New rules!!

New 2013 rules are out: http://rules.wfdf.org/. These will be the rules used for all leagues in Brisbane henceforth. BUDA has decided to take this opportunity to improve rules knowledge and education within our community.

The new year and looking forward will see some rules action from BUDA. There's nothing more frustrating than an on field argument generated because not everyone is up-to-date with the latest version of rule 18.2.3.1 (that's the travel rule for those who aren't as myself - and Timocles). 

This will primarily take the  form providing extra resources to players and rules accreditation for some players, which will be phased in for all leagues in brisbane. WFDF rules accreditation (and all kinds of fun rules stuff) here if you want to get a head start: http://rules.wfdf.org/. 

Details will come soon, but before that there are some decisions to be made about how we do this (how many people? when? how often? just captains? etc...). To help us make these decisions, BUDA would like your help! To that end we invite  feedback and participation from the ultimate community.   

If you're interested in being a part of a "rules sub-committee" that helps to determine how we apply this in Brisbane, please email me at: meganbarnes84@gmail.com, or post on the facebook page. I would very much like reps from a broad cross-section of players. Exceptional rules knowledge (or willingness to acquire it!) required. I have already had some interest, but we wanted to make sure that everyone that has the opportunity to participate.  

Intelligent feedback and suggestions are very welcome, but please note that any commentary you provide should be written in such a way that it can be shared with the ultimate community, and that this is not a forum for whinging about past incidents. 

Rules is Rules

The old saying goes "rules is rules" but this doesn't mean that we can't question and test the rules from time to time. Besides, nothing spells drama like a good stirring of the old rules pot!

These discussions are usually raised when something unusual happens. Rain, bad spirit, and unusual outcomes are usually the culprit. Perhaps all 3 apply here, we're not sure.

Last Thursday, we witnessed some Cobras and Dojo players doing something unusual with a goal on the field. Cobras had apparently forfeited, albeit LD Graham being unawares. The rule states that it is extremely bad spirit not to inform the LD and the other team captain before 12 noon on game day in cases of a known forfeit. We here at the BUB aren't pointing the finger - we are more upset at having to add an extra column to our ladder!

What is more perplexing, is that in accordance with the rules, Dojo are awarded 15 points. This is a difficult one to work out, but Spesh has seemingly stated that in this case, the 15 points were awarded due to the average Dojo "for" this season. It would then go to reason, that they should also receive and average for "against" this season (in this case, 9). That would give them an increased differential of +6, which would also be the average for this season (or would it?).

There are obvious holes here - what if it were the other way around, and Dojo had forfeited. Cobras average would work out to 9 for and 11 against - hardly advantageous!

I'm for punishing the team who didn't turn up, but I think that 15 points is an unfair advantage, as they "got lucky" and didn't earn their points.

More rule probes to come regarding MVP's!

---------End Post.

WFDF Bi-Annual Rules Review

WFDF has begun it's biannual review the rules of Ultimate, and invite anyone to contribute.

There's a place to make suggestions and discuss the suggestions of others, over here:http://ultimaterules.co.cc/?page_id=1277&vasthtmlaction=viewforum&f=2.0

Personally, while I like having a regular process to review the rules (rather than something 'crisis' driven. And goo don WFDF and those involved for committing and delivering on making it happen), I'm not so keen on every two years.

Every two years is driven by the international playing schedule, and this is probably right for people playing Ultimate at that level.

But for the vast majority of players and organisers, changes every two years is probably too often.

Don't have a solution though, except possibly that while its worth having a discussion every two years, the bias should be towards not changing anything if at all possible, or possibly deferring the introduction of minor changes until the next review (ie to have major updates every four years).

BUML "Controversy" Coverage - Ending Games with Last Possession, Points Caps and Time Caps

Following on from yesterday's BPL "Controversy" Coverage post here on the Brisbane Ultimate Blog, and in the same spirit of 'controversy for the fun of it' not to genuinely bother anyone, let's consider the discomfort around BUML's use of a 'last possession rule' to complete its games.

At present, BUML games finish with 'last possession', which involves a League Director type blowing a whistle at time cap, and play continuing until the next change of possession (either from a score or a turnover).

The rule is arguably an effort at a half-way house between the ways games end under the formal rules of Ultimate (and the traditional variations), and the need of the League to finish its games pretty much on time to either allow for games following or to get the lights turned off. Let's go through these, as often people aren't clear on these issues anyways.

The WFDF rules of Ultimate, state: "4.2 A game is finished and won by the first team to score seventeen (17) goals." For practicality though, the following is also in there: "4.6 A variation of the basic strcture may be used to accommodate special competitons, number of players, age of players or available space."

A common variation under 4.6 applied by League and Tournament Directors is setting the Points Cap at a number other than 17 (usually 15 or 13).

The change is typically for timing reasons, although it may also be used in events where 'blowout' scores (eg 17-0) are anticipated, which are thought to be less enjoyable and thus better to be over quickly (eg ending at 13-0 is believed to be better than 17-0).

However, Points Caps can still result in overly-long games, which can cause havok when League and Tournament Directors are trying to coordinate to a schedule (either because of limits on field and light availability, and/or because they are managing a large number of consecutive games). Long games at tournaments may also raise safe play and fairness issues, should players be exhausted by a long game and then need to back up to play another game (and possibly against relatively fresh opponents). Hence, Time Caps may also be be applied should the Points Cap not be attained.

Time Caps have their own variations, generally with a central timer (either agreed by the teams themselves, or provided by the League or Tournament Director). Generally, time caps for higher level tournaments will be set at 70 to 100 minutes, although some more social events will use times around 45-70 minutes (generally to enable players to play several games against as many other players as possible).

Equally, there is then a lot of variation in terms of 'what happens at Time Cap'. Commonly at higher level tournaments, the rule used is along the lines of "Finish the point, add two to the highest score to establish the revised Points Cap." Sometimes in more social contexts this will be truncated to merely adding one to the highest score, or truncated even further to merely finishing the point.


Sometimes people get different ideas about Time Cap, and I'll use an example of something BUML Assistant League Director Chris Fox recently wrote to the players:

"One last point about "last possession" (This is my opinion only, and not that
of John or Adilia): I do not understand why people think it is strange that they
are not allowed to keep playing after game time has expired. Perhaps this is
just a Ultimate tradition? Correct me if I am wrong, but in every other sport I
can think of if you are down 1 point at the buzzer then you lose. There is never
any chance to tie up the game or play until someone scores after time has
expired. So I don't understand why Ultimate players expect to be able to do
this. Just my two cents."

I think Chris pulls out the important factors in people's confusion here (and their dislike of the 'last possession' rule), but let's tease them out more.

A common error for people confused by Time Cap is to compare to other sports. Something like soccer, for example, is predicated on there being an agreement that play will stop after precisely 90 minutes of play.

In contrast, Ultimate is predicated on the agreement that play will stop when a team has won - that is, scored the Points Cap.

In Ultimate, the addition of a Time Cap doesn't establish an absolute finishing time as in soccer - instead it establishes a modified Points Cap, one that is specific to that game.

I'll repeat that - in Ultimate, you win the game by achieving the Points Cap (not by scoring more than the opposition). A Time Cap merely modifies the Points Cap. When there's a Time Cap, you still win the game by achieving the Points Cap.

There are a bunch of reasons why this is, and it comes back to self-refereeing - Ultimate actively doesn't use whistles or referees, who in other sports provide independent timekeeping and declare one team the winner over the other.

Instead in Ultimate, we conclude games in a manner all players can agree on while still being players - when a Points Cap (modified or otherwise) is achieved.

The method of firstly finishing the point after Time Cap is called also allows a moment when teams can confer amongst themselves and with each other to confirm that Time Cap was called. In the heat of an Ultimate game, without a referee and whistle having dominance and control throughout, a whistle from a competiton director doesn't have the same weight.

The method of adding one or two to the score after the point has been finished has two functions. First, it provides some balance to the impact of wind and other weather conditions, which have a significant impact on Ultimate compared to other sports. Ultimate combats this by swapping ends at the end of each point and by the scorers returning the disc to the other team with the pull.

Second, it discourages unspirited time-wasting. In other sports where one team has gone ahead, but another team is coming back from behind, the leading team will look at the clock and waste time as much as possible. This happens less in Ultimate when a Time Cap merely modifies the Points Cap. The leading team still needs to strive towards the Points Cap at all times (yes, it can waste a bit of time to slow their opponents catching up, but not as much).

(Obviously, these situations also add a lot of extra excitement and drama to a game!)

Another way to look at it - if everyone is Ultimate is a referee, and you want play to stop at an agreed time as per something like soccer, then either everyone needs a watch on (that's synchronised with everyone elses), or you need a separate timer that is visible to all players all the time.

Anyway, leaving aside the world of rules philosphy and back to the realities of BUML, the 'last possession rule' isn't too bad. It is challenging practically in that it does require most players to be able to hear a whistle and for the League Director to be reliable in blowing it on time, but it does give people time to spread the word. A change in possession is more likely to happen sooner than a score, so that schedules can be kept to, and a change in possession does provide a moment when players can agree the game is over.

This has been a bit of a long warble and time is out in terms of cleaning it up a bit. But we hope its interesting and our readers have learned and thought about it a bit.

But we'd hate to see people thinking 'the whistle' as the natural way to finish an Ultimate game.

BPL "Controversy" Commentary - Goal Difference Tiebreakers and Spirit for Forfeits

One of the things people love (or hate) about BPL is that some people take it as seriously as other people take their sport ... and therefore there's lots of (fun) arguing about minor things, mostly on the grounds that one day they could be major things.

So too with the discussion here on the home of BPL commentary and reporting, the Brisbane Ultimate Blog, following this post listing last week's results and particularly Dojo Mojo's unfortunate and unplanned forfeit, we here in the stately mansion's editorial wing feel compelled to offer 2c, or at least trigger more hoo-ha.

Lots of the following is opinion from outside, and as always its up to the LD based on his reading of Captain and player wishes to make decisions (and equally he may rightly feel that these things are so unimportant as not worth fussing about)

We're really posting this because its interesting and useful to know something about in all Ultimate contexts, not just BPL.

Question 1 - How are Goal Differences (or point differentials) Applied to Semi Final Berths if Team's Forfeit?

So the question was raised - with regards the result of the Buggers-Dojo game being recorded as Bugs 15 Dojo 0 - how fair is that to other teams that might be fighting against a significant goal difference when its comes to Semi-Finals time?

This might be a new issue for some people, but Ultimate has torn itself apart sorting this out in the past, and we in the mansion suggest standing on the shoulders of such giants and using the AFDA Tournament Formats Manual, which offers the following in the cases when teams finish on the same number of competition points and ranking is needed:

In the event that two or more teams have the same win/ loss record (or number of points) at the conclusion of the round-robin or cross-over matches, the higher placed team will be decided by applying the tie breaker rules found in the UPA Tournament Formats Handbook. A summary of which is given below.

(a) Win-loss records, counting only games between the teams that are tied (i.e. head to head).
(b) Point differentials, counting only games between the teams that are tied.
(c) Point differentials, counting games against all common opponents
(d) Point differentials, counting games against all common opponents, excluding each team’s best and worst differentials.
(e) Points scored, counting only games amongst the teams that are tied.
(f) Points scored, counting games against all common opponents.
(g) Points scored, counting games against all common opponents, excluding each team’s best and worse scores.
(h) Sum of the square roots of the absolute values of the point differentials, counting games against all common opponents.
(i) Disc flip.

Familiarity with the above demonstrates one's true Ulti-nerdiness! We here have only ever heard of one instance of going to (c) - nil beyond but feel free to advise.

In practice, it may be the case that goal difference shouldn't be reported on a weekly basis in an Ultimate League. It does make Ultimate look like other sports (particularly in competitions where everyone doesn't play everyone), but then again, if you're taking the above on, goal difference is irrelevant until well down the list of factors.

Question 2: Spirit scoring guidelines and how should one allocate Spirit points in the case of a forfeit?

As pointed out, BPL does not presently provide guidelines for allocating spirit points. There is talk about providing guidelines. Groovy.

Guidelines are cool, so long as nobody decides they are *rules*.

The value of such guidelines is they give diverse teams a common understanding. This is particularly useful when trying to judge spirit when you only have a portion of teams to judge against (ie you're at big tournament but only play some of the teams).

But in BPL (or any Ultimate event where there is a full round robin), all that is needed is that each team is consistent within itself. There is nothing wrong with scoring your first opponent as 5/10, so long as future opponents who show the same spirit are also scored at 5/10, while other teams may giv ethe same level of spirit 8/10 - if you're reasonably confident everyone will be familiar with and play everyone else.

As far as the question of 'what spirit do you give to a forfeiting team'? Well yes, zero is an option - not playing a game particularly when people are expecting one is pretty poor.

But then again, there's degrees of good and bad spiritedness in how forfeits happen. Did nobody on the team show up at all and tell no one? Were players clearly disappointed/surprised/apologetic about their team having to forfeit? Was the decision made quickly or dragged out for ages?

As with spirit in general, spirit in forfeits is up to teams to determine and they may draw on guidelines, but there isn't a need for a strict rule that forfeits. Teams should remain free to award their spirit points as they judge.

Rules Fun - A Catch and Drop isn't a Score

During the fantastic Halibut (more on that to come), representatives from the stately Brisbane Ultimate Blog manor were on the sideline watching a game (between Townsville and the Heroes if recalled correctly Team Canada), and observed a lengthy discussion about whether something was a score or not.

A Townsville gent had mightily caught the disc in the endzone, hit the ground and rolled around a bit, and then about a full 3-4 seconds after the catch, the disc popped out of his hand.

The gent claimed the goal, and after a lot of discussion the Heroic defenders let the claim stand.

This question has come up several times in games we've watched or been in over the past few years, but alas, this is not a goal - its a drop.

Three rules are relevant here:

"14.1 A goal is scored if an in-bounds player catches a legal pass and all
of their first simultaneous points of contact after catching the disc are
entirely within their attacking end zone."

"12.1 A player catches the disc by demonstrating sustained control of a
non-spinning disc."

"12.2 If a player loses control of the disc due to subsequent contact with
teh ground or a team-mate or a legitimately positioned opposition player, the
catch is deemed to have no occured."

So if you drop it, you haven't demonstrated sustained control, hence its not a catch, hence its not a goal.

Why the confusion?

It is likely this comes from the change to the rules in recent years, that established that the point of scoring is when the catch is taken, whereas in the past the scorer needed to catch the disc and then indicate that they scored (typically by tapping the disc on the ground).

This rule was partly changed because of the hoo-ha that came from players catching the disc in the endzone but not realising they were in (a particular issue without lines in place) and throwing the disc again, only to see it thrown away or intercepted.

In learning the new rule, people have got it right in their head that its the point in time of the catch in the endzone that counts, but they're forgetting that if you end up dropping it, then its a drop.

[Edit - additional point raised in the comments but worthy of inclusion in the main post:

Another simple test - if the same thing happened in the playing field rather than the endzone, what would be the outcome?

I think everyone would agree - its a drop and a turnover.]

And One Rule to Ring Them

It is fantastic that both the AFDA and WFDF have recently made announcements about activities to improve the rule knowledge of players.

All Ultimate players are referees.

Imagine if you were watching some other sport, and the referee didn't know the rules or got them wrong. There'd be a furor!

AFDA have recently appointed a National Rules Officer, the wonderful Jo Creswell, who's role is to promote rule knowledge amongst players. AFDA also hosted a Rules Forum at Nationals 2010 in Adelaide, which led to lively discussion. Check out Jo's introductory post.

Meanwhile, our own Rueben Berg, the very busy Chair of the WFDF Ultimate Rules Committee, recently launched the WFDF Rules Website. Go and have a look.

Is there someone reading this who'd nominate themselves or someone else as the BUDA or even just BPL Rules Promotion Officer? We here at the stately mansion would love to see a weekly email highlighting some rule or other, either drawn from AFDA and WFDF's work, or in response to a local query along the lines of "in a game at League the other night ..." We would faithfully reproduce your emails here on the Brisbane Ultimate Blog!

And some philosophy for you - the best way to understand the rules is to ask questions about them. To paraphrase Professor Sumner-Miller, to ask "Why is (this rule) so?" is the best way to learn and be able to explain to others.

Explaining a rule your own way, and hearing a rule explained differently by different people, helps you to grasp the platonic concept of the rule. So in the case of "what happens if the disc is thrown after a pick is called", my answer is "The moment when someone calls 'pick', play officially stops. Someone saying "Pick" is the same as a referee blowing a whistle in other sports. Anything that happens after that is irrelevant. The grief we have is that not everyone hears the call, and sometimes throws are thrown. Maybe we should all have whistles? But that doesn't change the fact that play has stopped."

Travelling around the world

One of the rules that was brought in with the 2009 WFDF Rules changes was the change to the travel rule to enhance the fast movement of Ultimate games. We noticed that in a few league games and local tournaments lately this new rule is not known by players or is being incorrectly implemented. Basically, there are now 3 different types of travels, that we will briefly summarise below:

- Uncontested travel, disc has NOT been thrown by traveller.
- Contested travel, disc has NOT been thrown by traveller.
- Uncontested or contested travel, disc HAS been thrown by traveller.

Uncontested travel, disc not thrown
This is the main change to the rule that was brought in. Basically, this new part of the rule states that the stall count pauses after the call, the traveller comes back to the point they should have been at, then the stall count resumes and the thrower may throw the disc. Play downfield does not stop at all. In the words of WFDF:

18.2.7 After an uncontested travel infraction, play does not stop:

18.2.7.1 The thrower establishes a pivot at the correct spot, as indicated by the player who called the travel. This must occur without delay from either player involved.
18.2.7.2 Any stall count is paused, and the thrower may not throw the disc, until the pivot is established at the correct spot.
18.2.7.3 A defensive player should call "Play on" as soon as the pivot has been established.
18.2.7.4 The marker must say "Stalling" or "Play on" before restarting the stall count.

Contested travel, disc not thrown
This situation did not arise very often under the old rules, as there was no benefit or change in situation if a travel was contested. Under the new rules, if a travel is contest and the disc has not been thrown, play stops as per the old rules, the situation is discussed (although any discussion will not change the situation), the disc is checked in and play resumes. In the words of WFDF:

18.2.10 After a contested travel infraction where the thrower has not released the disc, play stops.

Any kind of travel, disc thrown
This rule has not changed from the old rules. If a travel is called and a throw is made and completed, the disc returns to the thrower. If a travel is called, a throw is made and a turnover happens, the turnover stands and play continues. In the words of WFDF:

18.2.8 If, after a travel infraction but before correcting the pivot, the thrower throws a completed pass, the defensive team may call "Violation". Play stops and the disc is returned to the thrower.
18.2.9 If, after a travel infraction, the thrower throws an incomplete pass, play shall continue.

Hopefully that has cleared things up and we can all be more informed and make better calls with the wonderful call that is "Travel".

Put Your Hand in the Hand of the Man Who Hucked the Frisbee

I think this is fantastic.

We have all grappled with not knowing what is going on when there's a call and a discussion that happens out of earshot.

Many have had the idea of using hand signals and such. But it has taken the sheer grit, gumption, intellect and general good looks of Rueben Berg to bring this not only to fruition, but to have them endorsed by the world-wide governing body WFDF.

This kind of stuff is also going to help those times when not everyone on the field is fluent in Ye Ulti-English, which is surprisingly often when playing both internationally and even at home against sub-human meatheads like the .

For a start, lets hope everyone in the BPL has a look at these, and starts to use them. Maybe we can even laminate a copy of this on the back of the scoreboards (Janlges?)

Check them out and start memorising here.

WFDF 2009 Rules in Your Pocket

We've been low on the blogging a bit lately because we put some effort into getting the updated 2009 WFDF Rules of Ultimate reformated and ready to print as a single, double sided sheet that you can keep in your frisbee bag, or even pull out of your pocket while on the field during a game (doing the latter is simply AWESOME).

The pocket format now up on the web at http://www.afda.com/showcontent.php?page=rules_official and http://www.wfdf.org/index.php?page=rules/index.htm

BPL Experimental Rules

Maintaining its status as the premier Open Ultimate League in the country, the Brisbane Premier League has been invited by no less than one of the key members of the WFDF Rules Committee to trial an experimental pick rule for the remainder of this season, and head honcho Stu has made the call and agreed to testing it out.

The experimental rule is:

"After a pick is called, play continues.

If the defender catches up to the player they were covering they should call "play on" and the pick is nullified.

If the player they were covering catches the disc before the defender can make up the ground, then play stops and the disc is returned to the thrower.

If an incomplete pass is thrown, the turnover stands and play continues."

Don't forget, BPL is now being played under the 2009 WFDF Rules (call us early-adopters). Make sure you're familiar before you get on the field this week.

Toeing the Line

From the desk of Mr Stuart Austin:

Hey JdR not sure if you do guest blogs but I thought I'd send you an email as I still can't fall asleep at 12.30am after a game of frisbee that finished fricking hours ago!! This is a personal view of mine, not one as league director. Anyway....

A call that comes up regularly in BUML, BPL and S&M league games is people being called out of bounds on an unmarked field. This happened again tonight against Dojo, and nothing against Dojo, they made the same call that everyone else makes, OB.

Quick synopsis, Al throws the disc down the line to Jules, Jules takes a quick glance down field to work out roughly where the line is, plants his massive size 14's and catches the disc. Inevitably a call comes from the other team "your out, your foot was on/over the line". What line? There isn't a 3" white line that you can stick your foot inside off and try and make a play on the disc!

There's also the problem that of the 5 sideline cones, you'll be lucky to get three to line up properly, it's just the way things are. Which then brings out the line "he's out by those endzone cones". Come on people, let's be reasonable. If someone catches the disc a metre out, then yes they are out. But when someone catches the disc a foot or 18" outside of the invisible white line that they tried to stay inside of, do them a favour and hopefully next time when you try and catch the disc inside the invisible line they may do the same for you.

Stu

p.s. cheers Dojo, good game. Apart from that old guy Eastbran.

Three bits from me on this topic:

- when in doubt, the two cones that the offensive player is attacking should be the ones used to line things up.

- I don't really know why people have 'halfway' cones.

- if anyone is interested in doing the work of marking Ultimate lines at the Annerley fields between now and next March when soccer starts up, let me know.

Setting An Ultimate Field on a Soccer Pitch

With the Monday Night League looking to use both soccer fields at Annerley, its worth experienced players (who'll be leading lots of newbies) taking a moment to consider field setup.

While a WFDF Ultimate field is 100mx37m in size (and we're written previously about that), we can't fit such things onto the local soccer fields. Nor can we permanently mark our own lines alas*. We've also got to think about safety with regards fixed structures like goal posts and shelters.

Given that a full field can't be fitted, and that there's some lines there to get started with, I'd like to see us adopt a uniform way for setting the fields up (I think there's great value in having cones in consistent positions from week to week and across both BUML and BPL).

Diagram below, but in summary: back line cones should be four paces up from the soccer back line; goal line cones are guided by the top of the soccer goal box circle; outside sideline cones use the soccer sidelines; inside sideline cones take three steps in from the goal posts. Optional extra is for halfway cones on the halfway line help people to estimate a brick mark.

With these rules of thumb in mind, you should be able to set up the cones as a warmup jog, rather than a lengthy 'striding and counting in your head' exercise.

For safety, remember to keep gear and people out of the 'gutter' between the two fields. I hate laying out onto people's gear, and if people are safely watching one game, they're not watching players coming at them from the one behind them!

Note that on the 'right hand field' at Annerley, when two fields are put there for BUML, they'll be narrower than on the 'centre' field. When you're only putting one field on there (as for BPL at the moment), use the 'far goalposts' for a sideline.
Click to embiggen.

*Did you know that QUDA now has its own line marking machine? I think that after soccer season is over, our hosts AJSC wouldn't mind us chalking on some Ultimate lines on there over the Summer. We'd just need to redo them each time it rained or every month or so. I'll ask. But any volunteers?

WFDF2008 Ultimate Rules Update: No More Middle

So we're currently in transition around Australia into the 2008 WFDF Rules. The rules of Ultimate are updated periodically, primarily to make them clearer to Ultimate referees (ie everybody). Leagues are changing over at their own pace, but Halibut will be run on the updated rules.

But we figured we'd have a go at noting a few changes here at the blog (although there's a handy change list available, drafted by our own Rubes).

One notable change is that the "middle" call, once available when the Pull went out on the full, is now gone.

The receiving team now has two options: the Brick Mark (see out tip below for finding that), or the point closest to the field of play where the disc went out.

Here's the updated rule:

7.13: If the disc becomes out-of-bounds without first touching the playing field or an offensive player, the thrower may establish the pivot either at the brick point or at the spot where the disc was last partly over the playing field. The brick option must be signalled by the intended thrower before picking up the disc by fully extending one arm above their head.

Note that the definition of the playing field is:

Playing field: The area including the playing field proper and the end zones, but excluding the perimeter lines.

So here's a few diagrams showing some scenarios - the red line is the flight of the Pull going out on the full. The green lines show the two options for the receiver to put the disc into play. (Sorry we can't get the rest of it perfect - time is eluding us here today)

1. Pull goes out the back:

You can either bring it up to the BACK of the endzone (not the front), or to the Brick mark (I know which one will be used 98% of the time!).

2. Pull goes out the endzone sideline:

You can bring it to the sideline where it went out (not the front corner), or to the Brick mark.

3. Pull goes out the sideline:


You can bring it to the sideline where it went out (whether its in front of or behind the Brick mark), or to the Brick mark.

I suspect the rule of thumb when teaching strategic application of the rules to new players is "take it to the brick, unless we're way upfield."

Ultimate Field Measuring, and a Rule of Thumb for Bricks

Here's the dimensions of a "full" Ultimate field. Of course, we often reduce these to fit onto soccer fields and avoid goal-posts or cricket pitches. (100m of open space is rare) But the magic numbers are 64, 37, 18. Say that to yourself 10 times and drill it in. 64, 37, 18. 64, 37, 18. 64, 37, 18. 64, 37, 18. 64, 37, 18.

Also, check how far the brick mark is. 20m. That's a lot further than I usually see in Brisbane Ultimate. Almost 1/3 of the field. Its that size for a reason - to punish poor pulling.

Often though, after having gone and retrieve a disc that's gone out on the Pull, we're not so keen to jog over to the centre of the goal line, then take 20 steps out. Its a detour, and you look a bit lame (maybe we should consider some small or different coloured 'brick cones' for BPL).

Here's a bit of a rule of thumb. Since we usually have half-way cones for some reason, imagine some diagonal lines joining them to the front end zone cones. Put yourself where the diagonals cross (ie, where you think you're about the same distance from all four cones), and you're 1/4 of the way down the field (about 16m if you've got a full sized field). Then take another few steps and you've got your real brick mark.

Edit: For those who don't quite get it, here's a picture. A further tip for making it look like you know what you're doing is as follows: after you've retrieved the disc, bring it to the front endzone cone, sight the half way cone and walk towards it, until you've crossed the other imaginary diagonal (or feel you're halfway across the field). Then take your four steps forward.