I quit! After 10 years I had enough

I started playing Ultimate secretly to impress a long time player I wanted to win over. I hoped that he would be so thrilled to see me playing his favorite sport, that he would finally fall in love with me forever. Well… that didn’t work out.

BUT I fell in love with this disc sport, where my clumsiness with balls didn’t apply. Even though I was super slow in running I could compensate with getting better in throwing and catching the frisbee. I loved the familial atmosphere of the community and how the tournaments were based on fairplay. No referee you could trick. If somebody shouted “foul” the involved parties discussed who’s fault it was. If they didn’t agree on a solution, the disc just “went back one step of the game” and we continued.

The most fun competitions were the international ones with costume parties and everybody camping together. Thanks to one of our super skilled team members we regularly won the hard-fought costume prize of a tournament in Geneva at the pentecost weekend (THIS weekend : )). We always found an angle to the given theme, which made us stick out of the crowd. When the theme was “underwater” we dressed up as radioactive waste. One year we were a very, VERY classy air-crew in orange. Another time we were a bunch of Adam and Eves (the fig-leaf made out of felt hardly covered our sewn on stuffed private parts ; )). We were pest victims…every year we invested days in these preparations.

Nearly every weekend there was a tournament somewhere and the Swiss championship (not because we were so good but because every team in Switzerland plays the championship) and pick up competitions on grass or on the beach (and sometimes mud).

The pickups were my favorites. You applied as an individual, rated your playing skills from 0-10 and you got grouped together with other players from around the world. Everybody got a group T-shirt so that the team was visible and off we went. That T-shirt smelled really good ; ) after 3 days… At night we partied hard and depending on the game schedule the lucky teams had their first game late in the morning. People flew in from all over the world to play on a Swiss beach next to an ice cold river in the South or in between lush mountains next to lake Sarnen in Central Switzerland.

Usual yearly schedule: Training two times per week. Training camp in France in spring. Tournaments all the time… you should assume that I was becoming such a skilled player, right?

Except I’m not sporty at all. All the sports genes from my mother went to my sister. I didn’t get any. : ) I wanted to compensate and get better…but not soooo badly that I was open to adding speed and other in depth training.

The companionship was great, most of the time…but then in the end I realized that I feel lonely in the middle of loads of people. These girls over there went to take a shower as a group. Those friends decided to go for a swim… When I felt left out I contemplated this fact a lot over quite a period of time.

And then it finally clicked and I realized: I am a lone wolf. I like to decide for myself. I like to be by myself. I don’t want to be with a tight group all the time. I’m not lonely. I’m on my own.

I also realized that me stressing out about not being a good enough player all the time is neither helpful nor uplifting for my unsporty soul. Comparing sucks and within this sport, I would have to invest ALL of my time to really get better. Do I want that? No.

On top of that I also felt it loud and clear that after 10 years it was over. All these weekends and tournaments over the years blurred together. It felt like a gigantic family party which took place every weekend and I wanted to have more individuality. Something else… not something better…something different. Teamsport = CHECKED off my bucket list for this lifetime.

So that was it. Like a break up. No tears, just clarity that my missing piece in my life back then in 2009 was to quit Ultimate frisbee and to have a TON of free time available for new adventures!

And the best part: With the man I wanted to impress, we became really good friends. We go out for dinner from time to time and we talk for hours about life and everything and anything. We have known each other for nearly 30 years.

Living life to the fullest and enjoying everyday sometimes requires QUITTING something.

Do you have something in your mind? Is it calling you to quit? A habit, a hobby, a relationship? You are in charge!

Let’s make this world more joyful, playful & colorful 🦋

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