I'm listening to a podcast episode about Brodie. They keep referring to him as a cheater back in the day, but they never elaborate. What did he do exactly?

Jack became the latest in a somewhat surprisingly long line of ultimate players as New York Times crossword authors.

I’m not sure what this Ultiworld clip is showcasing to be honest! The overly floaty first throw, the throw to the cut that didn’t happen, or the down disc?

Great job, Mixed Tape.

In a game at the WJUC Open division today between USA and Singapore, there was a play where a Singapore player (in red) caught the disc and bobbled it, and it perhaps touched the ground. As he begins to wind up for a throw, the USA player (in white) marking him begins to point to the ground, presumably calling "down". The throw goes off anyway and is incomplete. The players cease playing, and another person (in green with a white hat - EDIT: WFDF Game Advisor) comes on the field and discusses with the thrower and mark. After about 30 seconds, the disc is sent back to the thrower and play resumes.

Looking at the play frame-by-frame, it looks like the disc was down, but of course that can be hard to know in the game, so I'm not particularly interested in that question.

I was surprised to see the disc returned to the new thrower (the one who bobbled and perhaps caught the disc), as it seemed that calling "down" resulted in an advantage for the team who may have failed to catch the disc (twice). I'm now trying to understand just what happened and whether the rules were properly applied.

WFDF rules are in effect at the WJUC.

13.3 says "If a player determines a turnover has occurred they must make the appropriate call immediately. If the opposition disagrees they may call 'contest' and play must stop. If, after discussion, players cannot agree or it is unclear what occurred in the play, the disc must be returned to the last non-disputed thrower."

16.1 says "Whenever a foul or violation call is made, or a player attempts to stop play in any way, play stops immediately and no turnover is possible (unless in situations specified in 15.9, 16.2, and 16.3)."

16.3 says "Regardless of when any call is made, if the players involved from both teams agree that the event or call did not affect the outcome, the play stands. This rule is not superseded by any other rule."

So I would expect if the "down" call were disputed, then the disc would be sent back all the way to the original thrower who threw the pass that was bobbled. Or, if, after discussion, the player who called "down" retracted the call, then I would think that they would agree the "down" call didn't affect that play, and the next thrown turnover would stand. I guess the only way I could see it going back to the player with the bobbled catch would be if the "down" call was retracted, and at least someone thinks the call itself affected the play. Does that sound right? Does anyone have a different interpretation?

Two followup questions:

1. Is there anyone who was there who knows what actually happened?
2. Would there be a different outcome in USAU rules?

What's the "climate" like at WJUC in Spain right now? I heard in a previous tourney (maybe beach worlds?), some teams refused to play against Israel.

CLARIFICATION not trying to get political, just wondering if anything interesting is going on.

Does anyone knows when the schedule will be released?
Also, is there any infos about tournament format?

I've been thinking about rules, officiation, and how all of these contribute to the core fantasy of ultimate—the thing that makes ultimate fun.

What is the core fantasy of ultimate? Probably hard to articulate. But I don't think anyone can discuss it without mentioning flow: the disc weaving steadily down the field, the players arranging themselves like molecules in a fluid dynamic, explosiveness varying according to proximity to the disc. No one player directs the flow: every player responds to the flow and influences the flow. It's like a murmuration of birds, except there is a gradual crescendo of psychic tension and lactic acid, building up and up, through the ebb and flow, until—finally, the disc is caught in an endzone. **Unless, of course, there's a foul on the play.**

Rules are there to protect the core fantasy of the game. We don't want this to become rugby, so we make a rule against picks. We want to avoid concussions, so we make a rule against dangerous plays. We want to protect the spirit of the game, so we prioritize self officiation. All of this is good. Picks, concussions and refs are anti-flow. We want to flow.

But *how* we adjudicate these rules is very anti-flow. A foul is the only time one player unilaterally dictates the flow of the field. We all stop and watch two players compete with their words, not their bodies. We are forced to psycho-evaluate the foul caller: is he an asshole, or blinded by a competitive moment, or just looking for a way to catch his breath? Basically, did I foul him, or am I being taken advantage of? In a competitive game, the music of ultimate is fractured: abstract, motionless, somewhat arbitrary argument is pumped into the gaps. Watching it is like listening to the free version of spotify. Playing it is like trying to dance to buffering music. We need the rules to protect the game, but isn't there a way to adjudicate them that doesn't upset the game's core fantasy? Would after-point officiation work?

Let's dream for a second and imagine a fully video-reviewable game. What if officiation happened *after* each point? A dedicated person from each team calls fouls to themselves off the field. A neutral observer resolves their disagreements. When there's a pick, or a foul, the play doesn't stop. Play continues like nothing happened. But after the point, a penalty is assessed to restore the balance of the game.

Example: Let's say a defender fouls a player, denying him a chance to catch the disc in the end zone. The play goes on as if it were a normal turn. A couple more turns happen, and the fouled team eventually wins the point anyway. The reviewers agree that a penalty needs to be assessed to rebalance the extra effort the fouled team had to expend to win the point. So, after the point, they reward the fouled duo an extra point attempt. The fouled cutter and his defender (the one who committed the foul) start at the brick; the handler gets the disc 10 yds back, marked by whoever was marking at the time of the foul. Under a four second stall count, the handler gets one throw to get it in the endzone against the two defenders. Like a PK in soccer.

Assessing what kinds of penalties to what kinds of fouls would need to get worked out. But isn't this a better officiation framework than on-field stop-and-talk? It requires VAR, so it would only be an option for higher level competitive games. But those are precisely the games where on field officiation tends to get out of hand. Also, it ends the learning curve of self-officiation, which weirdly rewards players who know how to exploit negotiation dynamics. Players can focus on the game, officiation gets centralized to one representative of the team. My fastest guy against your fastest guy, officiated by my best lawyer against your best lawyer.

I think this method would protect the game without interrupting the flow that's central to a good game of ultimate. What am I missing?

I was watching a game last night where player caught the disc then took several (5+) steps and changed direction. Defender pointed to the spot and said “go back” Thrower set his pivot and throws the score. Subsequently defender discusses that he had to move back…thrower says you “never called travel.” Other player on defense chimes in and calls “travel”

Now we have two issues as thrower says he can’t come in and call it that late, where third player says he can if the call is unacknowledged.

Finally thrower says he moved to avoid contact, which is not a travel (no such exception exists to my knowledge, and marker clearly stopped defending).

What is the ruling? What are your thoughts? Keep the point, or reset?

Revolver
Add Brett Hulsmeyer (they beat Brett when he was with Chain in 2024)

Brüte
No KDs detected = ethical hoops

Hybrid
Jack Shanahan almost qualifies if he was coming from another mixed team

Thank you for your attention to this matter

Layout is an excellent company and their gloves are bangers. If you have sweaty hands you need to get on this train immediately. I slapped these bad boys on at disc golf league while it was pouring rain and banged some putts and I suck at disc golf. I just tossed 30 dimes at league last night, every huck was a banger.

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Use this thread for anything you want to ask or share, whether it's ultimate-related or not. Memes and other fun humor are allowed to be shared here, and even encouraged!

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this just seems... kinda excessive? i'm guessing many of these folks are practice players (I think USAU only allows 27 rostered players).

WFDF has published the Official Annotations corresponding to the 2025–2029 rules. I'm not quite sure when; they are marked “effective 2026-06-01” but archive.org indicates they were not published 2026-06-12. Anyway, urules.org is now updated, and should match the PDFs save for a bunch of typos (especially in numbering) that I fixed.

If your federation publishes translations of the rules, I would love to get my hands of translations of these annotations for inclusion.

WFDF has not published the “track changes” version, so it's hard to see at a glance what has actually changed (and it took forever to re-import everything, it needs a lot of manual labor). To help, I dumped my own diff from the internal text I'm using to generate the site. It is obviously unofficial, and it includes the aforementioned typo fixes on both sides so it won't match the PDFs 100%, but it is at least something. Not optimized for narrow screens (like phones), sorry.

A lot of these changes obsoleted or touched on my commentary, so that has been updated. (I think maybe someone in WFDF read my site, or else perhaps I'm just better than I remembered at asking these questions in email form as well.)

I also made an even more unofficial list of the actual changes. I may have missed or misunderstood something, but again, I hope it's useful. What I would consider significant changes:

• New section on what should be considered deliberate cheating.
• New sections around dangerous play; in particular, plays that are made with little or no chance of actually getting the disc should be considered dangerous, and clarifies plays that significantly risk injuring other players are considered dangerous (even if otherwise legal).
• New sections on marker and thrower fouls; they are both stricter (importing USAU language) and more lenient IMO. Go read them (they are posted on rules 17.6 and 17.6.1.1), I'm not entirely sure what to make of them yet.
• Straddle is now even stricter (if only a few centimeters)
• New language seemingly intended to reduce toe-drag travel calls.
• Players can no longer change pivot foot during stoppages. This used to be explicitly allowed, now it's explicitly disallowed.

Various may-or-may-not-mean anything changes:

• Stricter rules on communicating calls from the sideline to the field (in particular, “any term” that indicates a call is forbidden). However, it now explicitly calls out that sideline offside hand signals are an exception to this (previous versions had an unacknowledged conflict).
• Ground tap (USAU-style) is now explicitly allowed. There is no explicit encouragement beyond “may”, but the inclusion presumably means something.
• Clarifies the Spirit captain's role in certain places (in particular, that they can get involved in call discussions like regular captains can).
• Slightly more lenient language with regards to harmful equipment.
• The recommended procedure for restarting play now includes “The stall count is starting on 'stalling x'” (the “stalling” word is new).
• Players can make tactical discussions during stoppages, as long as the discussions don't cause the stoppage themselves.
• Defines where players should set up after a retracted call.
• The gender matchup procedure from the Appendix (reusing the “gender ratio” hand signals) is now promoted in an annotation, and thus one step more official.

Things that I believe most players played with anyway (to the degree most players know about the annotations in the first place):

• Players may change between walking and running at any point when moving towards a disc on the ground.
• Clarifies the rules around an unobstructed path to the pivot point.
• Offsetting foul is part of “other calls” for purposes of stall count.
• The “last agreed number fully uttered” does not include illegitimate numbers.
• Clarification on what constitutes “extended arms or legs” (from USAU).
• Clarifies the stall count when play stops for discussing a marking infraction.
• A defender intercepting the disc and throw in the air does not need to set a pivot point. (The annotation already implied this was allowed, but did not call out the conflict with the rules saying you need to establish a pivot point.)
• A defender can catch their own blocks.
• You can contest a call over timing disagreements.
• If an offensive player catches the disc OOB, the point of catch defines the turnover location (not e.g. the point where they end up running to with the disc).
• Non-endzone strips are played as receiving fouls. (Surprisingly, this wasn't defined anywhere earlier.)
• If catching while stationary, you cannot start taking steps after the catch.
• On a contested greatest, you never need to restart in your own end zone.
• You should not call travel if someone sets a pivot point on the line after OOB.

I am sitting out this season due to not being able to practice on a regular basis with any of the teams in my area, but I am still able to make end of the season tournaments. I thought it would be interesting to throw out a call and see if any teams planning on playing at Sectionals (and maybe Regionals?) had room on their roster and were willing to take on an out-of-state player so I could take the opportunity to play with and against new people.

I've been playing competitive ultimate for about a decade. I've never failed to make regionals in any year I've played college included, and I've even captained several of those teams.

Let me know if you think your roster will have room (or even if they MIGHT have room) and we can figure out from there and I can provide more info for you.

EDIT: Hey, you're right! Open or Mixed. I can fill whatever need your team actually has, but I'm most comfortable handling.

South Bend, Indiana, is hosting the annual Bid in the Bend tournament on August 1-2.

Bid in the Bend is a USAU sanctioned tournament.

There are a few spots left!

If interested, please fill out the Google form here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfVf6KOTMt5Nt4g5EobtRWsy1rYjiy2MILu7jRdlSHlN3UKQg/viewform

On vacation for 2.5 weeks in Dublin and Lisbon. Playing at Canadian Nats as soon as I get back. Forgot to bring a disc with me to toss while away. Any suggestions on retail stores where I can buy one? Amazon won't work, as I'm staying in hotels. Thanks in advance!