Vorsicht! Frisbee Review

Vorsicht is a really great German word, it means, Be Careful, or watch out! I just got back from playing yet another Mother Tongue tournament. That would put me at three for this year, making it six overall. I left my room on Friday at 11.30am on Friday, and got back at 10.30pm on Sunday (today), 11 of those hours were spent on a train. The first six were getting down there, and I almost went crazy, mainly because I was tired but also so excited to get to Dresden.

The first great thing to happen was running into my new friend from Greifswald on the train platform. Matthias was traveling to Berlin, so that was about the first three hours of the trip. It was nice to have someone to talk to for the first part, but then the second half of the trip was extremely boring and uncomfortable, but that is what happens when you decide to get the cheaper ticket. Oh well, Biscuit was there to meet me at the station! And then we met up with Ben and Meike. The four of us made our way to the gym, put our stuff down, and found a local pub for food and spirits. On the way there, we passed a super shady, dilapidated apartment building. Most of the windows were busted, and there was one room that had curtains with some kind of wind blowing them around, but there wasn't really wind. While there, we talked and laughed, mostly about nothing, but still great, then Lanna and Garrett arrived. It was nice to meet a new tongue (Garrett), and we all got to know each other with small introductions.

Meike, Lanna and I left the boys to meet up with Robin at the gym and to claim our space. The night progressed from there, Robin came, hooray! The boys came back and had found a box full of stuff outside of the haunted house (broken down apartment building). Russ took a game called Labyrinth which was a bit wet and moldy on the inside. Finally, the last part of team arrived, Wayne, April, and newcomer Matt. Matt played frisbee, but took a 12 year sabbatical, this tournament was the start of his comeback! We had the world's longest huddle, heard some exciting news, and then helped make a potato salad. I crawled into my sleeping bag at 3.30am, but a few of our players were up until 4.30 playing games with the polish players.

Luckily, we didn't have our first game until 12.30pm the next day, but it still wasn't that much sleep. Our first game was against one of the Dresden teams (they had two teams since they were the hosts, and they can do things like that). We started slow, didn't know how we play together, and left with a loss by one point.

Our next game was against P7, from Prague, a team we often meet, but don't often beat. But we came into the game wanting to take it, with our first game behind us, our defense became more solid and the offense was coming together. We scored the first few points, which in the end were extremely helpful, because they started to catch up, but we came away with the win!

The third game we had was against a beginner team full of native English speakers. That was an easy win, but we didn't really put too much of a fight in it, which is always frustrating watching us make stupid mistakes. But since we won two games, and the way our pool worked out, we ended up at the top of the pool! Which meant we were put into the upper half of the teams, so the worse we could do was 8th for the weekend, not too bad.

Generally after this at most tournaments, you will maybe one, at most, two more games, but we had three games and played until about midnight. We lost the fourth game we played, but again it was only by one point, and that is always really frustrating. It was against Saxy Divers, a team from Leipzig, and they have two other Tongues on the team, so we couldn't be too mad about it. Game five was against Yellow Fever from Prague. We went into the game thinking we were going to lose, and that is exactly what we did. Had we not already been mentally beaten, who knows, there could have been a different outcome.

And by now we are all pretty much exhausted, but only one more game, so let's go out and give it our all. After the loss, we all came out hard. We played against Magdeburg, and they also came out hard and ready to play. We were up, then they were up, and then we traded points. They got the last point of the game, which meant we ended up in a tie, and since we were still in pool play, that was allowed. Everyone else on the team was excited by how hard we played, but I was feeling down about the tie, but after the post game huddle, my spirits were lifted.

Right, so it is midnight, actually, 11.30pm by the time we are all showered, and are hungry. Apparently, the pizza places have all closed so we can't call in for delivery. What? It is a Saturday night, and we are in Dresden, at a university! Instead we venture out looking for some food. Four of us got in the car and started driving around. Quite quickly, we found a Döner/Pizza place that was still open. We quickly put in an order for 11 pizzas. It really only took about 20 minutes to get all the pizzas made, and April, Matt, Garrett and myself took this time to just sit, relax and chat with each other. Back at the gym, the beer race happened, which are always really funny to watch, we didn't win, we never win. As we walked in with our steamy, tasty pizzas, most other players in the gym looked at us with jealous eyes. More time for team bonding, eating pizza, and then trying to bounce a ping pong ball into cups, this entertained us for 30 minutes. Then Russ and Ben ran to the other gym, took a few birdies (shuttle cocks) and made another game, playing badminton with discs. At this point, it was just Russ and Ben hitting it to each other, but later turned into a doubles game with a human net.

The party was great and had different elements. Mother Tongue spent the first hour or two in the gym, playing games with each other, then we finally made our way to the dance floor. Many of the players did dance, which was great, but there were also side conversations and more chatting. I got tired and went back to the gym and spent probably another 45 minutes in there, we had four person spooning action going on, always a good time. Then I went back to the dance floor, talked with Ian, the Brit who was playing for Dresden (and played with us on Sunday), danced until I was too tired to move, and then spent the last part of the evening talking to players from Dresden. Didn't get much sleep that night, but that is what the week is for, right?

We didn't play on Sunday until 12.00pm again, love it! Our first game was against Halle, and we came out to play, and were ahead for most of the game, but there was a lot of point switching which is frustrating. They used a zone, and we were able to get through pretty easily, but would get too excited in the endzone, and throw away more than we should have. We lost the game on the last point, due to my stupidness. I still want to go for the glory, so I threw a long pass to Russ who wasn't really open instead of a short pass to Biscuit who was extremely open! Turnover, then the girl I was guarding scored the point, dang it! The worst part, is that there is a picture of me throwing the disc away and Biscuit is in the shot, clearly open.

But the weekend ended on an up note, because we played the other Dresden team and took a pretty easy win, well, we won by three points, but we did work for it. We ended taking 7th overall, not to bad considering at our last tournament we took last, and didn't win a single game. But I think about the teams we beat, how they must feel. They are teams that actually train together and then there is us, a team who just comes together for tournaments, and it is never the same team. But we generally have a good amount of experience with us.

So yes, great weekend! Thanks to Wayne for organizing it, of course (he says I don't mention him enough in the blog). But really, great, and the train ride back was nice and relaxing. Now I still have to prepare for tomorrow, then bed!