Ultimate for Olympics! Please vote!

Some more media coverage on CH'09

http://nazaronline.net/sports/2009/10/ultimate-fun/

Chakraa - this year's National Beach Ultimate Champions

Finally, we played to our potential! Finally, we played like champions. Chakraa totally dominated the Chennai Heat 2009 tournament. Lots of people said that it was boring to watch a Chakraa game this tournament because we didn't make many mistakes, and hence there was little scope for close matches. The scores 9-5, 9-4, 9-4, 9-3, 9-2 and 9-0 say it all. I take that as a compliment as a player, and as a not-so-good comment as a tournament director who wants the audience to feel the thrill of good, well fought Ultimate games. I will write a following post about my learning on the "Spirit of the game" from this tournament. I feel proud to say that this tournament, I did not make any bad/dubious calls throughout. This makes my victory even more sweet on a personal front. There was one bad call made against me on one of my defensive blocks, which I let go with a minor contest. It wasn't much of a conflict since my team was up any way, and I was supremely confident of us winning even if the play was redone. But, maybe I should get the video and point out the bad call so that the same situation need not be dealt with again in the future. More on SOTG soon.

Chennai Heat 2009 Flyer

Designer: Shrayas Rajagopal

Being honest when no one's looking

I read this article written by a friend's dad.
Really liked it

Being honest when no one's looking

In times of conflict or dilemma, it is personal integrity that tells us what to do.

Ultimate featured on TOI

TOI - Chennai Edition, 19th Sept, 2009

Times of India carried this article on Ultimate going semi-professional on the last Saturday edition.

Chennai Heat 2009

Finally the website is up!

check out

http://www.chennaiheat.com

Yes.. it's a very simple website. Yes.. it could've been done better. Yes.. it could've used frames.
But, this was what was possible at this point of time from my limited knowledge of HTML. It's a modified version of a freely available template Call of Duty 2. We were looking for functional.. and not elaborate / designer. Maybe next year, it will look cooler!
Thanks to Abhi for helping me out with the content, Movin Stilz for helping me out with the top banner, Sandhya Rao from Sure Designs for the Logo.

It's already been talked about on the BULA blog. Check it out here.

The Mysore Tourney Aug 15th-16th, 2009

http://chennaiultimatefrisbee.com/?p=74

Kaushal who recently moved back to Chennai from Seattle talks about the two big differences he notices in Indian Ultimate in comparison to Ultimate in the US.

Mondams gives a good account of the tournament from the Chakraa teams perspective.

Storm 2 - Piezo touch screen

Combining mechanical feeling with the flexibility of touch screens. RIM is now the innovator with the new feel touch screen for the Storm 2. Ha! Take that Apple!

Say no to shackle-ware!

Value of money

Recently one of the Ultimate players posted the following video on FB.




Pretty interesting video. And, it brought back memories of an old post I'd read on an Alumni's blog. It took me a while to find the link again (I'd forgotten the Alumni's name and the blog name). I read it again. Same emotions as when I'd read it for the first time 3 years ago when I'd just moved back to India.

http://gyaan.blogspot.com/2004/11/150-rupees-year.html

Now, I don't know if the boy in the blog-post was faking or was really genuine. But, the reason I put it up here is to show that the you-tube video wasn't really just some Ad gimmick.

Once again, I'm reminded of my social responsibilities.

He-Man on YouTube!

One of my all-time-favourite cartoons is now on YouTube.

I love the way every episode finishes with a moral!

http://www.youtube.com/user/HeMan

Lavatory Love Story

One of my friends forwarded me this video. Her comments were.. "Since you write so much about Loos across the world, thought maybe you would appreciate it!". :-P

I think this is an Oscar nominated short movie..

2009 Himalayan Odyssey

One of my friends forwarded me the following videos of the 2009 Himalayan Odyssey! Looks interesting! Maybe I'll do it one day?

Pudiyador

One of our expat Ultimate Frisbee players, Manickam (mostly known as Manix), and his dad run an NGO in Chennai called Pudiyador.

This evening I had a chance to go and visit their Besant Nagar center to see what they do. The intent is amazing.

Pudiyador adopts a community at each of its 3 centers and works with kids and uninitiated adults to enhance learning for the kids. The slum around this Besant Nagar center has people who are primarily dhobis, construction workers, street hawkers, and similar low skilled workers. The low skill jobs necesitate that most folks (both parents) work for long hours. Hence, there isn't much time for their kids typically. The good thing about this slum is that most of the kids here go to school which is typically till about 4.00pm. But, between 4.00pm and 9.00pm till their parents come back, these kids basically just loiter around. They don't do homework, or work on improving skills. It's not a question of incapability, but more a question of motivation and exposure. The school system encourages mugging / rote learning, which isn't the most motivating factor to study. Besides, the quality of teaching is quite poor, and hence these kids don't understand even what they're taught. Their homes are typically a single room with a TV.. (thanks to our Tamil Nadu Government and the free colour TV scheme), and hence offers a lot of distraction.

These kids when passing out of school find it very hard to survive in the real world... where they have to compete against kids who have had exposure to a lot more things. Eg. Art, craft, sports, etc. Hence, they come out with an inferiority complex in some cases, or lack of confidence, or lack of leadership qualities, etc. This is where Pudiyador fits in.

Pudiyador steps in between 5.00 and 8.30 in the evening and facilitates enhanced learning opportunities to the kids of the slum.

You can read more about it in the link below

http://www.pudiyador.org/pudiyador/mission.shtml

If any of you want to volunteer to teach a bunch of underprivilidged kids once a week for an hour, please let me know. I can put you in touch with the right person. It can be anything from art to dance to theater to craft, etc. Deepam has already stepped in and is helping these kids learn and use computers. They could definitely use a lot more help. Just 1 hour of your time in a week?

Chennai Ultimate will be hoping to step in soon to teach the kids some Ultimate Frisbee. This will be a program that we will run just like we do at Olcott Memorial School. Teach the kids to play Ultimate and more importantly, the Spirit of The Game (SOTG). This helps in their hand eye coordination, as well as makes them better human beings. The background from which these kids come from.. they are used to breaking / bending rules to get ahead of the next guy. We will hope to teach them to respect fellow human beings, and respect the rules, and get rid of the "Win at all costs" attitude that pervades all around us.

Indian Ultimate League

Proudly like to say that the Indian Ultimate League was born (officially) last week. At this point, we have

1) Stray Dogs in Sweaters (Delhi)

2) Pune (yet to be named )

3) Storm Chasers (Mumbai)

4) Learning To Fly (Bangalore)

5) Disc-o-Deewane (Bangalore)

6) Chakraa (Chennai)

7) Stall 7 (Chennai)

8) Blitzkreig (Chennai)

9) Livewires (Chennai)

10) Mozarella (Kodai)

11) Indicorps (Ahmedabad)

12) Auroville Ultimate (Pondichery)

13) The Flying Dutchmen (IIM-Ahmedabad)

Last week, someone from Pune contacted our Ultimate playing friends in Bangalore. They had a group of 20-25 people who played Ultimate Frisbee. They were interested in joining the rest of the teams in tournaments if we were organizing any.

The Mysore tournament planning is also underway by the DoD and L2F teams in Bangalore. They've been sending out communications as well regarding this. Few captains / coordinators were missed out from the communications. Not on purpose, but because there were just too many people to be added to the To list.

It was at this time that I thought we needed an e-mail list for only the captains / coordinators of the various teams around India. Thus was born the Indian Ultimate League. Baby steps..