Frisbee

I'm taking some kids and volunteers for a session of frisbee on Sunday.
There's no free lunch in this world, not even for kids. The game is meant to be a springboard to some sort of character education.

What is there to learn from frisbee? It doesn't seem immediately obvious, but I learnt some.

First, teamwork. Don't roll your eyes yet. We roll our eyes because not every sport actually teaches teamwork. It's possible to excel alone in some sports, yes, even team sports. Frisbee is quite different though, like every sport in which no dribbling is allowed (e.g. Captain's ball), teamwork is a lot more important since you will not be able to progress across the court without passing.

Frisbee is on another level. Not only do you rely heavily on the team to attack, you rely heavily on the team to defend. This is accentuated by the mix of long and short distance plays. Because you never know if the play is going to be one of tightly coordinated short passes or just one long brazen pass, you depend on your teammates to really man-mark the hell out of the person they're tagged to.

Summarize: you can be really good at throwing or catching, but you're not going to score anything on your own.
You may be really fast at running and good with predictions but there's no way you can defend the entire court.

And this is precisely my experience with frisbee and my frustration at tournaments. It doesn't matter how well you can fetch if no one in your team can make the throw. In these circumstances, you need to reassess the capabilities of the team and position yourself to take advantages of their strengths.
That's the teamwork in the game. You just can't win it by yourself, I've been there and seen it replay over and over. Sometimes the team just falls back too hard on the "pro" and then they get disappointed.
The fact is, you need at least 2 pros to make a difference.

That's the first lesson I learnt.

Tucked away in "Teamwork" is perhaps "cooperation". This is another big thing I learnt from frisbee. I've mentioned it briefly, it's about adjusting your expectations on the fly and learning how to live with your team. The "blame game" often slips into games because people have inaccurate expectations of one another. I can blame my team for dropping the discs or I can run a little harder and encourage them more often to go for the safe passes. That's one thing I learnt as team captain, transiting from the first Inter-neighbourhood-games to the second.

I remembered blaming and shouting at my team in the first year. It's just not worth it to strain relationships over a game and it also does little to improve the game.
I switched tactics in the second year. I'm not sure why, maybe it's because I was ashamed of the way I behaved in the first year or maybe it's because I've grown attached to these people and so I feel reluctant to scold them (or I don't even have the desire to). But it was so much better, as the game progressed I found myself thinking in the broader picture, of how I may fit into the team rather than how my team may fit me.
Afterall, being more experienced means that adapting to playstyles was a much easier task for me. I found myself giving in my best, I found that they were more receptive to any calls I made, I found us enjoying ourselves a lot more. The first year was like everyone just ran off when the game was over.
Which was sad.

Finally, frisbee is about discipline. While it may seem a breeze for a seasoned player to make a throw, the discipline behind every throw goes right down to the minute details of your arm speed, wrist flick and finger release. The longer the throw the more disciplined you'll have to be with every sub-step of the throw.
Then there's also discipline in remaining sober, conscious and present. You need to keep your eyes open to every one of your players, you need to watch from the corner of your eyes. You need to consider the opponents' reactions and consider how to manipulate them with fakes. You need to think about the tendencies of your teammates, their flaws, how their discs tend to curve etc.
As you tire, it really takes willpower to keep your brain switched on a working. As you tire it really takes the flexing of your neurons to be disciplined with the stroke of your arm as you make that long throw.
As you dive and the pain of the impact hits you, it really takes discipline to brave it and keep your eyes on the disc.
As you contest for a disc with a high jump and someone else knocks into you mid-jump, it really takes discipline to swallow your fear, grab that disc and worry about falling later.

Of course the kids won't understand any of this. But this is what the sport has taught me.