Why Isn't There More Beach Ultimate?

This weekend was the 13th (roughly) annual Terrigal Towel.

I like beach ultimate. For me, the quasi-athletic (certainly youthful) player, it provides a great opportunity for everyone else to get tired quicker than I do. I don't know if it's the smaller field sizes, the reduced stall count forcing flow or the tendency for layouts, but I find beach ultimate to be easier (and more fun) to watch.

The great paradox of beach as I see it (once again please allow for limited experience on my part) is that its accessibility and fun factor stop it from ever being a serious parallel to field (perfect to play in Aussie ultimate's downtime of the general Christmas period aka our summer). I mean, Australia just won the beach world championships not two months ago. That's fairly impressive, but I was surprised on the weekend by the amount of people who didn't know that, or particularly care.

So, quasi-rant aside, here are some things I have taken from the weekend:

1. Beach ultimate is much more tiring than (and works different muscles to) field. Even at only the second day of a non-serious hat tourney, fatigue was a key factor in determining the victors of certain games.
2. Weather permitting, the long game is a much more efficient and effective way to score points than working the disc towards the endzone.
3. Smaller fields means everyone can throw long. Remember this if you are not respecting the deep cuts because the person with the disc is not a competent handler when it comes to field ultimate.
4. Break throws (high backhand, inside out flick) are some of your best friends. In field ultimate, a single broken mark will not necessarily mean the point is lost. On beach, I saw this being the case more and more often.
5. Cutting is much easier, because the sand and your foot cushion one another perfectly to create a sort of natural cleat which allows you to change direction with greater ease.
   

These five are by no means the 'key points', and there are plenty of other things I learned, but I wanted to blog about this while it was fresh in my mind.

Terrigal was a great experience and I'll recommend it to anyone who asks (and probably a fair few who don't).

T.