Usually, Wintershred is played in balmy, summer weather because San Francisco’s climate is…well, I probably should set a good example and not use that kind of language on my own site. We have played Wintershreds in February with temperatures in the high 70’s. It looked like that would be the case this year, as the temperatures Friday reached the high 70’s and hit 80 in areas.
San Francisco is anything but predictable. Anyone who forgot to bring layers of clothes today was sunk. I threw on sweatpants and a fleece just in case, and even that wasn’t enough. When I arrived, the temperature might have been 50, with a borderline stiff breeze. It was…Alaskashred.
As we warmed up together, we quickly realized that the wind was sweet, and as the tide retreated it was getting sweeter. Set the disc out, and it penetrated, then hung in the air, then gently floated back. This is rare. Usually one of those factors breaks down. The set can’t penetrate. The disc drops or rises. Or, the disc flies back at you so fast that timing a catch becomes twice as hard. It was a perfect storm today, and the spinning began in earnest.
Carl Dobson was there, which meant a casual spin-off between him and me. "Hey, Arthur, was that a quad?" "No, just a triple." "Oh." And Carl does a quad triplefake. It’s like that when we get together. At some point before the competition, I set the disc and came around for six spins, but I was too dizzy to catch even a chair. The stage was set though: 5 and 6 spinning moves were possible today.
The compeitition itself was small due to the bitter cold and some delays in starting. Mark Regalbuti, Johnny O’Malley and Melissa Trail arrived just as we were about to start, but we lost Steve Stotter to the cold. And just when we were about to start again, Carolyn Yabe arrived with her family. A few near misses at having a larger competition, but today was more about jamming and community (and spinning).
One stat proves that the quality of play itself didn’t live up to the high standard of past Wintershreds. The number of gitises caught was zero. Yes. Zero. No caught gitises. Was it really even a freestyle competition?
Melissa Trail and I decided to play together, and we volunteered to go first so her daugher Kyla (sorry if the spelling is wrong) wouldn’t have to wait out in the cold. Tam Wolfe and Carl Dobson went on after us, followed by Andrew Lemann and Doug Korns, then Mark Regalbuti and Johnny O’Malley.
Any of the teams had a chance at winning. No one really rocked it and claimed the title. The wind that worked for us in the jams wasn’t as friendly when the pressure was on. Not only were there no gitises, there were an unusual number of bounces out of hands, discs rising over the catching hand and other shenanigans.
In the end, the results came out like this:
1. Melissa Trail*/Arthur Coddingotn
2. Mark Regalbuti/Johnny O’Malley
3. Carl Dobson/Tam Wolfe
4. Andrew Lemann/Doug Korns
* Melissa, I can’t remember if this is your first tournment win.
And now, a note about the post-competition jam. There were gitises. There were countless 3- and 4-spinning moves (including a triple spinning juice, a yogi to a triple spinning trail edge crow, and a 3- or 4- spinning triple fake brush). There were 5-spinning catches (triple fake, crow, flamingo, chair, maybe more). There were 6-spinning catches (flamingo, chair, crow, a near miss at a standing gitis). There was a 6-spinning crow brush (into a spinning gitis). There was a 7-spinning catch (utl). There was a yogi into a triple spinning crow. There was much more, but with a wind like that and a brain that went through a centrifuge, it’s kind of all a blur. Maybe the others can add some highlights in the comments.