I played Ultimate for the first time earlier this evening and I had a blast!

For those who don’t know, Ultimate is a combination of Frisbee™ and football.  I was playing 5-on-5 with an OSSC league, meaning each side has 5 players on the field at a time and there has to be at least 2 men and 2 women on the field, too.

The teams line up in the end zones at either end and one team throws the disc to the team at the other end.  From then, the disc is thrown from player to player advancing it up the field.  When you catch the disc, you can pivot on one foot, like in basketball and you have as little as ten seconds to throw it.  A blocking player on the thrower counts to ten, during which time the disc must be thrown.  But, if the thrower isn’t being blocked, the countdown doesn’t start.  To score, a team throws the disc to one of its players in the end zone, who hopefully catches it.

The first part of the first game was the hardest part for me, but I got off to a good start by catching the first point for my team. 🙂  Overall, I think I caught three or four points between the two back-to-back games we played, so I’m really happy with that.  (Normally, there aren’t back-to-back games, but sometimes that’s the way the schedule works out.)

There’s a lot of running and sudden turning during the game, which I found hard on my ankles.  I was starting to limp a bit near the end of the second game and I’m sure that walking tomorrow is going to be an interesting experience.  Wearing a decent pair of soccer cleats made a huge difference, though.  Some people didn’t have cleats on and a couple slipped on the grass when they were trying to turn on a dime.

I’m really looking forward to next week’s game.