Ultimate Frisbee Sunday Afternoon

This next activity is a sensitive issue for Flabby Gut, but only because it’s exercise, which reduces his standing in society and he really doesn’t like that.

Frisbee has been a regular Sunday afternoon activity of a steadily growing group of Frisbee lovers for the last two months now. You might either remember Frisbee, or have heard of it, as that pre-war time child’s game that evolved into a sport somewhere in the 70′s, involving grandma’s pie tin that gets thrown about, but what has hit Kota Kinabalu, Sabah ain’t your grandma’s sport.

Ultimate Frisbee landed on the jungle bed of Sabah, Borneo when one fine day not too many moons ago, Ken Kassim sent out an email to a friend saying he wanted to get some Ultimate Frisbee going in Kota Kinabalu and Sabah. The times that we live in being what it is, viral marketing took it from there and that very first Sunday about 15 eager potential Frisbee fans showed up for Ken’s first demo.

The water-soaked and muddy field at the rugby slash football field in Tanjung Aru near Terminal Two of the KK International Airport was, and has been ever since, the venue for the Kota Kinabalu chapter of Ultimate Frisbee. Since that very first day we were hooked and bar the odd totally rained-out Sunday, Ultimate Frisbee has been played pretty much every Sunday since.

Yesterday was no exception, in fact, a beautiful Sunday afternoon with an unexpectedly dry field, considering the rainy week we had, saw the biggest turnout of Kota Kinabalu’s Ultimate Frisbee fans yet – we had near on 40 people, including families with little kids who came out to enjoy the great weather and opportunity to run around.

The premise of Ultimate Frisbee is fairly straight forward. Two teams, 7 aside, a field of roughly 70m long and 35m wide with two end-zones either side 20 meter deep. The game starts off with both teams in their respective end-zones. Team 1 throws the Frisbee to team 2 who then has to run it into their opposing end-zone. If you have the Frisee, you can’t move. You are allowed to pivot on one foot and have to throw to your team member within a count to ten. If your team reaches the end-zone, you score a point. If you drop the Frisbee, or if the other team intercepts it, if it’s slapped to the ground or if you don’t pass the Frisbee within the 10-count, it’s turn-over and the other team takes possession of the Frisbee.

The number one rule of Ultimate Frisbee, as Ken keeps on reminding us, is the Spirit of the Game. The main objective is to have fun and Ultimate Frisbee is self regulated. Even in tournaments there are no referees and it is up to players to call a foul, often on themselves. The second most important thing about Ultimate Frisbee is beer – but I’m usually way too wiped out after the games to join in for beer.

On average we play for at least two solid hours – not because we have to, but because we can’t help ourselves – the first bit of the afternoon is a warm-up before we get down to the loosely structured Frisbee games. Ken runs quick clinics every now and again, spending 10 minutes to teach us something about the more technical aspects of the game, be it strategy or technique – both of which we, as Frisbee novices, still struggle with a bit. It’s all in good fun though. During the game, whenever you tire, you simply swap with somebody ready and willing, standing on the sidelines waiting for their turn – but it’s often with reluctance that people come off the field.

Kota Kinabalu’s Ultimate Frisbee welcomes anyone of any gender. In fact, in Ultimate Frisbee Tournaments teams are usually made of 4 men and 3 women as a guide, but should at least consist of both male and female members. In our Sunday games the girls rule and often equal or outnumber the guys.

So, if you’re keen on playing Ultimate Frisbee with the rest of the Kota Kinabalu Frisbee fans, then do join us on the rugby field in Tanjung Aru near KK International Airport’s Terminal Two. We play ever Sunday from 4pm onwards – and we’ll be there, rain or no rain.