First Step: Frisbee in China

Ultimate is a just in its early stages in China. The natural place to turn to development is the school systems. Because of limited access to these systems as a foreigner, it is essential to get local students interested so that they can organize meetings, practices, and tournaments themselves using foreigners only as a supplement. Two weekends ago, almost 20 intrepid Beijingers composed of foreigners and a few locals set out to Tianjin to help out with a practice that involved two teams and a group of incoming freshmen from the Tianjin sports university.

The group of expats, as most groups of expats tend to be, was one of all ages, vocations, and backgrounds. Aspiring journalists, language learners, lifelong teachers, embassy workers, technology and finance people, and travelers where all represented. The group was jovial and energetic in the morning, although nobody quite knew what to expect. How long was the ride going to be? What was the quality of the fields? How many students would be there? Would we be able to see the sky? Nobody really knew the answer to any of these questions, although Tao, our fearless leader, tried to make up some responses. As most Frisbee related activities that are managed by Chinese students tend to be disorganized with as little information given as possible and a host of last minute changes, some of us were dubious about the little information we had. Nonetheless, expectations where high and we hoped that the blue skies on the highway would last all the way into Tianjin.

The blue skies did last, and after a quick bite to eat we were on the fields for our first round of scrimmages. The fields were decent turf, which in China is a lacking commodity. There were over 40 eager Chinese students with varying levels of ultimate experience ready to play. The expats split into to two teams and the Tianjin students split up into their A team and B team plus freshmen.

My team played the B team with extras first. We won handily because of their predictable offense and lack of throws. Even on the B team, all the players are fast and strong, but their lack of understanding and patience makes it impossible for them to run a consistent offense. Not only do they lack the skills, but they don’t even know what the skills are supposed to be. Instead, they rely on their athleticism to get open and try to play a quick, aggressive game. It is understandable that they play this way, but the lack of coordination between players on the field made it so that players were constantly cutting each other off and not using open cutters.

After the game, we explained the horizontal stack and set up a basic drill to emphasize continuation. The idea being that if they understood how some basic cuts were supposed to work, they could run a more efficient offense that had players working together not against each other. The drill went fairly well, and due to some good translation, I felt that they had a basic understanding of what was supposed to happen. It remains to be seen whether or not those ideas will be sticky.

The next game was against the Tianjin A team. The A team was a more experienced and athletic version of the B team. Although they still don’t have the nearly the conceptual knowledge of a decent college team, most players have been to tournaments and have a year or two of experience. As seems natural, the emphasis for them is aggressive play and quick movement. The athleticism on that team is brutal. These are the equivalent of D-1 athletes in the US, and it shows on the field. Their basic offensive concept is to throw the disc and beat your opponent to space. The result is a fast paced game with lots of give and gos and the occasional deep bomb. It makes sense that this is where their game is, because in the beginning, they didn’t have the throws to play at a higher level. How do you win games when you don’t have long throws but almost every player on your team is faster and fitter than your opponents? Throw passes to space and run like the devil is chasing you. The result of this is that most teams are able to beat Tianjin A by running a zone in no wind. The concept of moving the disc among the handlers while patiently waiting for a breakthrough up field does not exist to them.

Fortunately, our team had the athletes and enough experience to handle Tianjin with out a zone. The game was close and hard fought. I will digress at this point to say that several players on Tianjin have questionable spirit. I think that this stems from the fact that they are very competitive (in terms of skill) athletes, and they are not used to having the responsibility of making their own calls. This is not an across the board problem, but understanding that responsibility and the respect that must go with it is something that should be focused on in future clinics. Experience, in this case, trumped a fitter team, but one can’t help but admire Tianjin A’s work ethic and desire to succeed.

After the game, we taught them zone defense and offense. The idea was that if they were able to practice zone defense, then they would be able to practice zone offense. Having a concept of the defense you are playing against greatly enhances your ability to breakdown that defense. Also, as I mentioned, the solution to an athletic team that moves the disc quickly is a zone, because it forces them to be patient. For offense, we tried to encourage patience with the disc among the handlers, and then fast paced throws once they had made it past the first layer of the zone. Once the first layer of a zone is broken, there is a 4v3 situation favoring the offense. Certainly, it is hard to break through that first layer, especially if you don’t have experience playing against it. Thus, patience has to be exercised at first, and then once you have the numbers advantage, the disc should be moved quickly.

The finale of the day was moving to a grass field to play against the Tianjin Allstars, a combination of Tianjin A, the captain of the B team, and two recent graduates. It was great to get on grass, even if it wasn’t perfectly flat. The grass field was a huge expanse surrounded by construction and completed skyscrapers. The sky was still clear, and we played through sunset until it got far to dark to play. The game was again close, with a narrow defeat handed to Tianjin. As Tao put it aptly, “it is hard to beat a team on their home turf”. Like most Chinese people I’ve met, the Tianjin players showed great pride and determination in what they do. I have no doubt that with some direction they could be a great team by the worldwide standard in the near future.

Although saddened in defeat, the students all expressed their gratitude and everybody ended up having a great day. There were no major injuries and beer and dumplings were enjoyed as a post ultimate celebration. I hope to have the opportunity to play with and help Tianjin again.

Big thanks to the organizers and translators.

One last note, on our ride home we encountered a traffic jam of epic proportions. Cars were shut off and somewhat drunken players wandered around the side of the highway. We thought that perhaps this was caused by construction, an accident, or increased security at the Beijing checkpoint. But no, it was caused by one truck pulling another truck (and I mean a real truck) using a rope system. As we finally drove by, the ropes snapped. Oh China…