How To Read A Disc

Reading a disc can be very complicated, but in order for you (as my audience) to further understand "reading a disc", you have to know what reading a disc is. Reading a disc is when you can tell where a disc is going to go based on the angle of the disc in the air, the release, the wind, and the speed of it. You are a good reader if you can anticipate where the disc is going to be before anyone else does. Even if you are not as fast as someone else, if you able to read a disc you have a greater advantage over your opponent regardless of your personal speed. A disc that is flat will most likely go far and fast or slow depending on the power of the wind. Whereas the disc in which is slanted will fall fast and in the direction of where the disc is slanted towards. Reading a disc can seem like common sense, but this is usually because the player has had a lot of practice. Some discs are easier to read than others. It takes practice and experience to know where  a disc is going. There are many drills that can help a player develop these reading skills. Practice makes perfect!

To gain further understanding of how to read a disc click here!

Drills, Drills and More Drills!

Eastern's Ultimate Frisbee team just like any other club sports team have many drills. Some of our drills consist of  us practicing our "cuts" which is what we do when we try to get away from our defender in order to catch the disc. While some other drills help us learn how to "read" the disc. You "read" a disc well if you can tell which way it is going based on its angle, speed, and height.

During this week of practice we as a team all stood at the bottom of Doane hill preparing to read and to catch the disc. There were probably about a good thirty people at practice that day all ready to catch the disc at the same time. There was sprinting, pushing, jumping, and diving all involved in order to not be in the bottom three people left. If you were one of the three people left after everyone else had already caught a disc you were out. Then everyone before you who were able to successfully read and catch a disc came back until eliminating everyone except two people. Once we were down to two those two amazingly talented players would go up against each other in best two out of three. After the other person who had failed to surpass the other player won, he or she was crowned with glory.

There are some mixes in people who enjoy this drill and who absolutely despise this drill. Some people played their hearts while others scuffed in the background and said "Not this again". As it was my personal first time participating in this drill, I  rather enjoyed it, excited for the new challenge. We did this drill twice, the first time I did well, the second time not so much. But even so, as I watched my fellow team mates compete with each other a smile was constantly spread across my face and I was very proud of each and every member of my team. This weeks practice was a smashing success I can't wait to see what our team's captains next drill will be.

For more background on common Ultimate Frisbee drills Click here! 

Go Hard or Go Home

Time and again, I am constantly reminded of the dedication and perseverance of Eastern's Ultimate Frisbee club. As I reminisce back on Ted, oh Ted. Ted an incoming Freshman decided to participate in this fantastical club, but shortly after a few practices broke his collar bone. I personally did not witness this all I remember is hearing an ambulance and later finding out it was for someone on our team, and then that it was Ted. Ted is an example all players of Ultimate should follow. He sometimes still comes out to throw around or just to support us. He never stops his crazy nature. Ted participated in other activities such as "Humans vs. Zombies" a short game on campus. Ted was a zombie and laid an ambush for a group of humans, myself being one of them. He hid inside the pond! Inside of it! No exaggeration on this part and then chased after us until he was  stunned by a Nerf gun bullet. Ted I think is an example all of us Ultimate Frisbee players should take. So Ted,  I hope you enjoy this shout out as your fellow team mates I hope we will take strides to be more like you, we are to go hard or go home.

The Exiles First Tournament

This Saturday on October 1st,  The Exiles: Eastern's one and only ultimate Frisbee club, left around 5:30 am to set off on their journey to fight the good fight against Bloomsburg University and other participating colleges. There were a few twists and turns involved that were a bit unexpected such as the departure time, the merging of two teams, and the weather. The ultimate Frisbee team intended to leave at exactly 5am, but was sadly unable to do so because we were not able to get our hands on a van that we were supposed to receive. As a member of the ultimate Frisbee club I was too half asleep to actually understand what was going on let alone care, all I knew was we had to get there and leave at 5am and I was there and ready to go. We were also partly delayed because we had to wait for all of the drivers who volunteered to drive all of us to Bloom. The trip was around two hours long we were like a traveling cavalry of six cars all back to back, no other cars dared to join in on our line. I remember seeing this when we were almost at our destination I quickly opened my eyes to see how we were looking on our arrival time out of curiosity, and sat up and looked at all of the cars in front of us and a big smile spread across my face as I realized these were all of my team mates lined up.

Upon arriving we found that we didn’t have a game until 10:30am so we watched the other teams play and we attempted to warm up.  It was freezing outside and raining on again off again. Luckily we were instructed in an email we received earlier that week to bring garbage bags in order to protect all of belongings from the rain. So this fact helped. We were then led by Ben Creighton, one of our three captains, in multiple warm up drills. A few that incoming freshman and new players in general were not used to during any of our practices, at least I was not. There was a lot of running involved and we were to do, I’m sure silly looking, stretches such as “opening the door” and “closing the door”: which is when we take one leg and lift it up high in the air almost like opening a door with our leg alone, we would do this with either leg at a time walking to certain point on the field that we were allotted for space. We then “closed the door” which is the reverse motion of “opening the door”.  

We had a total of 31 people on our team who came to play in the Bloomsburg tournament; this number would have normally been fine if we were broken down into two teams, but because Bloomsburg University also had a track meet that day so they cut down the size of the tournament. I found it quite humorous after each game we would finish our team and our opponents would line up and say “good game”, as it is a tradition in all sports events in the spirit of good sportsmanship. Our team was one of the largest out of all of the other participating teams. After a while of the quick high fives, we would often hear the other teams say stuff like “Holy crap, you have a lot of people, when is this line gonna end!” Often including all sorts of curse words, but I was nice enough to exclude these. All in all though, regardless of these numerous complications, we wound up being okay anyway. It was well worth going through all of these challenges in order to get the end result of playing our hearts out and gaining awesome memories and forming closer bonds.

*Stay tuned for next week and enjoy the picture of all the Exile participants in the Bloomsburg Tournament!