Youth Talk: Ultimate Frisbee

By Sophia Chen, Grade 12 Student, Concordia International School Shanghai

The Ultimate Frisbee Club was never meant to be a club. Really, we were just a couple of students who particularly liked the Ultimate Frisbee class that Concordia offered for J-term (underclassmen are given two weeks of “J-term,” a period where the day is split into regular classes and fun electives such as cooking or “weird science”). There were a handful of us who enjoyed the game and decided to get together at the weekend and throw a disc around. We sent out a school-wide email inviting others to join us and somehow it became a regular event that is now in its second year.

Ultimate Frisbee isn’t a hard game to play. All you need to play is a disc and a couple of friends. To score, you just catch the disc in one of the designated end zones at the ends of the field. It’s a no contact sport and the players themselves serve as the referees, making it a very sportsmanship-heavy game, I’ve been body-checked several times and ended up on the ground, laughing with the other person as they call a foul on themselves and apologise profusely.

The original group of students has doubled in size since the club started and we have around 10 or so regular students who come every week. On a sunny day we’ve had over 20 students show up, as well as a couple of teachers. In the wintry months it’s typically reduced to the die-hard regulars. We’ve played in the snow before, and rain hasn’t stopped us either. Once the sprinklers surprised us in the middle of a game and we just ran through them (though we wouldn’t have if someone had been kind enough to tell us it was recycled sewer water beforehand)! Ultimate Frisbee is, well, a little addictive.

This is one of the few clubs that was purely started by student interest and grew from there. It’s nice to be able to meet up with students once and week and know that everyone there feels exactly the same way about the game as you do. If you want to come and play Ultimate and get a good workout or maybe just meet some new people, come to the Concordia soccer field at 1.30pm to 3.30pm every Sunday!

Concordia International School Shanghai. 999 Mingyue Lu, near Yunshan Lu.
Tel: 5899 0380. Web: www.concordiashanghai.org