Tips & Tricks VII - Hand Signals by WFDF

Here's something I've never seen before : hand signals as indicated by WFDF.

The point of these signals is to indicate to the crowd what is going on on the field, because a lot of times people are wondering what call was made, especially in big events with big crowds like WUCC (World Ultimate Club Championships).

Check out all hand signals right here : http://www.wfdf.org/rules/WFDF_Hand_Signals_for_Ultimate_2009.pdf

By the way, it might say 2009 but these are the latest rules applied.

Cheers for the first (?) one who captures one of these signs on camera !

Gentle Wins Open de Touraine (coed division) and Spirit of the Game !

More pictures coming tonight.

What a mighty hot weekend !

Random Video - Best Plays of 2008

Tips&Tricks VI - Knowing The Rules

In the game we all love so much, we are all proud to play without referees.
To keep it like this we must keep one huge thing in mind : it is our own responsability to know the rules, because who else will if you don't ?
Knowing the rules is considered good spirit, but it is also the key of playing a game...
Not that we shouldn't be flexible about all kinds of calls or situations in our sport, but how can you play a game so huge and intense if you don't even know the right way to play it...
Read the rules, keep them in your sportsbag at all times, and if you don't know the answer to a certain situation on the field, check it out in the rules.
Because not wanting to learn about the right call to make in a certain situation is even worse than not knowing at all...
Here's some info for all of you :

First off : This is the link to the official rules of ultimate : http://ultimaterules.co.cc/?page_id=1535
Secondly : The WFDF (World Flying Disc Federation) created a whole new website dedicated only (yes only) to the rules of ultimate. You can check it out right here http://ultimaterules.co.cc/
Third : You can even take a quiz about these rules, adapted to your level of knowledge, all on the same website as stated above (http://ultimaterules.co.cc/) Yes, it is a great website all of us should check out !
Fourth : if reading the rules wouldn't be enough for you, the guys at WFDF started a youtube channel in which they explain certain rules by demonstrating.
Again, you can watch all of these videos on the newly made website as stated above. Check it out, don't wait, do it now !! Here's an example :
 
Fifth : you've been around for a while and already know the rules but just want un update on the latest changes ? Again, the website has an answer : http://ultimaterules.co.cc/?page_id=1045
Sixth : They've got diagrams and pictures and everything, all to make things clearer for you. Amazing right ?

Seventh: don't find the answer in the rules ? Ask your fellow players or the rules committee by WFDF, and yes,by now you should know where to find it.

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"Show that you know",so we can keep this game as wonderful as it is today.
It's up to us to take responsability for the Spirit of the Game as described below :

“All players are responsible for administering and adhering to the rules. Ultimate relies upon a Spirit of the Game that places the responsibility for fair play on every player. It is trusted that no player will intentionally break the rules; thus there are no harsh penalties for breaches, but rather a method for resuming play in a manner which simulates what would most likely have occurred had there been no breach. Highly competitive play is encouraged, but should never sacrifice the mutual respect between players, adherence to the agreed-upon rules of the game, or the basic joy of play.”

Now let's play !!

Tourney Preview - Track 5 "Disc Or A Dive" by Huyltimate

Check out the announcement of the tournament in Huy as written by Julien from Huyltimate :

This year, huyltimate brings everything around or into the "Abbaye de Floreffe" (http://www.abbaye-de-floreffe.be/): fields, campsite, Saturday party, welcome party along the Sambre, great dinner at the Abbaye, great local beers, ... This tournament is going to be a western one, but where bullets have been replaced by discs. Come, and maybe you won't go back home ! Here are the practical information:



- Tournament version: Open
- Number of teams: 12
- Number of grass fields: 3
- Pickup Teams ?: we'll keep you inform
- Date: last week-end of August : 27th, 28th and 29th
- Location : Floreffe, next to Namur (next to highways from anywhere in Europe, and next to Namur's railway station),Belgium
- Weather : Sunny, 26°C
- Player fee: 30 €
- Team fee: 100 €
- Included in fees: Tournament, water on fields, welcome and saturday parties, dinner on saturday, breakfasts, player gift & camping (And I certainly forgot something).
- Sleep way: campsite next to the fields
- Registration: julien_nuttin@hotmail.com (Julien - La Chèvre) ; vdb2711@hotmail.com (Benoît - McFly)
- Last year results:


1. Belgian Junior
2. Megaman-D
3. Huyltimate
4. Diabolic Haeven
5. Kz
6. Wadisc?
7. Skywalkers
8. Gentle
9. Université de Namur
10. Mooncatchers

Upcoming Weekend - Freespect (BE) & Chinon (FR)

Random Pictures - Windmill Windup 2010

Picture above : an image that says a lot about the open final : a FAB (Flying Angels Bern, Switzerland) player making a spectacular grab against a Freespeed (Basel, Switzerland) player who tried everything he could to prevent this catch but didn't succeed. End score 15-10 for FAB.

All pictures by the official tournament photographer at http://www.titusnachbauer.com/, and also René Westenberg at http://renewestenberg.smugmug.com/Ultimate-frisbee/Windmill-Windup-2010  

More pictures can be found at http://www.windmillwindup.com/2010/photosvideo/

Picture left : Mario (Switzerland, has been playing with Gentle for half a year now) playing an amazing final in which he did some crazy catches, scored some nice points and showed the crowd he knows how to throw and play (and run, and dive, and ...)

Know Your History - National Ultimate Teams Database

YOU HAVE TO CHECK THIS  !!!!!!!!!!

This is the most amazing and most complete DATABASE ever made of the history of national ultimate teams.

And yes, Belgium is in there !
Wanna know the ranking of the 1980 World Championships, the score of Belgium Open against Japan at the Worlds in Colchester,England in 1986 (BE 3-15 JAP) or the score of the belgian mixed team against Finland at Southampton 2007 (BE 17-15 FIN)?
Well here's your chance :
http://hartti.com/national_teams/index.php

Some more info and direct links below :

Hi all,

Truly exciting news.
For the past few years, Hartti Suomela, from Finland , has been putting together a database of national teams results from Worlds, European Championships and other relevant events.
It is now ready to be released to the world:
http://www.hartti.com/national_teams
No doubt this has taken a huge amount of effort from Hartti so far, but it is still incomplete.
Many of the events date back to before the internet or email was widely used, so he has been relying on paper daily newsletters from those events.
It may also be the case that your national association has archived some of the event newsletters, or you have recorded the results in your own newsletters after your teams returned home.


If you can scan any such original information, it would be much appreciated.
As it is, it is a fantastic archive for all countries, but if we can complete the information it will be even better.


Please also send Hartti any information you have about team rosters at the various events.
Personally, I'd love this to become the officially endorsed archive for WFDF events and connect it with our new on-line results system (also developed by the Finns!!!!), but at the moment, this is just a private project by Hartti as a service to the world ultimate community.


Please share with your national community and past national team players and feel free to email Hartti on the cced email address with any information to fill in the gaps.


Thanks so much Hartti for this fantastic contribution!


Jonathan Potts
President
World Flying Disc Federation
http://www.wfdf.org/

Here's a shorter link to the
the belgian open history : http://hartti.com/national_teams/country.php?country=be&division=OPN
the belgian mixed history : http://hartti.com/national_teams/all_countries.php?division=MIX
the belgian women's history : http://hartti.com/national_teams/all_countries.php?division=WMN

WOW !

Tourney Report - It's a Gentle Life at Windmill Windup

Indeed, it's a gentle life at Windmill Windup.. Not only because my sports-related memories are all coloured by Gentle games (my own home team, you see) but mostly because the living is easy at this tourney.

It's the biggest (has this title officially been proven correct?) grass ultimate tournament on European soil and one of the best organised I've ever seen.

Correct me on that, it IS the best organised tourney I've ever seen.

(I might be able to get convinced that the best one is actually Tom's Tourney, but WW just hits the right spot for now..)

From quiches to elephants, from discs to shirts to hats to windmill-staff-shirts, from tournament-directors to volunteers, from burgers on the grill to lasagna from a bus, from a throw-the-hackie-sack-into-a-box-game to the hit-and-swim-"dunktank"-game, from open division winners Flying Angels Bern to runners up Freespeed, from jingles to radio, from pictures to video, from tipi's to the big tent all the way to your own sleeping tent, from krentebolletjes (raisin kind of bread) to packing your own lunch, from quiztime to partytime, from beerrace to massages, from first aid to showers everywhere, from smiling faces to die-hard-ultimate, from ladies division winners Woodchicas to runners up Tequila Boom Boom from swiss draw to live online scoring, from twitter to smartphone, from charity huck competition to yoga sessions to mingle-mingle, from long games to longdrinks, from a bicycle-cocktail-bar to a lookfly gear shop, from mixed division winners Jeremy Codhand to runners up Gronical Dizziness, from paint show to live world championship football/soccer footage, from collecting discs for Africa to a big inflatable elephant, ......from fun to more fun the Windmill is a must-see (thanks to all the people below here)

 And as far as sports-related memories go, this is the kind of tourney where you just get up, have breakfast, warm-up, play, cool down, eat, warm up, play,........ and so on.
There is a good level at WW and Gentle was proud to be part of this.
As our coach said it so lovely after the tournament : we bridged a little bit of the gap (we hebben een stukje van de kloof gedicht..).
Next to a lot of other nice games we played two top games on friday, first one against Ragnarok.
For Gentle, this was a game in which we had nothing to lose and so we played like raging furies despite the rainy weather. We took a 2-0 lead and kept our lead almost throughout the entire game. Ragnarok kept on fighting back but so did we and thus the game strolled into a universe point at 14-14. After an amazing game Ragnarok (Danish champions, usually play somewhere top at European championships, ended up on the 3d place at WW2010) came out on top with 15-14 but we went down with our heads up and a lot of points since we were playing the swiss draw system. For those of you who don't know this system , in short : the point is that winning is not just enough, you need to score as much points as possible and you get the difference in scores against your opponent as a bonus.
For the non simplified explanation of this system, click here.
The next big game was against Silence, last year's losing finalists so again another heavy game.
We went out with the vibe from the previous game still in our heads and gave them our best shot.
Again this resulted in a universe point at 12-12 which we lost again but we did manage to steal a lot of their points ! They ended up 4th. Gentle ended up on the 14th place.
We had some more real nice games, but unfortunately we also suffered some injuries and as a result some games we couldn't finish physically with too few players, but hey, we'll see next year..
Another big up to FAB and Freespeed for such an amazing display of power in the open final.
And did I mention I've never seen anybody huck so far like Luca (the young player from Freespeed) did ? Damn, too cool.

Some interesting rankings :
Women's division (16 teams) :
1.Woodchicas
2.Tequila Boom Boom
7.Yaka
9.MissB
11.Primavera

Open division (38 teams) :
1.Flying Angels Bern (Swiss)
2.Freespeed (Swiss, last year's winners)
3.Ragnarok
4.Silence
8.Iznogood
9.Red Lights
10.CamboCakes
14.Gentle
17.Barry White (Mooncatchers/Friselis/UV mix team)

Mixed division (25 teams) :
1.Jeremy Codhand
2.Gronical Dizziness
4.Frizzly Bears
12.Ultimate Delux
13.Ah Ouh Puc
16.XLR8RS
23.Half Man Half Amazing


Hup, Holland, Hup !

Tourney Report - Windmill Windup 2010 (written by Sigi)

Last weekend, over 1200 Ultimate players gathered in Amsterdam to participate in the Windmill Windup tournament.

For me it was my first Windmill and after hearing a lot of stories about it I was really excited to check it out. The organisation was impressive: a whole organisation team and a lot of volunteers made this tournament run smooth from the beginning till the end.

All teams of the open division played alternating with the womens and mixed teams on 20 Ultimate fields. Games were 90 minutes with a cap +1 so between 2 games you could rest for about 90 min, which was more than welcome. By using the Swiss draw format almost all the games were real intense and it was often an equal match.

Besides of the games there was also some nice off field entertainment like tipi’s to relax in or watch the games of the World Cup soccer, a pull contest, a pub quiz and a mega mingle-mingle.

What about the Belgian teams?

Off course there were some Belgian teams: MissB in the womens division, XLR8rs in the mixed division and Gentle and Mooncatchers mix in the open division but also a lot of Belgian players where playing in other teams like Eul’chtimate (Raf and me), UltideLux (Fred, Freek,…), Half Men Half Amazing (a lot of Xlplayers and Max) My Friends and Me (Quentin) and probably some more people who I forget at this moment.

You can check out all their results right here: http://www.windmillwindup.com/2010/livescoring/

The average level of play was quite high and I saw some really nice games. In the mixed division an English team named Jeremy Codhand won the final against Gronical Diziness.

There’s a funny story behind the name Jeremy Codhand: One day some players of the team found a strange looking mitt on the shore of a lake . The mitt was of latex and looked inflated. They had no idea what it was but they took it with them. Then one of the team members saw a similar mitt in a fishing shop and it turns out it was a mitt to fillet cod (kabeljauw fileren).

The Codhand became a member of the team with it’s own personality. He was an inspiration for all the players and so Codhand became more than a cod hand… it became Jeremy Codhand! And from that moment the slogan of the team is: “In Cod we trust”

In the womens final Woodchicas took the victory over Tequila Boom Boom and Flying Angels Bern won the all swiss open final against Freespeed.

On 3 days most of the teams played about 720 minutes of Ultimate so needless to say everybody walked a bit funny on Monday morning…

Random Pictures - Jet Set Goes Beach 2010

Click images for a better view or download to your computer.

A huge thanks to our friends from Jetset for organising this lovely beach hat tournament, can't wait for next year !

Tourney Preview - Windmill Windup 2010

Check out this really cool video made by the Windmill Windup team announcing their 6th edition of this amazing tournament.
A tourney close by, with an amazing level of play and most definitely a tourney which always has a nice atmosphere around it.
It's one of the biggest grass tournaments in Europe (not to say thé biggest..) with over 1200 players joining eachother to play their favourite game, and quite frankly, this tourney is one of my favourites :
It doesn't take a lot of travelling to get there, the games are on a European high level, you know a lot of your friends are going to be there and the organisation is just worth learning lessons from, they do a remarkable job every year again.

Enough talk, check out their (also quite interesting) website if you wanna know more about this tourney at http://www.windmillwindup.com/

PS: if you wanna learn more about previous years at Windmill and my reports on that, just type in windmill and hit enter in the search box on the upper right side. Enjoy !

Random Pictures - Vote For This Picture In An Official Contest !

http://www.standaard.be/ugc/photospecial/detail.aspx?id=593210bd-573a-4f52-b858-3947d2e01a1f

If all 340 people who seem to like 'Get Horizontal' (340 on facebook, who knows...) would vote for this picture (it couldn't be more easy, just click on the link and click "stem op deze foto" under the picture) maybe Wouter, who took this picture might win a new camera.


Please do, it 'll only take you two clicks and 5 seconds.
Here's the link !
http://www.standaard.be/ugc/photospecial/detail.aspx?id=593210bd-573a-4f52-b858-3947d2e01a1f

Random Video's - Yes But Nau 2010 & 2009

Check out this huge layout by one the young french players of Freezbeach, who won the 2010 edition of Yes But Nau after a huge final against Triips (international pick-up with amongst many others Wouter from Gentle and Johnny from Schijnwerpers).
If you wanna Triips in action last year when they won the tournament, check out the video below of a poule game against Ultimate Vibration.

Jetset Goes Beach pictures coming soon !
Keep on reading !

Random Pictures - Yes But Nau 2010 By José Pires

Yes But Nau 2010 was a great edition of this lovely french beach tournament and José (Frisbeurs, organising team, amazing photographer) managed to get a lot of great action and team pictures..
Here's a little selectionof José photographs, mostly of the intense and spectacular final where Triips (international pick-up team) couldn't keep their title from last year and lost to the amazing young french players by the name of Freezbitch (3d in 2009)
Click images for a better/bigger view !

Picture above : Freezbitch, young french players with a lot of technique, endurance and great layouts. This is a team to keep an eye on (also since some of them are also in the french national junior team).

Some more teampics below, as there were a lot of belgian teams, or teams with belgian players in it...

FüF, 9th place and spirit winners !

XLR8RS

Scandisc

FC Prapoutel

Mooncatchers, 6th place (correct?)

Jaccuzzi (international pick-up team,find Lieven)

Freezzzbeezzz, 2006 winners of YBN, 7th place

"Schele Vanderlindeeeeuuuuuuu...!!!"

All pictures copyrighted by José Pires , if you would like to see more of his amazing pictures(and there are tons more from this edition), go to http://joez.smugmug.com/Beach-Ultimate/Yes-But-Nau

Keep on reading !