Last week, I learned how to throw a forehand.
Let me explain. My wife and I were visiting some friends who live in Rochester, N.Y. and they are ultimate players. That's ultimate Frisbee. Only they don't call it ultimate Frisbee, because a Frisbee is a brand name for the flying discs made by Wham-O. But Frisbee is to flying disc what Kleenex is to facial tissue.
Anyway, a forehand is the throw that most of us, when tossing a Frisbee in the park or on the beach, don't do. What we do is called by ultimate players a backhand.
Now, I'm pretty decent at throwing a Frisbee. I went to college in Florida and spent probably too much of my time playing disc golf in an overgrown course on campus. But I never learned to throw a forehand.
So I found myself last week on the sidelines of a few ultimate games, learning the lingo and trying to follow along. In ultimate, as in football, the object of the game is to advance the disc downfield, and a point is scored if you can pass the disc to a teammate in the end zone. When trying to throw a disc while someone is standing right next to you, attempting to block your throw, it's helpful to know how to throw either way: backhand or forehand.
Before one game, I found myself tossing the Frisbee with one of our friends who was not playing that night. She was alternating throwing forehands and backhands, while I was just throwing a backhand. I tried to flick the disc forehanded, but it wobbled badly. "Do you know how to throw a forehand?" she asked. "No," I admitted.
She gave me a few pointers and I practiced, throwing all forehands for the rest of the time. My throws, which had until that point been controlled—sometimes floating, sometimes bending, sometimes streaking in low—were now feeble efforts, wobbling and fading away short. An eight-year-old kid was flicking tighter forehands than me.
But I kept at it, concentrating on flicking my wrist, keeping the disc level, and not winding up. Eventually, they began to wobble on target and I think I actually got the wobble to mostly subside by the time we stopped.
Somehow, I have lived about a decade in the Valley, where a student famously wrote his thesis on the aerodynamics of the Frisbee at Hampshire College, and not yet discovered ultimate. I knew it existed, of course, but never played.
At this lovely park in Rochester, as I watched mothers and sons play on the same team, and a team in tie-dye jerseys chanted, "Mashed, mashed, mashed-mashed potatoes" and shrieking out, "With the gravy!" before taking the field, I began to warm to the game and its quirky vocabulary.
To put the disc into play, a player from one team heaves it downfield to the other team, and that throw is called a "pull." An attempt at a long downfield pass is called a "huck." Whether or not a player is smart to "huck it" is an often debated topic on the sidelines.
An offensive strategy where all the players form a line in front of the teammate with the disc, alternating players who try to "cut" into open space is called "the stack." If a team has no substitutes, they are said to be playing "savage."
When a player dives to catch a disc, it is called a "layout." A daring throw that is neither a backhand or a forehand, but is thrown overhead, so the disc starts out vertical and then flips to fly inverted to the target is called "the hammer." And yes, it is impressive.
I think I have an ultimate disc in my closet somewhere. It was a wedding present. Another one of those ultimate-playing friends. Maybe I'll get it out and find a pick-up game someplace where a little wobble on the forehand won't get me laughed off the field.
