Kung Bakit Ako Nag-e-enjoy sa Paglalaro ng Ultimate Frisbee

Last Saturday, it was the finals for the third ultimate frisbee league in the country this year (the annual Malakas at Maganda Tournament). It was a blistering hot sunny day at the Alabang Country Club polo field for the finals.

Our team played three matches that day and won only one, giving us just enough points to be ranked 7th overall for this league. Suffering from a very lean roster with only one substitute player that day, the scores we posted were 4-10 (against Team Circus, who eventually became the pool champions), 6-11 (against Super Bueno) and 10-6 (against Kanto Terrors).

Despite the losses and tall odds, all our opponents complimented us for being very spirited during the finals day and giving them really challenging games. Most of the points were hard-fought, a direct result of all the trainings and conditioning drills that our team has done in the previous weeks.

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By October, I will be playing ultimate frisbee for already a year. It’s an awesome sport-slash-workout, and I do recommend it to all my friends out there.

Playing ultimate frisbee has improved me in a lot of things: I’ve got a much better running endurance now (sprinting for an hour is now so easy that the norm is now I should be able to sprint for two hours before having cramps) and developed a good sense of eye-hand-body coordination (try catching a bullet pass one-handed while suddenly jumping in a direction that you were NOT running to). Although I’ve been eating voraciously crazy these past months, the calorie burn from playing this game is such that my current maintaining weight is at 129 lbs. Before, my maintaining weight was at 135 lbs. And yup, people have noticed that I’ve been becoming noticeably darker and slightly leaner. (I would like to be a little heavier though, but I’m having problems putting on weight… hypermetabolism probably).

And so far, I have the lowest body fat analysis in our workplace: 13.9%. Health and fitness magazines are quoting that a male’s body fat should be somewhere between 10-15% if he wants those ab muscles to show… hahaha.

One other thing: it’s a team sport, so you need to know what role you play for the team. For a change, I was more than glad to be the one receiving instructions/orders/strategies now. And I’ve been enjoying it.

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The finals games last weekend was a record-of-sorts for my stint so far in playing ultimate frisbee. I sustained a long shallow cut on my palm on one of my dives –- I was a bit surprised when I saw blood on the disc that I was handling at that point. I also got a cut inside my mouth when an opponent’s elbow unintentionally connected with my right cheek while going after a disc (thank goodness my tooth filling didn’t come off!!). I had two fantastic dives to save/regain possession of the disc, and one of them was a one-handed save. I suffered from leg cramps twice. Scored three goals, a couple of assists and finally executed a huck (a really long throw) confidently that eventually became a goal. These things are pretty easy to do for those veteran players. In my case however, incidents like these point out that my game has been steadily improving.

I also bruised my left foot --- when I jumped for possession of a disc, an opponent jumped alongside me. His cleats landed on my foot --- major ouch --- but the adrenaline kept me going.

But that’s nothing compared to Serge’s hipbone connecting to Jay’s ribs at a speed of around 40 kph in mid-air. I was probably 50 feet away from them when that happened, and I swear I heard a “crack” sound. Jay was breathless for about a couple of minutes, just lying on the grass and staring straight up. Ohboy… I was scared at that time; I thought that we would have to make a sudden trip to the nearest E.R. Fortunately, Jay’s made of tougher stuff than that so he just sat out the rest of the game.

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After an awesome championship party at Giligan’s Greenbelt (left by 3 am, with the party still in full swing), I woke up with my my kid brother and a doctor-friend staring at my face. I thought I was hallucinating or it was just a really terrible hangover…

Doc-friend: “Do you know that your face’s left side is all red and its upper area is covered with rashes?”

Me: “Huh?”

Doc-friend: “Take a look at the mirror. Looks like heat rashes.”

Yep, my face’s left side was slightly reddish. As for the rashes…

Me: “What rashes are you talking about?”

Doc-friend: “Ang dami kaya!“

Me: (staring hard at the mirror) “I don’t see it.”

Kid brother approaches me. Points at various spots on my face.

Me: “Ohhh… so that’s what it’s called. I thought those are just signs of ageing!”

And we burst out laughing and talked about it over breakfast.