Ultimate Mom's Top Ten Reasons

Accessorize

Before I get into the reasons why, here's a little blurb about my latest line of promo items.

I recently designed a few icons for my store on zazzle.com. Some of them featured below. I just noticed how there are plenty of Soccer Mom accessories out there and if I did find Ultimate Mom promotional items...sorry to say I didn't like 'em. I went ahead and quickly put a few together.

No, I have not sold any yet. Zazzle gets a huge cut, so in order to gain a little profit I'd have to charge a reasonable percentage. It could be the price that's holding people back. Hope there are some out there who can support this cause.

I created this line to encourage moms out there to promote Ultimate, who either play or have a son and/or daughter who play this awesome sport. They can either stick a magnet on the fridge or a bumper sticker somewhere on their car. Have a conversation w/ other moms in your neighborhood about why it's a beneficial sport for children. My top ten reasons below:

Top Ten Reasons Ultimate is the best sport for kids

1. Involves the highest standard of sportsmanship (Spirit of the Game here)
2. Non-contact sport (minimal injuries)
3. Covers principles from several sport (football, soccer, basketball)
4. Speed & Agility (similar maneuvers around the field)
5. Builds endurance (a lot of running & cutting)
6. Technical skills with throwing the disc (deep throws, flicks, hammers, scoobers)
7. Everyone can learn and get better
8. Fastest growing modern-day sport in the world (there are talks about it becoming an official Olympic Sport in 2016)
9. The most affordable sport (only need a disc, a pair of cleats, and cones)
10. It's fun for all ages to play together

Ultimate Mom's Doodles

Well, as I endeavor to promote this sport locally I'll doodle a few strips. Currently, my daughter is in kindergarten and two boys are in daycare. While I have downtime, I do the house work, think of meals, go shopping, and yet still need to find time to look for a job, work out at the gym, practice throwing, and play a few games once or twice aside from league games. Not to mention the other social & spiritual gatherings we have.

Honestly, my job search has been inundated by my unending ideas to promote Ultimate. What to do? I guess that can be another comic strip to laugh about.

Poor hubs is not finding this passion fortunate, although it does keep me temporarily happy. I am doing my best to look for a decent job to take care of the family and catch up on some debt.

It's been a nice break having the kids in school, since I was practically either pregnant, packing up for a move, adjusting to motherhood on speed for 5 years.

I am wishful that something will work out, whether part-time or full-time. Lots of friends are praying for us. Hopefully, I don't lose too much time for the family and Ultimate of course. In the meantime, as I tell my hubs, I will combine my 2 passions, design & Ultimate, to add to my ongoing production of an ever-evolving portfolio.

Fall League

This season in my 2nd season of league, it has been an eye-opener for me. I know, I know, I'm quite behind on my posts. Ahhhh for several categories. Ugggh. Just a snippet, it's been 3 games and my team lost them all. There are several factors. For me, I'm required to do more than last season. If I make mistakes, which I have, then it majorly affects the game. Unfortunately, I'm not the only one making errors.

Last season, I barely did anything. Another comic strip. Granted I knew how to catch and run to open areas, but didn't know terms well and was confused half the time. "Huh? Cut where? Oh, it's my turn to cut?" and "What the heck does cut under mean?" By the end of that season, I think I started to pick up on everything. But, my star teammates did a lot of the work. So, I got away with not doing much, nor learning much.

This season, I'm trying to do more, cutting in the right spot and completing passes 98% of the time. However, I've been sheepish on my throws. If pick-up has taught me anything, it has trained my arm to throw deep. I guess it's not a common thing for a girl to do it?

When I hucked it deep during a club's open practice, they were surprised. I would throw hard enough for the receiver to catch in the red zone, a few yards shy of the end zone. Anyway, the downside is I lack control and technique. I try to throw a dump (back to the handler like a point guard) and then it floats pass the dude.

Or, I try to lightly pass it for fear of throwing it too hard and it goes AWOL. Then, my flicks/forehand throws. Oh no. I can easily throw solid ones during practice and then during the game I don't know what happens. Hopefully, our 4th game's a charm with Zone plays allowed. Wish us luck.

Not a Soccer Mom - I'm an Ultimate Mom

This Fall, my second season in league, will be quite interesting w/ the weather changes possibly interfering. Looking forward to it though. I have my new set of Ulti-cards to use and awesome teammates to learn from. I've been constantly thinking about how to promote this brilliant sport, I drew/traced this photo (from Everything Ultimate). Graphic below. Brodie, if you want one for yourself, send me an awesome pic via e-mail (julia.holly@gmail.com). For anyone else interested, I'm not doing it for free ;)

Photo taken by Unknown. Will someone tell me who this player is?

Yes, I'm an Ultimate fan. I recently started to play real Ultimate this year. I say real Ultimate because the rules (USAU standards) apply in Tallahassee Ultimate League. I frequently played pick-up during and post college years in Cali.

Eight years passed, one hubby and 3 kids later I'm thinking, why didn't I get into it more when I was younger? Why didn't I hear or learn anything about this sport during high school or junior high? My mother did what she knew to do, put me into softball little leagues...gymnastics. My father taught me golf. And P.E. had intramural basketball, volleyball, track & field, baseball. But my favorite sport? Ultimate.

This past summer, I joined league for the first time and I learned so much. There are great people in this community, willing to teach and practice with anyone remotely interested. Random pick-up games throughout the city practically every single night. You're going to need that base since there are so many confusing terminologies to process.

How is it that my hometown, S.F. Bay Area has some of the best club teams (Revolver & Fury)  in the nation and I didn't know this game existed until I moved to SoCal. What's up with that P.E. teachers? I guess the game has gained popularity in recent years, now that it has a professional league (AUDL).

However, to my surprise it is yet to be a household sport here in Tallahassee. My plan along w/ Tallahassee Ultimate League's board (TUL) is to promote this game until everyone knows what you're talking about when you say, "Ultimate." Okay, that's a little ambitious, maybe not everyone but at least in this Athletic community or sports enthusiasts alike, who are traditionally supportive of football, baseball, soccer, and some others like kickball(?), disc golf(?), and other things I wonder why.

Why, as an Athletic community, wouldn't you participate in the fastest growing modern-day sport in the world? The rest of the country, Northwest, Midwest, and Northeast, have a reputation of strong junior leagues. There are talks about making this sport, a real team sport, an official Olympic game in 2016.

I have high hopes that my children will grow up playing this. I am not going to be just a soccer mom. I'm going to be an Ultimate Mom. But, will there be a jr. league ready for my kids' generation? While I wait for my little ones to get old enough to start running around, I will promote the sport. My daughter, at 5, can already throw. Watch out folks.

If you'd like to help me and TUL develop a youth league or to support us, email me. As for the ultimate players checking this out, if you'd like, I can draw your photo similar to the image above and donate a percentage of the proceeds to TUL.

Ballaas Games 9 (Tues.), 10-11 (Sat.)

Hot. Hot. Hot. Tally weather.

Well, the good news is that we won on Tuesday to play in the semi-finals, which was yesterday (Sat. 8/4). The bad news is we played against no. 1 seed first at 5:00 p.m. The sun beating hard that day and 5 less players, including one of our best ladies missing. Just warm-up alone was enough to make us drench in sweat. We had an advantage because it was red's 2nd game to play. But their advantages were, besides experience and young lads, that we had less players and they were already in game mode. They pretty much killed us with zone defense, shutting down our handlers. We had a rough game ending at 15-6. I think. Everyone made mistakes and it got intense among the teammates. However, we had one more game to play to compete for third place.

Uggggh. We all didn't seem up to playing another game. But, we all decided to just play for fun. No pressure. Just have fun out there. When we all loosened up, everything clicked. More solid points, no turns, no drops. I even caught a few midfield and made complete continuations. Scored a couple points. Yay. It was a fun way to end the night. Maybe it was best for my sake, that we didn't have to play as No. 1 seed that day, which meant 3 games in a row, on one of the hottest days of Tally. Don't forget to factor in nasty humidity. My hips and joints were sore by the end of the first game. But it wasn't too bad playing a second one, especially when the clouds and a slight breeze started to "cool" the air. My fan club (sister-in-law, niece, nephew, and the hubby w/ the kiddos) cheering on the sidelines with their homemade signs was a kind reminder to have fun.

Thanks Esther & Lily for the signs!

One opponent talking some smack halfway through the game, revving our captain up to play for fun but to WIN. And we sure did. As old as I am, I often asked to cover the handler because they don't run hard cuts. I needed a break from cutting badly. There were a few times the handler could've called a foul on me for contact during throws, but she was gracious. I don't know why I have difficulty blocking lately. Maybe I'm not willing to risk as much as I used to.

Anyway, we won 15-9. We still made some mistakes, but we shook 'em off and laughed it off. We had fun. Captain Cheese even called the cup-o-saurus defense. Eh? We formed a 6 person cup around the handler and made dinosaur sounds. It didn't work, which I think he knew. They scored a point. Oh well it was fun. We ended on a positive note and no tension from the loss before. The team took a group pic for me and signed their autographs for my up-coming team frame.

I told them one of these guys/gals will be famous one day. I know it.

 Barksdales Ballaas 3rd Place Summer 2012. May I add that's out of 10 teams. ;)

 

 

 

 

Ballas' Game 8

Green on Defense. With my lady captain taking the lead.

Green vs. Blue: 8-9

This was a miserable game. For both teams actually. The blue team, ranked 9th, beat us by 1 point. What?! Our captain in the end attributed the last 3 losses to his poor handling decisions. He sent an email about it and apologized about hucking too many times, which led to several turnovers.

Captain Cheese Huck!

This game was not only miserable, we all tired out on the field turn after turn for up to 5-10 minutes per point. Both teams kept making terrible mistakes. Miscues. Hucks. Blue didn't handle and catch well. While we made poor decisions. And as usual, we didn't cut well. Our best players were tired from a weekend tournament prior, so it showed in the game that rest of the team just didn't do enough to win.

A Vertical Stack....Kind of.

There were a couple times I could've caught it to score, but the handler would throw it to someone closer. That someone wouldn't know it was for them because both of us booked to the end zone. I should always look back when "Up!" is yelled in case it was meant for me. I always assume that no one will throw to me midfield, because the times I did during the first half of the season I would throw at the wrong time. So, I'd safely expect that they won't trust to throw to me midfield and so I choose to run to the end zone to score. However, I learned in this game to also make sure that my teammate nearby knows to receive. If not, I have to catch the disc.

If there is no rain tonight, we play 5th ranked team, light blue. One game tonight to advance and compete Red or White Again on Saturday. We have to win 3 games in a row to win the tournament. Can we do it? We have the teammates to do it, but if we continue like we did last 3 games... hmmm. No me gusto. I'll have a fan club tonight, the kids, hubby, auntie, nephew, niece, and family friends. Hopefully, our team morale can stay intact.

Ballaas Lose 11-10 to Whites

I know. I know. I need to post pics and vids. Get too cheery in the sidelines.

On the cool evening, we started off really well. Despite the soaked, drenched field, both teams played pretty well. Not great on our end. We have probably one of the best rosters out there but we can't seem to click together as a team, which is hurting us. We scored the first point and then they scored. Then we kept scoring leading by 3 points in the first half, until they broke us even by the end of the first half. The white team was ranked #1 after our first loss last week. Somehow we dropped from #1 to #4?! http://www.tallahasseeultimate.com/summer12.html

We made a lot of mistakes the last couple of weeks, which cost us. Our captain admittedly said that our key players kept making turns and had a lot of miscues with the receivers. We didn't have as strong of a defense trying to learn Zone and kept pockets open for them to keep up with our offense. On a positive note, he said in the end that we need to make mistakes now so we can play better in the playoffs. I'm soooo looking forward to playing red and white again. We have yellow, maroon, and navy blue left to play. Not sure how playoffs are determined in the end. Hopefully, we'll keep our rank up there so we can play in the finals.

I had a lot of fun even though my stomache gave me issues. I definitely caught the stomache bug from the kids, but wasn't sure I did until the middle of the night. Boy, did that remind me why I don't want to be pregnant again for a long time. I just don't want to face the toilet for a while again. Poor kiddos were sick over the weekend, but all better now except for me. Hopefully, none of my teammates caught it from me. :/

the Aftermath

Back to the game, it was pretty even throughout. Both teams kept taking back the lead by 1 point. But, in the end the last two were critical. The horn blew, signaling 10 minutes left of the 90 minute game. We were in the lead 10-9. White was O (offense) and we all marked our opponents. I was put w/ this girl who came to the back of the vert stack. Of course, we should've known they were going to send it deep. So she cut deep and I kept up with her. My captain backed me up and he tapped it in the end zone. His tap wasn't enough, which I thought he was going to catch. The girl layed out to catch, and my teammate dove behind me to make an awesome layout d. Next time, I'm just going to run through and be there to catch or block a 2nd time. Now I know, and knowing is half the battle. ;)

Unfortunately, my captain didn't see it clearly so it looked like the guy stripped it from her. He and I contested our own captains call. Haha. But, out of good sportsmanship he gave them a point making it 10-10. Our captain called the best line to go out, and so they did. Not sure how we made a turn in the next point but white ended up scoring the last point to win the game.

If ya'll are wondering how I did. I scored 2 points and of course I didn't get any passes mid-field. They probably didn't want to risk turns. hehe. One terribly missed opp, the disc flew right by me when I could've clearly blocked it. I saw it a little late and jumped to barely tap it. I should've just caught it, but I hesitate catching on defense to avoid throwing errors. I throw confidently in practice but don't want to try in the game. Gotta get over that. Anyway, I felt pretty great despite the random knots in my stomache. It also felt great, to endure one round long enough when both teams made at least 4 turns until one scored, which means lots of running. The girl I was covering didn't want to run anymore either. Hmmm. Maybe I should bank on that next time.

My Vote for Layout Grab

I bumped into a post on Skyd Magazine, featuring "The Five Sickest Layout Grabs Caught on Video." They wanted to get votes on what was the best grab, so since I'm late in turning in my vote, I posted my vote above. A Junior girl flies into the end zone making an awesome grab. The rest were impressive but gotta hand it to the young ladies. SkyD's article here: http://skydmagazine.com/2011/04/sickest-layouts-time/#.

Ballaas Game 7: First Green Loss

Our first loss. Although it frustrates me, we know they didn't kill us. The reds won with 2 points ahead ending the game at 12-10. At first, we trailed on an off the first half by 3 to 4 points. Then 2nd half our game improved and we had better defensive moves. It took us a while to get in gear and get on the same page, which cost us 3 points in the beginning. The other thing is it seemed their roster was double to ours. We had less guys and missing a few key women players, which also played a factor. That means I got to play more and I did make some mistakes. I totally get confused w/ the transitions from vert stack to zone defense, or zone offense to zone defense. I prefer man defense (one-on-one) because it's simple and I can keep up with whomever I'm covering.

We rarely practice together as a team so we barely know how to work together. Except our strength is that we've got a lot of strong individual players. However, our game loss was due to a lot reasons. Too many turns, their strong defensive moves (their quick guys covering our girl receivers), and we were slower. At one point, I was confused about my position on the field so I stayed mid-field. A guy trusted me enough to pass to me, which I caught. However, their defense cracked down quickly and covered me with a tight cup and I couldn't even dump it back. So after 6 stall counts, I made a bet on my flick to shoot a little higher but of course it was blocked. Thankfully, one of our guys saved it but then he got stuck into a tight cup and then made a turn, which resulted into a score. They just knew how to do zone way better than us.  There were a lot of ifs, ands, buts, but it was a fun game for the most part.

Philip brought the kids to watch the game and the kids did well. Except, my sweet dear husband somehow missed the fact that one of our sons would go straight to an ant hill to get at least 10 bites on his bare feet. Poor thing.

Although we lost, we still played our best to the end and if we started off the same way we did in the 2nd half it wouldn't have ended the same way. I think I did the most yelling and screaming that game since the beginning of the season. For positive reasons of course. Screaming out of excitement that one of our girls made an awesome layout d (defense) to block a pass at the end zone, as well as another of our girls with layout d blocking a pass mid-field. One of our guys made a significant sky d at the end zone but it bounced up giving the offensive player a chance to catch again, but our guy blocked it a second time. Thrilling! Hopefully my yelling doesn't annoy my teammates, but I care about team morale. I think my main role on this team is to cheer. ;) And catch a few easy lobs when I cut deep or in this game I was poached right in front of the handler in the end zone and scored a point.

At the end, our captain gathered us and he told us now that we know how their team plays we still have the rest of the season to make adjustments. That's right, red! We'll be ready.

Barksdale's Ballaas: Game 6 Cancelled

July 3rd was Game Day, so similar forecast on 4th of July. Except weather turned out Ultimate friendly on Independence day.

Cancelled?! The night I was so ready and pumped to play. A huge thunderstorm comes to ruin the night. The game was scheduled at Tom Brown Park, which was right outside the cloud of hail and lightning. Of course, we had a few sparks of lightning around the field. Yes, I still went.

My husband wanted to check out the field anyway, so we loaded our van with the 3 kids hoping to toss for a little. Despite finding the "game cancelled" post on the facebook group page, we headed over with hopes that they'd revert to "Game on." haha. Instead, we find a few players walking back towards their cars. Man, I was so ready to get that game done with. We'll be more ready next week.

Barksdale's Games 4 & 5

Undefeated still. Both games were close. The fourth game ended 11-10. That was a competitive team. I managed to block a pass once and later in the game scored a point. However, after leading 3 points we let some points go, making us even 10-10 until the last couple of minutes. Our team had possession and scored one more point to finish the game. The fifth game resulted with another tight game (9-8). That week, we had less people playing and also implemented zone defense for the first time.

Zone is mainly covering an area of the field and which uses more than 1 person to mark/defend the handler (offensive thrower). I was put in the center of cup at one point. To me, that was the easiest because all you had to think about was following the disc. The only hard part was to be fast enough to keep up w/ the disc. If there's dead wind, it's really fast. Zone is typically used on a windy day. Anyway, next week we play 2nd ranking team, which will be interesting to see how that ends up.

I'm excited to play, but really hoping that everyone shows up, especially our key players. It made a difference that some didn't show last week.

Funny story, I joined a practice last night with a club team and man was I whooped. They did several drills for about an hour and then some scrimmages. By the second half, I ended up chillin' or resting to watch and learn because I couldn't shake the little pain from my bruised knee. I ran into a guys cleat while making a deep cut. And I ask myself, why do I do this to myself. You are a mom of 3 and torturing yourself to what? I'm a perfectionist, I want to do my best at whatever I do.

I admire those moms who can sew, garden, do crafts w/ their children, and post about it on their blog. I do not plan on running a marathon, nor compete in a triathlon. That's just not me. Well, I know what's involved and how much these things tend to cost. So, to save money I will occupy my time w/ affordable activities like resort to playing Ultimate. It's soooooo much fun and forces you to stay fit. It drives me to wake up at 6 a.m. if not 5:30 to go to the gym to get a few miles on the treadmill so I can keep up w/ these college girls. Thanks to my loving husband, who supports me in this crazy endeavor I can have those nights to practice and/or play.

Barksdale's Ballaas Weeks 1-2

Week 1: Game 1
Met my captain and teammates and had so much fun. It was my first day of league and I learned a lot. Still learning of course. My captain, "Cheese" and co-captain "Sarah" are chill and very good at Ultimate. The team is a good bunch from college aged to middle-aged. I believe I fall in the middle? Gratefully, I was placed w/ another mom on the team who's played for 10 years. Yeah, she's good. We've got plenty of runners, catchers, and our lethal weapon, strong women players. Did I fail to mention this was co-ed? Other than the fact I made a turn, it was still a fun and good first game. We won 15-6, I believe. Score board here: http://tallahasseeultimate.com/summer12.html.

Ultimate in a Tiny Nutshell
I'm working on staying fit and practicing throws, but I'm eager to learn the rules of play. That's the confusing part for new players. Defense with terms like Force away, Force flick, and poaching. "Away" is opposite side from "home," which usually is where your team's belongings are. So when you're marking the handler, you block them to force them to throw in direction your team calls. However, if you're defending middle players or non-handlers, then you face opposite the direction of your team marker. Uhhhhh yeah. Confusing throughout the games especially with several turns quickly happening. On the offense, you have to coordinate w/ your teammates so you don't block each other, esp. the handler and the receivers. There are 2 typical ways to do that. "Vertical Stack" or "Vert" in short, or "Horizontal Stack" a.k.a. "Ho" for these Tally players. Okay, I won't go into the details of that one. The point is, it controls the flow of traffic among your teammates, making it feasible for a smooth drive down the field. Here is a link to some basic info. about the game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_(sport)


Week 2: Game 2 & 3
This was a double header, 2 games back to back. We managed well. First game was a score of 12-5 (I might have to correct this later). Second game was close, yet we won 10-9. Had a few episodes of scary Yikes. At least 3 incidents where the other team clobbered our teammates unintentionally or maybe intentionally. These were girls mainly. One of our girls was in mid-catch and the defending player practically ran into her. I don't know how that counts as defense, esp. when Ultimate is a non-contact sport. Anyway, my teammate was on the floor crying and I freaked out thinking she was seriously injured. Everyone froze on the field watching to see if she'd get up. I was within a yard of her and talked to her to see where the pain was.

Thankfully, she was crying out of embarrassment and was simply shocked. She slowly got up and wiped her tears off. I was so pumped up that she was crying, then I said, "She totally had that." Because she had the  catch and someone crazy ran into her mid-air. She landed hard, flat on the ground. Then, she learned that only she could make the call "strip." No one on the team can call it for you. If you have the disc in your possession and if someone knocks it out of your hand that counts as a "strip." Anyway, after her confirmation she called it a "strip." That was a major foul and a strip, and we got the score! That was a good game but talk about some iffy moments.

It's the beginning of the league season, but we're all serious about this game. We've got a great team with positive energy and competitive attitude so I think we can win this. I'm looking forward to keeping track of the games, post some pics, and possibly some vids. Who knows, one of these guys/gals might be pros one day. Right? It's exciting, considering that Ultimate just became a professional sport April (2012).

Tally Ultimate League Summer 2012

So, I joined a league via tallahasseeultimate.com. I'm both nervous and excited to play. There's one huge BUT... In the first week, I checked out the crowd and I am definitely outnumbered by young folks. How young is young? Hmm, well if you subtract 10 years from my age I believe that counts.

Welp, I'll just chug along the field and hopefully learn the right plays and get more fit throughout the summer.  Goal for the first night is to learn all the rules. I'll be sure to let ya'll know what I got. Hold up, I'm learning for the first time. I know the terms, HUCK!...FORCE FLICK!...V-stack...etc. But it's another animal to play it right in the field, in the game. Wish me luck.