The Grapevine - 28/02

Couple weeks off for the Grapevine but back in for this almost leap day!

UKU/BUCS University Ultimate Regionals (we love acronyms) start this weekend, see our coverage here.

The UKU needs info for the upcoming tour season! New team? Get involved email Benji at benji.heywood@ukultimate.com. 

Benji also wrote a piece on his site Understanding Ultimate this week about possible Match Fixing in Ultimate.

Last night saw a big meeting of minds for Women's ultimate. Wasn't able to go? Contact us and we can link you up and help develop the Women's division in the UK!

Windmill Windup have made their decision on who will get to play there this year! Go see some big teams warming up for WUCC2014.

Check out this old school news piece from Ross-On-Wye explaining Ultimate in the UK, 25 years ago!

Make sure to tweet from your region this weekend, e.g. SEUOOR -> #seuoor. Good luck!

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 - 17/01

This week's Grapevine brings the best from ultimate news around the globe

Keep voting for the World Games Team of the Year ... 'Flying Disc' is winning. . . 

This week we launched Discussion, kicking off with a provocative piece by Sophie Edmondson...

Ultiworld Editor Charlie Eisenhood did a Reddit based 'AMA' ...

Understanding Ultimate bring us the conclusion in a 3 part series looking at IO turnovers... 

Ultimate Interviews get to know the European Ultimate Celebrity that is 'Oddi'...

EMO ultimate bring the banter in their individual preseason self-promotion #pickme videos. Check out their Facebook for the links, including our favourite...

We've got plenty in store at TheShowGame in terms of preseason content - as always if you're interested in helping out then get in touch! tSG

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

The Grapevine - 30/11

The Grapevine - this week in UK Ultimate!

UTalkRaw returns from with a great interview of Brady Meisenhelder (from pulleddisc.com) about better coaching.

Understanding Ultimate begins looking at I/O turnovers with Part One.

UK Ultimate have almost got Ultimatum ready so remember to update your membership and address, you definitely want to read this edition. Plus give the Ultimatum quiz a go on FB to get the UKU page up to 1750 likes

UOIN was won by Cambridge last weekend, make sure to follow the Women at #UWIN this weekend!

Beau Kittredge responds in hilarious fashion to an internet commentator.  

Post by Beau Kittredge.

Happy St. Andrews Day and tomorrow is the first LWL of the season! Wrap up warm!

DP @ tSG

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 - 15/11

Ultimate News from around the country and beyond...

WFDF have revealed which nations will be granted the additional bids for WUCC 2014...

Benji updates us with his throwing mechanics project...

Whilst Ultimate Rob posts on forehand mechanics from a different but still technical point of view...

Push Pass coverage of all 36 games from xEUCF is now online - check out a sly callahan by Kapow in this clip...

Tim Morrill has completed his tour of the UK and is soon to release the latest in his Ultimate Fitness Products - F.U.T.U.R.E 1.0...

Things have been a little quiet over the past few weeks at tSG but rest assured we are hard at work! Keep an eye out for new content in the coming weeks... - JCK@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 - 18/10

Here, there, everywhere; The Grapevine brings you bits of news from the week.


Over the first week of November KaPow and UK Ultimate are hosting Tim Morrill in London, Liverpool and Manchester. Tim will be leading sessions on fitness and strength work for Ultimate, sign up and get to it!

In this months UKU newsletter we got a reminder of all the indoor dates. If you haven't already update your calendar...

...making sure to add the UKU General Meeting on 9th November. We are the board of directors, get you vote in either in person or online for a new UKU resolution. 

Understanding Ultimate gives you some options for throwing if there are only two of you.

Our european partners Get Horizontal are very lucky to be at the USA Ultimate Nationals which started yesterday. Make sure to read up on their page as well as the Ultiworld live update page. A great watch is the following video recapping yesterdays play, can you spot our exported players?

Spot the Brits, twins?! Video Courtesy of USA Ultimate.

How's your off season shaping up? DP @ tSG

The Grapevine - 11/05

The Grapevine - all the links from around the Ultimate world.

Jen released their trial squad and the Secret Frizzer has discussed them too. 

Understanding Ultimate talk about Choking this week.

Jaff Martin from SOAR writes for Get Horizontal about developing UK Ultimate at all levels.

FFindr have an awesome visualisation of clubs around Europe, so see it!

Hope your enjoying the off season, and maybe playing a little indoors? DP @ tSG.

The Grapevine - 04/10

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

The UKU have released the known major outdoor dates ahead of next season  - fill your calendar's now!

In exciting news for Ultimate fitness freaks, Kapow Ultimate have released details of their one-off London based fitness sessions with Boston Brute Squad and Ironside trainer - Tim Morrill.

Understanding Ultimate takes a look at disc reading in the latest of many insightful posts.

Get Horizontal have released a recap of xEUCF, which amongst other things sends out a strong message regarding SOTG of this year's open division. 

Over the pond USA ultimate has been receiving recognition from mainstream media publications - check out these articles in TIME magazine and The Economist.

Well done to all British teams who entered xEUCF - keep an eye out for Bordeaux reviews and more on The ShowGame! - 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 - 30/08

The Grapevine this week looks back at Nationals and a little forwards to xEUCF 2013! Plus a huge THANK YOU!

Congratulations go to Clapham, Iceni, Bear Cavalry and Zimmer who took the titles in their divisions! All results can be found via our Ultiapps reporter and more stats on the UTC app. Our UK and Irish reviews will be going up soon enough!

Make sure to check out the PushPass clips from Nationals and why not buy all 17 games for £10.99, bargain! 

Congrats to one of our authors James Burbidge for topping the UKU Fantasy Ultimate! Check out your scores!

Understanding Ultimate discusses what calls you should make from the sideline for a force, left/right or inside/around?

Check the British Thumber Time Ramones-esqe disc, it's swag!

Fifteen UK club teams will be in Bordeaux representing us in 4 divisions, our partners Get Horizontal have got the details of all the clubs there. 

We have reached a milestone! As of this morning the ShowGame has had over 50,000 views. We would like to THANK every single one of our readers and hope you continue to come back for more. Kind of crazy! 

But we are not done there, got any ideas? Want to contribute? Easy, click the link on the right and make the ShowGame even better! DP @ tSG.

The Grapevine - 15/08

This week's Grapevine has an international flavour, looking at some US perspectives on Ultimate in the UK and the world...

Clapham take on some of the best club teams in the US this weekend at the Chesapeake Invite. They are also playing in a fund raiser show game against Truck Stop. See Charlie Eisenhood's preview of the Open division.

Iamultimate presents an interesting view from above the recent World Under 23 Championships in Toronto.

Lou Burruss gives his two cents on the various nations' styles post World Under 23 and World Games - an interesting (if brief!) counterpoint to Dave Pichler's recent piece discussing international competition.

Benji provides us with two pieces this week looking at the sport from a wider perspective. The first is a piece on the unique element that Spirit of the Game brings to Ultimate, and the second approaches the increasingly relevant question of the need for observers.

UKU Nationals is approaching - keep an eye out for previews from tSG in the coming week!

Do you read an Ultimate blog that you think should be on here? Let us know! JCK @ tSG

The Grapevine - 09/08

The Grapevine: where Marvin Gaye heard it and where you hear all about UK Ultimate!

Nationals is only a couple weeks away and there are currently 7 Women's teams competing if you are not playing Mixed and can get a few friends together to form a team, go! It's a great tournament and worth the experience! So enter a team now and make it a full on 8 (or more) team division, maybe even cause an upset! 

Regionals has happened, read our coverage and also read how the Open Nationals brackets had to be amended giving us the first round games ready to go!

Benji writes about personal bias on the field in Understanding Ultimate.

In the ever present debate of USAU (observers) vs WFDF (let the players decide), Ultiworld have published an open letter to WFDF calling for observers in making line calls and sorting disputes at major WFDF events from 2014 written by one of the USAU Junior Coaches . A great read, sparking many comments; what do you think about it?

The German made ultimate film "The Invisible String" is available from amazon.de, sounds like it is amazing so go grab one and also looking forward to the "Flatball" documentary in October!

Finally this week has been the European Youth Ultimate Championship in Cologne, Germany. Great Britain have been fairing well and the 4 squads today will start by playing:
Junior Open - QF vs Switzerland [Finished 4th]
Junior Women - 5-8 Semi vs Czech Republic [Finished 7th]
U17 Open - 6W's last pool game vs Sweden  [Finished 1st: GOLD]
U17 Women - SF vs Austria [Finished 3rd: BRONZE]
Full results can be found on the ultiorganizer. A special mention goes out to the U17 Open squad who went 9-1 down to Austria, then 14-7 down and game point to comeback and win in sudden death 15-14. Watch their triumphant final score and en masse celebration, keep it up GB! 

Keep reading and commenting away! 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. 

UKU Regionals Preview - Scotland

Ben Heywood of Understanding Ultimate fame and Glasgow Ultimate player tells us how he thinks Scottish regionals will go down. Scotland has 1 bid to Nationals and will be held this Sunday.

A real match?

For the first time ever, Scottish Regionals might just see a contest.

In the past, everyone has always known that Fusion would qualify, and the whole thing has just been a chance to get a few games of Ultimate. Fusion would enter two teams, split evenly so that they'd get at least one reasonable game when they played each other.

Last year, Abstract came very close to an upset against one of the Fusion teams, but no-one had any serious expectations of beating both of them and taking the Nationals spot. This year, it all looks very different.

Glasgow Ultimate have emerged as an A Tour squad, winning promotion from an incredibly competitive B Tour 1 and (just) holding on for the rest of the season despite never quite having the full squad out there. They even gave me my first taste of A tour in 9 years, which shows how short they must have been...

Glasgow at T2 in Nottingham. Photo courtesy of David Sparks.

And Fusion? Well, I don't think they can complain if I say they've had a 'mare. A little unlucky with the opponents they drew at Tour 1, they just barely avoided relegation to the C tour; and then, doubtless on the back of that result, failed to get a team together for the rest of the season. They've had a couple of guys away with U23s, and a lot of old hands have retired or focussed on Mixed with Black Eagles.

But Fusion are back... A team has emerged for regionals, and doubtless they want some revenge. It'll be a very interesting match up. Fusion has no obvious weaknesses - they're all young and quick, and they can all throw. But they perhaps lack the experienced general, the one truly top-class player that will bring them together. When they disagree, who has the authority to really take charge?

Whereas Glasgow probably have the top 3 or 4 players in the tournament, better than anything Fusion have on the preliminary roster I've seen, and a good crowd of skilled and drilled athletes to back them up - but also a few who wouldn't have matched Fusion on an athletic level until Phil Webb's weekly boot camp. It'll be fun finding out how much that fitness has paid off....

I suspect the game will be decided on the Glasgow leadership's superior tactical experience - they'll know how to use which players in which situations, whereas Fusion's even roster will mean everyone is trying to win the game themselves rather than sometimes defer to a stronger team-mate. I predict Glasgow by 4. But I suspect Fusion may have something to say about that...

Or maybe there'll be a shock? Sneeeky's have impressed me this season with some solid results and some very solid performances, though they'll probably lack firepower against the top 2 teams' strongest lines. And there's talk of Black Eagles entering - which frankly means anything at all could happen. Some of their guys are top class - the kind of players who used to see Fusion into the A Tour top 4 - and their best girls (if they bring some?) can compete against anybody. Who knows? Maybe even Abstract will get a team together for the first time this year.

But here's my prediction (even though I don't yet know which of these teams will turn up!):
1 Glasgow 1
2 Fusion
3 Black Eagles
4 Sneeeky's
5 Glasgow 2

Read more of Ben's work on Understanding Ultimate! DP @ tSG.

The Grapevine - 26/07

The Grapevine this week covers every age group Juniors, U23, World Games and Masters!

We have had ECBU and still have players out in Toronto and Cali for U23 and World Games (helpful page coming soon) the Juniors have the European Youth Ultimate Championships coming up, schedule and pools is out!

As mentioned U23's is ongoing and our page is being updated daily with scores and facts, Open are in the 1v8 quarter today so keep up the support as we enter the last few days of this tournament...

...and the first days of World Games in Cali. The Opening ceremony was last night and Ultimate games start on Sunday. The TD's have arranged this amazing score reporter called WING, which will show game time, time outs, goals, assists, Ds, drops, pulls and touches during the game or during the tournament; also a fresh new tool which draws the disc trajectory. For more details check out the Grapevine WG special tomorrow.

Our coverage of ECBU is now done and Chrissy Birtwistle from the Womens team has written another piece for Forbes on failure leading to success.

After a small hiatus Ultimate Interviews returns with a chat to the Ultimate field marker Martin Rasp.

UTalkRaw is on holiday for a bit so contact Barry if you have any ideas for new shows but Understanding Ultimate is not and discusses hard work, talent and Ben Wiggins. 

xEUCF is not that far away and all the regional allocations have been decided and two Masters teams have already been accepted! Who will go from Open, Women's and Mixed teams? Regionals next weekend then Nationals over Bank Holiday to decide!

Busy times! Keep supporting the U23's with #u23wfdf and following their twitter accounts.

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 - 12/07

This weeks super sized The Grapevine has everything from Juniors to U23 to xEUCF 2013.

Last weekend the UKU held the Junior Championships and an inaugural UKU Schools Championships in Birmingham. Airbadgers (Exeter) defended their junior title and Flux (Twycross House School, Leicester) took the schools number one spot, congratulations to them and keep up the great work! Full results here.

Benji gets a little riled (as do many others: see the comments section) discussing incidental contact on his blog Understanding Ultimate.

Tour 3 will be in Cardiff this weekend see how everyone fared in Nottingham with our coverage of Tour 2. All details for this final part of the regular season can be found here. Will anyone challenge Clapham or Iceni? Who will finish in that top 16 and in what order? Who is the fastest man in UK Ultimate? Keep your eyes on twitter with the hashtag #ukut3 for results and more!

Barry O'Kane talks to Tim Morrill on speed and agility training for ultimate, a must listen on UTalkRaw! 

The Australian Flying Disc Association have released the WFDF preliminary U23 World Championship seedings. A huge good luck to all our U23 athletes, let's go GB! 

The Secret Frizzer gives us more insight into the Tour 2 success of EMO through coach Joe Wynder and for Devon through their coach Sam Luxa. [UPDATED: interview with Alex Cragg by tSF here.]

The TD's of xEUCF need you! Volunteers make large tournaments run smoothly, think you got what it takes? Fancy visiting Bordeaux in September and getting the highest level ultimate in Europe too? Apply here.

Finally, the Australian U23 Mixed squad have some quirky little videos on their YouTube channel. Check them out, what do you think about them?

Logo courtesy of A.F.D.A.

Remember: like, share and contribute. JCK or I will tweet small tit bits from Cardiff with #ukut3. DP @ tSG.