The Grapevine Returns

As the title suggests we will be bringing back The Grapevine but as a monthly collection of the best Ultimate links and news.

Just before WUCC we had our Club and Country series which you should definitely read, got an opinion to add then comment or even email us with a contribution! 

WUCC is over with some great results from the UK teams check out the final results here and here. Also DP went along with Skyd Magazine who did some great writing and footage which you can watch back now!

Moving forwards, next week sees the peak of the UK season: UKU Nationals. Schedules are up and check out some of last years footage from PushPass to get you pumped! 

Finally, whilst WUCC was going on we reached over the 200,000 views mark on this page! We are so thankful for you guys reading and spreading theShowGame love, keep coming back for more.

Photo courtesy of Tino Tran.

The Grapevine - 28/03

The Grapevine.

Brummie is really getting around now with another skills clinic, this time in Croatia also featuring some guest US coaches. Get Horizontal mentioned the tournament last year that will run alongside the clinic. Sign up for both now, looks immense!

Mixed Tour 1 has gone paperless and exclusively online so make sure to follow all the updates on the #ukumt1 tagboard!

SkyD have released their 2014 Mock Draft (US ultimate minds creating their fantasy draft from the best players in the open game) and two UK players, Justin Foord and Tom Abrams (Clapham), made one of the teams.

The Flatball Film has been in production for sometime now but this exciting movie chronicling the history of ultimate needs our help! Go and support the maker now! Watch the trailer below. 

The Grapevine 09/2

This week's Grapevine sees a preseason fitness focus...

Brummie writes a short piece for Ultiworld with a simple but strong message about Ultimate fitness...

Tim Morrill promotes the Skater Squat as a way to help the Ultimate player balance their body... 

Melissa Witmer approaches the question of training styles, putting forward an argument for strength training in Ultimate...

Benji focuses on Backhand hucking technique on the Backhand side...

Keep an eye out for our Tim Morrill interview and more on The ShowGame this week!

The Grapevine - 24/01

The Grapevine - a place where winos gossip? Or where we find this weeks links from the Ultimate world!?

Support the whole Ultimate community by voting for the USA World Games team for Team of the Year! Let's show the IOC we can mobilise our players once again!

One of our main contributors Brummie has cemented his place corresponding for us but also now with Ultiworld. Go read his piece on the Swedish national team.

Liam Grant of Ireland Mixed Beach fame has just started a trip around the US and SkyD allowed him to write a little piece. Fun read.

In some exciting news both Clapham and Iceni will be taking their squads to the US Open in July to prepare for WUCC!

Finally back in blighty the UKU are running a Level 1 Coaching course in Edinburgh, in the area? Go sign up and help the UKU get a coach in every club!

Watch this space for James Burbidge's look ahead in the Open division plus much more from the ShowGame!

The Grapevine - 06/12

The Grapevine - this week in ultimate news!

Benji brings us the second part of his detailed breakdown of the IO break throw

As well as featuring in a UTalkRaw podcast discussing his coaching methods

This week Nakul's piece on ultimate and Depression was joint published both here on The ShowGame and on Skyd Magazine - check out and share this great article!

The GB and World Games coach Sion 'Brummie' Scone has been making waves overseas with this article on how to improve your team's offense. The piece stirred up plenty of discussion, which can be found here...

Finally the yearly UK Ultimate magazine Ultimatum is soon heading to the printing press! Take this opportunity to ensure your membership (and address!) is up to date so you don't miss out on a copy...

As always like, comment and share! JCK @ tSG

How Ultimate Helped Me Beat Depression

At a time where sport and mental health is very much part of the cultural zeitgeist, Nakul Pande brings us a touching and intimate insight into how Ultimate has affected his own life.

Well, not ‘beat’ exactly. You don’t come back from depression in quite the same way as you do a torn hamstring or a busted knee. Even the best therapist in the world can’t take a broken mind and reconstruct it so it works as good as new. They certainly can’t just tell you to stay off your head for a few weeks or months and avoid any heavy thinking. But I am me again. Perhaps a different, more thoughtful, more emotionally attuned me, but me. And I don’t know if that would have happened without ultimate.

Here’s when I knew I wasn’t going to make it on my own. It was the last day of Burla 2012. We’d finished our last game a few hours before and were having a post-lunch snooze on the beach. I’d been with my best friends, playing my favourite sport, in one of the most beautiful parts of my favourite country on earth for five days. But there was a void where what I had always thought of as me used to be. I was so empty inside I couldn’t even cry.

The Grapevine - 22/11

The Grapevine the place to read about this week in Ultimate.

This weekend is University Open Indoor Nationals, schedule was out this week and the 16 teams will be converging on Coventry to crown the 2013/14 champion! Follow the action with the #UOIN13 hashtag. Also not forgetting Div 2 taking place in Dudley!! 

Tim Morrill has just passed through with his Performance workshops, Brummie and Colonel gave Ireland its first Elite Skills Clinic and now Brighton Ultimate are teaming up with a selection of current and ex-Mohawks to give a Skills Clinic aimed at University players! Join the event and get down there! 

SkyD have made the $12k target!! This means more great coverage from US and International Ultimate! Since they made it with time to spare there are even more perks, go see.

Understanding Ultimate discuss the Honesty Guy.

Ultimate Interviews have now official moved to Get Horizontal and this week interviews Kev Timoney from Ranelagh.

Finally Nice Bristols get interviewed on the Women's Sport in Bristol blog talking about their road to worlds next summer. 

Share, comment and follow! 

DP @ tSG.

The Grapevine - 08/11

The off season is in full swing, see what the Ultimate world here and afar is getting up to in this weeks The Grapevine. 

In breaking news, after an amazing season in the UK and Europe, Devon Ultimate have secured themselves an exclusive Ultimate marked field in Exeter (possibly the first in the UK?), amazing...See how it looks from one of the players' Twitter:

We now have our own pitch kindly supplied by Devon Council @devonultimate #swag pic.twitter.com/EIvRwXEWVF

— Piers (@pierslewis) November 7, 2013

Understanding Ultimate give us an update from the research being done in their throwing labratory.

Smatt tells us what he thought of the ongoing Tim Morrill Performance European tour as it passed through the UK this week. 

Happy 3rd Anniversary to SkyD and to celebrate SkyD are raising money to help develop Ultimate media further! We like this. Go give some cash (remember to add $15 for shipping of cool swag) to this great cause.

Our very lucky friend, Bommie from Get Horizontal interviews Ring of Fire player Roy Matthews at USAU Nationals last month with the help of Five Ultimate.

Want to contribute? Go visit our contributions page, email us, FB us, tweet us! DP @ tSG.

The Grapevine - 01/11

This week's Grapevine features pieces looking forward to next year, as well as the re-emergence of indoor ultimate...

From abroad - Skyd brings us an insight into the ever entertaining Seattle Sockeye's success this season...

An 'Ultimate Mom' gives a fresh perspective of our sport...

Ben Wiggins considers the importance of next year's WUCC...

From home soil - The University season is well under way, check out the indoor regional final footage from Scotland, South West, and North regions...

And finally - as if Ultimate players needed their egos inflated...

This week we reached 100 posts on the ShowGame! Thanks go out to all of our contributors!

Halcyon's Jake Aspin makes the grab. Thanks to LOVE ultimate for the action shot!

Keep tuned for more University coverage in the coming weeks on tSG... As always, if you've seen something interesting that we've missed, let us know! JCK @ tSG

The Grapevine - 20/09

The Grapevine - ultimate links and news from around the globe.

Understanding Ultimate gets literary in an interesting post that meditates on the relationship between artistic creativity and sport, and argues convincingly for the benefits of self imposed constraints in ultimate training.

The UKU have announced a new ultimate event at Fistral Beach in partnership with BUCS open to all...

Getting excited for xEUCF? The schedule for all divisions is now available...

Take a moment to fill in this feedback form for Nationals and xEUCF if you haven't already!

From across the pond...

Lou Burruss discusses the history of offensive tactics in a post that will be of interest to anyone concerned with 'the gap' between UK and US teams that has been discussed of late...

The commercialisation of US ultimate continues as Keith Raynor argues for an aggressive branding of College teams.

A storm is brewing in European ultimate and its set to break out at Bordeaux. Keep an eye out for our xEUCF previews early next week! - JCK @ tSG.

The Grapevine - 12/09

The Grapevine - all the info without the mess of picking it out yourself.

Jen Ultimate has got off the ground and we interviewed one of the founders, Sam Bowen, earlier this week.

With xEUCF just around the corner a lot has been happening, both planning for on the pitches and off. Also go make your predictions to win a cap! Cannot wait!

Understanding Ultimate seem to be enjoying this recent wet weather by getting into the ultimate mindset of "So it's raining..."

We have changed our front page look, what do you think?

Liam Grant writes for SkyD on the recent Ranelagh 2 win over All of Ireland!

Ultiworld look into how WFDF are pushing Ultimate slowly into the Olympics.

Those waiting for Nationals reviews, we are combining them into xEUCF previews so sit tight! Until then enjoy the view...

Post by Xeucf 2013.

The Grapevine - 06/09

The Grapevine - links and news from around the ultimate globe.

PushPass have done a great job filming and releasing some of the games, go watch the highlight video and read some of the interesting comments.

The German blog Ultiszene reviews UK Nationals, we have started our coverage keep an eye open for more soon.

Beau Kittredge is one of the few Ultimate celebrities and has written a fantastic piece on why he still plays and loves our sport.

The Irish Eye author Mark Earley talks about his new mixed international tournament 'The Golden Keg' with Get Horizontal. Put the date in your calendars! 

Finally, last weekend saw the last tournament in the USAU Triple Crown with GOAT, Polar Bears and Riot taking the titles in Open, Mixed and Women's divisions. Watch a great highlight video from Nemesis below; see if you can spot Iceni captain Bex Forth representing Texas Showdown.

With the off season looming we are looking for more contributors so please feel free to drop us a line via FB, Twitter, email or hit the contribute page up! DP @ tSG.

The Grapevine - 02/08

This weeks the Grapevine covers almost exclusively UK Ultimate news.

Coming back from summer holidays with a bang Ultimate Interviews and our friend Mark Earley talks to Elliot Trotter of SkyD magazine fame and co-founder of the new Huddle, High Release.

Understanding Ultimate discusses weights and the brain.

This weekend sees the 6 UK regions competing for those 16 spots at Nationals, go read our previews and make your mind up on who will make it!

World Games came and went in a flash, all results and stats can be found on the WFDF Ultiorganizer; a notable mention to Justin Foord with overall 5th spot (9 assists and 13 goals). Well played GB, we are all proud!

Finally another interesting read from Matthew "Smatt" Hodgson for Ultiworld on whether broadcasting ultimate requires a change in the sport or not.

Go grab those Nationals spots, tweets with #ukuregionals and #result will auto retweet to the @UKU_scores feed. DP @ tSG. 

The Grapevine - 19/07

This weeks the Grapevine covers World Games, U23 and Ultimate Frisbee wars!!

The power of the ultimate frisbee community was proven this week with the ulti.tv campaign to make sure the World Games will be broadcasted online, for FREE. We all succeeded and listen out to hear how we can watch those games soon.

With last weeks scorcher at T3 in Cardiff, the regular season is over and full rundown and results will be released soon enough. For now enjoy some footage of Fire 2 vs DED! 

Benji discusses the combination of Spirit and economics together in Understanding Ultimate.

This weekend sees the start of the WFDF World U23 Ultimate Championships in Toronto follow results here and on twitter you can also follow each squad: Open, Mixed and Women's. Open will be playing a warm up late tonight and the opening game on Sunday, get involved! Let's GO GB!!

UTalkRaw talk to Steve Gigure in episode 28 about Lookfly and BlockstackTV including an interesting discussion on the sustainability of ultimate media. Can we last? 

Finally two pieces from the US about the warring factions of pro leagues and the USAU, a great read and analysis from the recent WFDF census with fascinating results on SkyD magazine.

WFDF World u23 Ultimate Championships, Toronto 2013.

Got a cool idea? Want to tell your story? Contribute, email in, comment! DP @ tSG

The Grapevine - 28/06

Check out the latest Ultimate media from home and abroad on this week's The Grapevine...

A short, but thought-provoking post on Benji's excellent understanding ultimate talks about the importance of reacting after turnovers...


Whilst you're at it check out the full footage of Bad Skid (GER) vs. Chiniya Rada (USA) - a game that some people are calling the best open final ever seen at the Windmill Windup...


In this week's UtalkRaw Barry talks to Si Hill about the future directions of British ultimate...


Well loved ultimate writer Lou Burruss returns to contributing for SkyD to the joy of Frisbee nerds worldwide. Check his post out for various assessments of the US scene so far this year, as well as hints at future articles set to tackle the status of the various professional leagues, and the status of women's ultimate.


ECBU is well under way, with GB making a strong start in all divisions. Check out live.ecbu2013.com for streaming and results, as well as Skyd's Tournament Central for in-depth coverage.


Smatt's latest post shows the madness of Tour 2 from Kapow's perspective.

Got something we've missed? Let us know! Keep up the support for team GB in Spain, and look out for The ShowGame's write-ups of Tour 2 next week... JCK @tSG

The Grapevine - 14/06

The Grapevine this week covers ECBU, U23's and much more...

To start us off Benji asks Who Should You Listen To on Understanding Ultimate.

SkyD magazine announced their coverage of the upcoming European Championships for Beach Ultimate and the organisers have also created a live page ready for results, pics to follow from home.

Make sure to follow all the GB Beach squads going into ECBU on twitter, this helpful hashtag page will assist you. Also if you're going to Sunburn this weekend you get a chance of playing 4 of the squads (Mixed, Women's, Grand Masters and Mixed Masters) plus seeing a show game with the two mixed teams!

Now for some shameless plugging: we got a mention on SkyD magazine with the Irish piece from Mark and on ...

UTalkRaw who interviewed John Maddox and Hannah Brew from the GB U23 Mixed squad, keep updated on their FB page. Also listen to episode 23 here, particularly the last few seconds. 

Finally, with T2 coming up fast relive T1 through our Twitter and this week's review coverage.

GB Ultimate 2013.

Keep informed on fb, twitter and RSS feeds on the right! DP @ tSG. 

The Grapevine - 07/06

This weeks The Grapevine features a lot of home grown works along with some nice additions from the continent and further! 

Chrissy Birtwistle has written a piece for Forbes about "What defines you?", she talks about what normal people might perceive of Ultimate and it's players and how being different is a good thing. 

UTalkRaw talk to BULA president Patrick van der Valk in episode 22 

Matthew "Smatt" Hodgson, has written an opinion piece on Ultiworld giving us the key to Ultimate in the olympics.

Summer is here (finally) and what better place to go for you holidays than Croatia where an awesome looking tournament is being set up! See here for more details. 

ECBU has got it's spirit director in Belgian Fery Vluff.

Understanding Ultimate have had a busy week but Benji's last post was on how life just isn't fair? 

SkyD start their ECBU 2013 coverage with the hosts Spain. Read up here.

Ultimate Interview talk to Tim Morrill on his high performance workout for Ultimate for a second time.

Finally, you may have noticed we have not run T1 reviews yet. This is due to us wanting to do as much as possible. Hence next week we should be having a division per day! Exciting right? 

Ultiworld - the premier news media site dedicated to the sport of Ultimate

Share, like, tweet, <enter social media outlet>. DP @ tSG.