Non-CAS: A Game of Ultimate Frisbee

Ultimately Ultimate Frisbee

Every Fridays, during the last two lessons of the day before we are dismissed from school, my senior class comes together to discuss our current CAS activities as well as plan our future Class CAS project(s). This Friday was no different - or so we thought!

Silhouettes of one's body movements as they play ultimate frisbee*

Our CAS co-ordinator, Mr Keane, spontaneously announced that we will playing ultimate frisbee in the sports hall today as a class. Our initial reaction was simply: WHAT? But after we digested the shock of not having our sports kit with us, we were excited for something different for a change.

As we split up into teams of five (mine included Mr Keane as we were short by one person) we discussed the rules of the game and began to play our first round. 

Twenty-five minutes, sweaty faces and several scores later - Mr Keane and a teammate of ours decided to take a break and sit out for the rest of the game. We were pleased with our score since we were leading by a few, however this meant that it was up to us three to handle the opposing team of five. Firstly, we attempted to persuade one of the other teammates to join us because we were winning, however their team bond was so strong that they decided they would rather lose together than to join the winning side. 

Enough said! The three of us were tired but we were now more motivated than ever to take on our stubborn opponents. As Mr Keane called for the second-half, we quickly came up with a strategy: one of us should be the decoy and run around distracting them as if calling for attention, whereas it would be the two players throwing the frisbee back and forth. As we tried it several times, it seemed that the plan only functioned for the first few seconds and then we would revert to playing our roles effectively as a team without any specific game plan. I think we worked better when we go with the flow of the game and play around the other players, instead of following a concrete arrangement.

Forty-five minutes, bruised knees and a small rip to my jeans later, we conquered with 11 to 8 - technically. In truth, our CAS coordinator called for a ‘sudden-death’ match point game and the opposing team, who then scored last, received the victory. It was an exhausting but very rewarding match.

This is exactly the reason why I love team in comparison to individual sports. Team sports does not simply depend on talent levels of players, but of the team coordination that is performed in order to reach a goal together. This requires good sportsmanship, strong support, excellent communication and understanding between players. Essentially, it did not matter who ultimately won. Instead, it was the fact that we played together during our CAS hour that brought us closer as a class. For this reason I believe we accomplished the following Learning Outcomes: ①, ②, ④, ⑤ and ⑧. We increased our areas of strength as we played Frisbee, undertook a spontaneous new challenge together as a team, worked collaboratively to score, showed perseverance throughout the activity as one team was behind by a few points and the other had two players less, increased our coordination skills and team effort!

Hopefully we will play more team sports such as this one in the near future to continue developing our teamwork and class harmony.

* Disclaimer: image is subject to copyright and belongs to ThinkStock by Getty Images.

Evita ☺