UPAI known as the Ultimate Players association of India organizing a series of Ultimate Frisbee competitions very year, this series is known as the championship series it consists of tournaments of different levels such as sectionals, regionals, and Nationals in different regions of India. Since I have been playing Ultimate frisbee since the past +5 years and have an interest in playing tournaments, After the lockdown, this year’s championship series was a chance to play tournaments after a long time, so I decided to play with my school team “Sacred Discs”. We played inter-cities, sectionals, and regionals in the Northwest region of India. Through which I had a lot of learning experiences.

Learning Outcome 1

While playing through the various tournaments I identified several areas where my strength lies and several areas where I need to improve on. For example, while playing one of the recent tournaments I realized that I my defense is one of my main strengths and that I fit well into a defensive lineup while I really need to work on my throws and handling of the disc in windy situations.

Learning Outcome 2

As my team progressed to higher and higher difficulties of tournament play, I realized, and my team and I require much more practice, and which happened to be a challenge with our busy academic schedules. However, we took on the challenge and started early morning practice on the weekends leading up to the regionals we played in January 2023.

Learning Outcome 3 & 4

As the team was students lead, Me and the captain of the team took initiative and managed the team. This included varies responsibilities such as collecting and paying tournament fees, registering the team for tournaments, coordinating with tournament hosts, and overlooking team jersey design and printing. These efforts had to be put in consistently at least a month before every tournament.

Learning Outcome 5

Since we were playing a team game, I quickly realized the utility of collaboration between players. In the first tournament which we played, our lack of teamwork was our Achillies heel, even though we had skills we are not able to convert that into results. After that tournament we started working on our coordination and teamwork and were slowly able to utilize all our teammates. However, we still have some work to do.

Learning Outcome 7

Ultimate frisbee is a game of spirit and sportsmanship. Since there is not referee, there is a mutual understanding between teams to play with spirit and not abuse the rules of the game. However, in the recent game, we came across an opponent who did not have any respect for the spirit of the game. And we happened to lose that game on golden point due to the abuse of rules committed by the opponent. However, we as a team did not let our ethics down and followed through with our committed towards the spirit of the game. That game taught me to stand my moral ground even though other might abuse it.

To conclude, I was able to learn any things from this UPAI championship series and look forward to playing again next year.

(I wear the number 24, as seen on my jersey.)

(I am the one in the dark jersey)

(Recent team photo, top row third left)