It will come as a surprise to no one that I love women’s frisbee with all of my heart, soul, and mind. I actually feel sorry for men’s teams and mixed teams that they’re not having as much fun as we are. But for the people who haven’t been able to play on a women’s team yet, I want to just describe some of my experience thus far as a call-to-arms to support the community and get even more young women playing.
So, let’s just take this weekend. Every team we played (EVERY TEAM we played) had amazing spirit. That is my favorite part of the game, hands-down. It’s the underlying knowledge that, while it doesn’t really matter if one group of people catches a plastic disc in a rectangle, the overall pursuit is making all of us better. It is SO COOL to be able to analyze and discuss our mental game in the huddle, and to feel all those sports platitudes finally making sense. I sincerely wanted to run hard for my teammates each point, and I wanted to make the other team work because it would be disrespectful to give it half of my energy.
I want to mention something here, which is that I am pretty fast. This isn’t me being cocky— this is listening to a sample size of the women who are guarding me and hearing them say, “Dude you are really fast.” When I was in college, I would sometimes save some energy at practice by jogging and making my cuts 75%, because I knew I could still beat my girl. I wish I could go back and have the same focus and commitment then that I do now, because I could have made my team and myself so much better by actually trying all the time. Then again, I think I joined the team because I liked having a group of people to do sports with, not because I necessarily wanted to get better or to win. This mentality stems from high school, when I would play lacrosse but not really care about how the game went — I was thinking about the Chipotle after the game.
What makes the difference with Brooklyn Book Club, I think, is that I feel so much love for all of my teammates (and for the other teams) that it is out of the question to save some for later, or to conserve my energy and not give it my all. That’s because I’m not playing with this team out of habit, or to fulfill a gym requirement, or to have a group of fun people to drink with at parties. I’m playing with this team because they are incredibly supportive and because they have goofy, wack-a-doo souls. They sat next to a car with me at our last tournament when I was feeling down. They told me they were so glad I was playing, even if I wasn’t feeling entirely myself. They huddled their athletic bodies around me like puppies and surrounded me with their warmth and love. There’s no way I can repay them, but this isn’t a thing you repay. It’s a gift you give every day.
I’m actually correcting too far in the other direction, as Braden had to call me over and say, “The human body cannot go at 100% the entire time. You seem ready, but you don’t have to do sprints for each drop during warm-ups, before we even start playing. I don’t want you to gas yourself.” This is true, and this is fair. I want to be really good, and to improve even more, but I also want to take care of my body more than I ever have in a sport, before. This means calling my buddy (AMANDA!) and telling her to drink more water. It means listening really closely to my twenty-five-year-old body and actually rolling it out with some of those goofy foam things. It means being intentional with the food I’m eating throughout the day. I was actually talking to Amanda, my lovely science nerd, about the feasibility of team Soylent, since we need to keep our energy up but it can often be hard to force a bagel down. It’s $34 for 12 bottles, so I may actually buy some and see how it works at a practice. The point being: I care much, much more about keeping my body in good physical condition, which is important because I lost my appetite for a month and lost about 10 pounds. I need to bring myself back and listen to myself as I do so, and sports are helping me do that.
And then, most wonderfully, there is the culture we create as a team and as a community. Honestly, I have never been a person to follow other ultimate teams on social media, or even at a tournament. I’ve been pretty focused in on my own performance and my team’s performance, and I’m ok with calling it a day after that (again, thinking about Chipotle). At Heavyweights, I realized that my feelings of love for my teammates were extending to other teams, as well. I found myself giving high fives to members of the other teams, and cheering on their sick bids. I honestly wanted them to succeed as much as I wanted us to succeed. I wasn’t keeping track of the score at all (ha, this is the one continuity between high school and college and now) because I didn’t care about the numbers. I cared about the spirit and the level of play, and if it was dipping I couldn’t wait to get on the field and run my hardest so I could pump both teams up. I would compliment the defenders who made me work hard, because I felt like I could usually get open and liked it when they kept me on my toes. One girl actually said, “You’re faster than me,” while we were running, but after the point I went up to her and said, “I may be faster than you, objectively, but it didn’t matter in that point because you were keeping me from getting the disc by using your closing speed when I slowed down towards the end of my cut. Thank you for keeping me honest and reminding me to keep my speed up through the entire run.” Then I hugged her and got water. I don’t know how often this happens in mixed or open games, but I have the feeling that it’s a more common occurrence at women’s.
It’s also amazing to feel that personal connection and focus for one specific teammate at a time. I’ve always thought, “Sure, sure, sideline talk is important,” but now I know it’s more than that. It’s life blood. It’s the difference between staying at the same level and continuing to improve, even if incrementally, every single time you step on the field. I have been able to watch Amanda get better and better at handler defense (and she’s already really good), and it’s been great to give her suggestions and watch her implement them in real time. Similarly, I love it when I’m able to talk through a cut sequence or discuss how my deep look needed to be in a different third of the field — it’s like all of my years of playing knowledge are finally accessible, and I am able to steal the skills of others and apply them to myself. It makes me really want to coach and give back to the younger community.
And then there’s the overall spirit of celebration. We are celebrating the fact that, as women, we have bodies and we are using them to do beautiful, fun things. One team gave me one of their kazoos and we had a kazoo song in harmony on the sidelines (lol sorry Amanda I think I was supposed to be giving you feedback). I taught a youth team that was SO GOOD a new game called “Wounded Sea Creatures,” which is where you lie on your back and pretend to be a wounded sea lion or other sea creature (or if you’re more of a wallflower you can stand and be some flowing kelp) and the hunter comes along with their harpoon and spears you. We decided that this game was kind of a downer, so we adapted it by adding a Melisandre who can bring you back to life.
I was even having fun with the parents on the sidelines, because I was so happy and thankful that my family got to see me play. I sang at one couple, “I’m gonna sprint/I’m gonna score on your children!” And then I scored and jogged over to them and wiped the disc on them, and we all laughed. I saw them walking in the parking lot later and rolled down my window to heckle them with, “I HOPE YOUR DAUGHTER HAS A LONG AND SUCCESSFUL ULTIMATE CAREER.” They laughed again. Someone said, “Are you related to them?” and I said no, and my car laughed.
But really, I am related to them. We are all related in this grand pursuit of giving the female body and mind ways to grow and expand, and providing a supportive and goofy team to nurture her and help her feel whole. One of the high schoolers (high schoolers!?!) we were playing looked a little down on the sidelines, and I talked to her and asked her if it was ok if I sat next to her for a little bit. I told her that my team was so proud of them, and so terrified to play them in a few years, and we were giving them the best game we could because we wanted to be examples and to help improve their game. And that we already appreciated the commitment and skill they were bringing to the field. I don’t think it necessarily helped, but when I looked over to her after the next point her friends were surrounding her like soft, supportive athletic puppies. This is a gift that will never stop giving. This is an expression of love that can never been repressed. And, while I dearIy love the ultimate men I have met and played with, I can pretty confidently say that I will be playing and coaching women’s ultimate for the rest of my life. The girl I was talking to showed us her high school teams’ Instagram account and then said, “I can show you the main one for our school, except it’s kinda dominated by the men’s team,” and I said, “Nope. We’re not here for them, although we wish them the best. We are here for you.”
P.S. I totally kissed my first woman in a meaningful way (I mean, I made out with people in college) after our last game, because I wanted it to be like swapping jerseys (she was a great defender with well-defined arms, so I basically wanted to kiss myself lol), and also, she was really hot. And she jogged up to me after and said, “I’m so sorry man, I thought we were going to make out so I may have made it weird,” and I was like, “Lol this is such a woman problem, you’re fine you beautiful unicorn.” So like, I’m having a great summer.
Lord of the Freys 