casual ultimate » 2009 » April

Maybe my biggest gift as an Ultimate player is not what I do between the lines. Hector wrote a blog post called “Invisible Fence” a few weeks ago criticizing teammates that don’t move up and down the sideline to follow the team and help their teammates from the sideline during a point. I think that’s a fantastic point that is often overlooked. Last year on Revolver, that got emphasized plenty by Jit, the human megaphone, an awesome sideline voice and an enforcer for the rest of us to be sideline voices too. (Side Question: How loud is pillow talk with Jit? Any current or former girlfriends care to comment?)

I was thinking about what I do well in Ultimate this week and over the past many months really. I think I have some skill with the disc, good hands, good size, and some quickness downfield that makes me tough to handle. I think I also see offensive space in a unique way and know how to attack it in a non-traditional way at times. Anyway, I started to really get a handle on where I add the most value last year while playing with Revolver. I had arthroscopic surgery and never really hit my stride at any point of the season, so it was sort of natural to look closely at sideline presence, etc. I’m not particularly loud, but I can be very positive. I can celebrate with my team, bring a smile to a teammate’s face, and point out the value that is at stake in a given moment for our team and its players. For example, when things are going badly, I can remind a teammate that these are the most important times to practice “contrary action” by celebrating a good effort and consoling someone on a missed opportunity or blunder.

That’s all really interesting, and one thing I said at Nationals in a team meeting that I really believe is that on a team of 20+ players, the greatest chance that most of us have to impact the result of the game is by being a good teammate. It’s not usually by being a good player. When I’m a good player, I affect the game only when I’m on the field and maybe only during certain points that I’m on the field. When I am being a good teammate, I can literally bring up anywhere from 1 to all 25 other guys with me. I can make everyone else slightly better, and if the entire roster gets a little better by something I’m doing, then my impact could be 5-6 points through the course of a game, whereas realistically if I have the game of my life at Nationals, I can probably only change the score by 2-3 points when it’s all said and done (and that’s harder to measure anyway since guys like T Mac, Kobe, and A.I. can score 40 in a loss just about every night).

What else do I contribute to a team?

I’m just stepping into maybe my biggest and most important contribution to a team. It’s really not about the game. It’s really more spiritual and mental. I have some ability to reach my teammates on a deep and personal level, speak to the values that we all hold in common, and inspire them to live that value and do it for the whole team and not just themselves. I can contribute to the vision that makes a team like Revolver truly special and great. We literally don’t want individual accolades. We literally don’t care what people think of us. Robbie Cahill literally does have a square head. (Ok, sorry that just sort of slipped in there.)

I pulled my name off the roster for Revolver this week. It’s disappointing. It’s the right decision. I know this, but it’s disappointing. It’s exciting though in the sense that I get to define my contribution to Revolver this season (or another team), and it could be as much or as little as I want it to be. I can go coach a coed team, I can be a spiritual advisor to several teams, I can do workshops and visualization stuff for teams, I can continue on as “Social Chaplain” of Revolver ’09, or I can do nothing at all and just be a fan.

Whatever it is, I proved to myself last year that I can play Open, and that I can reach all kinds of people on a deep level, even if they went to Stanford. That’s what makes it really special….Stanford.

A few months ago, my mom and I talked about an issue that has been tough for me my whole life. Isn’t it arrogant to be a really out there, expressed, loud, flashy star with your talents? Do you need to be quiet to be humble? Is being quiet actually the opposite of what you’re supposed to do with your talents? Am I confusing being repressed with being humble?

When I was younger, and still today at times, I felt like being exceptional was arrogant (look at Jay-Z, using his God-given talent but also calling himself “hov” as in jehovah; what an idiot….and also I listen to everything he makes). I am learning, with my mom’s help, that being exceptional is not arrogant and that we all have talents that give us the potential to be exceptional. Here’s what my mom had to say on it, reproduced with her consent.

There are two different factors we face in relationship to others. One is humility and assuming we are all equal. That is a spiritual truth, and on that level we are all created equal. The second is being aware of the many different talents and gifts that we each bring to the game and there we are definitely NOT equal. These are the luck of the draw so to speak and we need not, or actually MUST not be ashamed or boastful about these things. We did nothing to “deserve” them. They are simply given to us by God. But it is our responsibility to use our gifts to the best of our ability and that is not a small thing. It takes awhile to realize all that we have to offer and who we really are. I think lots of people never look at that in depth and just struggle or stumble through life aimlessly and with little or no sense of what they’re all about. When we are especially blessed there is even more need for us to use what we’ve been given. You are a man with many gifts and the burden on you is great to do good things and you are well on your way as is obvious to many. You are much loved and admired and your mark on your world will only get greater, especially as you continue to realize who you are and what you have to give. This is not a negative thing at all because God wants us to be happy and gives us what we need to do His work. So long as you live with that as your goal, to do what you were intended to do, your life will be worthwhile. Your awareness of your Higher Power in your life says you are living that way already. Emmett Fox wrote: “I am part of the self-expression of God; I am the Presence of God at the point where I am”. [one of] my favorite affirmations. Enjoy being you: God is loving it!

Sorry, this didn’t get posted last week when I wrote it, so it’s a little out of order. Still worth a read. -Chuckles

I thought a post would be a good thing, so here goes. It’s a beautiful day in San Francisco. It’s been a little chilly and windy but sunny these past few days, and I just love it. Great weather to be out exercising. You barely sweat and the air feels great. There’s not too much to report.

This weekend is Fools Fest, and I’ll be playing with the Bruisers for our second campaign. Fools West seems to break along demographics for some reason. The teams that come to mind are Matza Balls (Jews), Downtown Brown (not white), and a couple of years ago it was Catholic School Girls and Public School Girls or something like that on the women’s side. In any event, McManus felt that our demographic (bruisers) was not being represented, and so the team was born last year. We talk a lot about our BMI’s (mine is around 28), never contest fouls, and never call fouls, and we wear black and blue. We do allow some purple and yellow as well, obviously. Oh, I left out another important demographic: Condors. While every other club team branches out and plays with new people and creates something interesting, the Condors simply show up and talk to just themselves. Nice job, guys.

What else is going on? Not a whole lot I guess. I am working 3 days a week, giving my time and energy to causes that seem worthwhile, and I’m really enjoying it. I haven’t been playing much music, but I do have a show this Friday with Erin Brazill who I played my sister’s wedding with. It should be good fun. She’s a fantastic performer and person. We’ll be at Dolores Park Cafe (18th St and Dolores) at 7:30 PM sharp if you’re in SF (nevermind, this already happened, and we’ll be back at DPC on June 5th).

In other news, Revolver is getting underway. We were supposed to have our first closed tryout/practice a couple of weekends ago, but it got rained out (thank you, rain). It looks to be a pretty exciting year for Revolver. Lots of good folks on board, great captains and debuting a coach. Our coach is actually just a cardboard cutout of Shooter McGavin saying “Choke on that one, baby!” Has it been too long to quote Happy Gilmore anymore?

I’ve been coming to grips with getting older lately, and it has not so much to do with the body slowing down as it has with the pop culture references sliding away. The kids today wonder why I talk about “laying by the bay and making things out of clay” and what a “32-belly option” is. Luckily there is an Arrested Development movie supposedly coming out which will put me back on top. Long live Arrested.

On a spiritual tip, I’m working towards acceptance of my defects of character. One of these defects is my propensity to numb out, not necessarily with the aid of any outside body (like drink or smoke or food or video game or music). It’s just a defense mechanism that kicks in sometimes without my choosing and occasionally one that I go to by choice. I can simply stop feeling anything. I can unplug and in doing so, I avoid being vulnerable. It looks like “I don’t care” about whatever is going on around me, but I do care. I just have chosen to bury it, and I feel dead inside as a result when I do that. In my experience, I can turn off one uncomfortable feeling, but in so doing, I turn off all the other feelings as well. In other words, if I ignore my sadness, I lose my happiness as well.

Why do I do it? You can’t lose what you don’t put in the middle of the table. That goes for pride and my heart as well as poker chips. So the task is then to decide whether I want to continue to protect myself from heartache, loss, and ego hits and keep my world small - or - be vulnerable, be huge, put my heart into the things that I am doing and the relationships that I am pursuing - into my work, my romantic interests, my music, my family - and risk massive emotional pain, hurt, and sadness in the name of becoming who I really am. Self-actualization Maslow calls it, I think. I get to become fully expressed. I get to go anywhere and do anything and be myself while I’m doing it. It sounds pretty good. The pros outweigh the cons. Green light.

I am at work at midnight. It’s awesome. I think a lot of my creativity gets stifled by the daytime and the expectations that I put on myself and that society seems to have for people between the hours of 9 and 5.

I played Fools West this past weekend, and I got the distinct pleasure of being beat by Hensley and Vijay. God, those guys can ball. I remember when Vijay was just sort of popping onto the scene in Chicago as Bill Finn’s right-hand man at CUSL. He was obnoxiously good and just had nonstop energy. For a guy like me who has an inertia that I like to exert on the entire field while I’m out there, it was very impressive to see a guy moving at a completely different speed, with a tireless spirit, and really sharp facial features. Does Vijay look like he was drawn by an artist or something? It doesn’t make sense that his face would belong to a real human.

Anyway.

Downtown Brown played so great in Semis and Finals. They made play after play and deserved to win and assuredly did. I played on the Bruisers which is a bunch of big guys who know how to use their size or just tackle people. The team is founded on a few principles: 1) no fouls called, 2) no fouls contested, 3) no strategy. Unfortunately Seth was on our team, so 1) suffered at times, but on the whole, the philosophy prevailed. It was a pretty great group of guys, and I looked off Beau while he in turn hucked a goal to me. In other words 3) was in full force.

The 2009 Season: Hmmmmmm. Revolver looks awesome this year. The table is set as far as I’m concerned; we’ve got everybody back except for handler (who was really dead weight), and we’ve got the perfect combo of captains and coach. I feel great. I feel so ready to have a great year. However, my knee keeps steadily reminding me that I’m playing on borrowed time. I saw my grandma at my sister’s wedding last fall, and unlike most everyone else, she is at an age where she doesn’t pull punches. She said, “You’re gonna stop playing.” She may well be right. I have cartilage damage in my right knee, and it doesn’t feel good on Monday and Tuesday after I play on it. I don’t want to bury my head and pretend it’s not happening. That’s not good enough anymore. I want to live in reality. Some reality is that I have played for 8 years now out of shape. I’m still a little out of shape. I’m getting closer to a good playing shape, but to be honest, I’m not there. I’ve been the heaviest guy on every single team I’ve been on, I think (except One Degrees of course). I’ve always been able to play well despite my size, but that’s not good enough anymore either.

You may well see me play the season this year and live in denial. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d done that. It wouldn’t be the first time an Ultimate player pretended that feeling like a late-career NFL quarterback on Monday morning is ok. Dudes icing their knees, taking ibuprofen like it’s a vitamin, drinking before/during/after, holding their bodies together with braces and tape so that they can chase the disc for another year, another day, another point.

I’ve got a buddy at work who teases me because I say I’m playing the best Ultimate of my life and that I’m in the prime of my career, and here I am icing my knee at work and taking Ibu. “I’m in my prime,” he says with a big shit-eating grin on his face, mimicking an old man who can barely get up to go to bed after he finishes his crossword puzzles. Foreshadowing?