Jeju: Part II (Frisbee)

There were all sorts of horror stories regarding the Jeju weather. Before we left for Jeju, veterans of the tournament told me stories of 35 mph winds in years past (wind is the bane of a frisbee player's existence). Luckily, the sun was shining and the skies were calm from Saturday morning until the end of the tournament. In fact, I don't think I could have asked for better weather. It was glorious!

I've been to tons of frisbee tournaments in a handful of countries and Jeju stands out in my mind as one of my favorites. The whole tournament is organized by the local Korean government and they cover all expenses for the weekend. They also provide shuttles from the hotel to the fields, delicious Korean lunches (kimchi be damned), and even provide alcohol and food at the party. The games were played on fields that were used when South Korea hosted the World Cup. It's actually kind of unbelieveable. Frisbee players aren't used to getting that kind of official sanction or support.

The tournament facilities and organization were top-notch, but there was a lot of other great things about this tournament. I like the idea behind Gnarly 9's tournaments. (For the non-frisbee players out there: Gnarly 9's are tournaments where each team is limited to 9 players. These tournaments place a special emphasis on endurance and team chemistry.) 9's tournaments force teams to come together and play as a unit. It is a great way to develop team chemistry on the field and I thought that our team did a great job of that this weekend. It was also pretty sweet to play a greater variety of teams. We played teams from China, Korea, and Japan. There was even a team from Guam at the tournament! The frisbee scene in Shanghai is great, but its really nice to see the whole international frisbee community in action.

I don't want to go on too long about the tournament because its over and done with now, but I feel like I should give the readers some sort of report so here goes... The first day consisted of 4 pool play games. We played a Japanese team and 2 tough Korean teams (during one of the Korean games I caught a forearm to the face while marking a huck giving me a nice black eye) and Beijing. Things were pretty messy in the first game, but we rolled to an easy victory (11-2 or so). The next game started off badly with the Korean team getting ahead of us, but at 4-2 we started hitting out stride and didn't look back. I think it was good for our team to go down a bit early in the tournament because it forced us to figure things out offensively (and prompted our effective to switch to vert stack). We ended that game and the next one with decisive victories at 11-6 before playing Beijing. This was a fun game to play in because it contrasted the differing styles of the two Chinese teams. Beijing is full of smaller guys (who have very good throws) and the Shanghai team is full of big runners (who can't throw to save their lives). We set the tone early in this game with some pretty aggressive D and lots of big hucks and rolled to an 11-6 win. It was a satisfying victory! On Sunday we finished up pool play against a team from Jeju Island and then faced Evil HuWa (Shanghai's second team) in the quarterfinals. It was fun to play both of those teams, but the best game of the day came in the semis against a very good Japanese team. I don't remember too many details from this game, but I do remember that both teams played really well. The IKU team took half around 7-5, but we stormed back in the second half to take the game around 13-11. It was a great comeback and I enjoyed the game immensely. Unfortunately, we met a much fresher Korean team in the finals and fell to them 13-7 or so (I cramped up at 4-4 in this game). On a whole, it was a great weekend for frisbee :)

Pictures will follow shortly. I'm still going through the 4398we849854789 pictures taken by Kevin!

- Jon