Frisbee, Incipiat Turba Style
Sticking with our theme of telling everyone else how to do things, here is our page about playing frisbee. Whenever I tell someone that I am a big frisbee fan, they almost always ask “So, do you play a lot of Ultimate Frisbee then?” I am then forced to yell at them and tell them that I most certainly do not participate in this “Ultimate Frisbee” bullshit. Due to the frequency of situations like that, I decided it was important that Incipiat Turba post our official policies on throwing plastic discs.
I’m gonna just throw down a list of thoughts here, so try to keep up, eh?
Ultimate Frisbee has many rules. It has teams. It has organization. It has competition. These things reek of “sport.” Incipiat Turba isn’t down with making frisbee all sport-like. Plus, if it were a sport, then we’d never get the Boobies and Blood kids to come play with us.
While we aren’t really into competition, we do support taunting, yelling, pushing, shoving, tripping, kicking in the shins and other sorts of emotional or violent outbursts that may get confused for competitive spirit. Since we are not actually competing, all of this enthusiasm and violence is completely gratuitous, which is what makes it fun.
Playing frisbee at night is a good idea. In the darkness, the chances for injuries increase greatly. Injuries are funny. We don’t really want anyone to get seriously hurt, but if the lack of light is responsible for a few trips and falls, or a few flying discs to the head because the person didn’t seem them coming, then the darkness has done its job. Also, in places like Tempe, AZ or Sacramento, CA, the temperatures during the day can make the evenings crucial for maintaining a long lasting frisbee outting.
As we play, there are usually two lines of people facing each other, throwing the discs back and forth. This isn’t a set rule by any means, but any other configurations end up deteriorating into this formation anyway as its just the most effective. It allows for fights over catches with the people on your side as well as team efforts to synch up throws to hit someone on the opposite side. Throw one high and one low at the same person and watch as they try not to get nailed with a frisbee.
As that last comment implied, multiple frisbees should be used whenever possible. This has many benefits. One being the way it keeps the action going a little better. If one frisbee is poorly thrown, the other can still be in play while someone retrieves the other. Most importantly however, having multiple discs in the air creates situations in which people are more likely to be struck with a disc that they did not see coming. This is what we call “funny.” As someone concentrates their focus on catching one frisbee, it’s fun to throw another at them as they reach out to catch the first. This effect is increased as mentioned above by playing at night.
Being loud and obnoxious (a big part of everything we do here at IT), is recommended as always. Sing Journey tracks at the top of your lungs as you run for a catch, make sound effects as you throw, randomly run up behind and scream at someone about to make a grab, or sit around and making puking noises and see if you can get someone to throw up.
If possible, bring a boombox with some upbeat tunes such as “St. Elmo’s Fire,” or some Atom and His Package.
Frisbee is an exhausting, but rewarding adventure if done properly. After you have successfully frisbee-ed it up, you will need to cool down with a 40 of Slurpee at your local 7-11, and for the love of all that is Mexican food, DON’T GET A BANANA SLURPEE.
Headbands, wristbands, shin guards, helmets, mouth pieces, and any other sporting equipment that is entirely unnecessary for the throwing of a plastic disc can be worn for great humorous effect as well as a confidence booster for the person wearing the gear. Knowing that you look so much cooler than everyone else will be good for your performance.
Sometimes sprinklers come on. These water spraying devices have a tendency to create mud. Mud is no reason to stop playing frisbee, so when you head out to the battlefield, just make sure you are wearing items that you won’t mind destroying.
Yell ridiculous suggestions of moves that people should attempt when they are trying to make a catch. “Gitis!”, “Dive!”, and “Do a backflip!” all seem to work pretty well.
Doing stunt catches as fun. The catch manual is a good place to start, but we like to invent our own. One warning however: THE “BAD ATTITUDE” IS DANGEROUS. To my knowledge, nobody I know has pulled that move off without injury. I have foolishly attempted it a couple times and it hurt. Be careful.
That’s about all for our idea of what frisbee is all about. Below I have scanned the instruction manual that came with my 175g WHAM-O frisbee. Click on the picture to view an enlarged, more readable version.
