Ultimate

This weekend, a friend organized an ultimate frisbee hat tournament in Mokpo.

Let me back up a second - in Ultimate Frisbee, there are all kinds of games, from pick-up (what we play - a group of folks gather, divide up into equally matched teams, and play for a few hours fairly casually) leagues (what it sounds like - set teams that play for a given length of time) tournaments (like the one I went to in Jeju a few weeks ago) and Hat tournaments, where people register, state their ability level, and then teams are drawn up that are hopefully pretty equally matched. Sort of like drawing names out of a hat (hence the name), but the goal is to make sure that there is a balanced number of experienced players, new-ish players, and beginners.

For this tournament, there were a bunch of us from Mokpo, a fairly big group of people from Seoul, some folks from Busan, and then a handful of others from all around. About 45-50 players made it out on Saturday (a handful less were able to make both days - a few people fell victim to the Saturday night party), and it was a great time, both in terms of learning a lot in a short amount of time, and in getting to hang out with some neat people.

I also feel lucky that there are so many really cool, mellow folks in Mokpo. This weekend introduced me to some folks who approach games a little more... intensely, for lack of a better word... than I'm comfortable with, and I appreciate the vibe of the people who play here have even more. One of the things I've learned from this new-found interest in athleticism is that it is great to be competitive, awesome to see improvement, and fun to win, but at the end of the day, you are really good at throwing a frisbee. Or climbing a rock. Or running for a long time. Or lifting heavy things and putting them back down again. All of these things are great, but in terms of degree of importance? Maybe notsomuch. If you aren't having a good time, aren't making friends, aren't having fun, what's the freaking point? Granted, I'm the girl who was picked last in gym class, so my humble opinion should probably be taken with a very large grain of salt.