Are you sick of all the simulation in soccer? Are you sick of all the disrespect being expressed across various sports? How could a highly competitive sport without referees even exist you ask? Let me introduce to you Ultimate Frisbee. A sport that has changed my life. Whoever is going to a Steemfest and loves sports, this is a must read! I’ll bring the disc and we will play either on a beach or in a park as @firepower suggested! This is THE game for a Steemit community, believe me! I will of course explain it there too, but knowing the basics won’t hurt :).

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Field size

Let’s start with the real basics. No sport can be played without its “arena” and in order for you to visualize as much as you could, I’ll explain how the field looks.

The game is played on grass. The field is 100 meters long and 37 meters wide. At both ends of the field is an endzone that is 23 meters long. That makes the neutral zone 64 meters long. In the middle of the field 16 meters from the goal line is a brick mark (more about that later). (Basically a lot of running, but don’t worry, the scale will be smaller on Steemfest of course.)

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Rules

Goal

Goal is fairly simple. To score a point, any member of the team has to catch the disc in the endzone. He either has to be with at least one part of his body on the ground of the endzone while catching the disc, or he has to leap, catch the disc in the air and land into the endzone. This grants a team 1 point. Game is either to 15 points, or (if no one reaches 15 points) after 90 minutes of the game 1-2 is added to the highest score count of the game and whoever reaches that number wins the game (if its 10-11 after 90 mins, the game is to 13). 

Basic rules

Full text version of the rules has like 40 pages, so I will try to keep it simple. While it might be interesting to speak about particularly tricky situations, you don’t need to know them…yet.

The game is played in open (men, but women are allowed), women, and mixed divisions. In mixed division either 3-4 representatives of each sex has to be on the field. One team always chooses whether they will use 4 men or women and the other team has to respect that. Next point the decision is made by the other team.

The game starts with a flip of discs. Both captains flip a disc and one of them says either “same” or “different”. Whoever guesses right chooses either initial side of the field, or whether the team will start on offense or defence.

The actual game starts with a pull. Every team starts every point in its endzone. From a roster of max 28 players, 7 are chosen to play every single point. Whoever starts on defence pulls the disc to the other team. If the pull flies into the field, enemy team has to pick up the disc from where it rolled and play. If it goes out of bounds, one attacking player picks up the disc and takes it to the brick mark. Whoever has a disc in hand is not allowed to run. The rest of the team has to run though in order to get open and to catch the disc. When a team scores a point, the other team has to walk all the way back to the other endzone, thus switching the sides (because staying on one side throughout the whole game would be highly unfair due to the wind). After every single point substitutions can be made. 

Non-contact

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The sport is non-contact. The rules actually say something like “contact should be avoided at all costs”. In reality though, the contact of the game is often times similar to basketball. There is no way in the game how to legally tackle someone. But you can use your body to block the paths of the guy you are defending. In games of lower level this is not often done, but the higher the level the more usage of own bodies can be seen.

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This is a perfect example. As you can see the defender read the path of the offensive player and stood his ground. The offender ran through him, resulting in a classic offensive foul. Usually the offender sees that his defender is in the way and manages to stop or at least slow down. This happens quite often and the foul call shouldn’t be made unless you stumble to the ground like in this gif.

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Also when 2 players are jumping for I high disc, they almost always bump into each other, because there is no space for 2 players under the disc if they both read it well.

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This ultimately comes down to whether the player hits the player first (foul), or makes the play on the disc and then hits the player (clean). More about that later.

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Turnover

The attacking team can lose a disc due to turnover. Turnover happens when a disc falls to a ground (and is picked by the opposing team from the place to where it rolls), or when it’s coughed out of bounds (having any part of the body on the line while catching the disc also counts as out), when it’s coughed by the opposing team, or when a marker counts to 10 (about that later). 

Players rights

Since there is no referee in the game, everything is managed by the players on the field. The most frequently used right is counting of a stall count. A defender of a player with a disc in his possession is called marker. From 3 meters up to a distance equal to a diameter of the disc a marker is allowed to (read has to)stay and count seconds. If the possessor of disc doesn’t make a throw until a 10th second is reached, the result is a stall count and that means turnover.

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A player with a disc cannot run, but he can pivot. The pivoting foot for right handed players is always left. Also you can see the marker stall counting.

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Every player on the field has a right to call a foul, when he thinks, that he has been fouled. They can only call fouls that has been made on them directly, but they also have a right to call an out or a violation of rules that has been made by any opposing player. 

Fouls

Foul is basically any contact that has happened prior to touching the disc. I will illustrate this with pictures.

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A perfect example of a foul. It is clear that the defender has rolled over the attacker before he has touched the disc. This is an obvious foul.

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Another example is when you try to make a play on the disc, but you miss it, while hitting the offensive player. Number 7 could have made a play on the disc because of a misread of the defensive player – foul.

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What is going to happen on this picture is a special version of foul – strip. If the disc is caught (even if barely) any kind of hitting the disc resulting in a loss of a possession is called a strip. Those are the trickiest to decide, because only the player catching the disc often time knows, whether he has really had stopped the rotation, therefore caught it, or not.

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I will use my defensive layout as an illustration of clean D. As you can see I have avoided any contact and hit only the disc.

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In higher level of game what often happens is that the contact happens right after you make a block, because everyone is really fast and willing to give to it everything. Let’s pretend that the guy in the blue shirt is defensive player. Even though a slight contact with his hand has happened before blocking the disc, this shouldn’t be a foul, because the little contact hasn’t changed anything. They will hit each other afterwards, but that is not a foul, because he has made a play on a disc first. 

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Pick

Every defender has right to follow his offensive player using the closest path to him. If along the way he has to change direction, or has to stop due to ANY player getting in his way, it’s called a pick. Calling of picks should be avoided, if they do not really affect the game! 

Calls and how to solve them

There are calls that stop the play and those that do not.

Those that do not stop the play are minorities that have been cause by markers. An example could be counting from more than 3 meters away, or being way to close to the player with the disc while marking. It could also be a double team – 2 players in the range of 3 meters around the disc is not allowed if the second player is not directly defending an opponent who is in that range. After this call a marker has to go down by 2 seconds in the counting.

Bigger fouls like contact always stop the game and need to be resolved between the engaged players. When a player calls a foul, the game is stopped. Involved players then have 30 seconds to state their points of view. What can happen then is 1. The guy who called the foul is convinced that the foul did not happen and takes the call back. 2. The guy who has caused the foul knows it and does not contest the foul. That results in a situation where the offensive player takes the disc and starts the game again from the spot where he has been fouled. Or 3. The guy who has caused the foul does not think that he has fouled and contests the call. That results in a disc going back to the thrower that has thrown the last pass.

Every player has to stop when they hear a call that stops the game. If they didn’t hear it at that moment, they have to come back. When the call is resolved and everyone is ready, the disc is checked in and the game starts again. The time does not stop! 

Time for epic plays

Let’s take a break and watch some of the highlights.

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Until the disc hits the ground it’s never end!

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First the defender jumps OVER another guy, just to see another players closing speed from different dimension to take the disc back with an epic lay out!

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A quick give and go for the score.

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Steemfest2

So I was thinking. I’m not sure whether there will be any effective way on Steemfest, how to gather people for a game. Of course I will speak with a lot of them, but asking every1 individually may prove time inefficient. I was thinking that maybe @roelandp might provide us with knowledge how the surroundings look. Whether there is any bigger park usable for a game or a beach. You said you are going to visit Lisbon again. Would you keep an eye out for such a place please?

And more importantly. Would you guys be interested in playing? Have I caught your attention? Depending on the number of potential players I would either organize a game, few games, or a little tournament for each and every one who would be interested. We might even have a bigger audience than I had when playing in the World Championships :D! If the answer is yes, consider Resteeming this post to gather more players and viewers :). If we gather few interested players (men, women, kids…EVERYONE – this is going to be all about FUN!) I will write another post, about the actual organized plan. 

Heart-breaking highlights

Let me finish this article with an awesome highlights from the Worlds Championship where we, Czech Republic, ended on 13th place from over 30 attending countries. The intensity, the good moments, the sad moments, the atmosphere…it’s all there! I highly recommend spending another 7 minutes of your lives to watch this video :). I will do the same…again...and again. Peace guys. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwjNRZuxbY0