AIMST Ultimate Developmental Tournament
Ultimate frisbee can be quite a competitive sport at times but from time to time, some ultimate players are keen to teach and instill good values in young ultimate players such as competitiveness, build a good spirited player and also with fair mindedness by organizing a developmental tournament for the young players. Besides that, it has been proven that it is a good platform for the young ultimate players to improve their game sense on field, physicality and rules knowledge as some experienced players will be sent to tournaments like these just so the young ultimate players will be able to expose themselves to varying play styles such as zone defense – “cup” defense and “arrowhead” etc.
Community of young ultimate players ranging from the age of 15 to 20 has been expanding over the years and some ultimate players found it as a good opportunity to introduce more about what ultimate frisbee really is and to expand their connection between experienced players of different states. Ultimate has been a craze amongst the youths that local universities such as AIMST University made huge effort in organising tournaments specially for developmental ultimate players. These players are known as developmental players as their duration of playing ultimate is below a year.
I have been participating AIMST Ultimate Developmental Tournament for two years consecutively. I had been sent there under Penang’s well-known frisbee club team which was established in 2011, known as The Islanders. Seniors of The Islanders who had been playing for over 5 years were in the team roaster to guide the younger players. Every player had to pay a fair amount of player fee which was RM 45 which comes with tournament merchandise, lunch and unlimited water and ice. AIMST University has its own frisbee club named as Aerofoil and it has been known as one of the most improved frisbee club teams.
The Islanders had sent 19 players to this tournament, which composed of 5 seniors and the rest being the juniors. The ratio of the senior players and junior players was fairly huge and thus this shows how much The Islanders focuses on developing the juniors in the team as this is crucial for the team sustainability. This year we have received quite a lot of good feedbacks after every matches, being fairmindedness and giving equal play time for all players, be it juniors or seniors, in the team.
I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed this tournament as I have learnt and discovered so much from the seniors on the way I play and on my cutting skills. It was a good opportunity for me to finally discover my mistakes and slowly learn to fix on them. For two years consecutively, The Islanders have won champion and as well as, second runner up. However, this time around, The Islanders has also won the best team spirit award, for our relatively good rules knowledge and game spirit on the field.
In a nutshell, we have strengthened our bonds between the junior players and senior players. The seniors have definitely saw improvements in the juniors throughout the entire tournament which made them very proud.