casual ultimate

My team, CGNU (Crazy Go Nuts University) lost in semis at Lei Out in an effort to defend our title from ’09, and we lost to some of my favorite people out there: CarBomb.

I draw parallels between CarBomb and Jam for me personally because I really like CarBomb a lot, but I don’t find my values particularly aligned with theirs. That’s not to say anything bad about their values. CarBomb, as I understand it, is about having the MOST fun of any team at every tournament. The people on that team are just fountains of joy, and they are really funny. Really funny. It’s me Chuck, and I spend a lot of time joking around with all kinds of people, and I’m here to tell you that CarBomb is REALLY funny. MVP of humor, in my book, goes to Bogle. Holy shit, that guy’s mind is so rich.

So the reason I don’t play with them every chance I get is because I feel better when I’m playing on a team that is squarely focused on winning and that treats each other well. CGNU is definitely both of those things. CGNU is not, in my opinion, particularly funny. I mean, we get down, and we have good senses of humor, but it feels more like math camp over there sometimes. I think it’s a very quiet, introverted team. Luckily, I really love those people and respect them and enjoy what we’re able to do on the field immensely.

In much the same way that I feel like Revolver is the right team for me over Jam, I feel like CGNU is the right team for me over CarBomb. That being said, every year since 2007, I have been cheering for either my team to win Lei Out or both of our teams to lose in semis, so that we could heckle during the finals. That shit is almost as fun as playing in finals. Next level shit going on there. Hanging with CarBomb reminds me of some of the better One Degrees trips I’ve been on.

For those who don’t know: One Degrees is a great group of often-corpulent former/current Frisbee players from Michigan and North Carolina that takes funny to the next level.

One last thing: CarBomb, the drink, is the best alcoholic drink to have while playing Ultimate. Way better than the CGNU Rumbull. It coats your stomach while it lightens your head. Amazing.

Congrats to CarBomb for winning Lei Out. They did it with great plays and great spirit. A well-deserved win.

I’ve been listening to Miley Cyrus - Party in the USA a lot since Natties. I think I’m slowly letting myself out of the box, and it feels really good. I remember in high school all I listened to was Floyd, Zeppelin, and usually darker stuff. I liked old Black Sabbath. I liked Rush. I hadn’t discovered a lot of the Hip-Hop and electronic music that would take a hold in the college years. Anyway, I think the music that resonates with me has a lot to do with what state I find myself in. If I’m unhappy, I will probably want to listen to The Wall on repeat for weeks while I read 1984 Junior year in HS for example. At Natties, and this season in general, I think I learned very little about how to play Ultimate, but I learned a lot about how to have fun and how to play in general. Sometimes there’s no crisis, and I can let myself just “Go play.”

I was fortunate enough to play on Brown Chicken Brown Cow. I wrote the team about why I think BCBC is an important team in the Ultimate landscape. Here’s what I said:

BCBC is a team that treats each one of its players as an important and integral part of the team. Even more than that, BCBC takes it upon itself to make each one of its players feel loved. That’s totally exceptional and hard to do. I think it was for the most part successful this season. We also play fair Ultimate. Always. We don’t cheat to win ever that I’ve seen. We love each other and the sport, and we show it. Bravo, BCBC.

I also want to say that I really respect and learned a lot from Marie, Bree, Finney, and Emily from the Skirts, Adam, Jake, and Bacon from SLO, and the rest of the crew. I feel like the really young folks on our team somehow were exactly what I needed personally. I needed to reconnect with fun and love of the game and each other. It got complicated for me. Ultimate is beautiful and simple. Keep it simple.

One thing I need to own is that this year I really didn’t want to compete. I had a hard time in all of the big moments with this team, particularly as the season progressed and we got deeper into the series. I’ve never particularly loved competition. I think I have too much anxiety in my body as it is, and competition brings up more. It feels like it will take me down at times. I guess that one day that will be lifted from me, and I’ll be happy, joyous, and free.

About being happy, joyous, and free, I feel pretty lucky to have been able to party with “the cougars”, a group of some of the coolest women on zG (and Allen from Jam). I forget how to let go or why it’s even important until I’m around people like that who just show me. No answers. No analysis. The spirit of Homebrood lives on.

I’ll be an uncle in a couple weeks I think, and it’s gonna be cool. This kid is gonna be a baller. I can’t wait to meet him. The age of Wolf is about to begin. Get ready to be wowed.

This weekend is SW Regionals in Phoenix (which is also called “Scottsdale” and “Tempe” and “a bad place to live”). I’m heading down with BCBC, a team that has grown to mean a lot to me. Not as much as Revolver or Brass, but certainly more than Machine (HOOOOOOO zing!) I’m not getting much better as a player, although being in somewhat of a leadership role without being a huge dickhead is a new one. On Briefcase, I was definitely a bit of a dickhead, and on Northwestern I was completely gone off the deep end. I may owe an amends to those teams at some point, but we’ll see…

We have a shot at Nationals out of the Southwest Region which seems silly coming from the Northwest where teams like CTR never go and where Furious, the World Champs just months earlier, did not qualify last year. We’re a non-practicing team with lots of college kids (who are pretty good, by the way) and a few savvy vets. Something I’m noticing is my continued desire to demonize my rivals/opponents. I hated Michigan in college, even in the face of some blossoming friendships. I tried to hate CLX back in the Central Region, but good luck with that; they are just good. I try to hate Jam unsuccessfully, and I really try to hate Mischief. These are all my past rivals that come to mind, and I have great friends on many of them. This season I really want to hate Metro, the other LA coed team with Nationals potential, but again, they’re good folks. It’s a game; some of the stuff they do is great; some isn’t, but the same could be said of most teams made up of 20+ competitive individuals.

I am proud of the way BCBC plays. I am proud of these kids for playing with so much heart. It’s very inspiring.

I think the thing that I am REALLY getting in spades from BCBC is an invitation to have fun. Party, goof around, get back to that attitude we all had back in college of “why not?” There’s no need to be cautious all the time. Laughter and dancing are medicine. Love is something that can be freely given and received. There is no shortage. We all need to give it and receive it. A loss of control is progress. I belly laugh that topples me over is the right outcome.

What do I want out of this weekend?

I want to play great Ultimate this weekend. I want to beat good teams. I want my fiddle to change the game. I want to take great care of myself. I want to show up in an honest way with a powerfully compassionate heart. I want to remember that I’m not in control. I want to let go of worry, fear, and control the same way I let go of the disc.

I told a friend of mine (on Metro of all teams) that I think I was meant to play Ultimate and that when I am playing the way I feel I was meant to play, it’s unique to me. That’s not particularly important: that my style be unique. However, my style is unique, and I can best serve my purpose by letting go and playing the way I was meant to play, with no fear and no hesitation, with no anger and no malice. I love playing. I love my teammates. I love my opponents. The sport is glorified along with my higher power when I play that way. “My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable…”

Good luck, Revolver, zG, Fury,…………………………….Mischief, and Jam.

SF Peeps, come see me play the bottom of the hill next Thursday 10/8 at 9:30, $8

I’m playing for a coed team out of LA. It’s a really special team with a great spirit and a commitment to using our women. My kind of coed team.

So I started thinking about what I want to get out of this season with this team. I want to bring a generous, heartfelt approach to this team, much the way I did with Revolver and Brass. It’s a little different with this team for me because I’m a big fish on this team whereas on Revolver and Brass I was not.

The challenge for me is to stay humble and not sour during the course of competition. We played a tournament called Revolution down at Stanford a couple of weeks ago, and the team did really well as did I. I noticed that I definitely was arrogant and contentious at times. I was also a prima donna, showing up late both days and taking certain other liberties. I don’t think there is anything that I need to apologize for, but I didn’t like it. It’s not how I want to be anymore. The standard is higher.

It reminds me a great deal of the challenge I had with Northwestern when I was there. I was a big fish there too, and I very easily got into an “I know best” attitude about everything, and I was able to manipulate folks to get my way pretty much all the time. I had nothing keeping me in check. No superior to tell me to just shut up and play. To work hard. To let my play do the talking.

So what are my intentions for this team and this season?

1) To remember that it is an honor to be on the field.
2) To remember that my biggest asset is the team-mate that I am.
3) To respect my opponent and always try to play fair.
4) To learn from all of my team-mates, particularly the ones I am inclined to overlook.
5) To trust my team-mates and let them know that I trust them.
6) To play with Intensity, Humility, and Discipline.
7) To do what the disc wants, including high-release flicks.

Sidenote: It was great to see my Northwestern brothers at Sandblast. I wish I were closer to Chicago so that I could be a part of that program.

As I think back, this is a big opportunity for me. I don’t know that I’ve ever played on a team where I was one of the best players and stayed gracious and grateful all the way through. I’m on board for that.

I posted this on my personal blog and got such a huge response from frisbee players, I figured I’d better put it up on Casual Ultimate with a much better picture courtesy of Whit. Enjoy:

I went to a Frisbee tournament called Potlatch in Redmond, WA this weekend. I camped at the tournament site, I drank Friday and Saturday night with a bunch of Frisbee players (not to the point of being drunk either time), and I felt an incredible loneliness. It is not a new feeling.

Do you ever feel alone in a crowd?

I felt exactly like that many times before, particularly growing up, but the one time that I remember vividly and which I think was even worse was at another tournament in Ohio called Poultry Days in ’07. I was on a great team with a lot of people that I really like, and I had a pretty bad time there. I flew a red eye in Thursday night, drank beers most of the day Friday, and then was exhausted all weekend, again camping at the site. When I’m exhausted several things happen. I play a little worse; I still say some really funny and exceedingly deadpan things; I am there in body doing things with people I like; and I feel half-dead. I am a little like a zombie walking around in slow-motion and feeling nothing. I can hear you and respond to you. I can laugh and interact even. I am not fully alive though. It’s like in Fight Club when he says everything is a copy of a copy of a copy. Yeah, Potlatch this year was a little bit of a copy of a copy of Potlatch.

I relearned the lesson that I need to have really good self-care to enjoy a tournament. I need to not try to be someone else. I need to acknowledge my needs and get them met. If I’m tired, I need to rest and not pretend like I don’t need rest. If I’m hungry, I need to eat and not pretend I’m not hungry. If I’m lonely, I need to find connection with someone in person or on the phone. If I need time alone, I need to make time for myself to recharge and not just proceed from one event to the next as my friends tell me what we are doing and I continue to run on fumes.

I regret not showing up fully for my team. I don’t regret it for them because I think they were all very happy to have me around as I was. I regret it for myself. I wish I could do it again, get more rest, be fully present for all the wonderful, beautiful, magical, hysterical things that were happening around me. I might have really enjoyed them, and I might not have had a knot in my stomach all weekend knowing that I was just in crisis-management mode. I was supposed to be there having fun, but I was acting as if I were in a war-zone trying to escape with my life.

Do you find that sometimes the best way get your needs met is not to have any?

Contrast that with playing Huck it Long Beach, another tournament down in SoCal, last weekend in which I had my own place to stay and got ample rest and alone time and didn’t drink a drop of alcohol. I played like a warrior poet on Sunday, celebrated my team-mates, the game, the music, this life. I was there, living my life to its fullest. It was absolutely wonderful, and the quality of my opponents, the tournament, and my closeness to my team-mates were all much less. Regardless, I was the man and the player that I want to be at that tournament. I love that. I love it when I take good care of myself. It’s the only way I can have fun anymore.

I played Potlatch with a bunch of people that played on the two teams that ended my seasons in ’06 and ’07 on Brass Monkey, those teams being Shazam and Slow White. I had a story in my head that we were good enough to beat those teams or that we were better than those teams. Maybe we weren’t though. They beat us in semis, both of them. Teddy and Hammer I just thought were sort of fortunate players. They were good, but their big plays were just sort of fortunate outcomes for them. Maybe fortunate is the wrong word for what I thought of Hammer as an opponent (but I’ll keep it clean for the kids). I played with them both this weekend though, and they are really good. Really good. Schwind and Charlie from Shazam are both really good too. I had a story that they were a step below us. I don’t think that was actually the case. That was probably just me lashing out below the surface at two teams that hurt a team I love very much, Brass.

I’ve seen my mom do that many times before. When people have wronged my dad or my family, my mom is basically done with those people forever. They are awful people who are never to be trusted again. It’s a little black-and-white, but I get it in that case. If people really are mean and intentionally hurt you in some way, they probably had best not be trusted. Whether or not I harbor a resentment towards them is another issue.

In the case of Slow and Shazam (dumbest name ever), these are just fantastic people and players who happen to play on a different team from me, and in my head I occasionally allow them to be cast as enemies of me and the people I love. It doesn’t really hold up in this case. It’s just a slip into an old pattern of thinking. It was good to be reminded once again that my enemies on the field and even people who hold different views and philosophies than mine are not my enemies in life. They are people, and all people when I get down to it are good. All of them. Even me. Even Jam.

I was playing out at Ocean Beach this weekend in a relatively weak beach game, and I noticed two things. 1) I was being sort of arrogant out there as I am prone to do in games where I am the best or one of the best players, and 2) I didn’t get nearly as negative as I have in the past. I was goofing around as opposed to being a dick. That’s progress for me.

I admire guys like Nick H from Revolver who give 110% seemingly regardless of the situation. I’ve gotta say though; I’m not him. I don’t play like him, and I like the way I DO play. I’m a lot more creative and fluid than he is. I think my body knows what it needs to do, and when I’m at my best, I’m just letting it do it. After all, frisbee’s a game. Payne told me a couple of years ago that he thinks I see the field differently than most players. I think Nate from Brass told me that too. I know what they mean. I don’t always make the best decisions, but I see ways to attack the field that a lot of people don’t. Sometimes I throw a goal that seems like the obvious choice to me, and my team-mates will say “woooow” because they just didn’t see it, let alone have a throw or a fake to execute on it. It wasn’t an I/O break or a throw to the outside shoulder of an in-cut on the open side.

I have done a lot of work on my Ultimate game that has not involved a disc or any exercise. One thing I’ve noticed is that I need to be willing to let go of control to play well. I need to be willing to let go of the outcome of the point and the game. I need to let go of my image and reputation. I need to trust that the best outcome is not the one that I would choose. When I have let go, one of the ways I know it is by my hucks. When I am not in control, my hucks come off crisp and fly far. I am not trying to make my forehand into Schulzy’s or Halverson’s forehands. I’m not trying to throw my backhand like Safdie or Taylor. When I’m not invested in an outcome for my throw, the point, or the game, I can tell because the throw is easy and the disc goes where instinct sent it.

I pray on the line a lot, particularly when there’s fear in my body. I pray for my higher power’s will to take over this point. Your will not mine. Take away my fear and direct me toward your will. 3….2….1….Pull!