ultimate

a story in mint, a delhi/bangalore/mumbai offshoot of the wsj.

“development is typically viewed as a snapshot, but you have to understand it’s a process, it began at the beginning of time, and it’s going to go to the end of the future. your job is to go with the flow.”

-daniel taylor, future generations. quoted in bill mckibben’s deep economy

i’ve spent the past few weeks with indicorps, an ngo based in ahmedabad, india, working towards local development of ultimate frisbee. with the hope of initiating a conversation among people with similar interests, i’m going to discuss why i think this is important work, how we’ve addressed it locally, and how the work that we’ve done has given rise to a vision for how the international growth of ultimate could (and should!) be closely tied with international development.

let’s start off by clearly identifying what ultimate can’t do in india: on its own, it can’t save lives, address community sanitation, contribute to economic growth, or solve food scarcity issues; these are but a handful of major issues of concern for indian legislators and hundreds of locally-focused national and foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs). governments and aid organizations around the world are concerned with similar issues as their countries and citizens progress along the meandering path of development.

i believe that different communities and countries will necessarily come up with different paths to development as they confront their own, unique circumstances. without a deep understanding of social conditions drawn from a lifetime of cultural immersion, it’s impossible for an outsider to institute top-down, policy driven reform. the best use of our time is to inspire: to challenge those around us to push personal boundaries and to realize the full extent of their own, personally determined potential. this style of “micro-development” acts as a foundation for personal and community growth by redefining impossible. the effective empowerment of individuals and communities, then, is fundamental to holistic macrodevelopment.

this is where ultimate comes in. the reasons why someone would play ultimate are the same in the developing world as they are in the West: it’s fun, it engenders a great social network, it’s a good way to stay in shape, and it’s a way of creating a personal challenge in a nontraditional way. it’s true that some of these lessons can be emphasized through any sport. but ultimate is most appropriate to a develop development context because it’s team-oriented, active, cheap, and fosters spirit of inclusiveness. moreover, because it’s played without a referee, ultimate encourages in its players a spirit of mutual respect and mature conflict resolution. these “features” make ultimate a subversive tool for inspiration. it’s far easier to get youth to come out and play a fun game than it is to overwhelm them with dorky leadership training.

india is one of the most heterogeneous countries in the world, a sub-continental mishmash of thousands of languages, cultures, customs, and beliefs. while there is an ideal of a universal ‘india‘, in practice rampant cultural, socioeconomic, caste, and gender divisions impede progress towards mutual self-respect. countries in the west like the u.s. or canada are also overwhelmingly diverse, but differences in the way that those societies are designed have affected far more harmonious results. community integration begins with primary education in those countries and extends into public and civic life: as an example, on a typical summer weekend in toronto, hundreds of recreational sports and similar activities are organized and open to any member of the community; in ahmedabad, there are almost none. it’s easy to understand why amdavadis, without an opportunity to voluntarily interact with people outside of their social sphere, become more aware of cultural differences than similarities. the ‘glue’ of a healthy and tolerant society turns out to be activities like ultimate.

these are the characteristics of the environment we’re working in. when we ask kids to form two queues for a drill, they’ll instinctively arrange themselves with boys on one side and girls on the other. integrating the groups - sexes, classes - can provide grand revelation for kids: the other day, we invited one of our rookie female players to come to practice with the more experienced male team. when we asked her what she had learned at practice, she replied that she realized that she could “play with the boys”. those kinds of message truly reinforce the work we’re doing. while initial interest in the game is mostly because it’s a novelty, ultimate is applicable precisely because it doesn’t retain any of the social stigma that are present for already popular games like cricket and soccer.

there have been some challenges, in particular around finding discs and field space and getting players to commit to the game. but despite these challenges, the program has achieved some real successes over its history. since it began four years ago, ahmedabad ultimate has worked with 8-10 groups of school and college-aged children, usually in 4-6 week minicamps. an exception has been a group of players found through the local development organization manav sadhna, who have been improving their own skills and pushing out to coach in the community for the past few years. it’s been inspiring to work closely with these guys and understand how some have developed an identity as both ultimate players and team leaders. (when i first got here, i wrote about how these players struggled with anger and self-doubt after watching one of their teammates unjustly suffer a serious injury before ultimately resolving that the best way of demonstrating their team camaraderie was through fair play, love, and spirit.) we’ve seen similar effects to our work over the past few weeks. getting boys and girls to play together, teaching children new skills, using play to cross socioeconomic boundaries - these are some really consequential changes that ultimate has engendered. all of us here believe deeply in the capability of this particular game to inspire these kids into believing they can go further.

perhaps the biggest obstacle to our efforts to try to take players from recreational participants in mini-camps to full-blown players is that no infrastructure (leagues, tournaments, etc.) exists to which we can integrate new players into the game quickly. that’s problematic, because we’ve discovered that ultimate is easily lost in translation: reading the rules of the game creates a much different image than its true manifestation at a spirited tournament, where ideas like spirit games, Spirit of the Game, exposure to a broader community of likeminded players become tangible.

we’ve tried to address that locally by infusing a spirit aspect into everything we do; basically, by trying to coach differently. the traditional indian learning style is memorization and repetition, and coaches here are addressed as ’sir’ and ‘ma’am’. it’s phenomenally different for these kids to be taught by people who refuse the title, who joke and laugh, who spread personal attention, and who are genuinely concerned with each player’s personal development. our focus is on creating good people, not good players, which is remarkable in itself. for ultimate to grow significantly over here, there needs to be corresponding growth in spirited players and spirited play. fortunately, ultimate is growing in india, and we’re trying to integrate our youth with teams that play in delhi, bangalore, kodaikanal and chennai as quickly as possible. this is the start of something.

there is virtually no other sport for which players would be here doing what we are, donating their time and energy simply to spread their love for the game. in a weird way, we’re like non-religious missionaries, spreading a message of personal empowerment and fun. similar ultimate ‘missionaries’ are doing great work in south africa, turkey, thailand, colombia, and other countries throughout the developing world. i believe that there is extraordinary untapped potential for ultimate growth in the developing world. and i believe that those people in the West who are increasingly searching for meaning could find both purpose and profitability by focusing on spreading the game. that point is important, too: while this is good work, it doesn’t have to be charity. disc and apparel manufacturers, coordinating bodies, listen up! there is a substantial opportunity over here that is currently untapped.

there is lots of work to be done; our goal is to inspire you to do something. we need coaches, coaching resources, league coordinators, volunteers, manpower, and sponsors: basically anything you can think of. we want your ideas and your help. we’re starting a community over at www.ultimatefrisbee.org.in. drop by, share some ideas, and get in touch.

my organization has a close connection with a local restaurant called the seva cafe. it’s an experiment in a different way of thinking about business. it’s reality that a business needs to co-exist with certain economic conditions; it’s not reality that a business needs to be bound by them.

seva cafe gives rise to an inspiring challenge: what other business models can be redesigned to encourage love for all over profit for few?

this short video explains more about the seva cafe concept. several of the seva cafe employees - servers, chefs, kitchen staff - are star teammates on our local ultimate team.

a great weekend in toronto:

saturday and sunday was the playoff tournament for the toronto ultimate club’s summer season. i was playing with the huckstables, my tuesday night team. we were seeded 12th of 17 teams, but we won all three games we played on saturday and played better than we’d played all season. today, we won handily against one of our (many) arch-rivals, a team that we had lost to by just one point earlier this week. we lost our last two, finishing the tournament with an impressive 4-2 record and tied for 7th. we had a great season, one filled with lots of personal and collective improvement, and i can’t wait until next season - or until fall league starts on wednesday.

right after the last game yesterday, i rushed home to change into a shirt and tie, grabbed my longboard, and took off to yonge and st clair to meet 250 other skateboarders for the toronto board meeting. the board meeting is an annual meetup of toronto/southern ontario’s longboarding community and a massive act of civil disobedience: the skateboarders started at yonge and st clair and bombed down yonge street, heading towards downtown. the trail of riders - at least five minutes long in some of the faster sections - was almost entirely decked out in white button downs and ties. the group stopped traffic (and wide-mouthed passerby) down yonge and through the gaybourhood before a brief pause at the man-on-a-horse statue in queen’s park. we continued on to nathan phillips square, lay on the ground to stop traffic in front of the citytv building at john and queen, and passed through chinatown before ending the ride in kensington market. i learned that i am exceptionally outside the demographic of the average longboard enthusiast, but somehow that didn’t stop me from “shredding the gnar”, which may be the only time in my life i ever write that; please allow me to relish this moment and file this away under the very short list of ‘times i wore a tie during the daytime in 2007′.

after a quick pitstop at home, i met up with two friends to visit the vegetarian food fair, at the harbourfront center by the lake. i am a recent convert to the vegetarian lifestyle - i was forced into it by india and found that i liked it, or rather that i liked that i wasn’t defaulting to street meat after the bar, although i crave street meat more than i miss steak, which says some really odd things about me and my food choices, but i digress - and it was great to get some good recipe ideas and enjoy delicious indian food. if you have any good veggie recipes that are available online, leave me some links in the comments!