Struggle

This is what this word means to me, in relation to ultimate:

Irvine Ultimate, especially the women's team, is all too familiar with the concept of struggle. I have a lot of respect for the founders of Irvine Women, with whom I had the luck of playing with for a year and a half. I know in the beginning they had to practice with the men. They had their (un)fair share of savage tournaments. The year I joined we went to SoCal Warmup with 8 girls. We've had practices with less than that. That same year we didn't go to Regionals, largely because we would have had maybe 9 girls going. This past year was huge; we had a roster of about 12-14 committed (more or less) girls.

Props to my teammates who had to go through 3 to 4 years of flakey girls and playing savage. But I believe they are better players and better people because of it. When you're playing with barely two full lines, each individual really is important to the team as a whole.

Writing about struggle I also need to mention injuries. Particularly injuries - like torn ACLs, duh - that can put you out for the better part of a year. I was mockingly asked by someone if a "flimsy piece of plastic" defined who I was. And to be honest, it has (did) partly defined who I am. Well, maybe not only the sport itself, but rather everything else that came with it.

It was hard not playing at Regionals and SB Classic. It sucks not playing for the next 5 to 8 months. And to be perfectly honest I'm struggling with whether or not I'm going to go back to playing. There's the physical part of it: out of shape, losing skills such as reading the disc and cutting. But the mental part is also huge. It's going to be weird playing again. I already haven't played in 4 months. And I think I've developed a fear of UCI sports fields. We shouldn't be allowed to have tournaments on them, let alone practice on them.

In any case, respect to other players who have had to deal with a serious injury. And who've gone back to playing whatever sport they play.


And by the way, I'm in Singapore. Hell yeah.