Ultimate Frisbee – Spirit Of The Game
Last weekend FUJ has attended the Czech Championships. Not only we have won the whole tournament claiming our 2nd title in recent history, but we have also won the prestigious prize “Spirit of the game” with the score of 12,5 (that is SUPER GOOD). In this article I will try to explain why it’s part of the game (what is its purpose) and how it’s done. Before jumping into the article, I strongly recommend reading my introduction to the sport itself
Spirit of the game
Since there is no referee in the game, there has to be some other means how to “rate” teams “mental performance”. If there was no such a thing, the game itself would have exact rules, but there wouldn’t be anything that would stop the teams from doing whatever they want on the field. Ultimately though, if the team would abuse the rules, and the abusage would be reflected in their spirit results, the team could be restricted from attending tournaments of any level. This does not happen often, for no teams are receiving “terrible” result continuously. That is also the “proof of concept” (crypto-terminologically :D).
How is it done: Step 1 – Spirit circle
After every single match players form a “Spirit circle”.
This is the time when captains of both teams summarize the game that has just been played. They should say to the other team everything that they liked and disliked about the opposition’s performance, as well as rate the game itself. This is crucial! Humanity’s biggest skill is to trash-talk others behind their backs. How could any team improve at something, if they were never told what the problem is for other teams? Well answer is kinda easy, they couldn’t.
How is it done: Step 2 – Spirit sheets
The spirit circle ends the previous match, but there is still one more thing that has to be done in order for the teams to be allowed to participate in the next game - filling in the spirit sheets. Teams should assemble to rate the other team’s performance in 5 different categories. Teams are allowed to rate the performance on the scale from 0-4. Whenever teams decide to rate 0 or 4, they also have to write a comment about the exceptional or terrible things the other teams did, that they received the maximum or minimum amount of points. I will now speak about every category individually.
Rules Knowledge and Use
This is probably the most boring category of them all. Very rarely teams score more or less than 2. The higher the level of the game, the bigger possibility that the opposing team knows the rules well. There are usually only some little things some newer players don’t know, but the more knowledgeable ones always step out and immediately say what the result should be.
Fouls and Body Contact
This on the other hand is one of the most controversial ones. As you can read in the picture above, any contact or foul should be a reason to down vote the other team. On the European level and up, there are always going to be contacts. A lot of guys from our team actually INCREASE the ratting if there is “enjoyable/friendly” contact. The contact is part of the game. Basketball is a noncontact sport and contact is there. That’s just the way it is.
Fair Mindedness
This is a very important category. Without the referees a fair mindedness of the opposing teams is crucial for the overall enjoy-ability of the game. This is the category that fluctuates the most. I deem this category also as “was the opposing team conscious enough to play without the referees”. There are very rarely problems in this regard with anyone but, Italians and French. Those guys tend to get overheated quite a lot and make biased calls. The best Italian team has recently been banned from the second biggest European tournament. At the same time it is the only team that I personally have problems with considering their fair-mindedness.
Positive Attitude and Self-Control
When the game is even and intense we usually increase the points in this category. On European level most of the games are really tough and all the players really want to win, therefore this category is increased quite a lot even by other teams. Sometimes it’s hard to remain smiling even though you’re getting your ass kicked, so for me it’s understandable that some teams do not manage to do so and I don’t mind. I only down vote here when some of the opposing players decide to shout at any team member for any reason (as you can imagine, that almost never happens).
Communication
This is the place where the teams should rate the willingness of the opposition to speak about any problems that occur during the game. Communication BEFORE the spirit circle should be rated. Of course it is good to speak about the problems after the match but it’s more important to solve some of the problems directly in the game. Every team should have a captain and a spirit-captain to do those kind of talks and share the message with the rest of the team. Personally I think that most of the teams (including us) should and could still improve.
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
- Albert Einstein
This is a really fascinating breakdown of ultimate and team-building. I really enjoyed this, thanks for sharing @fingersik!
I’m super glad that you enjoyed it:) hopefully i will be able to spread the knowledge about ultimate far and wide I the future through my posts.