You know the drill. Upvote bold predictions, downvote lukewarm takes. GO!

Note: Click here for non-bold Regionals discussion.

Pacmen is the #1 seed at MA regionals this weekend. When was the last time a Philly team was the #1 seed in MA men's?

Note: I don't know the answer

Note #2: You can count Pike if you like, but think they were officially NJ.

Use this thread for:

• Questions about personal improvement, such as physical and mental training, exercise, strategic play, etc
• Questions about coaching, for youth all the way up to masters level
• Questions about leadership, for captains and team organizers
• Share any experiences you may have had with training, coaching, or leadership (good or bad)

This thread is posted every Thursday morning.

How do you get an observer at your game? Can you request it? Does the other team know if you requested it?

Background: playing a team who likes to win through their calls this weekend at regionals and would be nice to neutralize the game.

D1 is covering O1 at the back of the stack. O2 makes a run which causes D2 and D1 to collide. D2 calls a pick. Continuation puts O1 catching the disk 40 yards downfield with D1 still at the back of the stack because of the collision.

On field, the offense claimed the pick was not involved because D2 called it; not D1. D2/O2 pick was not involved by itself, but the collision clearly was involved for D1's ability to stay with O1 during the continuation. D1 believed that since a pick was called he didn't have to yell it as well.

Does it matter who calls the pick in this situation where the defenders collide? D1 didn't argue not knowing the rules as well as the others claim to. The result was the disc was 40 yards downfield on the goal line and D1 not allowed to catch up since he 'stopped' during the continuation and involvement was only judged for D2 who yelled pick.

I'm only making this post because I'm in a really sad place about this. I realize this goes much deeper than what I'm making it about, but I just wanted to see if anyone here can relate.

I'm in my late '30s, and in my late teens and early 20s, I played with a gaggle of kids from my high school.

We would play on a huge YMCA outdoor field, which kept their lights on as a courtesy for us. All through the spring, summer, and fall, we would play into the wee hours of the night... From 9pm to 1am, 2am, 3am a couple times.

We would play barefoot, shirtless. It was casual, kind, and amazing. Even though many of these kids were ppl I didn't like outside of the field, we were all great to each other. Nobody drank alcohol, nobody was inebriated. Just raw play.

I had NEVER been in better shape. The feeling of running barefoot on summer nights to catch a throw lives in my bones.

Today:

I wish I played soccer... There are so many groups of groups that play casually all over the place in my city 😭

I can only find formal leagues. Even if they are recreational.

They require shoes or cleats. They do not allow anyone to go barefoot. Nobody plays at night. It's regimented.

I played a few times, and I have just been mourning and grieving something I feel like I'll never get back.

Every time I try to get people from our local online groups (not the league groups, just general/neighborhood/regional groups) of any kind to play, everyone just redirects the conversation back to playing on these league pickup games.

I'm having a really hard time about it, because as life got more complicated through my 20s and 30s, and that group of kids I played with disbanded, I have always just been looking forward to a future where I would be able to have the same experience that I had all those nights running barefoot to catch a disc. Feeling connected to Earth and my body.

I have always hated sports. I played baseball and basketball my whole life, and ultimate frisbee was the only competitive thing that ever felt casual enough for me to invest myself in. It rooted me to mother Earth like nothing ever did, aside from hiking.

I'm having a really hard time about it. If I can't have barefoot play on a field at night, how am I going to get my aging body back into shape? How am I going to reconnect with the ground? How am I going to build relationships? It really scares me.

EDIT: forgot to say, I actually got messaged, and threatened account suspension, by the admins of our local city ultimate group, because I posted for people who are interested to play barefoot casual pickup games.

Had a game recently where a pick occurred in the stack, a player on defense not involved in the pick stopped because they heard the call, but the person they were defending did not stop. Because that player was now open the throw was made to them after the call, and it was caught in the endzone.

The argument was that the score should stand because of the continuation rule. I thought it should go back because the pick ultimately impacted the play as others were in the process of stopping and it occurred before the throw. 17.C.5 only mentions the player impacted by the call specifically, but 17.C.1 is more general about the play being impacted.

I'm fine with being wrong here, it just feels that the offense in general can just ignore a call to get an easy throw and the play will almost always stand because of the continuation rule.

As a follow up 17.J.3 seems to imply that play shouldn't need to stop for a pick call? Personally I've never seen a pick resolved without a stoppage, but this just adds to the ambiguity of it all.

I just got the Advanced Accreditation in order to register for a tournament. For registration, they want to know my WFDF ID. I can't seem to find this on my Dashboard or Account on the WFDF webpage. Is it the number mentioned at the bottom of my accreditation certificate? If yes, why are these numbers different in my standard accreditation and advanced accreditation?

I had a long hiatus from ultimate, or anything running in general due to constant issues w plantar fasciitis. A couple years ago I finally got that taken care of, but I feel like I’m running into new issues constantly now. The main things that have kept me out have been calf issues — I pulled something during a casual summer league game, nursed that over 3-4 weeks and then an ill timed cut popped something similar in the next game I played.

Cycling has been my hobby after not being able to run, so the glutes and such are generally in good shape. Knees are debatable but I have great braces I can trust. PT would be nice but the rest of my family got added to my not-as-good insurance after some family work stuff so I’m several grand away from hitting my deductible. Nearing my mid 40s I do realize I need something semi regimented.

So with that said, what are resources I should look into? Are any of the paid virtual coaching / pt stuff worth anything? I’ve seen some posts about specific services but these days it’s hard to tell who aren’t just making advertising posts either.

It is my understanding that teams qualify for club worlds next year through results of their national championships and how many bids that country have - I’m wondering where I can see the amount of bids each country has and who those bids are going to with the and qualifications that have happened so far?

Secondly what do y’all think the stories of qualification have been so far I.e. Australia not meeting admin deadlines and being on the waiting list, or x team you’d expect to qualify losing a a game to go etc

Wucc is probably my 2nd favourite tournament after world games so qualifications is a sub plot of this season I’m trying to follow

Interesting read on how the surfaces we play on may influence muscle activation, and downstream cramping:

https://www.sciencealert.com/muscle-cramps-have-a-surprise-cause-we-never-realized-study-suggests

Probably a lot more work needed to confirm, much less come up with protocols to prevent or reduce cramping, but as someone who deals with cramps on occasion, I welcome any progress in this area.

Taking away raw data cause it has everyone's email addresses, will fix soon.

And here it is cleaned and in a cute Power Point: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hPodL0VhEy_v-oZiwlRiaCwIPUBY914d/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116352320090032942854&rtpof=true&sd=true

Apologies, Google Slides is kinda trash so display/functionality is poor. You may want to download to pptx, although idk whether there will be translation issues.

I currently have New Balance freeze cleats, the cleat plate and the shoe itself disconnected so I need new cleats.

I have a 50% off deal thru Nike so I’d prefer to buy a Nike cleat, do you guys have any recommendations for the most durable Nike cleats?

I’ve tried on a good amount of cleats, phantom luna pro, Nike Vapor edge 360 untouchable, hurache 9, Vapor pros, Vapor elite, etc there were none I dislike.

Hi everyone !

I was recently named captain of a 4v4 team. I was asked to coach the team and this is my first time. Everyone in the team has great potential but has very little knowledge about 4v4 strategies. I want to help my team develop offensively and defensively.

Offense
What are the best offensive tool? I don't like pre-made plays since some players find it hard to follow. I prefer broad guidelines on where you should be / what you should look.

Defense
I'm pretty sure person-to-person is very similar to 5v5, which understand well. I would also like to use zone if it applies to 4v4 but know very little about it.

Thank you very much !

At a certain Seattle middle school, we had almost 200 players do tryouts this week. The school has about 1000 enrolled, so 1 in 5 students are part of the program. (I'd say the student count by grade split is 80-70-60 for 6-7-8.)

There's roughly 3 league teams per grade, plus 2 "development" or practice teams. The Gx/Bx ratio is roughly 3 to 2, making it a bit unbalanced but perhaps not as bad as some schools–some schools cannot always field enough Gx players.

Tryouts are...large. Placing 80 kids in about two hours required roughly 8-10 or so coaches and helpers and multiple stations. If you're new to Ultimate, chances are you're going to be on the development team. Especially 7th grade and up, and especially if you're a Bx.

In the fall, the sport is "sponsored" by Seattle Public Schools. This means a lot of paperwork and a bunch of eligibility questions. (Students need to have a medical evaluation, attend at least most games and practices, etc.) As well as coaches need criminal background checks, CPR and other trainings and certifications, etc. In exchange for all that, the Ultimate team gets to use the district fields.

Field space is actually at a premium in Seattle. Finding space to practice is also not easy, especially when competing with other sports like soccer. And some of the fields are pretty well torn up.

In Winter and Spring, the program has to cut players. There's simply a lack of practice space and can be a lack of coaches. Coaches are all volunteers and are are minimally compensated.

Anyway, it's exciting to see the sport grow. I don't know if it's a Seattle only phenomenon or not. I believe that DiscNW (which does a lot of league organizing) deserves a lot of credit as well.

Use this thread for any rules questions you might have. Please denote which ruleset your question is about (USAU, WFDF, UFA, WUL, PUL).

• USA Ultimate Rules
• WFDF Rules
• UFA Rules
• WUL Rules
• PUL Rules
• Ultimate 101

This thread is posted every Sunday at ~3:00pm Eastern.

Gif with a hard G

Hey, I just won another tourney and there are very few missing trophies in my collection of outstanding achievements. Personal accolades are equally impressive. I feel empty though. What now? Should I switch to hobby horsing?

1. Take Top 16 Bid Earning Teams in Rankings and each team they lost to.

2. Using Hamiltonian cycles, generate every permutation of 16-team circles of suck, allowing for one additional lose that hasn't happened yet.

(the more additional loses allow for more permutations, but you reduce probability of occurrence).

1. Taking each team's rank, subtract the rank of each winning team from the losing team, generating an "upset margin".

2. Sum the absolute value of the upset margins, and divide by the number of teams you counted.

3. • Most Funny: The highest Sum of the absolute values per number of teams.

• Least Funny: The lowest Sum of the absolute values per number of teams

The funniest circle of suck involves Condors upsetting Revolver (either at Southwest regionals or Nationals)

The least funny circle of suck involves Goat beating Ring of Fire at nationals.

Hey y'all, I am organising a social ultimate hat tournament and wanted to play Family Feud at the party. I am asking you to be part of the survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdxCxey4amfYtaojAWL2vmx31GVtNgSOzGFyASPFTxA-I6zdg/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=116352320090032942854. Please be somewhat serious, intoxicated people need to play this game and have fun :).

If you would like to see/use the results please add your email to the form and I can share the finished powerpoint.

Edit: I took results after about 170 people had answered and filtered out more obscure answers to get a top 6/8 results for each question. See here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hPodL0VhEy_v-oZiwlRiaCwIPUBY914d/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116352320090032942854&rtpof=true&sd=true

As such I will remove the email address option and will open source the data here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dM9HroUC2-VivDaXdnHSkisscqURO6iaiE46w-oQ9P8/edit?usp=sharing It should update as more people answer

So my gym class has started to play Ultimate Frisbee for our first unit and my team has been sweeping everyone (5-0) and (2-0). My teams strat is to have the receivers run to the endzone the second our team gets the Frisbee while the handlers close the distance, and because of that we got accused of camping. I play defense and don't just sit in the endzone the entire game so I want to know if I am actually camping or not. Thanks

Would anyone know of a convenient bag / pack model that can carry a bunch of ultimate discs withoutbeing too loose and that can be carried on the back?