When talking about the topic of spirit, I find it helpful to reflect on my very beginnings with the sport. Unlike all the terribly annoying Eurodisc hippies that plague your inboxes with "spirit means this, spirit means that, say no/yes to referees", I never got into the game of Ultimate because of spirit. The layouts, the skying and the speed and skill associated with Ultimate are what attracted me to this sport we all know and love. As such, I found the spirit of the game was simply an added bonus... and in some cases a frustrating annoyance.

I've played on teams where we were perplexed to discover our spirit being called into question by TDs in one tournament and yet in the very next competition, without any noticeable changes in our behaviour we are declared spirit winners. For this reason I find the topic of "what spirited play is" can be quite wishy washy in the Uni division at least. Despite this however there can be no denying Ireland's great track record with it on the international circuit.

Personally I find that good spirit is summed up by respecting the opposition and the game itself. One example of such respect that I witnessed was in my early days playing with UCC2 and coming up against Broccoli in the Cork Open. No prizes for guessing which team got bagelled but throughout the entire match the Brocs never let up in their game. At no point did they play an upside point or rush to the endzone line knees first to see who gets to participate in dealing out the trashing. Despite having ample opportunity to try it out on such an inexperienced team, the Dublin side, unlike other teams we came up against, never engaged in these kind of unspirited and disrespectful antics.

Getting involved in on field dialogue that doesn't concern you as well as dragging out discussions past 30 seconds are common unspirited practices that I see all the time on Ultimate fields in Ireland. One way we at UCC try to improve our spirit is by printing off the rules of the game and going over them while on long journeys to tournaments. There will never be a time when there are no grey areas in the rules of Ultimate and as such there is no better opportunity to resolve these discrepancies then when you're all crammed together on a plane or bus. Knowing the rules is an example of respecting the game.

A trend I've noticed since the spirit score point system was introduced is the high number of spirit winners that also perform well at tournaments. Some examples that come to mind include Warwick winning Open UK Nats in 2009, UCC recently winning Uni League and Ireland finishing runners up in the 8 Nations. All teams performed well and were not only rewarded with trophies for their on-field Frisbee achievement but also their spirit. This trend may suggest that frustration is a prevailing characteristic that leads to poor spirit among teams that aren’t regularly known for displaying it. Frustration which can exhibit itself when teams are underperforming leads to angry confrontations, more physical contact and generally more conflict in all aspects of the game. If you can avoid getting frustrated then you can avoid becoming unspirited. Practicing Buddhism or simply putting yourself in your opponent’s shoes can help with this.

One issue that always crops up when the topic of spirit is discussed involves spiking the disc. I know most people will disagree with me when I say this but I don’t consider this action to be unspirited. For the record I don’t do it and not because as a handler I rarely score points anymore but mainly because of the generally negative consensus towards it in the Ultimate community. I’ve witnessed the disc being spiked against me in both domestic and foreign competitions and I can honestly admit that I’m not bothered by it. I don’t see the negative connotations associated with it and instead get the impression that the player who has just scored on you is displaying his overwhelming joy at besting you. When there is no malice involved, spiking the disc can almost be construed as a sign of respect (one player or teams’ happiness at outperforming someone or some team they consider to be great rivals). Of course true spirit is in the eye of the beholder but if such signs of jubilant behaviour are considered taboo then is it not unspirited to high five a victorious teammate or cheer a great score by your team in front of the opposition?

So to summarise, the attitude of one person to spirit is largely going to be different to the next. Despite certain organisations creating guidelines or haikus (yes I did find a haiku written about spirit of the game on the web) as to what spirit is, disparity will always persist. Some uppity people (like the always-have-to-have-the-last-say freaks on Eurodisc) hold spirit up on a shiny pedestal as a way to distinguish ultimate as the greatest sport out there while other naysayers still lament that time when they lost the final because some guy decided to call himself in despite being miles over the line. Despite this however so long as there are no referees, playing with decent spirit is what ultimately keeps the sport from descending into some weird Mad Max style mess of a game.