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Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 13:41:15 +0100
To: britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk
From: Dave Neilson <D.P.Neilson@warwick.ac.uk>
Subject: "Overalls" are not only for DIY enthusiasts!
Sender: owner-britdisc@warwick.ac.uk
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... or are they? Read on and decide for yourself who the true tossers are!

There is usually a lot of Ultimate chat and debate on this forum and the
occasional Disc Golf announcement, but how many BritDisc readers realised
that there are more events in the "Frisbee Family" than just these two most
popular siblings?

You may have heard of the team sport of Guts, but as an event is not very
often contested either in Britain or internationally - at least NOT in its
'full-on' version. A familiar close cousin is 'Flutter' Guts (aka 'Nerd'
Guts', and by some older people referred to as 'Gollum'), which is often
played between games / rounds for a bit of fun ... but that's not the sport
I want to talk about here.

How many of you have heard of the following in the flying disc context:
Freestyle; Distance; Accuracy; Double Disc Court (DDC); Self Caught Flight
(SCF); Maximum Time Aloft (MTA); Throw, Run & Catch (TRC); Discathon? Well
now you have. Apart from some sideline tricks (ask Derek Robins to show you
his "toothbrush"!) and the occasional pick-up game of DDC at the British
Open in Eastbourne, these events have not been contested in any organised
way in Britain for almost a decade [at least, as far as I am aware - please
tell me if I am wrong].

However, the story is not quite the same in other parts of the world and
the (so called) individual events [NB DDC is played in pairs and Freestyle
is mostly contested in pairs or triples], are played widely in the USA,
Sweden and sporadically in other places in Europe and beyond. Perhaps it is
no surprise that there are regular World Championships for these events,
but did you know that over 125 of the top players from a dozen countries
around the world (plus a lone Brit) converged on Kalmar, Sweden to battle
it out in the WFDF World Overall Championships?!

"Overall? What's that?" I hear you say ... well I needed the pre-amble to
help define exactly what we spent a whole week doing! The World Overall
consists of seven events - a sort of "Frisbee Decathlon" (okay,
'Sept'athlon for you scholars) where, in addition to event champions, you
gain points from each event towards the 'overall' award. The seven events
are as follows:

1) Accuracy (total of 28 shots from 7 stations thrown through a fixed target)
2) Discathon (alternately throwing 2 discs around a 1km course against the
clock)
3) Disc Golf
4) Distance (best of 5 throws - *with* the prevailing wind)
5) DDC (2 players per team, 2 teams, 2 discs - like doubles tennis but no net!)
6) Freestyle (3 to 5 minutes of tricks choreographed to music)
7) SCF (combined total points = {MTA [seconds] * 5.5} + TRC [metres])

These 'individual' events used to be very popular in Britain during the
late '70s and early '80s attracting as many players as there are Ultimate
players today! But lack of British-based events does not mean that the
interest is dead. If you would like to find out more about playing these
sports for fun or - better still - arranging some friendly challenge events
between rival Ulty teams or Disc Golf clubs, then drop me a line and I'll
help you all I can.


Cheers,

Sam Neilson.

PS If you want to know how I got on at the World Overalls ... watch this space!