From britdisc-owner@csv.warwick.ac.uk Fri Feb 28 16:25:37 1997 Received: from thistle.csv.warwick.ac.uk by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk with ESMTP id QAA07405; Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:25:31 GMT Received: by thistle.csv.warwick.ac.uk id QAA10764; Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:16:01 GMT Received: from pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk by thistle.csv.warwick.ac.uk with ESMTP id QAA10759; Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:15:48 GMT Received: from smtp-gate.mottmac.com by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk with SMTP id QAA05902; Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:15:31 GMT Received: from Connect2 Message Router by smtp-gate.mottmac.com via Connect2-SMTP 4.20A; Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:15:50 +0000 Message-ID: <44A5B937010C01C0@smtp-gate.mottmac.com> Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:13:14 -0000 From: "Milne, Douglas M" <dmm@mm-croy.mottmac.com> Organization: Mott MacDonald To: britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk Subject: Indoors X-Mailer: Connect2-SMTP 4.20A MHS/SMF to SMTP Gateway Sender: owner-britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk Precedence: bulk I have to agree that indoors has its place in British ultimate, without it there would be far less student teams in this country. It gives new players a chance to learn the skills, maybe not how to 'huck' a disc, but the understanding between team-mates is a very important aspect of any game. When I was learning Ultimate back in the day when we were the only junior team playing (Bad Company), we relished laying indoors because we could get close to teams that we may never of scored a point against outdoors (the first 3 times we played Hombres outdoors we lost to zero every time). But as people have already said the two games are very different, just the same way that Disc golf is different to outdoor ultimate. You can use some of what you learn from playing golf, i.e. throwing a big throw flattish, just as much as you can learn from indoors, learning about who your team is and how they play. I know from experience how hard it can be to get a student team playing, I spent two years at Manchester trying to get a team together from the student ranks, both years I had over 70 players sign up only to find that the weather stopped people from coming out to play (as we had no access to a hall). Numbers soon dwindled after the first few weeks as people felt they didn't have the skill to play outdoors. It was only in my 3rd year that Ben contacted me to help in the starting of a new Manchester team that things really kicked off. Admittedly the people involved in the club helped greatly ( they had an enthusiasm for the game), but more importantly we could get new people involved very easily in a game where 'disc skills' were not at a premium, as we had a sports hall to practice in. As with Fingers Six (The name is still blamed on my little sister), this was soon translated into outdoor play, and in the following years Fingers Six, now Chevron, have become a good outdoor side. I do still fell however that there is still too much emphasis on indoors, to me it is still the baby walker of ultimate, a good place to learn how to play and then take that knowledge outdoors. Sure, if you don't have the facilities to play outdoors then by all means play indoors, but too many people seem to want to play indoors for half the year, GET A LIFE. Ultimate is an outdoor game, only us Northern Europeans made up this game to play when the sun don't shine, when it's too windy (what's that) or it's too muddy (personally I don't mind the mud). It's the same for both teams on the pitch whatever the weather, make the most of it. On another point Ian Stebbing said >It always struck me as odd that most of the Shotgun players seemed to stop >playing indoors at about the time they stopped winning all the tournaments >they played in. That's completely unfair to some of them but not all!. Well as I seem to remember Hombres stopped playing after Regulators beat them in a semi final indoors, that was because they were not only get too old to play (sorry guys), but they had won so many indoor tournaments they needed a new fix. I believe most took up disc golf instead. Now Regulators, we won National indoors, in fact we had 2 relatively equal teams indoors that year, but with most of us finishing college there seemed no point in playing indoors when we had better things to do (OUTDOORS). We did however succumb to the taunts and play the next year, in Exeter. By this time there were only 7 Regulators fit enough to play indoors, 3 broken wrists, 1 shoulder operation etc. Now at this tournament the Hombres were playing as well as Flamingo Trap, together the teams now form Shotgun. Now neither of these teams had ever practised indoors since the Nationals the year before, there seemed no point. As I remember Regulators came second losing to Druids in a nail biting final (I remember because I threw the disc in the last seconds to put us into extra time, only to find that that man Ian was in the way) and Flamingo Trap came 4th. Now as I remember it, even back then, Flamingo Trap had their motto emblazoned on their shirts 'Get a Life Play Outdoors', they played the whole tournament taking the piss, every single flashy pass you could imagine and still they came 4th. Now maybe it's just because I've been lucky enough to find a team that enjoys playing outdoors all the time that I preach about 'Ultimate', but until the competition in this country gets better you're never going to beat us. Practising indoors won't help either, my team plays once a week at least if not twice a week outdoors, we did however have a 2 week break for Christmas. All you experienced Ultimate players, try and find a floodlit pitch before trying to find an indoor hall. You may be surprised what you find (I found a running track in London), If you carry on playing indoors without the outdoors as well your Ultimate will suffer, and I would like nothing better that a bit of competition coming from all quarters in this country. Teams like UTI, Regulators and Catch only made it to where they are by playing more outdoors!!!! Doug Shotgun