How many puns can you make with the word 'disc'?
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Things started pretty slow for the first youth fellowship meeting of the brand new year 2007. It had been scorching in the early afternoon, so by the time it ticked down to about 3-4pm, the atmosphere of Pasir Ris began to look a tad gloomy.
The 20-something YFers were introduced to Ultimate Frisbee as it is played, with very helpful diagrams courtesy Justin. Due to the drizzle, which weatherman Aaron predicted would stop, we had to practice (and be corrected on) forehand and backhand throwing skills as taught by Debbie. Warning: flying Frisbees can be dangerous. If you are thrown one without warning, duck! Unless you have quick reflexes like spiderman, shawn, Ben, or most of the Ultimate Frisbee-ers. Time passed really slow within those four till we finally (after a diplomatic vote) headed out to the highly-anticipated, muddy, big, wide... have I said muddy? playing field.
Kill me now! As the Ultimate Frisbee-ers announced gleefully, the end zones (or the scoring zones, where you have to leap into and catch the Frisbee in order to score a point) of the playing field were in-you guessed it-mud. I was starting to have second thoughts about learning Ultimate Frisbee under these sadistic people. Nevertheless, we were given more time to practice throwing (with added element: pussy-footing around mud) in the blissfully wide open area. Honestly, it wasn't too long before most of us got our foot mud masks-and some blessed ones practically had mud shin-guards.
When we were deemed good enough to get out there and play, we were split by light and dark colours into 'Brooke' and 'Burger Bob' (tip: need ideas for team names? just look at the t-shirts around you). Up till now, we had been on pretty safe land (literally!), being able to walk to pick up missed, fallen, and pitifully muddy discs. But again we faced the sadistic Ultimate Frisbee-ers as we were told: now you have to run in the mud! Have these guys no sense of cleanliness??
As you can tell, they had a pretty hard time getting most of us (girls) to really run, spread out, come forward, don't crowd, stop looking at where you're running and look at the person with the Frisbee, look at the Frisbee... plenty of squealing and expressions of disgustedness were heard on the playing field. And before you go 'qian jing xiao jie', you should have seen the CHUNKS of mud that FLEW to about a METRE high as the very enthusiastic (and therefore very muddy at the end) guys flew around grabbing discs.
The professionalism of our Ultimate Frisbee-ers combined with the lesser-experienced 'trainees' spirit of fun made the 3-turn game an extremely entertaining time of fellowship and good exercise. Despite the light, fine drizzles against heat of the late afternoon sun (we saw a very pretty rainbow!), everyone got more and more into the game as the turns progressed, with the help of patient coaching and encouragement from the Ultimate Frisbee-ers. Here I experienced first hand the benefits of running in mud: one, you experience less impact upon landing when you move. Two, you train your balance. The final score? I honestly cannot remember. But if you do, add it in here, yeah?
And the fun doesn't end on the playing field! If you weren't there, you missed the FABulous cheers that the teams came up with for their competitors. I can't put the words here, because that wouldn't do justice to the impressive and humorous cheers. You are highly encouraged to approach any of the YFers present today to experience the 5D magic!
But all good things had to come to an end, so after our post-game hydration (iced water!) Debbie closed us in prayer (we really had to thank God for the great weather and keeping everyone safe) and we trudged back to church to fellowship over washing up (disc-washing liquid!). In all, I really felt that God was binding us with bonds that cannot be broken through the tiring, rewarding YF today. Praise the Lord!
Also, much thanksgiving is needed for the provision of the very enthusiastic, sadistic, professional, patient, skillful... (It'll never end)…Ultimate Frisbee-ers. Thank you!
To the rest of you, thank you to those who came, and see all of you next week!
BLOGGED BY TRICIA
