Ultimate is alive and (fairly) well in Lithuania (LT update 8)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had the awesome opportunity to attend some intense weekend practices with Artūras and his team last weekend. I've always said that observing the subtle differences between teams is fascinating (even between IU and g-dub), so you can imagine how interesting it was for me to attend an entire weekend's worth of practice with a non-American team.

The team is called Taskas ("point," like точка in Russian) and they play in a sleepy little town called Zarasai. It's really weird to see a team crop up in such a small place (8 000 people in the town, I was told). Anyhow, wouldn't you know it, they're the best team in the Baltics and they can beat a lot of Russian teams, too. I was definitely excited when one of their main players, who played here in Vilnius, asked me to come up with him and teach them some things about things.

I was glad to find out that I didn't really have to start from scratch. They were already playing a ho-stack, which, as I told them, is excellent (granted, at first it looked like a complete shitshow). They are no stranger to zone defense, and they already have a system. Furthermore, their throws were completely acceptable, so no one had to waste any time teaching people how to throw. That's not to say they're perfect, I mean, a lot of them travel pretty frequently, but I'll trust other teams to tell them about that...

I left Vilnius on Friday and after a two-hour drive through the countryside, we were there. After getting settled with my host, some more folks showed up with some good spirit and the night had begun. A lot of them spoke English, and one had even been to America (albeit to Cleveland -- blech). After the first round of people left, another round showed up. Mind you, first I had been drinking a beer or two. Once I was done with those, I figured that the axiom about "beer before liquor never been sicker," didn't apply to having two beers, and then drank a shitload of liquor. I still maintain that two beers doesn't count for that particular rule. But about .4L of starka later, the second round of people showed up with... wine. Jesus Christ.

I don't like wine. Really, it's bad, and I would never drink it by choice. But I didn't want to be impolite so I said, oh, great, thanks for this wine -- all the while thinking yeah, this is trouble. So I drank my glass slowly when all of a sudden the girl next to me dumps a full glass of wine into my cup. Fuck! Needless to say, I don't entirely remember going to bed that night, but I was in a contained space and imbued with the fear of being in a strange place, so I didn't do or say anything retarded.

The next morning was rough. It was made rougher by knowing that we were going to have a two-a-day practice. I chugged a lot of water and some yogurt (sans nasty yogurt fruit thank god!!) and pretty soon it was time for a nice nauseous ride off to the field.

We arrived at the field. It was not great. I will post pictures eventually but let's just say this... Imagine everything that could be wrong with a field. This field had it, albeit in patches. Tall grass? Yeah. No grass? Yeah, that too. Craploads of rocks? Uh huh. Holes? Boy howdy. Bees? You better believe there were bees. Fucking bees. Even so, I wouldn't let myself be deterred by a shitty field (after all, I've played on Woodlawn), and neither would these guys.

As stated earlier, I did NOT feel good getting out of the car on Saturday morning. Even so, I obeyed the mental mantra of "America. Fuck yeah." I sucked it up and pwnt some kl0wns. Cause I'm a fuckin American, and we do that shit right. Gotta represent the Stars & Stripes, and also IU and g-dub. Gotta show these Lithuanians that we're not a bunch of weenies when it comes to getting spirited (more on achieving this goal later).

I kind of just went with the flow for the first practice, while I got to know everyone and they go to know me. A few I had already met, because they're in Vilnius for the summer and play at my regular games. One of these guys is Zina, who finally realized that I speak Russian. He was like "Oh man, that's great, I can finally talk to you." He's a very good player, a cutter who can throw. He also listens when you tell him things to improve -- a highly valued characteristic in ANY country.

Between practices we went to every fucking cafe in town, but they were all closed or reserved (it's wedding season here). So, lunch ended up being Chicken Kievs bought from the grocery store. They were good, but they were like lead in my stomach when we went back for practice #2. Everyone in my little group who ate these things for lunch was like a corpse on the field for the first 20 minutes. Wayyy too heavy for before-practice food, but what can you do? Everything was closed.

During practice number two, we worked on some ho-stack stuff. Clearly, I know my things when it comes to ho-stack. Furthermore, having worked through a whole cadre of airheaded noobery at IU, I know how to teach it. So I started doing that. It was a bit of a struggle during this practice, but change doesn't come easily (or so I thought).

After practice, we went home, showered, ate some more Chicken Kievs, and then went back to the grocery store for some materials with which to get normal. By around 7 or 8, we were boozing once again. This was mostly a team affair, and it was a lot of fun. We partied probably until 4 in the morning. Several people who had driven decided to spend the night -- it was one of those nights. I didn't want to get shit-housed, so I was at least lucid the whole night, but other people definitely decided to get crunkapottamus. The best part about this marathon party (other than the good company obviously) was that no one was playing beer pong or quarters! No one even suggested it and everyone still had a good time. So eat it, asshats, it's possible and even enjoyable to have a party without fucking beer pong.

Over the course of the party, I asked those who had been abroad if they knew what "shotgunning" was. They didn't. So I taught them some things. The thing is, cans here are 0.5L (a lot more than American cans) and the beer is all over 5% alcohol. Moral of the story: shotgunning gets you a bit toasty in Lithuania...

Anyhow, the next morning, everyone was in slow motion. I was a little parched, but other than that I was ready to rip. Practice got off to a slow start, but heated up very quickly (literally and figuratively). For Sunday's practice, I really tried to introduce some American concepts to them -- like getting the disc to a middle handler every time from the pull (while in the ho-stack). Also, they just needed someone to tell them how to cut (check-mark style) and it made an immediate difference. Especially with Zina, the guy I talked to earlier. I saw him at yesterday's scrimmage and he was torching some of the other local guys just by doing what we in America would call a standard cut.

It's weird, they have good fundamentals, but there are some critical things that I think no one ever told them. The check-mark cut is one thing. Also, stepping off the line on the pull so you can get a running start. Another thing was keeping their feet under them on the mark (not being too wide) and being on their toes. Artūras especially liked that one, and did a good job of applying it. That's the thing -- I was very surprised at how quickly they picked up a lot of the basic concepts I tried to show them. Literally, it took two practices to make things about 1000 times smoother than they had been before.

After Sunday's practice, we took a (very tired) ride back to Vilnius and that was all. So now I'm going to point out some things I noticed while I was playing with these guys (and about Lithuanian ultimate in general).

The tradition of nicknaming is carried on well here. The leader of the team and my host was Kaban -- boar. One of the handlers was Bazas -- Buzz, plus the Lithuanian masculine ending "as" that they put on all names. He was given that nickname after his dad saw an American movie and named him after a character (I bet it was Toy Story -- had to be). I spell it "Bazas" because Lithuanians don't pronounce the "u" sound the same as we do. Another guy was Pochka, which in Russian means kidney but I'm not sure that's why he has that name. Oh, and incidentally, this kid is the only person I've met who is skinnier than SuperGrover. I'm not sure I have a picture of him, but man he was a stick. A guy who wasn't there, his name was Pypka, because of the Russian word рурка, which means "butt." In Russian it's pronounced "ROOR-ka," but since Lithuanian doesn't use Cyrillic script and all the letters look like Latin script, they call him Pypka (PEEP-ka).

Some final comments before this gets inordinately long. Lithuanians, and Europeans in general I think, don't play as physically. There's not as much bumping and running as I'm used to, having played handler in the Midwestcoast offense. Another thing is that they play outdoors like they play indoors. The outdoor season is very short here because of the climate, whereas the indoor season is quite long. Indoors you can throw a lot of hammers and over-the-top stuff and get away with it. Outdoors, they try the same thing, and I think it gets them into trouble. Furthermore, they don't like to foul. If I called foul, they'd apologize profusely and then offer to slap hands. Very polite, sure, but that's weird to me. If it's a foul, meh, no need to apologize, it just happens. I guess one could say they have superior spirit, or one could also say that I'm just a jackass. Either way, I'd like to see them get more aggressive, especially on the mark.

Lithuanian people also don't do well without a system. Even with drills, you have to tell them every little thing or else there's a huge hubbub about what the fuck is going on. And finally, they love to yell at each other (especially certain friends of mine who shall remain nameless -- haha). It's like having a whole team of Tim Naylors. Don't get me wrong, Tim's the man (no, you're the man, Tim), and his yelling helped me a lot, but when everyone argues all the way back to the line, it's no good.

A great weekend, all things considered. Furthering the cause of international ultimate? Check. Getting spirited with friends? Check. Exploring another area of the country? Check. Getting to know people better? Check. Muy bueno. OK that's it. Two more weeks to go! This weekend's entertainment: the Klaipeda Sea Festival. If I think of anything to write between now and then, I will. But for now, I miss everyone, and I hope to talk soon!