Ultimate Frisbee in Cheonan

Both JM and I enjoy playing ultimate frisbee. In fact, playing pick up in Montreal and meeting that group of grad students is one of the fondest memories of my Masters. It really kept me sane knowing that every Tuesday and Thursday I could head out to the field and run off the frustrations of working in the lab and feeling like my research was going no where.

Discs of Tron - my champion indoor team, winter 2011

Multiple Scoregasms - one of my summer 2012 teams

Before moving to Korea, I joined the Korea Ultimate Players Association Facebook group to get involved. Unfortunately, KUPA is based mostly in Seoul and that's still a good chuck away from Cheonan. Two hours on the subway or train (in 1 direction!) just to play a game of ultimate is a little much. So JM and I decided to start a pick up group here in Cheonan. With everyone's work schedules being different, we opted to organize a weekend game. There is a huge soccer stadium just behind our apartment and it serves as the perfect venue.

Last weekend was our first attempt to organize pick up in Cheonan. I had heard that a guy tried to start a group awhile ago and it didn't take, so I was trying not to get my expectations too high. I posted the link to our event on three different FB groups: KUPA, Cheonan People and Flipside Fitness hoping to get anyone in this city who might be interested to come out. We ended up having 11 people show up (including JM and I) - six of us were from Bugil and the others were from elsewhere! Some people just saw our post and showed up, never even having played ultimate before. They are my favourite!! Brave souls that come out to learn a new sport and meet new people are the best. That's exactly how I started playing ultimate in Montreal and look how great that turned out!

We had a 30 minute warm up where JM practiced throwing a disc with the new players and taught them the rules. Then we set up the cones and got our game on. The level of play was perfect. No one was too hardcore and everyone seemed to have fun. I even took a disc to the face .. TWICE. It felt great to play again.

We are going to try and make this a weekly occurrence, alternating Saturdays and Sundays to give people who have weekly Saturday or Sunday commitments a chance to play. Already for this weekend we have 5 people signed up! Cheonan - see you on the field! :)

Learning to throw a flick

Whoops!

Warming up for the game