and some of his friends decided to create a national 4-on-4 Beach Ultimate League (LBU44) which started this month.
With 8 teams participating it is the first full 4-on-4 league in Europe. That is great news. Allez les Bleus!
Today we sent out the official invitation for countries to play at and/or host the 1st Asian Championships Beach Ultimate (5-on-5 format for national teams).
- Australia,
- China,
- Currier Island,
- Hong Kong,
- India,
- Indonesia,
- Japan,
- Malaysia,
- New Zealand,
- Philippines,
- Singapore,
- South Korea,
- Taiwan,
- Thailand,
- Vietnam
Last year's final between Australia and the Philippines at the World Championships in Brazil was thrilling, with great plays and amazing spirit! I am expecting the same at the 2009 ACBU.
Our aim is to make the ACBU 2009 the event with the most Asian countries participating in an Ultimate event, ever!
Teams only need 9 players per team, so tell your friends, tell your national federation. They should have received an invitation. If not, have them contact us.
Here is a great report about the World Championships Beach Ultimate (WCBU) that was held last year in Maceio, Brazil. It was filmed and edited by the biggest Brazilian sport TV channel. Portuguese spoken with English subtitles. Very, very good.
Have a look at the possible future World Champions Beach Ultimate: footage of the 1st Boracay junior Beach Ultimate tournament. 54 students from elementary and high school participated.
Wicked!
Slowly but surely the Asia Pacific is waking up to Beach Ultimate.
Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines have been on the forefront for many years, but Singapore started with a Beach Ultimate tournament last year and now Hong Kong is doing it too.
This is great news for the 1st Asian Championships Beach Ultimate that will be held in 2009.
In the meantime, if you are in Hong Kong on Sunday 7 September, go play!
Some communication went on recently about the size of tournaments. Of course size doesn't matter, but we all still want to know who has the biggest.
According to Tony Leonardo:
Last year Paga had 48 open teams, 32 mixed, a gaggle of womens teams and juniors teams. Paga is 5 on 5 and team sizes tended to be larger than 4-on-4 Wildwood by about 5-6 people per team. So maybe team sizes of 15 and multiply that by 110 and you get 1650 or so Wildwood had 300+ teams this year, but lets estimate that about 50 of those teams double up and play in 2 divisions. So lets say 250 teams with about 9 peeps on each, so 2250 folks, all of them, coincidentally, teenagers from Philadelphia and North Jersey.Potlatch this year had 104 teams i think, team size about 20+ so that puts them around 2100? Potlatch is the largest grass tournament in the world, i am pretty sure so Wildwood could be the largest (and fattest) tournament of all?
What about World Club Championships? Is that bigger? Of course that is not an annual event but I wonder how big that one was last time. Anybody know?
Erick Fix, a humble handler, cameraman and editor from the North East has used his talent to craft an adrenaline-pumping highlight video of Wildwood. He is calling on you merry folk to make a difference in this crazy mixed-up world. He works for an internet fitness video website and causally asked if he could put together a video for the Wildwood tournament that occurred a few weeks ago (see our coverage here, here, and here). The bosses shrugged and agreed. Little did they know his master scheme to dominate the site with the power of our glorious sport...
Now he is reaching out to the global (Beach) Ultimate community with his plea: his video needs to get more hits than anything else on the site. Currently, the highest rated video on the site is a bodybuilding video....for the love of god...a bodybuilding video. In the name of all that is round and plastic please send this link (http://www.myfitnesschannel.com/on-location.asp?video=27) to all the players you know and watch the great video every day. If not for yourselves, for our sport...
I had seen Ultivillage before and thought it was interesting, but not something to write about on this blog. Ultivillage is a mostly North America focused, grass Ultimate video website. Registered users (a few months ago they had 8106 registered users) can buy DVD's, watch Ultimate TV, and participate in forums.
However, their coverage of the World Ultimate & Guts Championships last week brought international action to people around the globe. Some people had to stay up late, some had to get up early, some had to skip work. All of them enjoyed the live coverage of what was happening in Vancouver. Our friends from Blockstack.tv were the commentators and suddenly it felt much less "North Americany". It felt nice and global (like BULA :-).
The quality of the live broadcast was not always perfect, but perfect enough for me and Sofia to be excited seeing the Open final between US and Canada. We loved it and we did not have to pay for it. It was billed as a $7 event (payable by paypal I think) and I would have paid the money (I saw other games for free and decided it was worth it), but somehow I was never asked for payment. Bonus! :-)
Perhaps a live broadcast is something BULA can have at the ACBU (Asian Beach Ultimate Championships) in 2009, or the World Beach Ultimate Championships in 2011. Ultivillage is bringing Ultimate to the fans, perhaps now they see the international interest they are interested in bringing the beach along... :-)
The collaborative nature of the internet is starting to work its way deeper into the fabric of (Beach) Ultimate. Open Ultimate (www.openultimate.com) is another example. You will find two primary uses for openultimate.com:
- Locating resources that will help you in coaching Ultimate; and
- Creating a private online course for you and your team that will help you to create, manage, and disseminate resources to your team, including activities such as journal writing or discussion forums.
The name "openultimate" was chosen because the creator (Dan Cogan-Drew) wants to encourage coaches and players to share their resources (good books, DVDs, websites, blogs, etc., as well as lesson plans and/or drills that they have found useful). They've started it off with an initial assortment to "seed" the ground for continuous and robust contributions by the world- wide Ultimate coaching and playing community.
For any who are familiar with Blackboard, you will find this environment to be very similar. It's built in a free open-source equivalent known as "Moodle". If you are interested in becoming a "site editor" (like a wikipedia editor), or have other contributions to offer, please contact Dan at dan.cogandrew@gmail.com
Wikipedia has become a standard on its own, and now there are specialized 'pedias' showing up everywhere. One of the latest is the Ultipedia. This is a great start for a worldwide collaborative effort to get a repository of tactics, websites, cheers, etc...
That is not to say that there are no problems with 'pedias'. The originator/moderator has a lot of power. When Ultimate (Frisbee) was added to Wikipedia we tried to get some content for Beach Ultimate included but we were constantly hindered by the 'moderator'. The moderator decided that he had enough knowledge of the sport and that he could decide what should or should not be included. Also an entry for 'The Worst' (the opposite of 'The Greatest') was rejected because he had never heard of it before.
Nevertheless, the Ultipedia is a good start. The thing it now needs is enough publicity so that everyone starts to use it and contribute. I hope that this blog posting helps. Good luck to all involved!
SUNDAY, July 27th 2008.
Yes, there were 300+ teams. The beach, a good 400 yards to the ocean, was packed. You couldn’t see the end of the fields. Not too long ago Wildwood had 150 teams and that seemed large. How many teams will the tournament cap it at?
“We haven’t found that number yet,” says Mike Adlis one of the tournament directors. “I suppose we could add another day if we get more teams, and maybe keep adding days.”
Its appeal is accessibility and lack of pretension. Everyone is welcome. Anyone can come. All levels of play are encouraged. There are sweet trophies for 40 teams. You can win your loser’s G bracket chumpionship and walk away with hardware.
Sunday’s weather was cool. A thunderstorm with lightning snaps came midway through the day and held off games for an hour and change.
The top pools were headlined by the usual suspects, the many-headed Horned Melons who fielded teams in both divisions and the octopus-like Yellow Submarine. Both are Philly-based teams and Wildwood is their backyard sand box.
The Melons lost to Yellow Sub in 3-1 semifinals, but advanced in semis over Sexually Considerate (New York) in the 2-2 division. Yellow Sub won the 3-1 again, practically a birthright for this team, over Do The Deed (DC, I think). In 2-2, Atlanta’s No Limit Pandas, one of the few teams to have actually taken a plane flight to Wildwood, won the 2-2 over the Melons after having defeated Big Fish (Boston/ Slow White) in the semis.
According to one of No Limit’s players, most of the team hadn’t even played on beach before.
The rain delay sent plenty of teams packing. Two teams, Death By Misadventure and Thunder Punch, set to match up in the finals decided to determine the winner realized they couldn’t play because many folks left. Instead they competed in a boardwalk carney watergun-shoot-the-target race, won by Thunder Punch.
To get a copy of the 2007 tournament DVD, email kenne DOT hemphill AT gmail DOT com.
To see some tournament pictures, check out briancanniff.smugmug.com
It's Saturday night, 9pm. I will post again after pools are announced.
The Wildwood weekend is reserved far in advance for most ultimate players on the Eastern Seaboard.
Jake lives and Connecticut but comes down to volunteer at Wildwood so he can get a free ride. With the resort prices here, it’s a smart call.
“I spent all week doing homework in my summer classes so I could make it here. This is my sixth year in a row. So far I’ve spent most of my time regulating the registration line. It’s great because someone always brings you beers when you do the line.”
Boston. Providence. Baltimore. Dover. Washington DC. Atlanta, Georgia. Every player in the New York Metropolitan area, across all skills levels, makes the three-hour drive to this tournament. Philadelphia, just an hour and a half distant, sends swarms.
Saturday begins with a .99¢ breakfast: scrambled eggs, English muffin, hash brown. Games start 10am for half of the tournament, 11am for the other half. Temperature is perfect, humidity ideal, the sand is packed but not too tight. It’s a fast track.
It is impossible to try and recap the winners and losers of day one at Wildwood. The tournament is well-organized, for sure, so that teams choose their overall skill level and pick either 2-2 or 3-1 (ratio of men to women).
By the time it all shakes out there are tons of pools, tons of teams with random beach-themed names masking their city and club affiliation and tons of games, more than 75 per round, every hour, like clockwork.
At the end of the day teams move up or down in pool strength and placards showing championship and chumpionship brackets in new pools from A to S are posted on the side of a rented cube truck.
On that same side of the truck they hoist up a white screen and play an hour-long DVD of last year’s tournament highlights while players queue up at the trough of free beer like farm animals. 32 kegs, scheduled to last for three hours.
So I can’t really provide a concrete review of the top teams, because the pools haven’t been posted. In the meantime, some quotes from players across the spectrum of the tournament.
Question: What’s your favorite thing about Wildwood?
“Wack the Iraqi” – Drew, Brooklyn
“Crazy scenes on the boardwalk.” – Courtney, New York
“I love all the fried food and I love beach Ultimate!” – Annie, New York
“Seeing friends from all over. Oh and also babes in bikinis.” Brenton, Connecticut
“Seeing everyone you know from the Northeast.” Squeege, Albany
“Getting to see old friends. Tracy’s been to every Wildwood since the 2nd one [14 years ago]” Geoff, Boston
“I like that as a high-brow New Yorker I can come down to slum it out on the Jersey Shore and not feel guilty because it’s an Ultimate tournament. I get to go to the batting cages, eat all sort of fried food and stare at the 15 year old girls on the boardwalk.” – Brian, New York
“I like the deep fried Oreos” – Zar, Ithaca
First time at Wildwood:
“Two pointers” – Troy, Australia
“It’s a great showcase for the sport because spectators can see all of the action here. It’s also great for social networking.” – Steph, Boston
Wildwood XXVI begins in about 6 hours when the 308 teams (and counting) square off in 19 pools of 16 teams each for the world’s largest 4-on-4 beach ultimate tournament. I'm at the registration party on Friday night where the libidinous teenagers and savvy college kids match up on the party grounds of New Jersey's finest boardwalk enterainment.
The boardwalk scene at Wildwood is pure Americana, battered in lard, fattened on easy living, primed for a weekend of low-effort entertainment. Large amusement park rides, silly little carnival games and an endless barrage of fried foods await the the packs of traveling Americans, groups of familes and friends who descend upon this sanctioned party land like schools of fish investigating a sorority cruise.
Enter the Ultimate scene. Its an uninhibited bacchanalia of well-bred manners, a frolicking of the cultists attracted to ultimate, the sport. Mostly college kids, some teenagers, a handful of oldsters but its basically the introduction to "this is Ultimate! We party like we dont care!"
One of the Tournament Director's, Mike Adlis, is more than happy to accomodate the fun times. Here at Wildwood, you can be young for a long, long time and it's all good.
"Some teams are coming down on a six to eight hour drive, so we keep the party open late. That way you don't miss anything!"
Indeed, its 1:45 am when the registration packs it in.
OK, well, its 2:40 now and they are kicking me at the bar. Back to the hotel, one of the few not overpriced....
The good times flow freely. At the registration party where some (usually most) members of a team must come to register their team and thus be qualified to play tomorrow, the craziness is in the air.
"How do they fucking throw a frisbee that good??" explaims the bartender, watching the TV screens filled with the highlights of last year's games
The Americans travel in packs, whether with their families or their friends. The wander up an down the wooden slats.
Canada is a country with an amazing Ultimate community. Toronto, Vancouver, and Ottawa all have thousands of players and 250-350 teams per city. However when it comes to Beach Ultimate they are the victim of their geography. The West Coast close to Vancouver has basically no good beaches (anything more north of Vancouver has either no inhabitants or it gets too cold). The East Coast is slightly better, with the Parlee Beach tournament in Fredericton, but apart from that there is not much else. The only hope for Canada is to use their wealth of lakes to play Beach Ultimate.
Britannia in Ottawa has been going on for 17 years and last year a new tournament got started: La Petite Vite du Capitaine
On the 23th and 24th of August, La Petite Vite du Capitaine takes place on the Haldimand public beach in Gaspe, a small town in the area of Gaspesie peninsula, in the eastern part of the province of Quebec. This tournament will be part of the town summer activities and they are expecting local people and tourists to enjoy the event.
They are expecting teams from Quebec and New Brunswick but are also hoping for other teams/players to register. The airport is 20 minutes away and many facilities will be provided such as a beer garden, meals, washrooms, music and others services.
The accommodation and the Saturday night activities (dinner and party) will take place at the Douglastown Hostel. The fees for the tournament are 350.00$ can. per team including accommodations, meals and activities for the weekend. There will be prices and gifts for the team who will achieve the best spirit and the teams who will be playing the finals.
If you are in the area, or love adventure, this can be quite the new experience for seasoned Beach Ultimate players. Try it. Even if you do not have a team, they can get you one.
Yesterday in Los Angeles Nintendo unveiled a new add-on for the Wii remote. A small accessory, called the Wii MotionPlus, plugs into the base of the Wii remote to more accurately sense subtle movements such as the twist of a wrist, Nintendo said in a demonstration of a game involving the tossing of a virtual Frisbee.
The Wii already has one disc game. In Big Beach there is a disc golf game that actually allows three ways to throw the disc: backhand, forehand and hammer. Hammer is the coolest one, obviously, but whichever you way you decide to flick the Remote, your avatar will mimic your motion and it'll all affect where the Frisbee goes.
Perhaps we will eventually see a full (Beach) Ultimate game developed. Wouldn't that be cool?!
The Subic Bay Beach Ultimate Frisbee Challenge in the Philippines was held last June 7-8, 2008 at the Waterfront. Twelve teams from Manila and Boracay participated in the tournament. Boracay Dragons White and Gold ended up playing against each other in the finals. Dragons White won 13-6. Junthir from Boracay Dragons Gold got the MVP award in Pool A. Janjan from Dragons Gold suffered a severe cut just below his left eyebrow and chin. (See collision on video.) Dragons Katol bagged the Most Spirited Team Award (AGAIN! They won the same award at the Bora Open 2007.) Awarding and party took place on the field. There was a band…and lotsa beer…and a lot of dirty dancing party people!
Thanks to all who joined and especially to Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority and Department of Tourism for sponsoring the event and to UP Sunken Pleasure volunteers for organizing the tournament.
The first Beach Tournament in Mozambique was a blast. Inspiring scenery, a great crowd and a loud party! Here are some pictures
Brazil has seen a surge of Beach Ultimate since they hosted the World Championships last December. They are now creating a new federation solely dedicated to Beach Ultimate (!) and organizing the first national Brazil Cup 2008.
This is great news. Brazil has such great beaches and their beach culture is fantastic. BULA is in big support of this new movement :-) Força!
There has been some confusion about catching the disc while the foot is underneath the line. Here is the response from Lorne Beckman, the person who has been involved in all the BULA rules as well as most UPA rules:
First let’s clarify nomenclature: a person's foot cannot be "underneath the line". "Lines" are conceptual. A person's foot can be underneath the coloured tape, but the coloured tape is not the line. The coloured tape is only an aid to mark the lines. See the BULA addendum to the WFDF rules:I hope that clarifies it. Let me know if you have any questions.The conceptual "line" exists as a plane that extends infinitely upward and downward parallel to the pull of the Earth's gravity.A person who catches the disc with a foot which is underneath the coloured tape is therefore squarely on the line, and therefore, out-of-bounds. If the disc is caught by someone with a foot before the tape and then the person’s foot slides underneath it, he/she is in-bounds.
- 2.2 The perimeter of the Field of Play is the Perimeter Line and consists of two (2) Sidelines along the length and two (2) End lines along the width.
- 2.2.1. All lines shall be marked with colored tape between five (5) and ten (10) centimetres wide
Since BULA's inception early this century we have had an independent set of Beach Ultimate rules. However this was not an optimal solution for Beach Ultimate players. Differences between WFDF, BULA, and UPA rules made playing internationally more difficult than is should be. So when the WFDF made major improvements to their rules last year BULA wanted to follow suit.
As of today, and after getting unanimous approval from the BULA rules committee and BULA tournament directors, all BULA tournaments will play by the just released 2008 WFDF rules with an appendix showing beach specific difference such as number of players, field size, etc...
